“There goes another one,” replied Ivy, as she clicked something on her screen, “I think he’s distracted by something, right now I could keep this going one-handed.”

Rudy Seitzer looked over her shoulder. Her setup was incredible – she had about nine separate workstations opened, each split down the middle. On the left of each was all the information that was received by the CSWA’s setup and halted at her workstation, on the right, was all of the information she was allowing through. Several times, obvious hacker attempts were thwarted at the gate.

“Call it a stroke of luck and let the show move on,” replied Rudy, his tone lowered, “from what I understand, Mr. Putsmear has the contracts in hand in Stephen’s office, and we’re finally getting picked up again because of the plugs you’ve put in the security holes.”

Ivy smiled. “It’s all in a day’s work, Rudy.”

Rudy shook his head and turned away, towards the locker rooms. “Even when you’re doing something selflessly, McGinnis… humility doesn’t look good on you.”

“Most things don’t,” added Teri Melton, as she walked past both Rudy and Ivy’s setup with a cup of steaming hot coffee in each hand.

“Don’t you have a conference table to buff with your back somewhere,” asked Ivy, not taking her eyes off the screen, “As it stands, you’re just taking up space.”

She smirked. Teri stopped walking, and turned towards her.

“Of course, how would Thomas get his coffee without his secretary, right?”

“Listen, McGinnis,” said Teri.

That’s all she got out.

In what seemed like a slow – motion reenactment, Teri tripped over a combination of her own two feet, the various wires strewn about the arena proper, and various other debris that may or may not have been there.

What she tripped on doesn’t matter.

The fact that both cups of coffee landed squarely on Ivy’s laptop, with a good deal of splatter hitting her shielded – by – stockings legs is what matters.

Ivy jumped up, both in pain from the scalding hot coffee, and in shock at the sparks that flew from her cherished machine.

“What did you do?” she asked, “Do you know what you just did?”

Teri’s eyes darted from the dead laptop to the setup across the room. Three of the engineers nearly immediately turned around towards the women. Ivy immediately bolted out of her chair and ran towards the loading dock where the production truck was parked.

“Game over,” whispered Teri.