real?"
Maddy grins like she just figured out how to print money in the basement. "I triple-checked the headers. It's real. Cencora is really rolling us out company-wide." She starts giggling, hands flapping, the sound echoing off the glass walls. Jian closes his eyes like he's meditating. "I thought they would drag procurement for months," he says. "This is not how it works."
"Well, it is now," Maddy says. "I guess we just rugpulled the Fortune 500 procurement process."
I don't know what to do with my hands. For a second, I want to hug them. But then I remember I haven't showered since Saturday and my shirt is a relic from undergrad, so I just go for a high-five. Jian returns it like a man being forced to touch a dead fish. Maddy insists on a triple high-five, clapping all our palms together with unnecessary violence. We all sort of collapse into our chairs. The room smells like burnt coffee and the weird, plasticky tang of new office furniture. I look at Maddy. "What's the catch?"
She flips the Thinkpad back around and scrolls. "There's some legalese at the bottom. NDA stuff. They want us to sign a press embargo. And they want us in Philly for a kickoff meeting next week."
Jian frowns. "Philly?"
Maddy nods.