The Patio

The Kos Cafe is at the corner of Vermont and Bathurst, so it takes only a few minutes to walk there. The weather is, as mentioned, perfect for early summer. Warm and sunny, but without the humidity that comes later in the year. The large trees on Vermont give ample shade as you walk down the sidewalk.

You are thrilled when Jayne quickly grabs your hand and holds it, giving you a satisfied smile. “Don’t want you to get away now,” she winks, and for a moment you’re struck speechless at the thought of how far the two of you have come since this morning when you showed her TAM (The TAM? Whatever!) and she stormed out of your office, confused and upset. And now, not even seven hours later, you’ve made out like horny teenagers two or three times and are walking together on a date to get dinner. Insane.

Considering it’s not quite 5 PM the patio has a few open tables and the hostess shows you to a good spot in the shade with a nice view of the street.

“Hello, my name is Sam and I’ll be your server today,” a cheerful young woman says as she hands Jayne a menu. “Our special today is the salmon stir-fry. Would you like to start with a drink?”

“A large ice tea for me,” Jayne says.

“I’ll take a Coke,” you add as the server hands you a menu.

“Oh hey, you’re familiar,” she says. “Do you live in the neighborhood?”

You’re a little surprised, but answer, “Oh, yeah I moved down the street a few months ago. I quite often walk past on my way back from work but I’ve never eaten here before.”

“Ahhh, that makes sense! We see you going by now and then, one of the other waitresses pointed you out and said you must work nearby because she always sees you carrying a bag during the week but on the weekend you’re occasionally around too.” The server looks to be in her early 20’s, and as she cheerfully talks you can see the implication of what she says slowly dawns on her. With a quick glance at a politely smiling Jayne, she continues, “Anyway, nice for you to stop by! I’ll be back to take you orders in a few.”

The server walks over to a nearby table to check on them as you look back at Jayne. Her expression casual, she quietly says, “Sounds like you’ve caught the eye of someone who works here Zach! Luckily I’m not a jealous woman,” she winks at you and you blush and chuckle. “I mean, I’m going to have to burn this place down, but just to send a message.”

With a laugh, you shake your head and say, “I didn’t read it that way.” She gives you a disbelieving snort but you both look through the menus. When the server returns Jayne orders the veggie quesadillas and fries with a Greek salad. You get the Swiss and mushroom burger with poutine.

Your food ordered, you and Jayne smile at each other. “So,” she says finally, “this sounds cheesy but tell me about Zach.”

Nodding firmly, you decide this will be as good a chance as any. “Well, you know some things about me. Grew up down the road in London. Went to school there, took some comp sci courses but realized that programming wasn’t for me. Uh, I got married while I was at college,” Jayne is clearly a bit surprised, but waits for you to continue, “and was married until, uh, 4 years ago now.”

you should have told her

You pause, then frown. You want to tell her everything but you just can’t. Not yet. But she deserves to at least know a little. “This is kind of hard to talk about but just over a year ago I went through a rough time. Lots of reasons maybe. But after I got better I decided I didn’t want to be in London anymore, so I started looking at jobs here. I applied to a few places, and my experience back home got me an interview with Ontario Health. I really liked the idea of supporting doctors and nurses - my old career was in corporate IT - so I took this job when it was offered and moved here at the end of January and started my first day at Bathurst a week later.”

You’re a little embarrassed, but Jayne gives you an understanding smile (if only she knew) and reaches out to squeeze your hand. “If you ever want to tell me more you can Zach. Or not.” Leaning back in her chair, she takes a sip of her drink then says, “Well fair is fair. You may know my family is from East York. I have a small house there, I was only able to buy it because my grandparents sold it to me when they retired and moved to the West Coast. The downside is I live a block away from my mom and sisters, which is a special kind of constant aggravation for all of us I’m sure. I went to Ryerson University for business admin and got a job out of school at a hospital foundation which got me into the health industry. I got my current job as the clerical manager uh, 3 years ago now and started at BHC. It’s a 30-minute drive each way for me but that could be worse.”

You knew some of that already, but you like hearing her tell you about herself. With a shrug, she glances away and says, “I was engaged to be married a few years ago. The engagement ended when I found out he was cheating on me with his ex-girlfriend turned sidepiece. In my freaking house. For months. Found out just a month before the wedding, a neighbor told me, so that was fun! I’ve been living alone since, but I haven’t gotten a housemate or anything yet even though my mortgage is not cheap. My little sisters keep bugging me to let them move in - one is in college and the other is working as a nail tech - but while I understand them wanting to not live with Mom I sure don’t want both of them living with me. I love them but... no.”

Ok, you didn’t know any of that before. You smile and say, “I love knowing more about you Hallsy. My parents still live near London, and I have one older brother who lives in Ottawa now. He’s 8 years older than me so we’re not super close, but I talk to him now and then. But that’s... about it?”

“It’s enough for a first date. Sorry, third or fourth date.”

“We should talk about TAM. I love talking about you but I did want to ask about what we do next,” you say.

Jayne agrees and says, “I guess the first thing we need to do is track down Karen Harding.”

“What do you know about her anyway? Obviously, I never met her but all of the process docs for my position were written by her so I assume she was there for a while.”

“I think I mentioned she’s a bit older than us, maybe late 30’s, and she was at BHC for about 10 years or more. She was there when the IT department transitioned to a smaller off-site team and Ric Ganbarg left and she was the only Infrastructure Analyst who stayed on site. She was nice, pretty quiet really. Kept to herself but did good work as far as I ever saw. I asked her out for drinks once or twice when some of the others wanted to after work but she only went out with us once and left early. She was pretty shy I think. Single, had a few cats which she admitted really added to her spinster persona.”

“So, nothing about her seemed odd? She seemed to have known about TAM and was actively investigating something. She found that diagram for sure, she didn’t make it, she just printed it out,” you say.

“She never brought up anything about it to me. I think I was probably her closest friend at work, but she wasn’t really much into socializing. She did ask me about the old IT team from back in the day, but she actually knew them more than I ever did. I think she just wanted to check to see if I knew where Ganbarg went to but I had no idea.”

“So we need to find Karen. I guess we can search online first, try to get in touch with her on social media. You have a way to contact her?”

Jayne shook her head, “She never shared her contact info with me, but we can look for her on Facebook and Twitter. Or else I can maybe find a forwarding address at work. Assuming you don’t narc on me to Juniper for violating confidential employee information.”

Your eyes go wide at Jayne's knowing smile. You are saved from replying instantly when your server arrives with your food. A minute later, when she’s gone again you eat a forkful of the poutine - happily they use real curds instead of just mozzarella - and say, “I guess Juniper didn’t tell you?”

“Mmm, this quesadilla is really good. Oh no, Karissa told me. She said you swooped in and saved her from her, and I quote, 'little mistake' which she eventually admitted was not so little. She told me she snooped on you but didn't tell me what she saw. Just that she did and then told you and you told Juniper you did it."

"Yeah, pretty much," you take a big bite of your burger to avoid having to elaborate.

After a short pause to take another bite of her meal herself, Jayne continues, "That's what she came to talk to me about this morning before, well, before you showed me the TAM. God, that feels like it happened a million years ago doesn't it?"

You have to laugh, "I was thinking the same thing earlier. It's been a hell of a weird day. Things looked pretty grim for a while but it's been amazing." You reach out your hand to hold Jayne's for a moment, making her smile shyly.

"Well, I'm not exactly sure what Karissa wanted to talk to me about. She told me about what you did, and then asked me if I was going to ask you out, and honestly, I got a little flustered. That girl is a freaking mystery to me! But then you came and showed me that program and I had been thinking you were going to ask me out. I'm sorry I stormed off like that."

Shaking your head vigorously, you say, "No no, it's totally understandable. It's like I said oh hey here's a tiny alien in my office, or a living real unicorn. Being freaked out is the absolute right reaction. I should have spent more time preparing you, but I didn't know how."

"Thanks Zach. But I still wish I hadn't left like that. I was just shocked to see, well, my name and lust scores and you explaining it. And I guess Karissa being there just a few minutes after she's in my office talking to me about you. Asking me flat-out whether I was interested in you romantically or not. Do you know what's going to happen with her scores? Is she being affected by the TAM still? Is that why she seems to... like you?"

With a guilty sigh you shrug, "I don't know. As I said, I mainly added her to the PoI list to test to see if it was real. She already had scores, and they went up quickly but also down. I've not really interacted with her much since then. But based on what I read in the tutorial since we are both administrators wouldn't she be gaining extra affection for you now? If she's the sort of person who would be romantically or, well, physically into you then your scores will go up too. I haven't looked since you were there with me."

Jayne blushes a little and looks away. You both eat in silence for a few minutes, just thinking.

Finally, Jayne says, "We need to be sure. We'll check her scores tomorrow, then we can add her to the dormant list?"

"I was thinking the same thing," you say happily, "I don't like the thought of her feelings for me or you or both of us being artificially boosted. But since I started TAM her scores aren't that different from what I recall. If we want, we can do a reset and see how that works too?"

With a confident nod, Jayne agrees and holds up her glass, "Deal. We'll check out the program together and make a decision. Who knows, maybe we show Karissa too? Although I'll be honest I'm not sure how she'd react. She's the most... unique girl I've ever met!"

"Well we agree about that," you chuckle, "and we'll start looking for Karen Harding. And look up Panopticon. Oh, and that unlock passphrase we found, we can try that maybe. There was something called 'traits' that it said unlocked at a certain point. Maybe that passphrase is for that? If so, it might be useful."

"Oh, I like it! Feels like we have a plan now," Jayne says as she finishes her meal. "And this place is awesome. Thanks for suggesting it, Zach."

"No thank you for coming with me. I'm... I'm very very happy with how this day has gone Jayne." You have to gulp a bit saying it, you can't just blurt out how much the last few hours with her have meant to you. Can't be scaring her away now!

Her eyes twinkle as she reaches out her hand. You take it across the table as she says, "Me too Zach. I hope we do this again?"

With a laugh you reply, "I'd say our third or fourth date went incredibly well. I hope for many more to come Hallsy. I want to spend a lot of time with my girlfriend." You blush as you finish.

Her smile is so wide and happy you could die. "I like the sound of that. So, now that we're dating all official and everything, how would you feel if I invite myself to your minimalist apartment to watch some TV or something? I know you only have that one chair in the living room, but I bet we could both fit. Might have to snuggle though." Her eyes are bright and she bites her bottom lip.

Your brain short-circuits for a second but you have the presence of mind to nod. You're almost startled when the server appears, and as she takes some empty plates she says, "And how are we doing here? Do you guys want the dessert menu? Maybe refills on your drinks?"

Shaking your head, you say, "No thank you. Could I get the cheque please?"

Jayne squeezes your hand in agreement.