Chapter Eleven

“Cole,” George Smith called.

Coke turned his head to the source of the voice. “Senior…” He said with a smile that stopped short on his face when he saw the man who accompanied George. The man had a domineering presence that was hard to ignore. Even though Cole hadn’t met him for a few years, he recognized him immediately. It was…. Andrew.

Trailing behind him was his assistant, Liam whom he just met a few days ago. Andrew gave the gangly teen a once over. He felt the teen looked fairly familiar. Their path only crossed once, which was once during his wedding to Caroline. Cole had grown in the past few years so it was natural Andrew couldn’t identify him instantly. Liam, however, recognized him with just a glance.

Goerge approached Cole, laughing as he said, “Your timing is impeccable as always.”

Cole ignored Andrew and focused on George. “Senior, thank you so much for your help. I couldn’t find anything better out there so I have to borrow from your private library.”

George replied, “I would have lent you some sooner if you had just asked, but I have to say, I don’t think you will be needing these reading materials any time soon.”

The books were indeed far too advanced for Cole’s current level. Cole knew he had to come clean so he said, “It’s actually not for me but my friend. She is so good that she has no eyes for anything less than the best.”

A shocked George replied, “Who is this friend of yours? Is it the same person who wrote the mini game?”

“Yes, that’s the one….”

“Who is this person? You have to introduce her to me one day,” George said. He was interested in this friend’s mysterious identity.

Cole nodded and said, “She’s a bit caught up with life at the moment. I will be sure to make the introduction when the opportunity presents itself.”

“Alright, I’ll hold you to your promise. Here’s the books you wanted. Return them to me when she’s done with them.” George said as he passed the bag he held in his hand to Cole.

“Thank you senior. I’ll be leaving now…” Cole accepted the bag and left in a hurry.

“Cole, wait…” George called after him but he was already gone. He wanted to introduce him to Andrew. George said rather indignantly, “Youngsters these days are always rushing somewhere. Can’t he recognize the famous CEO Andrew?”

Andrew asked nonchalantly, “Who is that guy?”

“That’s my junior from school, he’s a good person and quite a talent. I intend to let him join our company because I can see he will be a valuable asset after some training.

“He looks awfully familiar.”

Liam took the break in their conversation to cough lightly and whisper to Andrew, “CEO Andrew, that’s Cole.”

“Cole?” Andrew mulled over the name that he heard once before.

“He’s Miss Caroline’s cousin.”

Everything clicked instantly. It was truly an incredible coincidence. George overheard their conversation so he asked, “Who is Miss Caroline? And how do you know Cole?”

“I suppose you can say that we are somewhat related, but I didn’t expect the two of you to know each other as well.”

George knew where to draw the line so he concluded, “It is indeed a small world. Those books happened to be chosen by you as well.”

“What I did was merely pull a few titles off your shelf,” Andrew said and shrugged, but he was indeed curious who the books were for. Those were some of the difficult books in George’s collection. One could say he was a bit irritated when he did the selection. He originally went to look for George, but the latter said he needed some time to wrap up a project so he left him with a request while George went on to finish his work. “Since CEO Andrew is so well read, I’m sure my inquisitive junior could benefit a lot from CEO Andrew’s careful selection,” were his exact words.

This old friend of his was never shy when it came to ordering him around. As payback, he picked the most difficult titles he could find… George was afraid that Cole wouldn’t be able to understand these books, but Cole himself specifically mentioned that he needed the most difficult titles he had. George was surprised that Cole had improved so much in such a short period of time. He had no idea he was borrowing them for someone else.

“You heard the conversation I had with him, right? The books are for that friend of his,” George told Andrew.

Andrew nodded as he replied, “The person who you mentioned that has the perfect coding skill?”

“Indeed, it was only for a mini game, but you could see the programmer’s proficiency. You yourself have seen it, is it not one of the finest works you’ve seen?”

“You’re right, but it’s just a few lines of code. You might be overestimating the programmer, there is much more to programming than code-writing,” Andrew offered, “In any case, I’ll leave the security system upgrade in your hands. Do finish it before the Hacker Competition.”

“Don’t worry, that’s our specialty. I will work overtime to ensure that the system is upgraded before the competition.” George said seriously. Andrew nodded before leaving.

George hurried back to work. He foresaw many sleepless nights in the future because even though a system update sounded simple on paper, it was actually quite complicated. This was because the new system was developed with the aim to withstand deliberate hacking attacks. That was the crux of the Hacker Competition and he’d heard that the hackers involved this year were better than the ones from the year before.

Competition in the online business had gotten increasingly severe in recent years. Every company tried its best to put up the best defense software because failure could spell the beginning of the company’s demise. George had to ensure he helped Andrew’s company survive until the end of the Hacker Competition to preserve his company’s name. After all, the company was a joint business venture between Smith Family and Pierce Family.