23 - We Have Always Worked in the Office (1)

Another morning in Parallax City.

I leave my apartment, dressed for work. The same fitted blazer I always wear. Laptop bag strapped to my back.

I walk to the station, and board a crowded train packed with the same faces I see every day on my commute. It's funny how we've all been sharing in this same routine for years, yet I don't even know their names.

No place to sit, as usual. I stand for the entire ride. Eight stops to my office. I know where everyone gets off by now. Like clockwork. Same old, same old. I watch the buildings pass by. The train in the opposite direction zooms past us. Blurry faces, too fast to make out. My own reflection static among them.

I get off at Plaza Station.

I tap my card, leave the station gates. Fresh, morning air. It's a nice day out.

Before me looms Parallax Plaza. I crane my head to take in the sheer size of the skyscraper.

My place of employment. Where I make very valuable and important contributions to the economy and society at large. (… That was sarcasm, in case you couldn't tell.)

Sometimes, it feels like I'm going to die here.

… Other times, I know it.

As I approach the front entrance, I see Alex. He nods at me. I nod back.

"How was your weekend?" he asks.

In lieu of a proper answer, I shrug.

"Yeah," he says. "Same."

We both scan our badges as we enter the revolving glass doors of the Plaza.

"… I still don't get why you have to put your badge in a ziplock bag," I say to him.

"It's so I can easily fish it out of my bag, without needing to look inside," he explains.

"Why don't you just wear it on a lanyard, like a non-insane person?"

"What are you, my mother?"

"Hey, I'll be anything you want for the right price."

Alex is a coworker of mine. We're on the same team. Team Project. If I remember correctly, he was one of the first Project members—back then it was just the two of us. We joke around a lot. We have the same weird sense of humor. He really likes retro games and visual novels. Me, not so much. But we both watch a lot of the same anime, so it's all good. … Plus, we're both really sick of isekai.

We take the elevator, and get off at our department floor.

The receptionist, Moeka, greets us.

"Good morning, Alex! Good morning, Mr Odd-kun!"

We both greet Moeka, who's too short to actually see behind her counter desk. We can only ever see just the top of her head. They honestly oughta just give her a step stool or something already. … Damn budget cuts.

As Alex and I head to our cubicles, I ask him: "Hey … Isn't it kinda weird that they hired a child to be our receptionist?"

Alex looks blankly at me. "What do you mean?"

"I mean—children don't usually work in offices, right? Don't they usually have school or something?"

Alex frowns, scratches his head. "I … guess."

"There gotta be child labor laws or something preventing them from doing 9 to 5 day jobs like this."

"I dunno, man. You're thinking too much. Let's stop talking about this. It's kinda making my brain hurt."

I didn't want to admit it, but it's hurting my head too.

So I stop thinking about it.

We settle into our cubes.

I sit down, and log in.

As the desktop boots up, I'm already exhausted.

I want to go home.

… And it's literally only the first minute of a fresh workweek.

I sigh.

*

Our other Project team member, Valerie, shows up almost two hours late to work.

We smell her before we see her.

"Seriously—how come HR hasn't given her a talk yet?" Alex whispers to me.

"About being late, or about her hygiene?"

"… Both."

"Talking about me, boys?" says Valerie, as she sits down. "I'm flattered."

"… You shouldn't be," says Alex. "You really, really shouldn't be."

Valerie was the next Project member to join Alex and me.

Aside from the smell, she's alright. Apparently she draws a lot in her spare time, and makes quite a bit of money on the side.

Maybe that's why she can stroll in so late—it's not like she needs this job.

"Where's Addy?" asks Valerie. "Stand-up's in ten minutes."

"She's been in meetings all day," I say. "Back-to-back. Haven't seen her at all today."

"Oooh," teases Valerie. "So you've been checking her calendar, have ya? Sounds like we've got a stalker. Should I report you to HR?"

I raise a palm in exasperation. "You asked."

Alex jumps at the opportunity to pile on me. "I bet you're just dying to attend stand-up, aren't you? Finally getting to see Addy-chan after an entire weekend?"

"Guys, come on …" I groan, sinking into my chair.

"Ha! His face is turning red!"

"Hold on, let me get a picture. This is gold!"

The two of them have their stupid fun for a while longer, until finally, we hear another voice from behind us.

"Morning, all!"

We all turn around.

Our newest Project member, Addy. Laptop in hand. Smiling innocently. Her tail swishing back and forth. Her fuzzy ears perked up. "My, you're a lively bunch today. Good weekend, I take it?"

"Meh," answers Valerie, on behalf of the trio. "Can't complain."

"Super! … So, ready for stand-up?" she asks.

"You betcha!"

And then the four of us all head over to the meeting room, Alex and Valerie walking ahead together.

I lag behind next to Addy.

"How was your weekend, Odd-kun? Do anything fun?"

"Eh … Not really."

"That's what you say every week!" she laughs.

"It's true every week."

"Surely you must have some hobbies."

I stroke my chin, pretend to think real hard. "… Does lying around in bed count as a hobby?"

Addy's the newest Project member, who joined us only a few weeks ago.

She's actually a contractor, whereas Alex, Valerie and I are full-time.

… In plain language, it means she gets paid the big bucks, since she directly bills for her time, knowlege, as well as any other expenses.

It also means that Mr Executive, somewhere up on the top floor, is unhappy with the slow progress on the Project to date, and hopes to accelerate things by bringing in the, quote-unquote, 'big guns', so to speak.

(Uh, no pun intended there, of course. … No, seriously. I would get seriously reprimanded by HR for that one.)

As for whether or not Addy has actually gotten us any closer to the finish line—

Well … It's complicated.

You see, Addy seems to have an uncanny ability to attract the worst luck imaginable. Or the most inconvenient luck, at any rate.

One time her laptop's battery started smoking, and caught fire, deleting all the business requirements she had just spent an all-nighter writing. (And the cloud backup just happened to fail at the same time. … Still, at least nobody got harmed—we acted quick to put out the fire.)

Another time, a stray cosmic ray from the sun just happened to flip a couple of bits in her email the moment she sent it off, turning an innocuous request for clarifications into a lethal injection exploit that brought down the entire corporate backend mainframe and erased all the tape backups. (Or at least that's the explanation from the tech guys. I don't really get it myself. … All I know is that half the sys admin team quit over this.)

And that's not counting all the comparatively minor stuff, like Addy constantly tripping around the office, or spilling her coffee everywhere.

… Actually, now that I think about it—it's actually not 'complicated' at all.

No, the unfortunate, simple truth is, Addy has slowed down progress of the Project even more.

… But it's hard to get angry at her. It's not really her fault. She just seems to attract this weird stuff that's completely out of her control.

All we can really do is shrug, and try to recover as best as we can.

… Ah, whatever. It's an organizational issue. That's up to middle management to sort out.

We—the Project team—just do what we're told.

Deadlines? Resourcing? Not my mess to clean up.

That's above my pay grade.

We enter the meeting room, just in time for daily stand-up.