The System Read Online Free PDF Page B

was Milo’s girlfriend and it felt a bit weird being caught in the act. Luckily Milo didn’t seem to be too upset; in fact, he grinned.
    ‘It’s fine,’ he said. ‘Everyone watches her. That’s the point of her. To be watched. I’d be insulted if you didn’t. But she’s quite something, isn’t she?’
    Raffy shrugged. ‘I guess,’ he said noncommittally, not wanting to flatter Milo by saying anything nice about her, but not wanting either to tell him that Frankie was, to him, just something to distract him from his desperate need for Evie, his self-loathing, his devastating regrets. Fortunately Milo didn’t care.
    ‘Quite something,’ he breathed, staring at her for a few seconds. ‘And all mine.’ He folded his arms and stood, his legs shoulder-width apart, as he stared at the screen proprietorially. Then he turned back to Raffy. ‘Of course, she’d be nothing without me,’ he winked. ‘But no one needs to know that. It would ruin the magic, don’t you think?’
    Raffy didn’t know what to say, so he just shrugged again.
    Milo’s eyes narrowed slightly. ‘So,’ he said. ‘You’ve had a while to acclimatise. Ready to do some work now?’
    Raffy nodded. ‘I guess,’ he said. ‘I mean, I don’t really have a choice, right?’
    Milo considered this. ‘Everyone has a choice,’ he said. ‘But you have chosen to work for us. And now that you’ve made that choice, it’s incumbent on you, for your own health, sanity and satisfaction, to do a good job. That turns this into a win-win. Makes us all happy. And happiness is no bad thing, Raffy. You should try it some time.’
    He was smiling again and Raffy wondered how much Milo believed his own words.
    ‘I wouldn’t know much about happiness,’ he said carefully. ‘You know, having been born into the City, into a country that doesn’t exist apparently.’
    Milo scratched his chin. ‘What’s happened is in the past, Raffy. We can’t change it so we would be foolish to dwell on it. It’s done. It’s old news. What’s ahead, though … That’s up to us. How we approach it, that’s up to us too. We can choose how we look at the world: through a screen of resentment, or through a screen of optimism. It’s time to draw a line in the sand, Raffy. This world, the real world, you’re in it now. It could all be open to you. You’re young; you’ve got everything to play for. Do your job, do what we are asking of you, and you can be part of this world. You and Evie can make a life for yourselves.’
    ‘Me and Evie?’ Raffy raised an eyebrow. ‘I don’t think so. Not anymore.’ He managed to keep his voice light, even though inside it was like someone was stabbing him over and over again.
    ‘Okay, so then you and someone else. Someone who appreciates you. Someone who wants
you
to be happy. Look around. Plenty of pretty girls you can watch. In your own time, of course. When you’ve done your work.’
    Raffy forced a little smile. ‘Of course.’
    ‘So,’ Milo said, looking pleased with himself. ‘You have just been sent Linus’s first batch of code. You will review it, improve it where you think it can be improved, and you will search it for bugs, for errors and any other problems. Two heads are always better than one, aren’t they. And whilst you’re not the genius that Linus is, you have more to lose from things going badly, more reason to check that Linus is really … focused on the task. Do you understand?’
    ‘Sure,’ Raffy said.
    ‘Good.’ Milo reached his hand out and put it on Raffy’s shoulder. ‘It’s good to have someone with your energy as part of the team, Raffy,’ he said. ‘You’ve got promise. You could really have a future here. Remember that. See this job as an audition. See it as a gateway to a real future. I was like you once. And look at me now.’
    ‘You were like me?’ Raffy asked uncertainly. ‘You mean your father was murdered by a corrupt regime, you hated your brother for pretending to be