Twice Over

Chapter Seventy Five- Altercation

altercation
noun
1. a noisy argument or disagreement, especially in public

After everyone had signed off, Grant, Patricia and I ate the snacks and toasted using cups of coffee that had been served. Then a notification came.

DING!

An email arrived from one of the distribution platforms and I worried that there was something wrong with the app. Opening the email I found a 'Congratulations, your app has successfully publishing on our distribution platform.'

"Ahhhh!" I screamed.

"What? What's wrong?" Grant asked in a panic.

"Nothing! It was launched! Its live now on one of the platforms!" I called back. Then it was a scramble for both Grant and I to look it up on our phones then purchase and download the programme.

"Yes!" I called out as it finished downloading.

"Yus!" Grant followed suit. Then we both sat down and went through the whole app, registering as new users, changing settings, and basically trying to find any faults with the sleek programme.

"It looks really good." Patricia said as she watched over my shoulder.

"Yes, but does it work?"

"We need to take a photo of a painting or artwork or antique." We all looked at each other and smiled. Wallace's mansion was loaded with expensive paintings and artwork.

"I'll go to my room and use the painting on my wall. What don't you take a photo of a vase from the foyer?" I suggested.

"That broke last night, remember?" Grant replied as we moved through the lounge.

"It was replaced. I don't think Wallace would replace it with a fake. Don't forget to take a photo of the bottom as well."

We scrambled around the house taking photos of various objects and paintings then uploaded them onto the new Antiques and Arts App.

"It works! Oh my gawd! Wallace has a Picasso from 1932!" I squealed. We were in a sitting room on the second floor.

"Are you kidding me?" Grant used the same voice as I used, a little excited and a lot freaked out.

"OK, maybe using Wallace's paintings is a bad idea."

"Stuff-a-duck! It was sold eighty three million a number of years back." We all looked up at the cubism painting that hung in an upstairs lounge room. Then all took a step away from said painting and quickly moved out of the room.

"Why the heck does he have it hanging on the wall like that?"

"It has cameras and pressure plates and a few other volatile measures for keeping it safe, including a fully kitted out security team. Alsom no one knows it exists in this estate." Mr Denault stepped out from behind us, giving all three of us a fright. He stood there, hands held together before him, wearing a security guard uniform, complete with radio thingy in his ear and what looked like a stun gun on his hip.

"Ahhh..." I held up my phone and shook it. "Just trying out the new app. Sorry. I'll get my IT guy to remove it from the database." Denault's face was still looking at us sternly.

"Mr Overmeyer owns the servers so security is tight." Patricia calmly said then moved away from the room with the Picasso in it and down the stairs. We followed her down.

"Woah, I can't believe that." Grant quietly said.

"Yeah. I'll have to get Freddy to... Nope. I'll do it myself. I'll have it removed from the database now." I went back to my laptop in the entertainment room and pulled up the server database that held client information including images etc. I deleted the appropriate photos and data and signed off.