Ctrl Z (3 page)

“Aha!” Jude said, clicking on the final choice. “Media’s
right there.”

Indigo’s voice appeared by his shoulder. She was leaning in
beside him, scowling at the screen.

“You told me Cache files.”

“I… yeah,” Jude said with a laugh, “I forgot the Media
folder’s name, but the Cache file access is hidden in there.”

She turned to look at him, her hair brushing over his shoulder.
This close, he saw, her eyes weren’t just blue, they were almost navy.
‘Indigo...’
his mind whispered. She pulled back, wariness returning.

“So how do I fix it?”

Jude turned back to the screen.

“Go to Media. Select the Media Cache Database, click on
‘delete cache files’ and… done.” Jude smiled, pushing back from the computer,
but she caught his arm before he could leave.

“Uh-uh. No,” she said. “You’re not going anywhere. I want to
make sure this works.”

She let go of his arm, clicking on the project and hitting
export. The render screen appeared, and Jude gave a silent prayer that it would
actually work. The movie began to flicker through, the yellow export band
slowly filling.
Thirty percent… forty percent… fifty percent…
The
project chugged along without issue.

Jude glanced up to find Indigo watching him. Her expression
was softer now, less guarded.

“Thanks,” she said with a half-smile. “Feels like the
computer hates me some days.”

“Computers hate everyone some days,” he laughed.

She grinned, and he felt himself tumbling forward, the last
of his hesitation trampled under the sudden, desperate need to see her again.

“I never did get your number that night,” he said.

Her grin faded uneasily.

“Yeah, sorry,” she said with a shrug. “My ride showed up. I
meant to tell you but…” She shook her head, looking away from him so that her
face was in profile. “Sorry,” she added, not meeting his eyes. “The truth is, I
ditched.”

Jude snorted with laughter, and she looked up in surprise.

“What?”

“Honesty,” he chuckled. “That… that hurts.”

She shrugged, a knowing smile curving her lips. Her eyes
narrowed, watching him through a fringe of lashes. This time
she
was the
cat.

“It’s better to know the truth, you know,” she warned.
“Otherwise life’s gonna screw you over.”

 “Maybe,” Jude said with a shrug. “But I’ll take my
chances.”

The tinny sound of the computer’s speakers interrupted and
both Indigo and Jude turned to the monitor where the video scene now played. It
was a series of images of Indigo: laughing on a park bench, arm in arm with the
woman from the bar that night, and sitting on a rooftop, a beer in hand. Jude
fought down the urge to cheer. Most of what he did on the Tech team was
troubleshooting, but when it worked out – like now – it seemed like magic. And today
he wanted her to believe.

“Thank you,” Indigo said, “for getting that working.” She
flicked her hair off her face the way she had at the bar and Jude fought down
the urge to groan. “Let me know if I can pay you back sometime.”

He grinned: there
was the magic,
right there
.

“I still owe you a drink,” he said. “I’d like to buy it, if
you’d let me.”

Her expression flickered, cat or mouse,
undecided,
for half a second longer, and then she smiled.

“Fine,” Indigo answered, grabbing her purse off the back of
the chair, “but it’s only going to be coffee.”

: : :
: : : : : : :

They sat at the counter in the Student Union coffee shop,
their knees bumping together once and then again. Out of the classroom, Indigo
was different, her comebacks quick, her laughter quicker. Jude knew that she
was a sophomore in a four-year design program, but that she intended to finish
it in two.

“How’re you going to do that?” he asked.

“By working my ass off,” she quipped. “Same as anyone else.”

“Just as easy as that,” Jude teased. Indigo glared at him.

“I’m not rich, you know,” she said, reaching out and
flicking his collar. “Not like
some
people I know.”

“I’m not rich either,” Jude argued, “but I’m working on it.”

She let out an unladylike cackle and Jude’s knee bumped hers
again. This time she didn’t pull away. Even when she was razzing him, he wanted
to touch her. He knew that his break was long over but he didn’t care. Not with
her sitting next to him.

“Well, you’re certainly dressing the part,” Indigo drawled,
lifting the coffee and taking another sip.

“Tech Department has a dress code. My boss would—” His phone
rang, and Jude sighed. “Just a sec.” He pulled the phone from his pocket,
typing in the password and putting it to his ear. “Jude Alden here.”

“Jude, where the hell ARE you?” Marq snapped. “Lissa’s
looking all over for you!”

Jude groaned. For just one day he wanted all the computer
systems in the university to work. One day!

Today wasn’t that day.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “I took my break late and lost track
of time.”

“Well you’d better get your ass down to the Registrar’s
office,” Marq growled. “They’ve got an issue with the registration software
again. A whole bunch of students from last semester just got bumped out of this
semester’s classes for not having the correct pre-req’s.”

Jude frowned, rubbing his temple. The registration program
was outdated and finicky. This would take the rest of the afternoon.

“I’ll head down right away,” he said wearily. “And if Lissa
asks, just tell her I was working on Sakamoto’s computers.”

“Already did, now get going!”

Jude flicked off the phone, turning back toward Indigo. She
was smiling mischievously.

“Sorry,” Jude said. “I’ve got to answer this.”

She nodded, sliding on her jacket. Jude took two steps away
from her, then turned back again.

“I just… I’d love to stay, Indigo, but I’m working and…”

The phone in his pocked began to ring again, but he didn’t
answer it.

“Go,” she laughed, setting her coffee down. “Someone needs
you to save the world.”

“Can I see you again sometime?” he asked.

“Maybe,” she said with a smirk.

“Maybe?”

She pulled her purse over her shoulder, heading the other
direction, back toward the New Media wing.

“Don’t get cocky, frat boy,” she taunted, putting one earbud
in, and then the other. “You’re not
that
cute.”

She grinned as she said it and his chest tightened in
reaction. When she looked at him that way, it felt like everything was
different. He watched her leave the coffee shop, the swing of her hips drawing
him in. She wasn’t delicate in the least; rougher and stronger than most the
women Jude knew, but he found himself intrigued by her contradictions. An
almost bare face, paired with a pinup’s body.

“I’m not a frat boy!” he shouted.

She turned in the hallway, pulling out one of the earbuds.

“What’s that?”

Jude grinned. She’d turned around!

“I never pledged,” he yelled. “I’m not a frat boy; I just
work here.”

Indigo eyed him up and down, the corner of her mouth
twitching with repressed laughter.

“The answer’s still maybe.”

Jude fought the antiquated registration software for two
hours before finding the issue. He scowled at the obdurate line of code,
imagining the patch he was going to have to build to work around it. There were
times he hated this job. At its worst, it made him feel like a cog in a giant
machine. He didn’t
want
to work on someone else’s schedule. He had more
important things to think about.

Mind drifting, he began to recode, his fingers moving in a
blur as he tricked the finicky computer program into working around the archaic
script that had caused the error. He paused, scrolling back through the lines
of text, double checking for colons and brackets, the way a prospector searched
silt for gold. One character off, and this wouldn’t work, but Jude was
confident in his work. He’d been coding since high school and had always had an
eye for details.

Focus, and patience, was all it usually took.

In twenty minutes the patch was installed, and the computer
registration system reinstalled. Jude opened the registration files for two of
the students who’d been bumped from their classes. All the pre-requisites were
linked in again, the registration no longer causing an error. He closed the
files, ready to call out for the supervisor, but paused instead, his hands
hanging above the keyboard. He took a furtive look around the Registrar’s
office. Irene was standing up at the front desk, going through a working
transcript with a student; the second office secretary, nowhere to be seen.
Dropping his eyes back to the screen, Jude clicked on general registration,
typing in a single name.

Indigo
.

There was no match.

Frowning, Jude flicked through the various iterations that
Indigo might be formed from:
Ida, Irene, Imogene, Iona, Inez
. None of
them worked either. He drummed his finger on the desk before backspacing until
one character remained, cursor pulsing.

I.

On instinct, he hit enter. The system chugged, and a file
appeared. A single student,
‘I. Sykes’,
was registered at the university.
His or her detailed information was “screened for privacy at request of
student.” A thrill of anticipation ran up Jude’s spine.

In seconds he was in her file: Indigo’s ID photo removed any
question that he’d found who he was looking for. He peered at the screen, heart
pounding.
I. Sykes: twenty-six years of age.
The information surprised
him; he’d been certain she was only twenty-one or twenty-two like most of the
other sophomores. He leaned closer, reading in chunks. Indigo had been accepted
into the university on a Design scholarship. Jude clicked open the next screen.
She had a GPA of 3.5 and had been given special permission to take seven
courses, and a full load of summer courses, rather than the standard five
during a single semester. Her permanent address was a post office box, though
there was a notation about off-campus housing. He moved the mouse, about to
click to the next screen.

“Mr. Alden?”

Jude jumped at the sound of Irene’s voice. She was a few
feet away, but she was staring at the computer screen in indignation.

“What
are
you doing in that student’s files?!” 

Jude turned, raising an eyebrow. He left the screen open as
it was. If you
seemed
like you knew what you were doing, most people
would believe you. He’d been in tighter spots than this.

“I wrote a patch,” he said with an easy smile. “I’m just
trying to see if it works.” He paused, counting to three. Rushing never helped.
“It was sophomores and juniors who were being bumped from their classes,
right?”

Irene strode to the computer, pulling the mouse from his
hand and closing the file. She glared down at him, cheeks flushed.

“I shouldn’t have to tell you this, Jude,” she huffed. “But
all state universities follow FERPA now.” She pronounced the acronym like a
foreign word. “The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act ensures that no
student’s information is available publicly without the student's permission.
It’s
a federal law!
What I saw here today is absolutely NOT acceptable
behaviour. If someone
knew
those files had been accessed by unauthorized
personnel there would be—”

“Look Irene,” Jude interrupted, “you can check the files
yourself, or I can check them, but
someone
needs to find out if the
patch works or not.”

He pushed back from the computer, standing up from the chair
and hooking his thumbs in his belt loops. Irene reminded him of the worst parts
of his mother, and he really wasn’t in the mood for that today.

“If you want to run through it,” he added, “then go for it. ‘Cause
I’ve got other things to do. Just give me a shout if you need me to rewrite any
of the code.” He moved toward the door, raising his voice enough he knew she’d
hear him. “The patch I put together is part of the linking structure for the
closed courses and the live courses, but if you have trouble you might have to
reroute the registration information for the—”

“Wait!” Irene barked.

Her face was so flushed it was almost purple, one hand
pressed against her heart.

“Hmmm?”

“Just wait a minute!” she snapped, bustling forward. “I… I
can’t let YOU access those files, but if you could just wait until I do it,
then I could go through them myself.”

He shrugged, following her back to the computer.

“So what do I do?” she asked.

“I need you to find a sophomore and see if their
prerequisites are starting to come through.” He coughed. “That’s what I was
trying to do a minute ago.”

She clicked open the demographics folder, popping up the
student information list. It wasn’t Indigo.

“For one thing, you’re in the wrong folder,” she answered
tartly. “Student registration and timetabling is what you need, not
demographics.” She narrowed her gaze at him, and Jude gave her an impish grin
in return.

“That’s why
you’re
the expert in the Registrar’s
office, Irene, not me.”

“Glad you remembered that,” she replied smugly, and Jude hid
a smile under his hand.

On the screen, the student timetable for Wendell Rhys
Hibbert, a second year Biology student, appeared.

“Take a look and see if he’s been reinstated into his
class,” Jude prompted.

“Hold on.” She clicked through several boxes, then opened
another student’s files, doing the same check. “Oh look at that,” Irene said
with a happy chortle. “Seems like things are working just fine now.”

 “Anything else I can help you with before I go?”