Complementing Morgan Pt. 02A

Derek's hesitation was brief, but he spoke slowly when he met her gaze again. "Two years ago, I almost got engaged. Almost. Lydia dropped some hints about the ring she wanted, and I bought it. I was going to propose, but then, well, then I realized it was all a huge mistake. This whole thing with your Complement gave me a good excuse to rip that damn ring apart. It isn't a sapphire, it's a blue diamond, the one that used to be in the ring. I wanted to get rid of the ring without throwing it away, make it part of something new."

"A diamond? But— wasn't that expensive?"

Again, Derek paused for a few moments before answering. "Right after the whole thing with Lydia I tried to return the ring, but the jeweler would only buy it back for less than half the price I paid. I didn't feel like letting someone else take advantage of me, so I kept it. It was part of something ugly, and now it's not. Now it's yours."

She understood that he was trying to say that she was beautiful, but that diamond was now part of her Complement. Ugly wasn't a strong enough word to describe what had been done to her. Maybe Derek had unpleasant associations with his ex, but was he genuinely oblivious to how that thing made her feel?

"Thank you." Morgan said lamely. She didn't know what else to say. She didn't dare voice her real concerns and even half the price he paid for that diamond must have been a hefty sum. Especially for someone of his means.

"You're very welcome."

Morgan was the one who broke the silence that followed. "I'm really looking forward to our first conjugal visit."

Translation: Could he please acknowledge the elephant in the room?

"Yes. That reminds me, you should get the form you need to sign early this week, tomorrow or Tuesday. Make sure to sign it right away, or there could be a delay. I'm telling you, this whole process is crazy."

Forms. Processes. Of course she would sign the form right away, but she didn't want to hear about any goddamn forms and processes and procedures. She wanted to talk about fantasies, about her raw, desperate need for his lean, hard body. She wanted to see the expression in those deep green eyes as he came inside her. If only he would say the words, reassure her that they both had the exact same desire.

"I'll be sure to look out for the form. Thanks for the heads-up."

Morgan almost said what she was really thinking but couldn't quite bring herself to do it. She remembered Amato's experience with Bryan. What had happened when Amato started talking about "their lives together?" No more Bryan.

Additionally, there were ominous implications to what Derek had said about the diamond. He'd been engaged, then realized it was a mistake and dumped his almost-fiancée. He'd changed his mind once. What if he changed his mind again?

Instead of bringing up her raw, desperate need or her constant pornographic fantasies she spent the rest of the visit simply letting Derek know how much he meant to her.

"Whatever you do, please keep writing back," she told him. "Your letters are what keep me going. Write about anything. Write about the weather, or complain about work if you want. I don't care. Just please, keep writing back. You keep me sane."

Derek smiled at that. "I'll always write back. You can count on it."

As promised, the form for the conjugal visit showed up the next day. Unlike what Derek described having to fill out, only her signature was required. From what she gathered from the several pages of legalese it merely said that she gave her full and informed consent to having sex with Derek.

Hell yes, she gave her consent. In this prison, who wouldn't? It was clearly a stupid bureaucratic hurdle the shit-bags in charge of this place had invented to make things harder on the inmates. Adding insult to injury, the form had to be sent back to an address outside the prison. That meant she couldn't hand it to a guard but had to pay for the stamp. Bastards.

With the form signed, she turned her thoughts towards an idea she'd been entertaining on how proceed with tracking down the ones responsible for her situation. The expert witness on information security from the bank had testified that it wasn't possible to forge a thumb-scan. Obviously it had been forged, so what the hell happened?

If it was a question of information security, the next step became obvious. Such a strategy wasn't without drawbacks, but there weren't any other options. Derek needed to talk to Ed and Dan.

Years had passed since she'd had any contact with the Harts. Dan would probably help, but what about Ed? Ed was Ed. It was probably too much to hope that Derek could find a way to talk to Dan alone.

Having signed the form for the conjugal visit and then written to Derek about the Harts, she was in a better mood than usual that evening. She was still climbing the walls, but she had taken concrete steps to improve her situation.

Feeling good about having taken productive action, she decided to continue that trend. The whole situation with the diamond still had her curious. How much was it worth? How valuable was she to Derek in terms of cold, hard cash?

Rogers always had her nose buried in a book. Maybe something she'd read would give her some idea what diamond like this was worth. It was a long shot, but it couldn't hurt to ask.

"Hey, you know anything about diamonds?" Morgan asked.

Rogers gave her a puzzled look. "Diamonds. Uh, no, not really. Why?"

"You mean, like, engagement rings?" This came from Amato, who was sitting on the other side of Morgan. "Back when I didn't know Bryan was a backstabbing pig-fucker, I might have done some research. Like, a lot of research."

"Sort of," Morgan said. "Derek—"

"Oh my god," Amato exclaimed. "First you don't know him, and now you're talking engagement rings."

"She's always writing him, too" Rogers said. "Didn't think they'd move that fast though, but hey you never know. Oh," here she turned to Morgan. "By the way they don't allow you jewelry in here, so you're going to have to wait. Well, no jewelry other than— you know."

"No, no," Morgan corrected her. "That's what I mean. There's a big blue diamond in my you-know-what. Derek paid for it before I got here, and I'm not really sure why, or what it means, or what it's worth."

Amato seemed surprised, but comprehension slowly spread across Rogers' face. "Ohhh. Yeah, there's a section in the Comp manual on that. I'd heard mention, real quiet that someone had a blue Focus, and I figured it was some sort of gem. I didn't realize that was you. It's, like, rule one: you keep your eyes to yourself in the shower, unless you want serious trouble. I guess someone saw, though."

"Is it just the diamond?" Amato asked. "Or is the Comp made of gold or platinum or something?"

Morgan shrugged. "I have no idea. It doesn't look like gold."

Rogers shook her head. "The manual only mentions the stone, so I don't think so."

"So," Amato said. "It's basically worthless, then." Her expression was a bit smug.

"What?" Morgan hadn't expected that. "Worthless?"

"You know why jewelry is expensive, Strawberry? It's the gold and platinum. You ever notice how they always sell diamonds with platinum settings? Diamonds used to be worth something. The big natural ones still are, but no one pays the stupid money those cost. Used to be imperfections were bad, but now certain really minor imperfections mean it's natural. Most diamonds though, they make 'em in a lab dirt cheap. The diamond people got together with the platinum people, and now you pretty much always see diamonds with platinum, sometimes gold. They can't make platinum in a lab. What do you think all those 'Platinum is for Purity' ads are all about?"

"I told that piece of shit, Bryan," Amato went on. "I don't give a rat's ass about platinum. I told him a diamond is forever, and that's good enough for me. I found a place where he could have ordered a flawless one carat diamond in tungsten carbide for about fifty bucks. He could have skipped that and got a plastic ring out of a vending machine if that's all he could afford, but that fucking back-stabbing, worthless excuse for a— he didn't give a flying turd about me, that, that—" Amato stuttered as she shook with rage.

"Hey," said Rogers, ignoring Amato's little melt-down, "Derek probably paid a decent chunk of change to the Complement people to have that done, whatever the diamond is worth. I'd say that probably means he cares. Sure makes you unique— I've never heard of that happening before in here."

Rogers had a point, and this did solve the mystery, but it was still disappointing. Derek had probably ripped the diamond off a platinum ring, and then sold the platinum, the part that was worth anything. Morgan got the worthless part. That fit the pattern she had come to expect.

Her train of thought was interrupted when Carmichael sat down. She was unusually late to dinner, and on top of that, she was smiling. Then she did something Morgan had never seen her do: she initiated a conversation. "Guess who's been bragging about her husband coming for a conjugal?"

Rogers regarded Carmichael with confusion for about five seconds before her expression shifted to one of utter horror. "Oh. My. God. You didn't. I thought you were joking."

"When do I ever joke about anything? I wrote a nice long, friendly letter to Mr. Natterson. Can you blame me if he seems to have taken an interest in his wife's situation?"

"That's, I don't even, I— I don't even." Rogers trailed off. She seemed genuinely shocked. "No one deserves that. No one. Not even Gnat."

Carmichael shrugged, but kept smiling. "All I did was share what she's been telling anyone who will listen. I didn't pry it out of her, I just happened not to be deaf and within earshot. What her husband does is up to him."

Morgan looked from Rogers, to Carmichael, then back to Rogers, very confused. "You want to explain for the rest of us?"

"You haven't met Gnat yet?" Carmichael asked. "Count yourself lucky. Textbook narcissist. But, if you want to say hi I suggest you do it soon, because she's going to be polishing the crappers before long."

There was a brief pause.

"Oh, fuck." Rogers said before Morgan had a chance to complain that she still wasn't making any sense. She gestured at Morgan and Amato. "Fuck. You're new. Okay, so I should apologize. We should apologize. No one's going to explain this to you because no one wants to deal with the yelling and the screaming and the crying. But now…" She glared at Carmichael.

"Oh." Carmichael said as she seemed to pick up on what Rogers was saying. " You want me to do the honors?"

"You know, I don't think so," Rogers snapped. "Maybe you need it explained too, if you can live with yourself after writing that letter."

"I understand," Carmichael corrected her. "I just don't care."

"Will one of you please start making some sense?" Amato demanded. "You're freaking me out."

"Good," Rogers said. "You should be freaked out. By any chance have either of you scheduled a conjugal visit?"

"Uh, yes. So?" Morgan noticed that beside her Amato had nodded too, even though she hadn't said anything.

"In that case," said Rogers, "I have some bad news, some really bad news, and some even worse news. Which do you want first?"

— Chapter 08 — Derek —

Morgan had been very clear in her letter: "Her name is Edana Hart, pronounced Ee-Donna, but if you want to get on her good side, call her Ed. God help you if you try shortening it to Donna, Dana or mispronounce her name as Edna. Address Dan however you want, he won't care."

Contacting the Harts was a last-ditch attempt at resurrecting Derek's investigation into how Morgan was framed. Kevin's dead body meant he was at a dead end.

The insurance investigators refused to turn over their copy of the drive, which left Derek a non-functional copy bathed in eighty proof scotch for the better part of an hour. Derek tried identifying Kevin's close friends and associates by perusing his social media accounts, but they had all been deleted soon after his death.

The next logical step, the only logical step, was to talk to someone who had more expertise with technology than he did. Even though he hadn't gotten anywhere on the "who," he might be able to follow-up on the "how." Given how air-tight everything seemed, he needed to know how, even theoretically, someone might have gone about framing Morgan for this crime.

Morgan suggested he talk to the Harts.

She knew them from when she was in high school. They were a year older than her, in the class ahead of hers. According to Morgan, Ed and Dan were high school sweethearts, practically attached at the hip even back then. Both were remarkably proficient with technology and now ran a consulting firm together. If the problem was technical, they were the people to see in Columbus, Ohio.

Unfortunately, Derek ran into trouble when trying to make an appointment. He never had a chance to mispronounce Edana's name, as he was stuck going around in circles with what was either a poorly-programmed artificial intelligence, or a mentally handicapped real one.

Morgan warned him that the Harts could be eccentric and employed AIs of their own creation. He strongly suspected the thing on the other end of the call, which identified itself as "Matthew," was one of these. Sophisticated AIs for certain very specialized tasks like making appointments weren't uncommon, though no one had yet built a true, fully sentient artificial intelligence.

This AI, however, was very odd. Despite the nonsense the AI was spouting, the tone of voice was right. It spoke quickly with a high-pitched male voice, not one of the common AI voice packs. The subtle changes in pitch that matched the words was a feature found only in the most advanced speech systems. It was as if someone had hooked up a high-end text-to-speech engine to a primitive chat-bot.

"No, no, no, sir. No time, you see! No time at all! Lunch time was the last bit of time we had, now it's all gone. Not a single illusion left, all eaten up."

"My schedule is very flexible, I have plenty of time, and I'm happy to pay." Derek spoke into the phone slowly. These things were usually looking for key words, but he wasn't quite sure how to handle this one. "If there's an opening this week or next, a lunch appointment would be fine with me."

"Ah-hah!" the A.I. exclaimed. "Lunch would be perfect, now wouldn't it? I love pancakes. I'm writing it down now. Pancakes. Lots of pancakes for lunch at noon on January twenty-seventh, twenty-forty-six. Excellent, is that all?"

"That was two months ago," said Derek. "That's not going to work."

"But you have time! You say you have time, plenty of time, so there you go. Do you have the time or don't you? When I have time, I just eat it all up with lots maple syrup, did you do that?"

Around and around they went, as he found himself trying to articulate what he wanted in a fashion that might be interpreted correctly. When he asked to speak to an operator, that did not go well either.

"Operator? Operate her? I tried, believe me I tried, but when I looked for knobs and switches she got so upset! No operating necessary, just her daily dose of medicine, that's what she said."

After spending half an hour with "Matthew" and getting nowhere, he hung up. What the hell was that?

Five minutes later his mobile rang. He answered it: "Hello, this is Derek Simon."

It was a woman with a rich, alto voice. "This is Ed Hart, with Hart Consulting. I believe you were trying to get in touch?"

"Yes! I understand that your firm has extensive expertise with information security. I have a sensitive situation that I need to discuss with an expert. This involves an old friend of yours, Morgan Heller."

"We have some time available next Monday, the sixteenth, at four o'clock," Ed informed him. "We can waive our fee for the consultation on Monday and discuss how to proceed then. Is that acceptable?"

"Yes, absolutely. Thank you." That was significantly easier than expected, given his initial trouble with Matthew.

"One more thing," Derek said. "You probably know this, since you called me right back, but I think there's a problem with the AI you have screening your calls. I tried to make an appointment and it kept spouting nonsense."

Ed laughed. "Oh, no. Matt was just doing his job. You'd be surprised how much you can learn about prospective clients listening to them argue with an idiot. We designed Matt to harass telemarketers, but we've found he's remarkably effective at separating the serious clients from the ones who waste our time. You lasted thirty-four minutes and eight seconds, which, by the way, puts you on the leader-board this month. Most people hang up after two minutes."

Eccentric. Right.

It wasn't until the following week, while walking from the parking garage to the Harts' office in downtown Columbus that another puzzling aspect of the conversation occurred to him: if the Harts evaluated potential clients by listening to their conversation with Matt, and Derek spent half an hour on the phone with the crazy AI, why did Ed call back right away? They wouldn't have had time to review the entire conversation.

Derek wondered if they already knew about Morgan's situation, knew who he was. Morgan hadn't said anything about contacting the Harts herself, but it was possible they had been following recent events.

The building was only a two-minute walk from the parking garage, and it was impossible to miss. It was solid glass, but not one of the old twentieth century glass buildings, with each panel distinct. The edges between panes of glass were well hidden, the entire sky-scraper appearing as one solid piece. It was as if an enormous block of obsidian had been dropped into the middle of the city.

As the whisper-quiet elevator carried Derek up to the Hart's offices on the top floor, he reflected that if his own elevator at home had been this quiet, it would have saved a lot of trouble. Kevin might still be alive and able to answer a few important questions.

The elevator was on the outside of the building and offered a dizzying perspective of the Columbus skyline. The ceiling and three of the four sides of the elevator were transparent. Upon reaching the top, a section of the mirrored back wall slid aside, revealing a doorway into the offices of Hart Consulting.

The only furniture in the atrium consisted of a few large, over-stuffed chairs. It was clearly intended as a waiting room. Two of the four walls were glass. The exterior wall provided a view of the city, while the second, interior wall provided a window into the bustling center of the office.

The interior glass wall effectively sound-proofed the waiting room from the inner office. Derek couldn't hear the people on the other side even though it appeared to be a loud, active environment. There were a pair of doors in the wall with brass handles sticking out, but the sound didn't seem to penetrate through the doors to the waiting area.

Three hearts were etched into the glass of each door, like on playing cards: One heart was right-side-up in the top left, another upside-down in the bottom right and a third larger one right-side-up in the middle of each door. The heart in the center of each door was etched with the business name as well: Hart Consulting, LLC.

Through the glass, Derek could see several rows of employees working on terminals, in cubicles. One man was obviously on a call. He wore a headset and was gesticulating wildly. A few cubes over two women, one of them an attractive blonde, the other an older overweight brunette, were engaged in a heated discussion. It looked as if the brunette was angry enough to throw a punch, barely holding back her temper.