Chapter 3: An offer on the table
1122 Words
By Sunday night, Lena sat in her room, rereading Thomas’s message over and over.
> "Will you consider it?"
Four words, simple and clean.
But somehow heavier than anything she'd ever seen flash across her screen.
The rational part of her brain screamed to say no. She didn’t owe anyone anything. Especially not a massive corporation tangled in its own mess.
But the part of her that stayed up nights worrying about VISTA-Red — about every listening ear, every hacked device — knew the truth.
She could help.
She was the only one who could.
With a sigh, Lena cracked her knuckles, clicked on the secure link Thomas had left, and started a new message:
> **I’ll help.
Remotely, at first.
Conditions: No names, no contracts, no corporate crap.
Just fix the system.**
The reply was almost instant:
> Understood.
Thank you.
No pushback. No legalese.
Just two people who knew what needed to be done.
---
The next few days blurred into late nights and blurred screens.
Thomas funneled her access to a hidden backend testing server.
VISTA-Red’s vulnerabilities were even worse than she feared — data leaks, signal eavesdropping, patch holes left wide open by lazy engineers.
While AetherCorp's IT scrambled around trying to fix the outside layers, Lena dove straight into the core and quietly built patches that actually worked.
Thomas stayed in contact the whole time.
Not just professional updates, either.
Funny, casual notes slipped into the messages.
> Bet you could out-code half of MIT.
or
> Swear you're a machine. You sure you sleep at all?
Once, Lena sent back a dry reply:
> Robots need recharging too. I’m on 2% battery.
He answered with a laughing emoji.
Something warm bloomed in her chest each time he messaged.
Something dangerous.
---
Thursday afternoon found Lena dragging herself through school, running on three hours of sleep.
She was zoning out in biology class, doodling mindlessly in her notebook, when Madison Clarke’s shrill voice cut through the haze:
"I swear, if Thomas Vale walked into this school right now, I'd literally faint," Madison giggled to her two sidekicks.
"Ugh, same," Brittney cooed. "He's so hot. And rich. And smart. And hot."
Madison flipped her hair dramatically. "I mean, I’m basically his type, right? Smart. Pretty. Way better than half the losers he probably works with."
Lena almost snorted aloud.
Madison could barely pass algebra.
Instead, she shook her head and focused back on her notes.
Let them fantasize.
Thomas Vale lived in a different universe — a place where Madison Clarke would never even scratch the surface.
---
After school, Lena stood outside the school gates, waiting for her bus when a sleek black Tesla pulled up to the curb.
Heads turned.
Madison and half the cheerleading team openly stared, squealing.
Rich person? Hot guy? Movie star?
The driver’s side door opened — and out stepped Thomas Vale.
Wearing a sharp tailored suit, crisp white shirt, no tie — the perfect balance of business and effortless style.
Eyes scanning the crowd with that signature intensity.
Madison squeaked. Actually squeaked.
"Oh my God," she gasped, grabbing Brittney’s arm. "It’s him. It’s THOMAS VALE."
Girls practically vibrated in place.
Lena, meanwhile, froze in pure horror.
Because Thomas’s gaze swept over the crowd — and landed directly on her.
And he smiled.
Not the polite, distant smile he gave cameras.
A real, warm, almost relieved smile.
He strode straight through the crowd without hesitation — straight to Lena.
Students parted like the Red Sea.
Madison’s mouth dropped open.
Thomas stopped in front of Lena, hands casually tucked into his jacket pockets.
"You ready?" he asked, smiling wider.
Lena felt at least a dozen cell phones whip up to record.
She wanted to sink into the asphalt.
Instead, she nodded stiffly. "Yeah."
He gestured toward the Tesla like a gentleman, and she climbed in as gracefully as she could manage under the weight of a hundred stunned stares.
The second the door closed, her heart finally thudded into motion again.
"You didn’t tell me you were going to cause a scene," she muttered, buckling in.
Thomas chuckled low under his breath. "Figured if I sent a driver, you might not get in."
He wasn’t wrong.
Still, Lena shook her head, cheeks burning. "You realize you just broke the entire school's brain?"
He glanced sideways at her, smiling. "Good. About time someone realized how lucky they are to have you around."
And just like that, the burn in her cheeks shifted from mortification to something else.
Something warmer.
---
The drive to AetherCorp’s headquarters didn’t take long.
The building loomed ahead, a gleaming tower of steel and glass reflecting the sunset.
Inside, Thomas led her through private elevators and secure doors straight to the executive floor — all while everyone they passed openly stared at her.
Thomas ignored them all, completely focused on Lena.
Finally, they reached a small private lab stocked with cutting-edge hardware.
"This," he said, sweeping a hand across the room, "is yours. As long as you need it."
Lena stared.
Triple monitor setups.
Quantum processors.
Custom-built firewalls.
The kind of equipment she'd only dreamed of.
She swallowed. "You’re serious?"
Thomas leaned against the nearest desk, arms crossed.
"I trust you," he said simply.
Three words.
Heavy ones.
Lena squared her shoulders, dropping her bag onto a chair.
"Okay," she said. "Let’s save your company."
---
Hours blurred into a steady rhythm.
Lena worked faster with the upgraded equipment — patching vulnerabilities, rewriting back-end code, setting up dummy triggers to catch leaks before they started.
Thomas didn’t hover.
He watched from a respectful distance, sometimes pacing, sometimes just studying her with a look she couldn’t quite read.
Once, during a rare break, Lena caught him staring.
"What?" she asked, arching an eyebrow.
Thomas smiled slightly.
"Just wondering," he said, voice low, "how no one saw you before."
The words hit harder than they should’ve.
She shrugged, pretending it didn’t matter. "Most people don’t look past the surface."
"I’m not most people," he said simply.
Lena didn’t have an answer for that.
Not yet.
But something inside her cracked open a little wider.
---
By midnight, the critical patches were finished.
VISTA-Red was stable, safe, and no longer a walking privacy nightmare.
Lena leaned back in her chair, exhausted but wired.
Thomas grinned at her, bright and genuine.
"You just saved millions of people from a tech disaster," he said.
She shrugged modestly. "Team effort."
He shook his head.
"No. You."
Their eyes locked — and for a moment, the world shrank down to just the two of them.
No companies.
No hacks.
No pasts.
Just the hacker girl no one saw — and the CEO who saw everything she was.
- Writer
