Day Two
The goddamn cottage had a goddamn guest bedroom.
By 1:33 AM, Beth had won enough hands of poker to claim the guest room for the two of them, while the rest of the stunningly-drunk couples had a share the floor in the living room.
“What?” she said, her glorious smile fading at the sight of Raj’s sulk. “What now?”
He shook off his expression, smiled at her as they prepared the bed.
“What? No, nothing. I was just thinking—”
“About your app again?”
“About how bad I suck at poker.”
She eyed him suspiciously, then fluffed the pillows. Raj figured the assumption was the couple that won the bedroom would need the privacy, but he could tell that wasn’t in the cards. He scratched the back of his neck while she undressed, then spoke over his shoulder to her.
“I’ve gotta ask Sam something. You mind?”
“Be my guest,” Beth replied, getting under the covers. “Turn off the light on the way out?”
“Got it,” Raj said.
“Love ya,” she murmured.
“Love you too,” he said, switching off the light and heading back into the living room. Sam and Laura were sprawled on a big leather chair, trading sips from a bottle of scotch. Sam threw his arms wide when he saw Raj approaching.
“Hey, you!” he laughed. “Lucky dog! Out here to gloat s’more? Or are ya tryin’ to steal m’wife f’ra threesome?”
He snickered and slurred some more, until Laura slapped the bottle into his lips and he began suckling like a baby. She smiled at Raj more serenely.
“What’s your up, Raj?”
Even drunk, she made nonsensical things sound reasonable.
“I was wondering…” he began, then leaned closer, whispered so Beth would have no chance of hearing. “I have some email I need to check. Do you have a computer around somewhere?”
She rolled her eyes knowingly, pointed to the back room.
“Help y’rself,” she sighed, and stole the bottle back from Sam. Raj slipped through the door, closed it quietly.
Luckily, they weren’t using Windows, so he was able to SSH into his home machine without much trouble. He opened a port for himself and got a snapshot of his screen, and his mouth dropped open when he realized the damn process was still running!
“What the hell…?” he whispered. “It’s been twenty-four hours!”
He watched as the process tore through files, downloading some, installing others. For a second, he could have sworn he saw Sam’s name flash by, but there was no easy to way check from here.
He rubbed his eyes, yawned, and closed the session. He’d be home by dinner, and then he’d be ready to have some fun. He already knew exactly what his first features would be, and he knew — he just knew — he’d make a fortune on them.
Ten minutes after he crawled into his hard-earned bed, Sam’s computer accepted a connection from an outside source.
The router under the desk stayed brightly lit until morning.