Former.ly: Chapter Nine (Second Draft) (Excerpt)
John wasn’t kidding when he said he was going to step up security – Peter flew back from Palo Alto a couple of days later, and his ‘security advisor’, a stocky bodybuilder called Nils, joined us shortly afterwards. He didn’t talk much, but we gathered he was an ex-army type with slight paranoia and a keen eye for detail. A nice guy, once you got to know him.
Nils, John and Peter locked themselves away for a couple of days to form a war committee, then re-emerged with stern faces and a series of baffling charts, diagrams and spreadsheets which, they claimed, would be enough to guarantee our security.
“It’s going to be great,” babbled John, as he showed Nils around the office for the first time. “Guys, this is Nils – he’s going to scare away the bad guys.”
“Who exactly are the bad guys?” Nils asked. John laughed.
“That’s just it, Nils. We don’t know – they don’t exactly carry business cards. Part of your job will be to find out who they are and to stop them, by any means necessary.”
“That’s only part of it?”
“Yeah, we work hard here. You’ll also take over the CCTV and the alarms for the office. Don’t worry about the servers – Peter looks after those. He’s the only person who even knows where they are! You’ll also be in charge of out-of-hours security. Form a team that you trust and then set up a watch. I want protection around the clock for both the office and the flat. Guarding them ourselves just isn’t going to cut it – we need professionals. Think you can manage it?”
Nils grinned, a huge expansive smile that oozed self-confidence and quiet mastery. It made me feel uncomfortable.
“Well that depends,” he replied. “What’s your budget?”
“Tell us what you need and we’ll see what we can do. This is top priority. Secure the place and find out who’s trying to mess with us, and we’ll cover any reasonable costs. Until we know who they are, our hands are tied – how do you fight a shadow?”
Silence descended upon the room. Even Elaine was staring at John with rapt attention. His words had hit home – we just didn’t know what we were going to do. As always, Former.ly’s future was uncertain.
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