The next morning went pretty much the same as the last one. Sevs and Father got ready early in the morning and went to the same diner to break their fast. For the most part they were silent. Sevs was thinking, reflecting on the notification and the talk they had last night.

It wasn’t until Father finished the first couple of sips of his coffee. That was when the conversation started back up again.

“So right after we get there I am going to have to drop you off with Markus. I have some things in the morning that I won’t be able to take you with me for. We should meet up for lunch and you can stay with me after.”

Sevs nodded as he sipped his orange juice. He put it down carefully before responding. Looking over Father’s shoulder he saw the pretty, young waitress that usually served them covering her smiling mouth with her hand as their eyes met.

Sevs considered what him drinking his juice must look like to an outsider. He looked just like a young boy copying the motions of his father drinking coffee, acting all serious. That was ignoring the fact that he had been doing the same motion drinking his own coffee for more years than she could probably conceive of.

“I don’t have a problem with that. Am I going to need my own badge to get around or will Markus be waiting for us?”

“Oh that reminds me.” Father said as he pulled out his phone and sent a quick message. As he was setting the phone down then the table next to his plate it buzzed in reply. Looking down at it, “He will meet us by the front door.”

When the waitress dropped off their check with a smile Fathe put down some cash and they got up to go.

***

After parking Father and Sevs walked to the front door of Markus’s building and when they got there Markus was not waiting yet.

“Typical” Father grunted. “He says he’ll be a minute” as he leaned against the wall by the door. Father put his phone back in his jacket pocket and looked at Sev, who had been reading a flier on display by the welcome desk.

Realizing Father had put his phone away instead of checking on his work messages Sevs looked up.

“What is it Father?” he asked while tilting his head quickly to the side.

Sevs met Father’s eyes and he noticed a bit of concern in them.

“I know you have my number, if you need anything call me.” Father put a hand up to forestall Sevs. Sevs shut his mouth. “I don’t care if I am in a meeting you contact me right away if something goes wrong, understand?”

Sevs was a bit surprised by the intensity in Father’s gaze and words. Sevs nodded. He opened his mouth to reply but was interrupted by a booming voice “Hey there! Sorry I'm late, I got caught up”

Markus came down the hallway at a light jog, a huge grin on his clean shaven face. Father chuckled as he shook his hand, with his free hand he gestured to the right corner of his mouth, “Looks like you got caught up in another donut box.”

Markus rubbed the bit of pink frosting from his face as he smiled sheepishly. “Always gets me. That's why I workout so much, you know that.”

“Yeah, but that’s not going to stop me from giving you a hard time about your eating habits.” Father turned to Sevs, “if this guy ate the way he trained he would be some fitness model.”

Markus reached out to shake Sevs hand as well. “That is a sacrifice that I am not willing to make. But if you want me to show you the ropes I can teach you how to PUMP SOME IRON”

Markus said the last few words in a faux announcer voice while flexing one bicep with a cartoonish grin on his face.

Father ran his hand down his face and groaned. “You have no shame. Sevs, I don’t know why I try to banter with this guy; he just always escalates.”

Putting his hand on Sevs shoulder Markus waved Father away “You are just sensitive, old friend. Don’t worry about us, go make your meeting and I will show Sevs what I do.”

As Father turned to go he shot a smile at Sevs and a warning look at Markus, who just kept smiling innocently as Father walked out the door. Sevs looked up at Markus. Internally he was a bit conflicted. Markus seemed really cool and Sevs was actually looking forward to getting to know him. On the other hand he was still a very small kid left on his own without his only parent for the first time for a while.

With a deep breath, Sevs stamped down the instinctual reaction that the system induced due to his age. “So what's the plan Markus?”

“Well I actually don’t have that many meetings today and the one I do have is online. I do have a bit of work I need to get done but it's not the most urgent. Don’t tell my boss that though. So I suppose it is up to you.”

Sevs nodded “Why don’t we knock out that work first and we can go from there?”

Markus nodded and with a serious face said “That sounds like a reasonable plan, let's do that.”

They headed down the hallway Sevs trailing half a step behind Markus. After rounding a few corners they arrived at Markus’ empty work area. “Unlike your bigwig father we pelbs don’t get fancy offices, we have to make do with this open office concept. My desk is right there. In about the next half hour the rest of the team will start showing up. But let me grab my laptop, I booked us a conference room for the morning so we won’t get in everyone's way.”

Grabbing his laptop Markus led Sevs through a few more hallways before opening a door to a frosted glass room with a small table and a half dozen chairs. Sevs pulled out one of the chairs while Markus connected his computer to the big screen on the far wall.

“So I can walk you through what I am doing if you want, but you gotta let me know if you are getting bored okay?”

Sevs grinned a little. He had dabbled in programming a few times. It was something that he enjoyed. He wouldn’t say he was an expert. Like most things he had worked at over the eons he had hit a wall when it came to improving. In his natural life he might have been a slightly below average programmer. With all the time he had spent doing it he was definitely above average but wouldn’t be considered a prodigy even at this age with his current skills.

Despite his innate lack of talent that would not stop him from keeping up. “Sure thing, so what project are you working on anyways?”

Markus rubbed at his chin considering. “Well the service is kinda complicated but honestly I don’t have much to do with the end-facing product. I do a lot of work behind the scenes. Yesterday I found this bug in a clean up routine for some of our local state stores. It is not super urgent but we pay for space used so it's best to get cleaned up as soon as possible.”

Sevs took a second to parse that. It must have been longer than he thought. Also he wasn’t used to larger projects.

“So you are paying per hour per gigabyte used on some third party service. It is supposed to be cleaned regularly and you think you can make it better? Did I get that right?”

“Spot on. Well not better really, I just need to fix something that was broken recently.”

Markus quickly typed in his password and pulled up some code and started typing. As he was going he explained the purpose of the code he was editing to Sevs.”

Time flew by, Markus was actually a really good instructor and after a bit of a refresher things started to come back to Sevs. Markus seemed surprised by his knowledge of basic data structures but kept silent about it.

After a little while Markus stopped typing for a second and looked over at Sevs. “You want to drive for a bit?”

“Huh?”

“Drive, so when working with a partner we call whoever is typing the driver. Do you want to drive?”

“I’m not going to be able to type very fast, my hands are too small.”

“Ah don’t worry, we will have plenty of time to finish.” Markus waved off Sevs concerns and pushed the keyboard over to him and leaned back in his chair to look at the monitor on the wall. “Have at it.”