Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Elliot crashes into the bathroom, the door smacking his thigh as he stumbles toward the sink. So cold is the counter that it stings as he grips the edge of the linoleum, gaze jolting from his shaking hands up to his reflection in the mirror. He’s clammy, wide-eyed, and pale—whatever was in that homemade withdrawal cure Romero and Mobley gave him must have worn off by now. He can hear his own teeth chattering as he turns on the tap, splashes water on his face and tries to force his breaths to even out.

He's a fucking mess. Tyrell must know there’s something going on with him. Even if Elliot were a stellar actor (which he’s not), his clammy skin and bloodshot eyes give him away. He has to calm down, find a way to pull it together enough to follow through with the plan…

“Fuck, they play the most annoying music in these places,” a voice says beside him. He turns his head. Mr. Robot is leaning against the electric hand dryer in the corner, pointing up to the speakers on the ceiling above and rolling his eyes at the smooth jazz flowing out of them. “Like anyone needs the sound of a saxophone solo to coerce their shit out. You know, there’s probably some poor idiot out there whose whole job is to make inoffensive, soothing playlists for the rich psychopaths who come in here to compare dick sizes and talk about what developing country they’re gonna invade for lithium next.” 

Elliot tries his best to ignore the usual unhelpful commentary.

“You look like you ate some bad sushi,” Mr Robot says, stepping closer. He stops behind Elliot’s shoulder, and stares at their reflection in the mirror. “You better get back into that dining room before Tyrell gets curious and starts looking for you.”

Elliot nods shakily, squeezing his eyes shut as the room begins to spin around him. Tyrell had stalked him through the halls of Steel Mountain and strong-armed him into having lunch together; Elliot wouldn’t put it past him to barge in here right now and demand to know what was taking so long.

He pushes away from the counter, wrestling off his hoodie as sweat begins to bead on his forehead. He splashes water over his arms, the back of his neck, his clavicle, hoping to somehow make his fever less noticeable. Mr. Robot is watching the door like a guard dog. 

“Hurry up,” Mr. Robot barks, “I hear someone coming.”

Elliot hastens to pull his hoodie back on, the room spinning around him. The door opens, and because he has the worst luck in the world, Tyrell steps into the bathroom.

“Ah, Elliot,” Tyrell says, with falsely nonchalant inflection, “I was wondering where you’d run off to.”

Bile rises in Elliot's throat, his heart beating so fast he can feel the blood rushing in his ears. “Just, uh… had to get away for a second. Kind of hard to—to breathe here,” he rasps. 

“Sure,” Tyrell says, although it’s clear from the steely look in his eyes he knows Elliot’s lying.

Whether it’s anxiety or withdrawal shakes, he isn’t sure, but Elliot finds himself having to hold his breath to keep from retching. He turns away from Tyrell and hunches over the sink, ready to completely humiliate himself by puking everywhere, but Tyrell just crowds even closer into Elliot’s personal space. Mr. Robot is gone, receding back into whatever wretched corner of Elliot's brain he occupies. Just him and Tyrell, alone together.

“I know you’re up to something,” Tyrell mutters. “Everyone else might be too stupid to see it, but I’m not. I know you framed Terry Colby. I didn’t say anything, because, well, obviously it worked out nicely for me—promotion, pay raise, new title. I’d wondered what your motivations were, and it didn’t take much digging… your father worked for E Corp, and he died after that toxic leak at the Washington Township plant.”

...How the fuck does he know that?

Tyrell smirks, turning to look at himself in the mirror. His smugness is palpable as he adjusts his tie and brushes a bit of lint off his shoulder. Corporate posturing, easy to recognize. 

“If you’re worried I’m going to turn you in, don’t be,” Tyrell says. “I should probably thank you, really.”

Elliot can do little more than glance up at his own eyes in his reflection, repeating, over and over, don't throw up don't throw up don't throw up.

“But,” Tyrell continues, “I’d be an idiot to not use this knowledge as leverage.” 

Nausea and fever wash over Elliot hard. The pressure in his skull is so intense it’s like his eyeballs are being squeezed out of his head. His ears are ringing, and it takes him a second to realize that Tyrell hasn’t stopped talking.

“—the benefits package is excellent, and really, Elliot, your talents are wasted at Allsafe.”

“Uh… what?” 

Tyrell gives him a once-over, his brow furrowed. “I was saying, in return for my continued silence, I want you to come work for E Corp.”

“What?”

“If you’re just going to keep saying ‘what?’ at me over and over, Elliot, I fear I’ve vastly overestimated your intelligence." He says it like it's a joke and a threat all at once.

“You know I framed Colby, and yet you want me to work for E Corp,” Elliot repeats slowly.

Tyrell shrugs a shoulder, shifting to lean against the counter. With his height, he has to tilt his chin to look down at Elliot. “I might work for E Corp, but my interests are really my own. Like I said, it’s actually beneficial to me, you weeding out my superiors. Thins the competition. On paper, you would be working for E Corp, and I'll give you whatever engineer title you want. But since I’m the interim Chief Technology Officer, well, really, you would be working for me.”

Elliot just stares at him.

“Either you work for me, or I turn you over. I’m doing you a favour, honestly. Most people would have called the FBI on you by now, but here I am, offering you a job much better than the one you seem insistent on chaining yourself to. This is an excellent opportunity for both of us,” Tyrell assures.

“You’ll need to be properly onboarded, of course," Tyrell continues. "Formal job interview with HR, background check, drug screening, paper signing, the works… E Corp takes its internal security very seriously.” Tyrell gives him that fake, gummy smile, but it falters when Elliot just continues to stare at him, partially out of disbelief and partially out of fear. Is he expecting Elliot to say something? What is there to even say, really? It's not like he has much of a choice. 

“Here,” Tyrell says, reaching into his breast pocket. He retrieves a business card and holds it out. Fingers trembling, Elliot takes it, runs his thumb over the thick card stock, off-white, and the raised black lettering that reads Tyrell Wellick - Senior Vice President of Technology, with his E Corp email and phone line extension.

Is this some kind of psychological play? Or just a business formality? Elliot has already scoured Tyrell’s emails from the inside, read the Facebook messages between him and his wife discussing dinner plans and date nights, and it’s no stretch to say Tyrell knows how to reach Elliot whenever he wants, too. Exchanging information at this point is nothing more than theatre, pantomiming politeness. 

Tyrell looks at him expectantly, his eerily cheery smile beginning to fade. His hand is still outstretched, as if he might reach for Elliot.

“Um,” Elliot croaks, “yeah, I’ll shoot you an email sometime.”

Tyrell’s head slowly cocks to the side. He pulls out his phone—an iPhone, Elliot notes, which means it must be his personal cell, because E Corp has their employees use E-Brand phones for work—and opens up the blank text message template. He presses the phone into Elliot’s palm. “No need to be so professional about it. Just give me your number, and I’ll let you know when the interview’s set up.”

Fuck, this guy is pushy. Elliot quickly types in his digits and sends himself a text. He feels his phone buzz in his pocket, and at the sound, Tyrell smiles. He claps a hand on Elliot’s shoulder, his fingers so hot on Elliot’s clammy skin even through layers of clothes. “I’ll be in touch. Don’t be a stranger, Elliot.”

“Right,” Elliot replies, backing out of Tyrell’s grasp. He watches, mind blank, as the door swings shut behind Tyrell on his way out.

What the fuck just happened? 

“He bullied you into giving him your number is what happened.” Mr. Robot laughs bitterly, stepping into place at Elliot’s side as he scrambles towards the utility closet. He opens up the control panel hidden behind an empty mop bucket and a few bottles of bleach, frantically hooking up the Raspberry Pi.

“Shit. Shit shit shit,” Elliot mumbles, shaking his head.

“It’s always been obvious he has some kind of obsession with you, and now we know why. He thinks he can push us around, make us be his little corporate espionage code monkey, keep us in line while using us to wipe out more schmucks at the office. He thinks it ends with Colby, with revenge for the power plant, and now we’re a gun that can be pointed at anyone else he wants shot down at Evil Corp, but that idiot has no idea he’s just given us an in. It’s brilliant. You’ll be our rat on the inside, leading the pigs blindly towards the slaughterhouse.” 

“No. No,” Elliot shudders as the fever sends a sharp chill down his spine. “The worst thing I can do is start working at Evil Corp right before we execute the hack. They might suspect it was an inside job. Working at Allsafe during the first DDoS attack, and then starting at Evil Corp just before we rob them… it ties both events right back to me.”

“Please. You know how the American government works. They’ll blame it on Russia or China or Iran or whatever the fuck else before they blame it on one of their own people. And like Tyrell says, Evil Corp takes internal security very seriously, and the place is full of narcissists. They won’t believe a malicious actor could have made it through their background checks far enough to start working right under their noses.”

Elliot doesn’t respond. Maybe Mr. Robot is right, but they can’t be too careful. 

He finishes wiring up the Pi and tries to avoid suspicion as he makes his way, pale and trembling, out of the building. Once he’s through the exit, he stumbles across the parking lot to the car where Romero and Mobley are waiting. He sinks into the back seat silently, closes his eyes, and lets his forehead thunk against the cool glass window, too anxious to feel relief.

Elliot doesn’t even change out of his sweat-drenched clothes when he shoulders his way into his apartment. He collapses onto his beat-up leather couch, skinny knees pressed into his chest, and does nothing but lay there and shake, his face contorted in agony. Cold air hits his cheek, blasting out from the radiator. Fuck. He feels like he’s about to freeze to death. Withdrawal is no stranger to him; lapses in access to morphine or methadone have brought him to this place before. For hours he will be pinned here, his chest seizing, his jaw locked, his fingers spasming. It’s like he’s imprisoned in his own body, helpless to the blind frenzy of his nervous system struggling to carry the heavy weight of sobriety. 

Mr. Robot is nowhere to be seen. The apartment is silent, and for the first time since the initial Allsafe hack, Elliot is faced with how truly alone he is. There’s no capacity for distraction in his mind now, no room for scheming nor even ability to shuffle a few feet over to his desktop and start on the next step in the plan. From some dark swamp deep within his skull where he’s retreated to from the pain, Elliot listens to the sound of his own teeth chattering, zoning out into oblivion. This much, at least, he’s good at: leaving the real behind, falling into the cradle of fantasy—disconnecting, unplugging, entering stasis. 

The call comes early the next morning. Elliot is pushed back into reality by the loud buzzing of his phone. It’s fallen down into the crevice between the couch frame and the cushion and he fumbles for it, feeling the grit of dirt and lost coins and forgotten food wrappers brush up against his cold hand. He’s sweated so profusely during the night that he’s practically glued himself to the couch. His skin makes a disgusting shlick sound as it unpeels from the leather. 

“What?” He answers croakily into the receiver. 

“Elliot, it’s me,” Tyrell’s voice responds through the speaker. 

Elliot abruptly sits up, trying not to retch from how dizzy the sudden movement makes him. It's like his head is a dumbbell and his neck is a pipe cleaner, he can barely hold himself up. He clears his throat, hoping he sounds more just-woke-up rough than withdrawing-from-morphine rough. “Yeah. Hey.”

Tyrell is oddly silent for a moment. Elliot feels like he’s being studied, even though Tyrell isn’t watching him. “I’ve sent your resignation to Gideon. You’re scheduled for an interview tomorrow at ten with HR.”

Elliot squeezes his eyes shut, brows furrowing. “You quit my job for me?”

“I want us to start working together as soon as possible, Elliot. Two weeks' notice is too long to wait.”

Elliot exhales shakily. Holy fuck. There’s no backing out now, Tyrell has bulldozed any path Elliot might have used as an escape route and is now dragging him towards Evil Corp by force.

“...Is the job interview really necessary?” Elliot asks.

“Just a formality, like I told you. I can’t legally poach new hires from Allsafe, given the stipulations of E Corp’s contract with them, so we’ll need to pretend you’ve applied for the position. Send me your resume and I’ll forward it to the interviewing committee.” 

Elliot thinks back a few weeks to the soft-kidnapping, the round table of lawyers, the smiley threats of litigation and career sabotage Tyrell had promised to pursue if Elliot tried to tell anyone about their meeting at Evil Corp. Tyrell is so eager to get Elliot under his employment... Mr. Robot had said it’s just a power trip, but Elliot isn’t so sure. Tyrell has looked into Elliot’s history, he knows about Elliot’s dad, he knows about Elliot’s hatred for Evil Corp... any smart Evil Corp executive should want to stay the fuck away from someone like that.

“Right,” Elliot manages to respond. He stands, gangly legs quaking like a colt just learning how to walk, and all but throws himself into his computer chair. He puts the phone on speaker, sets it down on the desk, and boots up his machine. Belatedly, he realizes Tyrell probably hadn’t meant for him to send his resume while he was still on the call, yet Tyrell doesn’t hang up or even comment on the sound of keys clacking as Elliot digs through his hard drive in search of a resume he isn't sure he even has.

“What OS do you run at home?” Tyrell suddenly asks. 

“Mint,” Elliot lies. Like hell is he going to give Tyrell any information about his machine. He finally pulls up the resume he’d used to apply to Allsafe and tries to read it over, but the words swim together in his vision. Tyrell hums through the phone, as if Elliot’s monosyllabic answers are deeply fascinating. 

“Loyal to Linux, aren’t you?” Tyrell responds, “I’ve been trying out Peppermint lately myself. It’s minimalistic, sleek, but there’s definitely some regression in the Bluetooth stack.”

Elliot has no idea why the fuck Tyrell is talking to him about this. This didn’t really seem like social engineering, despite the paranoia knotted in Elliot’s chest that tells him otherwise. Is it just aimless professional small talk to fill the awkward silence? Why would Tyrell even bother, or care? Half their interactions he spends threatening Elliot, and the other half, it's like he's trying to be Elliot’s friend. The absurdity of this whole situation is beginning to really sink in to the parts of his brain still capable of thought, and Elliot finds himself growing pissed off. 

This resume is probably shit. It'd been Angela's recommendation that had got Elliot in at Allsafe, anyway. 

Whatever.

Elliot attaches the file in an email to Tyrell’s Evil Corp address and hits send. “Resume's in your inbox,” he says bluntly.

“Oh. Okay,” Tyrell responds, sounding oddly dejected. 

Elliot squashes any feelings of guilt about shooting down his attempts at conversation. He has to remember he’s dealing with the enemy here. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow at ten, then. Just tell the front desk you’re there for an interview with me,” Tyrell adds, voice back to that professional, condescending lilt. 

“With you?”

“Well, I’ll be sitting in, naturally. HR is essentially tech-illiterate, so it’s standard to have a manager present to ask skill-testing questions. Not like your skill is in any doubt, but, you know. Procedure.”

“Right. Procedure,” Elliot echoes. Somehow, he doubts it's actually standard for a C-suite exec to tag along to job interviews. 

“I’m excited to see you again. I always knew we were meant to work together, Elliot,” Tyrell says, and then the call abruptly ends.

Elliot stares down at his phone, feeling dread sink into his stomach. This feels less like a new job, and more like he’s being sold into slavery.

The sun is beginning to peek over the low-rises opposite his apartment. Far from invoking any sense of new beginning, the light just makes his eyes burn.

Well, he has 24 hours to try and pull himself together enough to survive a job interview. If he keeps his focus on that, maybe he can ignore the looming sense that he truly has no idea what he’s signed up for. 

Tyrell is giddy with excitement as he opens Elliot’s email, that same nervous, anticipatory energy that buzzed through him during their first meeting at Evil Corp—except this time, he wasn't shot down. How could he be, with the dirt he has on Elliot?

In 24 hours, Elliot will be officially employed by E Corp’s cyber security department, and thus, under Tyrell's management. Obviously, Elliot wouldn’t be doing the same boring bullshit most of those code monkeys were tasked with every week, no—Tyrell has plans to keep Elliot close, have him working on projects under Tyrell’s wing. 

He reads over Elliot’s resume with rapt attention (much more attention than Elliot himself put into writing it). Email, phone number, address... all of these Tyrell already knew from what he’d gleaned from Allsafe’s employee files. He’s surprised to find that Elliot’s job history is so spotty, though. He’d only been working at Allsafe for a few months before he’d met Tyrell, and most of his jobs followed a similar pattern of brevity, with long stints of unemployment in between. In the 8 years of experience present on his resume, Elliot has worked 12 different jobs, and not a single one has lasted more than a year. He doesn’t have any degrees or alma maters listed, and his “Skills” section is just a lengthy, impersonal list of all the programming languages he knows. He doesn’t even have a personal objective listed. For all of his talent, Elliot’s resume looks as though he doesn’t even care. 

Elliot is an enigma. He’s clearly extraordinary, yet he struggles to make even basic conversation, or hold eye contact, or stand up straight, or wear anything more professional than that baggy black hoodie. This isn’t uncommon among recruits in the tech field; however, most people have the common sense to network, to strive for a higher paying position, to climb the ladder. Elliot can’t even seem to bother with holding down a job. 

Tyrell scowls as his watch beeps, signalling that his first meeting of the day is about to start. He reluctantly drags his eyes away from the screen and smiles through gritted teeth as his 9am appointment enters the room, though his thoughts remain elsewhere.

The interview is a disaster before it even starts.

Elliot spends the preceding 24 hours curled up in bed, shaking. Any food he forces himself to eat is inevitably spewed up minutes later, and he only manages to keep down tiny sips of water despite the burning, ever-present thirst raking its dry fingers up the inside of his throat. Sleep is a blessing when it comes, but Elliot spends most of the day trapped in excruciating consciousness, resisting the call from every part of his body to find a dealer and buy enough for just one last hit to get him through to the morning.

When his alarm goes off at 7am, he toys with the idea of not showing up to the interview at all. But then, he knows, Tyrell will start texting and calling, and that will be even more trouble. He thinks, wishes, even, that maybe he’ll go to the interview and Tyrell will see how fucked up he is and realize Elliot is just an insane, washed-up junkie who should be kept as far away from Evil Corp’s servers as possible, and then he’ll call the whole thing off and leave Elliot alone, take the Terry Colby thing as a useful coincidence and move on with his life. With that distant hope in mind, Elliot forces himself out of bed.

He sits on the floor of the shower and lets the water run over him. His muscles are too sore from the constant shaking to even consider reaching for the bar of soap, no matter how much he probably reeks of sweat and bile. It's only through the miracle of sheer willpower that he manages to brush his teeth and put on a pair of jeans and a wrinkled button-up shirt before leaving the house.

The receptionist he talks to in the Evil Corp lobby gives him a brutal once over when he says he's there for an interview with Tyrell Wellick, but she lets him up anyway. He’s sent to wait in a stuffy conference room on the HR department’s floor, and when he sits down at the table, he can't help but cringe at the sight of his reflection in the glass wall across from him. His skin is putrid grey, his hair is half-wet and sticking up at odd ends, his shirt is obviously a few sizes too big, exposing his bony chest and his pale, clammy wrists, where the tendons seem to strain obscenely. He looks like an extra in a zombie apocalypse movie, or someone who just checked themselves out of the hospital against doctor's orders... or, more realistically, a junkie.

The lady from HR—she says her name when she walks in, but Elliot's not paying attention—seems to think the same. She doesn't try to shake his hand, and her smile doesn't reach her eyes when she nods at Elliot politely as she sits down across from him. Another woman enters the room shortly after, and she says nothing to Elliot at all, just taps away at her phone. The silence is awkward, and Elliot thinks he probably should be saying something. What do people usually make small talk about in times like these? The weather?

Tyrell passes over the threshold and Elliot feels like he’s suddenly awoken from a dream as the reality of the situation fully hits him. This is real. He’s at Evil Corp, literally inside the belly of the beast, about to become one of its minions. 

“Morning, Elliot,” Tyrell says by way of greeting. If he’s put off by Elliot’s sickly appearance, he doesn't show it, broadcasting that same fake cheery smile as always. The three interviewers distribute some papers amongst themselves, uncapping their branded Evil Corp ballpoint pens and skimming over their copies of Elliot’s resume and work history. Because he lives in bureaucratic hell, they've somehow also gotten their hands on his Allsafe employee file.

“Alright, so... Elliot,” one of the women says, “today we’re going to go over your previous experience and qualifications, and then we’ll discuss your fit with the culture and ethos of E Corp as an employer.”

Elliot nods, and then jumps as he hears the chair beside him scrape across the floor. “This should be a good load of shit straight from the bull’s ass,” Mr. Robot chuckles, sitting down next to him. Of course, he picks now to show his face again. Elliot's not sure whether it's to support him or serve as the perpetual thorn in his side.

“Great,” HR Lady says. “First, tell us a bit about your experience at Allsafe.”

Elliot draws in a shaky breath. “Uh, sure. It’s basic cybersec stuff. Pentesting, doing audits, identifying risks.” His voice is monotonous as always, but distinctly discomfited. All of the long gaps of unemployment he knows they must have already turned up their noses at on his resume comes back to shit like this—hatred for the social game, unwillingness to engage in the masturbatory practice of selling himself.

Tyrell seems eager to do it for him, though. “Actually,” Tyrell interrupts, “Elliot here was the one who stopped that attack we had a few weeks ago.”

Both HR reps hmm and ah politely. Tyrell just stares at him, smiling.

Elliot knows he’s doing awfully, and clearly Tyrell thinks so too, but he doesn’t really care. Job interviews are pointless anyway, and even when he’s tried in the past, he never could manage to get interviewers to like him. Building rapport, establishing a connection, these are all alien concepts to Elliot. What’s the point in small talk when he can find out anything he wants to about a person from their Facebook, their Instagram, their Twitter?

“We noticed you don’t have any education listed on your resume. Is that an error, or have you not gone to school?” The other woman asks.

Mr. Robot scowls. “The whole college system is a complete racket, lady. They charge you hundreds of thousands of dollars for the same shit you could learn yourself off YouTube. There’s no point to it other than becoming another cash cow for the banks collecting interest off your student debt.” 

Elliot tries his best to ignore him. Between the withdrawal, the lack of food and sleep, the bright glare of the fluorescents overhead, and the commentary from his own personal peanut gallery, what little energy he has is fading fast. 

“I haven’t been to school,” Elliot responds. “I’m self taught.”

“Alright,” she says, scribbling something down on her piece of paper. Something negative, no doubt. Evil Corp has probably designed a calculated system of points to determine whether or not a potential hire is a good fit, and a lack of legitimatized education just slashed his odds in half.

“We’ve also noticed that your job history is relatively scattered," she adds, still writing. "Would you care to explain that?”

This is typically the moment in most job interviews where Elliot just gives up, because really, there is no explanation for his lack of fidelity to a career—not one that will satisfy an employer, anyway. He’d been fired from his job before Allsafe for destroying a server room in a fit of Mr. Robot’s rage after his coworkers had locked him in over the weekend. The job he’d had before that he’d just stopped showing up to, too depressed to drag himself out of bed in the mornings. His other jobs he hardly even remembers, each day passing him by in a blur of boring cooler talk and productivity meetings and chiding from managers put-off by his lack of “team spirit” until he finally had enough and quit each time. The truth is, Elliot doesn’t really like working, and he never has. There’s no fulfillment in it. The only time he feels anything close to satisfied or engaged is when he’s sitting in front of his terminal at home, chasing the digital ghost of whatever scum of the earth he’d managed to find prowling the web. 

He struggles for an excuse, but they’re all pretty lame, so he just settles with: “Health problems. It’s all fixed up now, though.”

“Ah, well, that’s good,” she responds, although it sounds like she doesn’t fully believe him. “You must have been tight for money, going for months in between jobs.” She eyes his wrinkled, ratty old shirt pointedly.

Elliot knows that his physical appearance, the way he dresses and holds himself, is less than impressive. His clothes have holes in them, his shoes leak when it rains. All of his underwear are fraying at the seams. He eats ramen and fries for nearly every meal, and only drinks water if he’s using it to wash down a Tylenol. He cuts his own hair with a set of dog clippers because he can’t stand anyone else touching him. All of these things don’t reflect well on him, he’s aware. But he also finds it hard to care.

The other HR rep continues on, perhaps sensing a potential discrimination suit if her coworker keeps sniping. “Now, could you tell us about a time you struggled at work, and how you learned from that?”

God, he hates these situational questions.

“Not really. I don’t find my job difficult,” Elliot replies flatly.

“Okay. How about a time where you’ve failed in one of your duties?”

“I haven’t.”

She looks at him in disgruntled disbelief, working her jaw back and forth. He's crawling so far up the Asshole Response Meter it's no surprise she follows with, “And what would you say your biggest weakness is?”

“Stuff like this,” he says, motioning towards the papers spread across the table, between them and himself. There's a hard edge to his voice, this time.

“Watch it, kiddo,” Mr. Robot mutters. “Don’t wanna kick the hornet's nest just yet.”

Elliot exhales sharply, reeling in his anger. Just being in this building is bringing his constant, simmering rage towards Evil Corp up to a boil. His eyes flit toward Tyrell, whose polite smile has grown strained. There’s a look of warning in his eyes, like he’s telling Elliot not to fuck this up.

“Where do you see yourself in five years?” The woman asks, still furtively writing down her comments about Elliot’s responses.

Mr. Robot snorts. "Well with any fucking luck, this company will be remembered as an overthrown tyrant of the past, and we’ll all take turns pissing on its grave.”

Elliot steels himself, trying to imagine he’s the type of person who would want to do well in this interview. Someone who will go out with his girlfriend to celebrate once he gets the job, someone who has a LinkedIn, someone who considers Elon Musk an idol, someone who loves Evil Corp. 

“Continuing to streamline our data storage operations to make E Corp and its backups completely impenetrable,” Elliot answers.

The woman nods, clearly more pleased with this. “And what would you say drew you to E Corp? What is it about our company’s culture and philosophy that makes you want to be a part of our team?”

Elliot blinks, feels his lips tighten into a thin line. What does he like about this place? That’s like asking a prisoner what they like about the warden, or a slave what they admire about their master. He is forced to live in Evil Corp’s world because they have a complete hold over everything: debt, loans, entertainment, manufacturing, software development, internet surveillance, the news. Every click of a button on every smartphone is either being watched by Evil Corp, or had been encouraged by them through their laser-focused algorithm. And the worst part is that everyone buys into it, too. Maybe not because they want to, but because this is the only way of existence the world currently offers. Their society is one of control, one where even your thoughts and opinions are predetermined by advertisements and paid reviews and bought out news stories and blind trust in the corporate overlords that would crush you beneath their boot while you still begged for the chance to be enslaved.

He can't say any of that, though.

“I think E Corp is a forward-thinking company that takes advantage of any opportunity it can,” Elliot replies instead. And he's being honest, too—that's the trait that makes them so fucking evil.

“Excellent,” the HR lady says with a tight smile. “Well, I think that’s all we have to ask you, for now. Mr. Wellick will bring you out to one of the cubicles to perform a short skill-testing set, and then we’ll touch base with you again in a few days.”

Elliot nods, turning to look at Tyrell. He follows Tyrell out of the room and down the hall, where an unused office sits. There’s a desk and chair in the room, but no computer. They enter, and Tyrell shuts the door behind them, leaning against it. Elliot can feel panic rising in his throat as he realizes there’s no other exit.

“To be honest, Elliot," Tyrell says, "that was probably one of the worst job interviews I’ve ever sat in on.” 

Tyrell steps forward. Elliot nearly stumbles as he scrambles backward, trying to maintain what little remains of his personal space. 

“How did you even manage to get the job at Allsafe?” Tyrell asks. He doesn't sound angry, but rather, genuinely curious. Elliot doesn't trust it.

“A friend recommended me," Elliot mumbles.

Tyrell cocks his head to the side, thinking. Then, he says with a start, “The blonde girl. The one Colby kicked off the E Corp account.”

It makes Elliot uneasy, the way Tyrell constantly seems to be digging for information. What is he doing it for? He already has Elliot working at Evil Corp. He’s got what he wanted. Right? 

“Yeah,” Elliot replies.

“Is that why you framed Colby? To avenge her?”

“Why do you even care? You got your blackmail material. I think evidence of the crime is good enough without knowing the motive.”

“Just trying to figure out what makes you tick, Elliot.” Tyrell says, and the smugness in his voice grates on Elliot’s nerves. Tyrell steps forward again, and the backs of Elliot’s thighs hit the desk behind him as he runs out of room to escape into.

The feeling of being trapped, of being nauseous and tired and in this fucking building, of all places, coalesces into a writhing mass of rage poorly contained in Elliot’s pounding skull. He wants to get the fuck out of here. He wants to go home, and Tyrell is standing between him and the door, and he's looking down at Elliot like he's a bug caught under a glass, clearly high off the power trip.

Tyrell is everything Elliot hates about Evil Corp. He likes to play with people. He likes to use and abuse them like they're lesser objects. He likes to play God.

If Tyrell thought Elliot was gonna put up with that, he was wrong.

“Move,” Elliot hisses.

“What?”

“I said, move.”

Tyrell laughs. “Elliot, I don’t really think you’re in a position to—”

“Stop fucking pushing me around, or I’ll push back.”

Tyrell’s eyes widen.

“You got what you wanted. I’ll work for E Corp. But that’s it. You’re not gonna bully me,” Elliot says. His hands are shaking, but with anger or anxiety, even he isn’t sure. He feels distant, outside of himself, like he does when Mr. Robot takes over, but this is all him. “You were Colby’s right hand man, who’s to say you weren’t just as dirty as him? Maybe you framed him so you could get him fired and steal his job. I could make it look like that's what happened. You know I could.”

“Nobody’s going to believe—”

“Yes, they will. And then the news will have a field day, draw up a whole media circus, the public will eat up the scandal of it all, and E Corp will have no choice but to fire you to save face," Elliot snaps back.

Tyrell stares at him, unusually silent.

"The leverage you think you have here? Your threats to turn me into the FBI? If I decide to do this, they're nothing. You had far more to gain from framing Colby than I do. When it comes down to it, who will people think has more motive to get Colby fired from E Corp—his direct successor, or some nobody like me?" Elliot asks. "You saw how quickly I ruined Colby's life. I could do it to you, too."

Tyrell scowls, but he looks like he buys Elliot’s threat. He looks scared, even. 

“Now get the fuck out of my way," Elliot mutters, stepping forward. 

He can feel Tyrell’s eyes on him all the way down the hall.

The first thing Elliot sees when he steps into his apartment is a pair of clunky platform boots that definitely aren’t his piled right in front of the door. He looks up and there’s Darlene, sitting at his table with her arms crossed over her chest.

“Yeah, that’s right, you’re in trouble,” she says. “Care to explain what the fuck is going on, Elliot?”

“Wh-what?”

“You’ve been completely AWOL since Steel Mountain, Mobley said you looked like you were dying the whole trip, and Angela's telling me you’ve quit Allsafe. I’ve been trying to message you, but you haven’t been online for days. So then, naturally, because I’m a fucking kind and benevolent person, I come all the way here to your little depression cave, and there’s bowls full of your puke on the floor, your dog’s crying because it’s starving, and the whole place reeks of your nasty BO!” She exclaims. “Jesus, look at you. You’re shaking so hard you can barely stand.”

“Something came up at Steel Mountain. I got compromised.”

“Uh, and you didn’t think to tell us?”

“No, it’s nothing to do with fsociety. It’s me.” 

She stares at him blankly. 

“Look, Darlene, I—” he sighs. “A couple of weeks ago a bunch of E Corp executives came and visited Allsafe. There was this guy, he offered me a job at E Corp, said he’d make me a millionaire, that Allsafe was gonna go under soon anyway. I turned it down. But then, when I was at Steel Mountain… he was there, too. He followed me. Told me he knew I framed Colby, and that if I didn’t take the offer to work with him, he’d tip off the feds.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah. I just went to an interview to finalize the hiring process. They’re gonna call me in a couple days.”

Darlene raps her nails on the table, biting her lip. Her nail polish is starting to peel off at the edges, black splotches that remind him of a Rorschach test.

“This could be good for us, actually,” Darlene says. “You’ll have full access to their systems. We won’t have to bother social engineering our way into the building for the physical stuff. Otherwise, we were gonna have to get Trenton to pretend to be an intern, and you know the girl can’t act to save her life.”

Mr. Robot had said basically the same thing. Still, Elliot’s not so sure he can stomach the idea of being their best option for getting into Evil Corp, especially not when he’d just threatened his future boss.

“Well, whatever,” she says. “You’ll figure it out. And hey, it’s kind of like stealing a paycheck from the company you hate most, right?"

Unlike her and Mr. Robot, Elliot doesn't really find much funny about that.

"Anyways,” she unzips her backpack and pulls out her laptop, “let’s order food. There’s literally nothing in your fridge except Red Bull and mouldy takeout. Seriously, Elliot, your place is gross.”

Elliot pulls off his shoes and collapses onto the couch again. Darlene’s voice fades into a blur of indistinct noise as he stares at the wall, the image of Tyrell’s unguarded, shocked face burned into his mind. 

It would have been the most natural thing in the world for Tyrell to call his bluff. Elliot's threats weren't exactly actionable, nor were they proportionate—he had a lot more to lose, here, if Tyrell freaked and turned him in. They both knew that. Even something as simple as Tyrell telling anyone he'd seen Elliot at Steel Mountain would be enough to fuck up fsociety's plans, though Tyrell didn't know it yet. The smart thing to do is lay low and continue to let Tyrell think Elliot is meek enough to do what he wants, that being whisked off to Evil Corp isn't a massive stroke of good luck that puts Elliot right in enemy territory with the keys to the damn castle.

The fact Tyrell just stood there and let Elliot berate him is... weird, honestly. Then again, he'd sounded on the verge of tears the first time Elliot had rejected his job offer. Is it really possible Tyrell thinks he's enough of an asset to put up with Elliot's anger?

Elliot doesn't want to admit it to himself, but it had felt good, laying into Tyrell like that. A taste of the power he normally only gets calling the anonymous tip line on whatever scumbag he's been stalking. 

A few hours later and he’s eaten nearly half of a container of lo mein and watched several episodes of The Bachelor, upon Darlene’s insistence it was a “genius late-capitalist case study of self commodification.” She leaves to meet Trenton at the arcade just as the sun begins to set, and Elliot immediately boots up his computer as soon as the door shuts behind her.

There’s one unread email in his inbox. His stomach lurches.

Interview follow-up

From: Tyrell Wellick ([email protected])

To: [email protected]

Elliot,

Thank you for making the time to speak with us today about your application for the Cybersecurity Analyst position here at E Corp. We are delighted to extend to you an official offer for the position.

You will begin tomorrow, April 1st, at 9am. You will report directly to interim Chief Technology Officer Tyrell Wellick. Your starting salary will be $250,000, with fixed annual raises of 7% and performance-based raises every 6 months, dependent on review.

I look forward to seeing you tomorrow morning,

Tyrell Wellick

The demanding tone lurking beneath the polite corporate veneer is not lost on Elliot. It comes as no surprise, really. What does make him do a double take, however, is the salary. A quarter of a million dollars to start? That’s nearly triple what he’d made at Allsafe, where between his drug habit and the price of rent in New York City he’d only barely managed to stay above the red each month.

He wonders how much Tyrell makes. The amount is probably obscene.

Elliot has no doubt Tyrell convinced the HR department to hire him. He’d have to, after that interview. Elliot struggles to understand how, after Elliot had threatened him and then stormed out of the building, Tyrell still sees him as a good investment. Elliot’s volatile, and Tyrell would know by now that he can’t just dangle money on a stick in front of Elliot like he might with most of his underlings. How can Tyrell still want him?

Elliot hears work boots stomp up behind him. Mr. Robot leans over his shoulder to read the email, then snorts. “Man, this guy is more persistent than herpes.”

“It’s suspicious,” Elliot says, turning in his chair to face Mr. Robot.

“Eh,” he shrugs, taking a seat on the edge of Elliot’s bed. “Guys like that who are used to getting whatever they want, they probably see people like you as a challenge. I bet it pisses him off you’re not sucking up to him, even now that he knows our secret. Well, thinks he knows, anyway.”

Elliot considers the screen again for a moment, fingers poised over the keyboard. He types out k, thanks then hits reply. 

He’s late for his first day of work.

He’s in the subway station when a woman calmly walks off the platform in front of the oncoming train. It smacks right into her, sending her flying through the air, and one of her high heels flings off of her foot and into the crowd. Elliot watches in horror as her body folds in on itself, limp. Her corpse falls onto the tracks and blood splatters up onto the cement as she is ripped apart by the relentless spinning of the wheels. The train rolls to a stop and plastered to the side of it is a gigantic advertisement for Evil Corp stretching from door to door.

People are screaming. Someone bumps into him as they reel backwards, running away. Elliot just can’t stop staring at the explosion of red over the faded yellow “do not cross” lines at the edge of the platform. Under the harsh white lights, the wet blood glistens.

His phone keeps buzzing in his pocket, but his hands won’t move to pick it up. He’s completely frozen.

A couple of the subway security guards usher people back up onto the street, clearing out the platform so the emergency workers can come in. “Don’t worry, everyone,” one of the guards says, “we’ll be back up and running in about 30 minutes or so.”

Don’t worry? Someone had just killed themselves, and the biggest concern was how quickly they could clean the bits of meat and bone and hair off the tracks so that business could go on as usual. Fuck, Elliot feels sick.

The crowd disperses, and a cop car pulls up and tells Elliot to move aside as they block off the area with yellow tape. He shuffles down the sidewalk to the McDonalds next door and sits on the curb, lighting up a smoke, the smell of McMuffins and hot coffee pouring out onto the street. He thinks of the woman’s body, cracking open against the metal head of the train like an egg over a griddle. 

His phone buzzes in his pocket again. The screen says it’s 9:12am, and he has three missed calls. He sees Tyrell’s number on the call display. Shit.

“...Yeah?” he answers.

“Elliot, where are you? You were supposed to be here at 9.” He sounds pissed, or maybe even worried. He probably thinks Elliot is bailing on him.

“There’s…” Elliot trails off as he watches a paramedic emerge from the subway station onto the street, carrying a black garbage bag and grimacing. Jesus, it’s probably full of whatever's left of that woman. “Somebody jumped in front of the train.”

Tyrell seems completely unphased by the news. “Tell me where you are. I’ll send a driver to pick you up.”

“No,” Elliot can’t hide the tremor in his voice. “I’ll walk.”

“Elliot, don’t be ridiculous, I can—”

He hangs up on Tyrell. Down below, in the subway station, he hears the harsh splash of pressurized water as they hose the blood and gore off the tracks.

This sort of thing happens so often they have a system for scrubbing away the evidence, efficient and planned, incorporated into the city budget.

Rising to his feet, he crushes the butt of his cigarette under his foot and begins the trek to Evil Corp. It’s only a few blocks away, and as he pushes his way through the entrance, he looks down at his fingers on the door handle to find them shaking. 

He walks through the hallways and up to Tyrell’s floor, feeling like a phantom, only half there. 

There’s a woman waiting to meet him when he steps out of the elevator, weight shifted onto one leg and glancing at her watch like she's been there for a while. When she looks up at him she has a kind, beaming smile on her face. Elliot can’t meet her eyes. He stares down at her shoes instead. They go clack-clack against the linoleum as she leads him down the hallway, and he distantly wonders what happened to the heel that had flung off the woman in the subway station when her body smacked against the train. Did they pick that up and put it into a black garbage bag like the rest of her?

He finds himself in Tyrell’s office. From floor to ceiling there are windows showing off the view of Manhattan from above, mirrors on the wall behind the desk, a glass coffee table in front of the leather couches. It’s like an aquarium, or a transparent observation wall at the zoo. Elliot imagines the nameplate outside the cage: H. sapiens, post-industrial era. Humans of the highest social standing often reside in such spaces as these while performing work functions. The ability to look out from above over the lesser humans below is regarded as a sign of high status amongst this species. 

The lady who’d led him here—Tyrell’s assistant, probably—brings him a bottle of water, and he nods at her awkwardly in thanks. Tyrell is in a meeting, she says, but he’ll be back soon, and Elliot should sit down and wait. Then she leaves.

Elliot does not sit down. He goes immediately over to Tyrell’s computer, which has been left unlocked. Tyrell's desktop wallpaper is the Evil Corp logo, and he has a few tabs open that Elliot quickly peruses: some quarterly financial reports, his corporate email inbox, and a Facebook chat with his wife. Elliot scrolls through it, but the messages are completely innocuous. They’re planning to go out for dinner tonight at some hip new restaurant by Central Park that Elliot’s never heard of, and Tyrell’s wife remarks that she’s heard the oysters there are delicious. Like when Elliot had hacked Tyrell before, the findings are so boring and normal it’s actually even more suspicious.

Unsatisfied, Elliot minimizes all the windows and takes a seat on one of the couches. The door swings open only moments after, and Tyrell strides in. The impervious businessman mask is back up, with no sign of the shock or fear Elliot had seen the day before. Tyrell seems to be pretending Elliot had never threatened him at all.

“Elliot,” Tyrell says with a smile. Instead of going to his desk like Elliot anticipated, Tyrell sits right next to him on the couch, their knees knocking together. Elliot shuffles away. “It’s good to see you again. I’m sorry to hear about the accident at the subway station. Horrible, but, well, you know. It happens.”

Elliot’s eyes flit up to Tyrell’s, annoyed. It happens? That’s it? It’s just like what the security guards at the station had said. Dismissive, reductive, inhuman.

“Just another reason to not take the subway, I suppose,” Tyrell shrugs. “I mean, the smell and the people are reason enough. But the idiots who throw themselves in front of the train, messing up everyone’s commute, putting everyone behind schedule… it’s just inconsiderate.”

“Inconsiderate,” Elliot echoes, shaking his head. His ears are ringing again. “Someone dies and that’s all we think of: inconvenience. The soporific lull of our daily routine disrupted, companies losing a bit of profit because their employees are late to work, feeling the discomfort of having to acknowledge the pain of somebody else who was done with it all enough to kill themselves in front of us—this is the true tragedy, is that it?” He can't stop himself. He hadn't really meant to say any of this out loud, but the words just keep coming. “She was going to work. You could see it, in the way she was dressed. Another worker chewed up and spat out onto the fucking train tracks. And we all think it's her fault. She's just not strong enough to compete."

“I didn’t mean—” Tyrell starts. He glances down at his hands, like he’s embarrassed. 

“No, that’s exactly what you meant. You all think the same.”

“All of who?”

“The hordes of corporate robots spewing out their pre-programmed phrases in a sterile approximation of humanity. Psychopaths in suits getting paid millions to leech off of the productivity of the actual workers of the world while they convince the rest of us that they’re the most crucial members of society. Trust me, you’re all the same. You practically come with factory settings.”

Tyrell looks indignant at that, as though Elliot's just slapped him across the face. “I’m not—”

Elliot cuts him off, “To be honest, Tyrell, I really don’t care what you think you are or aren’t. I don't want to sit here and pretend that we have anything in common, and I don't know why you keep bothering. Just show me my cubicle so I can start working.”

Tyrell’s mouth shuts, but his jaw is tense and his hands are curled into tight fists, betraying his irritation. He stands up and walks over to his desk, picking up the phone. 

“Could you please show Elliot to his workspace? Great, thank you,” he says tightly into the receiver. 

His assistant walks in and motions for Elliot to follow her. Elliot picks up his bag and heads to his cubicle silently.

Tyrell really isn’t sure what he’s doing wrong. He’s trying to get to know Elliot better, but nothing is working, and everything he says just seems to make Elliot hate him more. Sure, maybe he’d teased Elliot a little here and there, or maybe he’d played his hand too heavy with the blackmail now and then, but he hardly thinks it justifies the level of animosity Elliot directs towards him. It’s just how the world works: everyone’s constantly competing with one another, and you either play ruthlessly or you lose. 

Up until now, Tyrell has been pretty sure he’s winning in the arena of life. He has the title, the corner office, the nice clothes, a whole slew of people on payroll whose entire career revolves around serving him. Most people would be jealous of Tyrell. Tyrell is certainly jealous of people with more than him, who are above him in status and wealth. Elliot, though, doesn’t seem to care, or even notice. It’s like that hoodie he wears everyday, or his lackluster resume, or the way he’d acted in his job interview… he’s just not even trying. If life is a massive fight for supremacy and status, then Elliot’s withdrawn his participation entirely.

Really, anyone else would be thrilled to work for E Corp, and on the insistence of someone as high up in management as Tyrell, no less. It’s a shame Tyrell had to blackmail Elliot into it, but even still, why can’t Elliot see what an amazing opportunity Tyrell is giving him?

Tyrell is confused. The more he learns about Elliot, the less he feels he knows him. Elliot doesn’t act the way Tyrell is used to people acting. When he tries to be friendly, Elliot responds with icy silence, and when he flexes his leverage over Elliot, Elliot either turns suddenly vicious and vengeful, or else escapes without a word. 

Elliot is an anomaly. Just when Tyrell thinks he finally gets him, Elliot does something to throw him off. The worst part is, he actually cares what Elliot thinks of him, enough to feel embarrassed or dejected when Elliot berates him or rejects his attempts at conversation. It reminds him of how his superiors sometimes treated him when he first started at E Corp, just a lowly tech. The difference is, though, that unlike his past managers, with Elliot, he can’t even prove himself useful in some way. Tyrell quit Elliot's job for him, knowing Elliot would find it difficult, and Elliot had seemed irritated. Tyrell gave Elliot the highest salary possible for an engineer, and had pulled several strings to do so, and Elliot hadn't cared. Tyrell offered a car to pick him up this morning, and Elliot said he'd rather walk. Tyrell is starting to think Elliot really wants nothing to do with him.

Tyrell sits through all his meetings that day distracted, trying to determine what he might do to please Elliot. When 5 o’clock rolls around, he wanders out onto the tech floor. His eyes run over the grid of gray cubicles, but he doesn’t see Elliot. The intensity of his own disappointment comes as a surprise.

Elliot’s first day at Evil Corp goes by in a blur. It's full of all the inane bullshit he hates most: filling out paperwork, signing up for a 401k, choosing a healthcare plan with a good deductible, getting his picture taken for his ID. Thankfully, though, he manages to make it to the end of the day without seeing Tyrell; he practically sprints out of the building at quitting time in order to avoid him.

Now, Elliot is sitting on the fire escape outside his window, having a smoke. On the street below, there’s a group of kids skateboarding, and he can hear the clatter of dim sum carts over tile rising up from the neighboring Chinese restaurant. 

Most of the symptoms of withdrawal have faded into a thin static at the back of his mind, enough that he can ignore the way his nerves feel like they’ve been spliced. He thinks, briefly, about how just a few days ago, he probably would have come home from work and cut himself up a few lines before he’d even taken his shoes off. A part of him longs for that simple escape again. 

He ashes his cigarette against the cool metal grate, watches the embers fall, their lights flickering out before they hit the ground. The night is quiet, and peaceful, yet his mind still turns. He knows he’s fucking things up with Tyrell, probably doing nothing but pushing him away, and eventually, Tyrell will snap. He can't have that. As much as Tyrell's every word fills him with distaste, he needs to keep this job; if he gets fired, his only options are either crawling back to Allsafe, or getting someone else hired on the inside—they can't afford the risk. Every interaction he’s had with Tyrell thus far, Elliot’s been in awful shape: nearly throwing up from withdrawal spins in the Steel Mountain bathroom, sweaty and disheveled at the job interview, disillusioned and pissed off after hearing a woman’s innards being hosed off the subway tracks this morning. Elliot needs to get himself under control, try to be normal, even though he’s anything but.

Maybe tomorrow he’ll wear something other than his unwashed, fraying jeans. Maybe he’ll even ask the old lady down the hall if he can borrow her steamer so he can get the wrinkles out of his old dress shirts. Maybe he’ll say “good morning” to his coworkers, engage in water cooler gossip, and ask people what they’re doing over the weekend. 

He shakes his head. Yeah, no way is he gonna be able to manage that. Hopefully, he can just get through the day seeing as little of Tyrell as possible.

Elliot awakens to his phone ringing. The apartment is awash with neon blue light, the harbinger of sunrise, and the clock beside his bed says its 6am. He rolls over with a groan and picks up his phone. The call display reads UNKNOWN. It’s probably Darlene, fresh off a club crawl, drunk as hell and looking for a place to crash. 

“It’s way too fucking early for this, Darlene,” he says into the phone.

There’s silence. Then, “who’s Darlene?”

Shit. It’s Tyrell. This is the second time he’s woken Elliot up by calling. He must be one of those guys who wake up at 4am and drink celery juice and do yoga or whatever.

“Tyrell?” Elliot tries to expel the roughness of sleep creeping into the edges of his voice. “What do you want?” 

Fuck, that sounded more rude than he’d intended. He’s trying to get along with Tyrell so he can stay at Evil Corp as fsociety’s mole, he reminds himself. If he gets fired, not only will Tyrell probably get the cops attention on him by tipping them off about Colby, but he’ll lose critical access to Evil Corp’s physical servers. 

“Look outside,” Tyrell answers. Cryptic.

Elliot kicks the sheets off his legs and climbs out of bed, moving over to the window. Peeking out from behind the curtains, he can see Tyrell’s black SUV parked in the street outside his building. He supposes he shouldn’t be surprised Tyrell knows where he lives—he’d written it all over the employee forms he’d filled out yesterday, after all—but this still feels like a massive invasion of privacy. Then again, Tyrell had already essentially kidnapped him once, and comparatively, this is far less odd.

“What’s going on?” Elliot asks.

“Get dressed and come down,” Tyrell says, then hangs up. 

So much for trying for normalcy today. Elliot grabs yesterday’s clothes off the ground and shoves them on, brushes his teeth, and then washes his face, staring in the mirror at the dark bags under his eyes, his sallow skin. He looks like shit.

When he clambers into the car, Tyrell is in the backseat waiting for him. He beams at Elliot, as though all of Elliot’s ranting and raving the day previous have been forgotten. Tyrell is always oddly forgiving of Elliot’s blatant disrespect, and Elliot still can’t figure out why.

“Good morning, Elliot.”

“Where are we going?”

“Well, I thought, given the… incident, yesterday,” Tyrell says, slowly, like he’s weighing his words carefully, “it might be better if I just picked you up instead.”

Elliot’s not sure whether to be offended or thankful. He’s sure most people would be grateful if their boss offered to drive them to work, but with Tyrell, things are rarely so simple. This has to be another mind game.

“Nothing wrong with the subway,” Elliot says, turning his head to look out the window as the car pulls off onto the street.

“Of course not,” Tyrell replies, clearly unwilling to reignite their argument from the day before. “I was merely thinking that this way, you wouldn’t have to pay the fare. E Corp does have a commuter reimbursement program, if you didn’t know. Consider this your free ride without all the paperwork.”

Elliot does know that, and he also knows that Evil Corp owns the subway system, hence why their ads are plastered wherever you look in each of the stations and their jingles play over the speakers before each stop is announced. A commuter reimbursement program isn’t so much charity as it is encouraging workers to use a service Evil Corp already has its hands in.

“I never pay for the subway anyway," Elliot says. It's a point of personal pride.

“How? They’ve implemented new turnstiles. You can’t jump them.”

Elliot debates whether or not he should elaborate. It's not like either of them are against breaking the law. Perhaps they could bond over this, smooth any ruffled feathers. He needs to keep Tyrell on his side; Mr. Robot would say Elliot's being too catty for his own good. He'd tell Elliot to cozy up to the suit, see what he can squeeze out of him. Besides, finding exploits is Elliot's job, now.

Fuck it.

“The contactless fare cards use the NFC protocol. They’re cheap and easy to rewrite. I found an expired card on the ground a couple of years ago and rewrote it to give myself unlimited swipes,” Elliot explains.

Tyrell's eyebrows furrow. He's probably thinking that sounds way too easy—and it is. 

Elliot shrugs. “At the root of most of E Corp’s security vulnerabilities is the simple fact that they’re just too big to care. Why bother with locking down subway cards when they make billions each year collecting interest off our debt? It makes no sense for them to get caught up on such a small source of revenue, comparatively.”

“Well, I suppose it’s a good thing we have you on our team now, isn’t it? Someone who notices that sort of thing.”

Yeah, right. Truly, nothing could be more dangerous to Evil Corp than someone like him who sees the cracks, the lazy fixes, all exploits waiting to be taken advantage of. “Right.”

“So what do you think they should use for the cards instead? RFID?” Tyrell actually sounds quite interested to hear what Elliot has to say. When Elliot looks back at him, he sees Tyrell has completely shifted in his seat, his entire body facing Elliot, like he’s holding on to every word.

“RFID can be spoofed too, if not as easily. And it's just not cost effective to guard against the possibility when most people will do the honest thing and pay. I doubt E Corp would want to shell out on implementing new software and machines, either.”

“I’m not asking what you think E Corp would do. I’m asking what you would do.”

He wants to say, Me? I’d make public transportation free. We pay more than enough in taxes to make it happen, but the government is too busy using our money to fund paramilitary death squads overseas and bail out Fortune 500 companies when they go bankrupt every recession. Individual car ownership is the basis of our infrastructure, anyway. The people in charge want us constantly making car payments, insurance payments, charging gas and toll booth fares and parking fees to our credit cards. Make public transit free and easy to use, and all that profit goes away. So what I would do doesn't matter, because it's not what anyone with power will do. 

"Who cares what I would do?" Elliot says dismissively. 

The car rolls to a stop a couple blocks away from the Evil Corp building, in front of a bustling Starbucks. Elliot looks at Tyrell questioningly. 

“I thought we could get coffee,” Tyrell explains.

Elliot gets out and lets Tyrell politely hold the door to the coffee shop open for him. The vibe inside is chaotic, but that’s par for the course at virtually any food place this close to Wall Street in the morning.

“What’s your order?” Tyrell asks, pulling his wallet from his back pocket. He motions for Elliot to take a seat at one of the few vacant tables, “Save us a spot. I’ll buy.”

“Black coffee’s fine,” Elliot says. He plants his backpack down on an empty table right by the door and takes a seat while Tyrell joins the line.

Starbucks has a level of complete corporate aesthetic control that is a little bit eerie, in Elliot’s opinion. No matter which one you went to, it was a guarantee that you’d be greeted with the same moody overhead lighting and exposed brick wall, the posters of wrinkled brown hands and smiling faces squinting against the hot sun with condescending slogans plastered over them like “fair trade, always” and “our farmers are family.” You could fall asleep in one store and wake up in another and probably not know the difference. 

The other guarantee with Starbucks is the volume. Between the whir of the coffee grinder, the steady beep of the warming oven, the jarring ker-ching when the cash drawer pops open, the inoffensive copyright-free R&B playing over the speakers, and the cacophony of voices, the buzzing din is impossible to tune out. Elliot hunches his shoulders in further, shoves his hands awkwardly into his hoodie pockets. 

When Tyrell comes back, he’s holding two take-out cups. He sits down across from Elliot, his expensive suit and inoffensive smile blending right in with the clean, mild decor. 

“Thanks,” Elliot says, taking a sip. He picks at the frayed cardboard edge of the cup’s sleeve, tracing his fingernail along the green outline of the trademarked mermaid logo.

“You could have ordered whatever you wanted, you know. No need to be cheap just because I’m paying,” Tyrell says. Elliot eyes the array of symbols lining the side of Tyrell’s cup - CM, SK, and a 2 scrawled in the box that says “shots.” Caramel macchiato with skim milk and extra espresso? Elliot's not sure.

“I don’t really come here much,” Elliot replies. “Wouldn’t know what else to get.” 

“Really? There’s one on every street corner in New York.”

Elliot shrugs. He doesn’t get out much, and places like this are just too loud.

They sit there in silence for a few moments, Tyrell staring at Elliot, Elliot pretending he doesn’t know Tyrell is staring at him as he keeps his own gaze fastidiously pointed out the window.

“You’re so quiet,” Tyrell finally says. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Elliot can see that Tyrell seems frustrated. Whatever he thought bringing Elliot here would accomplish, it's obviously not working as planned.

“What are you thinking about?” Tyrell presses.

Elliot drums his fingers against the wood table.

Most of the time, people quickly figure out that Elliot's silence is characteristic and that he wants to be left alone. He's never been one for conversation. People usually either just talk at him, or they fizzle out into awkward silence when they realize he's not gonna respond. Even with Darlene and Angela, he feels like he has nothing to say. Unless he's angry and ranting, his replies are usually clipped and to the point. Clearly, though, Tyrell wants him to talk.

Elliot feels a begrudging sense that he should probably throw Tyrell a bone. But an inane, boring, inconsequential one.

“Kind of wondering what the hell mermaids have to do with coffee, I guess,” Elliot responds, pointing to the green logo branded on his cup, the familiar face of the siren with her billowing seaweed hair. Darlene had once remarked it kind of looked like she was holding her legs open. Like, her whole fish-vag is totally on display just out of frame, right?, she’d said.

“For a long time, I thought Starbucks was an English phrase I didn’t understand,” Tyrell admits. It's unlike him to allude to any personal deficiency or confusion.

“Starbuck is a character from Moby Dick. I guess whoever came up with the name was a fan."

“Oh. I’ve never read that.”

“Knowing the reference doesn’t make the name make any more sense."

"What's it about? The book, I mean."

Elliot has no idea why Tyrell cares. This is really grasping at straws for conversation. Yet he's looking at Elliot with rapt attention, just like he had when Elliot explained his little subway card trick earlier, like he's interested only because it's coming from Elliot's mouth. The thought makes Elliot's throat feel dry.

"There's a ship captain, Ahab, who's obsessed with capturing this whale who bit his leg off. He tells the crew that the whale is the embodiment of evil, and they have a moral duty to kill it, but really, he just wants revenge," Elliot says. "Starbuck is his second in command. The two constantly fight about what they should do. Starbuck thinks Captain Ahab’s desire for revenge is stupid, but for Ahab, hunting the whale is his life’s purpose, and without it, what else would he do?”

“So which one is right, in the end?”

“Neither of them, I guess. They both die. Starbuck can't convince Ahab he's wrong, Ahab keeps hunting the whale, the whale sinks the ship, and the whole crew drowns.”

“Hmm,” Tyrell answers, sounding dissatisfied. 

“Guess the moral is that being right or wrong only gets you so far. Starbuck might be more sensible, but he ultimately follows Ahab. Crazy or not, in the end, Ahab has the passion, and Starbuck doesn’t. It’s like you said the first time you asked me to work at E Corp: power belongs to the people who take it. It’s rarely the qualified, rational people who end up in charge, and that’s exactly why,” Elliot says, souring at the thought.

“Now you’re just turning my words against me.”

With this, Elliot finally turns from the window to look at Tyrell, and finds Tyrell frowning almost petulantly at him, as though Elliot is being unfair. Elliot raises his eyebrows, then shakes his head. “Whatever, man. Just saying, the logical end of rewarding ruthlessness is a bunch of incompetent, power-tripping sociopaths running the world.”

Tyrell glowers, but doesn’t argue. His eyes rove over Elliot’s face, as though searching for something—there’s a desperation in his eyes that floors Elliot, and it’s uncomfortable to look at. He’s struck with the sense, much like he felt when he’d threatened Tyrell after his interview or when he’d flipped out at Tyrell yesterday, that he’s now seeing glimpses of the real Tyrell, whoever it is that lives under the mask of businesslike politeness and corporate tough-guy peacocking. Elliot can’t bear more than a few moments of eye contact, not when Tyrell is giving him that look, and so he awkwardly pulls his gaze away. He drains his coffee in one long gulp, wincing as it scalds his tongue. 

“We’d better get going,” Tyrell says. That moment of vulnerability has lapsed, and now, Tyrell is glancing at the time on his phone with trained insouciance. 

Elliot collects his things and dumps his empty cup in the trash. Tyrell strides in front of him to hold open the door, both out of the Starbucks and into the car. 

The ride to work passes in comfortable silence. Elliot can feel Tyrell staring at him the whole time. 

After his last meeting that day, Tyrell makes his way to Elliot’s cubicle. Normally, Tyrell would stay late, not leave the office until at least dinner time, but he’s determined to drive Elliot home today.

He can't tell if he's making progress with Elliot or not. Tyrell had meant to get Elliot to open up, but their conversation this morning had turned into another sustained attack on Tyrell's worldview instead. Elliot's good at ripping into him while revealing little about himself, and it only makes Tyrell even more curious.

As Tyrell walks across the tech floor, many of the employees stiffen at the sight of him, closing tabs and shuffling work papers, trying to look busy. Elliot doesn’t notice him at all. He’s completely absorbed in whatever he’s doing. Tyrell stands behind him, watching Elliot’s fingers fly across the keyboard, text appearing on the screen so quickly it’s hard to keep up. No other part of his body moves. It’s like Elliot has become part of the machine, his hands merely a conductor connecting his mind to the computer. Tyrell has never seen anyone so concentrated.

“Oh, uh, Mr. Wellick? There’s something we wanted to, um, go over with you—”

Elliot’s head whips around at the same time Tyrell’s does, his concentration broken. Tyrell has to take a deep breath to calm himself as he looks at the idiot who just interrupted. 

“It can wait until tomorrow,” he says, definitively. The tech who’d been trying to talk to him practically cowers. Tyrell's reputation among his lowers isn't the kindest.

“R-right, but I was just wondering—”

“I appreciate you taking initiative,” Tyrell hisses through his teeth, “but I’m busy.”

The tech mumbles a myriad of apologies as he slinks away. Ignoring him, Tyrell turns his attention back to Elliot. “Sorry to disturb you, Elliot,” he says, “I was just coming to tell you we’re leaving.” 

“Oh. Okay.”

Elliot turns back to his computer, closing out of the terminal and logging off. He shoves his few belongings into his backpack: his E Corp ID, a pair of headphones, and a chipped coffee mug plastered with “COME VISIT CONEY ISLAND” printed in psychedelic yellow font. 

Elliot puts on his hoodie, his eyes glancing nervously over the array of cubicles. Practically everyone is staring at them now. Tyrell claps a hand on Elliot’s shoulder, and Elliot startles under his touch. With a smile, Tyrell kneads his thumb into the tense muscle at the base of Elliot’s neck, feeling the warmth of Elliot’s skin through the layers of clothing.

Elliot pulls away. Tyrell frowns.

“What were you working on?” Tyrell asks when they're alone in the elevator.

“Just updating one of the servers.”

“No, you weren’t. I was watching you. That had nothing to do with work, and I can see from your assignment tickets that you finished all of your tasks for today before lunch.”

Wrong thing to say, obviously; Elliot immediately goes on the defensive. The steely anger that Tyrell is becoming familiar with is filtering into Elliot's eyes again.

“So what?" Elliot asks. "Am I in trouble now?”

Tyrell sighs. “No. But we’re supposed to be working together. I don’t care what you do, as long as I’m the only one who knows about it.”

Elliot ignores him the whole ride home. Tyrell offers to walk him up to his apartment once they’ve pulled up outside the building, to which Elliot responds with a noncommittal shrug. Taking that as permission, Tyrell follows him inside, glancing at the paint-chipped walls and stained ceilings with distaste. Tyrell is making sure Elliot is receiving the top salary available for an engineer at E Corp, so why hasn’t Elliot moved out of this dump yet? Certainly he can now afford something better.

Elliot’s room is on the fourth floor, and he stares at the keyhole suspiciously for a moment before lightly pushing at the door. It creaks open stiltedly, like someone’s jimmied the lock.

There’s a girl sitting at Elliot’s kitchen table, her back to the door. A laptop is set up in front of her, blaring tinny electronic music, and she has a copy of The Economist flipped open to the day’s market predictions on her lap. Her long brown hair is wet, pulled up with a purple scrunchie, and rivulets of water cascade down the nape of her neck, dampening the collar of the huge button-up shirt she’s wearing. Tyrell recognizes that shirt. It’s the one Elliot had been wearing that first day they’d met at Allsafe.

“Ugh, finally you’re home. Your dog’s been whining at the door all freakin’ day,” she says, flipping a page. “I need to stay with you for a little while. Got kicked out of the last place I was bumming around at."

Elliot doesn’t appear at all surprised to see her there, nor does he balk at her casual tone. Is this the Darlene he’d mentioned earlier? ...Is she his girlfriend?

She shifts in the chair and turns to face them, her eyes narrowing when she spots Tyrell lurking over Elliot’s shoulder in the doorway. Tyrell can tell he’s being sized up. He glares back at her. Elliot looks between the two of them like he’s watching two growling dogs in a standoff.

“What, I don’t even get an introduction?” She asks.

“Uh,” Elliot mutters, “Tyrell, this is Darlene."

Tyrell smiles, the movement mechanical. “Nice to meet you.”

“Yeah, yeah, all the pleasantries and shit to you, too,” she drawls. 

“You’re Elliot’s…?”

She stares at him blankly, and then grimaces as she gets what he’s asking. “Ew, no. I’m his sister.”

Tyrell relaxes, muscles unclenching. Now that he looks a little closer, though, he sees the resemblance: they have the same sharp jawline, the same bright, blue eyes, the same blunt rudeness. The relation makes sense. 

“Trust me,” she goes on, with a long sigh, “this guy’s dating life is emptier than the electronics section after Black Friday. There’s, like, tumbleweeds blowing through there. And cricket noises.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Elliot says to Tyrell, stepping over the threshold and into the apartment. 

Tyrell drags his eyes away from Elliot’s sister to look back at Elliot, trying to tamp down his resentment. If only she weren’t here, maybe Elliot would have invited him in. “Of course,” he replies with a smile. “See you tomorrow.”

Elliot only responds with a nod as he shuts the door on Tyrell. Through the door, Tyrell can hear them talking, too indistinct to make out. The space between him and Elliot seems unacceptable, and he feels as though he’s been discarded, left behind in favor of better company. 

When Elliot and Tyrell arrive at work the next morning, the lobby is swarming with FBI agents. Elliot freezes, watching as one of the officers handcuffs a man in a charcoal gray suit, his face red and blotchy as he yells at passersby, like they might be able to help him. 

Tyrell rushes up to the scene, asking, “What’s going on?”

“Tyrell Wellick!" The man exclaims. "Oh, thank god. These people are saying I’m under arrest! Please, just tell them it's a misunderstanding. I didn't do anything!”

“Sir,” the agent escorting the man through the lobby says to Tyrell, “please don’t interfere. This is in the Bureau’s hands now.”

“What happened?”

“We received an anonymous tip last night that Mr. McCleery had instructed E Corp’s engineering team to use special software to help your auto manufacturing partner beat the emissions tests. We were sent over five gigabytes of incriminating files, emails, and correspondence. Input from E Corp isn’t necessary at this time, but we’ll be in contact if we need any of your employees to come in for interviews. Now, please, step aside.”

Tyrell blanches. He’d had no idea. Of course, he’d always known E Corp and its management often resorted to illegal or shady means to get ahead. He’d done it himself. But getting caught like this, having E Corp’s dirty laundry come out to air… it’s just sloppy. In fact, it's exactly the sort of thing Elliot had been talking about yesterday.

He turns to look at Elliot, who’s lingering by the doors. Elliot's quiet as he watches Peter McCleery struggle against his handcuffs, his desperate pleas for help going ignored as the FBI agents drag him out of the building and into a cop car waiting by the curb. As he’s unceremoniously shoved into the backseat, McCleery bursts into undignified sobs. There’s a dark gleam in Elliot’s eyes, the same that Tyrell had seen when Elliot had threatened him. Then, Elliot notices him watching, and when he glances back at Tyrell, the look is gone.

Ever since Elliot had threatened him, Tyrell has wondered what it is that holds Elliot back from following through with it. Clearly, if he didn't want to be at E Corp, he could have made good on his promise and framed Tyrell. There must be a reason Elliot wants to be here, beyond fear of Tyrell turning him in. Maybe this is it.

Tyrell corners him in the elevator on their way up to the tech floor. “Elliot, you need to tell me what’s going on.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Elliot, come on. You're obviously up to something. Whatever it is, I need to know. I won’t tell anyone else.”

"Nothing's—"

"Stop lying to me," Tyrell says, though it comes out petulant. He grabs Elliot's wrist, not budging even when Elliot tries to tug away. "Tell me, or I'll have the FBI make two trips here in one day."

The threat is obvious and ham-handed. Never before has Tyrell been glared at so harshly by anyone as by Elliot right now. But snitching on Elliot is all he has, his only leverage... and he's desperate to be included.

Elliot relents, and goes slack in his hold.

"Still don't know what you're talking about," he repeats, but looks pointedly up at the security camera perched in the corner, between where two walls close in on the ceiling.

Tyrell nods in understanding. “Let’s go to my office.”

Just like yesterday, people on the tech floor watch Tyrell and Elliot as they disappear into Tyrell’s office, and a few employees huddle together to whisper amongst themselves at the sight. Elliot doesn’t even seem to notice, but Tyrell does, and irritation buzzes under his skin. He wishes he didn’t have to deal with any of these people at all, that he and Elliot could just be alone. 

Tyrell locks the door to his office behind him. It's quiet, save for the steady whir of the computer fan.

Elliot stares at him, assessing. Probably trying to figure out what Tyrell knows.

"Yesterday, I saw you doing something strange on your work computer. Then today, when that man was getting arrested, you're there smiling," Tyrell says. An exaggeration, to be sure; Elliot never smiles. "I know you hate E Corp. I know you have access to the email servers. I'm not an idiot. You're the anonymous tipper."

Elliot is silent.

"You won't admit it to me?" Tyrell scoffs, offended. “I already know about Colby, and I haven’t said anything.”

“You’ve been blackmailing me with that this whole time. That’s not exactly an endorsement of your trustworthiness.”

Tyrell’s brows furrow. Then he says, quietly, “I wasn’t gonna actually do anything.”

It's been true this whole time. He never had any intention of turning Elliot in. That was just a way to get Elliot here.

“Really? So if I quit right now, if I walk out and never come back, you won’t call the cops on me out of spite?”

“No.”

Elliot narrows his eyes, like he doesn’t believe Tyrell is telling the truth. 

“Please,” Tyrell begs. "I want to know what you're doing."

Elliot's eyes are all over him. Tyrell's cheeks feel hot under the attention. 

Finally, Elliot sighs, then sits down on the couch, pulling his laptop out of his backpack and setting it up on the coffee table.

“Yesterday, I was looking at the traffic on the building’s network. Just got curious, and I was done with my work, so I had nothing better to do. I noticed that someone was accessing Tor through our wireless network. That stuck out to me—who uses Tor at work? So I looked into it,” Elliot explains, pulling up a .zip file. It’s full of screenshots of emails dating back over almost 2 years. “I noticed all of the connection relays to the Tor circuit went back to Peter McCleery’s E Corp account he uses for Wi-Fi authentication. I got into his email, dug around in his deleted messages. Turns out he had the engineers install a defeat device into E Corp’s new diesel car line. Basically, the software can sense when the car is on a stationary test rig, and it switches the car into a lower mode of engine performance, cheating the test. In actuality, the cars produce over 50 times the amount of nitrogen oxide that’s legally allowed.”

Tyrell leans down and reaches out toward the laptop, scrolling through the massive file full of evidence. “You found all of this in one day?”

“More or less. Sent it off to the feds last night.”

It’s dizzying, how quickly Elliot has managed to unravel the threads of this man’s life like a cheap sweater. 

“You’ve done this before, haven’t you?” Tyrell asks.

“I do it all the time,” Elliot shrugs.

“This is… amazing, Elliot. It would take months for anyone, even a lawyer, to gather all this evidence, let alone figure out what was going on in the first place.”

“E Corp will throw their best defense at this. Maybe pay the judge off, if it's worth it. McCleery will probably walk."

Tyrell's eyebrows furrow. “So… why did you do it?”

“Do what?”

“I mean, why did you turn him in? You could have done anything you wanted with this information. Take it to the very top of the chain of command, be E Corp’s own whistleblowing hero, or use it to blackmail Peter McCleery. Why just leave an anonymous tip? What does that do for you?”

Elliot scowls. “It’s not about me. It’s about them. All of the executives who write the same laws they skirt, who abuse and exploit others, who trade in their humanity to feed their bottomless greed, the guys who play God without permission. I want them to know they’re not as powerful as they think they are. I want them to know somebody’s watching. Somebody they can’t buy out or pay off, like they do with the cops and the government.”

Suddenly, all of the pieces of Elliot that Tyrell has been gathering, all of the moments that never made sense all snap together, and it’s like he's finally beginning to really see. This is why Elliot always seems so distant, why he doesn’t bother dressing well or networking with people, why he can’t seem to hold down a job or operate as a member of society. It’s not that Elliot doesn’t get it, or that he doesn’t care. Society disappoints Elliot, it disgusts him. The normal world, the one Tyrell has been living in for so long, is a realm Elliot exists outside of. Maybe that’s why Elliot shuts him out and casts him off. He thinks Tyrell couldn’t possibly understand. He thinks Tyrell is beneath him.

Tyrell looks out the window. When he’d first gotten this promotion, this office, he’d taken it as a symbol of status that he was able to look out over the city. It’s kind of juvenile, but he’d felt a bit like a king looking out over a vast kingdom, seeing all the little people roam through the streets below. It seems like a minute vantage point, though, listening to Elliot. What Elliot described, being able to watch anyone, find out their secrets and exploit them, to look without being seen, to be faceless and yet everywhere—that was true power.  

“I want to help,” Tyrell says.

Elliot looks at him incredulously, “What, really? You? Why?”

“I was wrong about Terry Colby, wasn’t I? You didn’t do that for revenge. It’s something bigger.”

Elliot doesn’t respond. His shoulders tense, like Tyrell is too close to the truth.

“From the moment we first met, I knew there was something between us. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I needed to get you to work with me,” Tyrell says. His hand darts over to grab Elliot’s, who nearly jumps out of his skin at the touch. “I didn’t know it at the time, but I think this was why I felt so drawn to you. Whatever you’re doing… we need to do it together.”

Elliot’s eyes are wide, and Tyrell can feel Elliot’s pulse quickening from where his fingers grasp the thin skin over Elliot’s wrist. Does Elliot still not believe him?

He squeezes Elliot’s hand in between both of his.

“Please, Elliot,” he murmurs. 

Elliot looks uncomfortable, now. His eyes are looking anywhere but Tyrell, and he's rigid, like he's fighting the urge to rip his hand away and tell Tyrell to fuck off.

“Fine,” Elliot says instead.

Tyrell’s heart swells up in his chest, and he can’t contain his massive smile. He practically throws himself at Elliot, clapping an arm over his shoulder. Elliot’s breath is ragged in Tyrell’s ear. Pulling back to look at him, Tyrell says, “I always knew we were destined to do big things together, Elliot.”

Elliot nods shakily, his eyes darting around the room. Belatedly, Tyrell realizes he’s got Elliot pinned to the back of the couch—he’s probably nervous. Still, Elliot doesn’t push him away. 

“There’s others,” Elliot says. His voice is rushed, like he's trying to change the subject. “I made a list last night. All the way up the chain of command, there’s at least 5 other E Corp managers either embezzling, defrauding, or sexually harassing, all through their work emails. Probably more.”

"You’ve been busy.”

“People are easy to find when they’re trying so hard to hide. They’ll be frantic to cover up their tracks now that they’ve seen the FBI in here on their way up to their offices,” Elliot replies. “Do you have a laptop with you? Can’t really use your E Corp computer for this.”

Tyrell swings his briefcase up onto the coffee table with a loud thump, pulling out his laptop. As he’s latching the case shut, he sees Elliot staring at the brand new copy of Moby Dick stuffed into one of the side compartments. Whatever Elliot’s thinking, he doesn’t say it aloud.

“Let’s get started,” Tyrell says as he boots up his machine. Elliot nods.