A Swift Kick in the Asteroids Read online

  Zag glanced about the room, looking for someone who might be able to corroborate the ridiculous scene he had just witnessed. Fletcher hadn’t said more than a few words to the woman, none of which was even close to charming, and yet she was ready to have his babies.

  “What?” asked Fletcher.

  “How did… She just… You didn’t even…”

  Fletcher was evidently fluent in bumbling idiot because he simply shrugged, saying, “What can I say? I’m me.”

  Zagarat threw his arms into the air. Evidently, that was what it came down to. The ‘me’ that was Zagarat just wasn’t the ‘me’ that was Fletcher. And no matter how much me wanted to be like someone like me, me would always be me, which made me head hurt.

  Just then, a far set of doors swished open and a tech entered the lobby. The Somnian looked like a walking advertisement for the Magi Corporation. On his opalescent wrist was a Magi 3600 PCD, studded with metal spikes as if the device doubled as a gauntlet of some kind. He wore Magi T-Shades and had a small deusteel plate on the side of his shorn scalp. The telltale sign of a Magi internal router. The embossed infinity logo was also a dead giveaway. But there was no port for a cable, which meant that it was more than likely Magi’s new wireless router.

  The idea of a wireless router also bothered Zag. Anyone with the slightest hint of tech savvy could hack into your mental processes and possibly rewire your cerebral cortex. At least with a hardline you could jack out and reboot before anything deleterious happened.

  Plus, the wireless connection was slower, so what was the point really?

  The tech strode directly towards Zag. “How the suns did you do that?” he demanded.

  Fletcher tensed. “It was actually quite simple,” said Zagarat. “You use a Deus Comma authorization for your corporate database with a Deus Period firewall atop it. But your subcontractors use a Neeron Exclamation Point authenticator for their internexus.”

  The tech nodded knowingly. “You bombarded Exclamation Point and Comma with so many conflicting queries that the system had to reboot or shut down completely.”

  “It wasn’t enough to compromise your system,” said Zagarat. “But it made my point.”

  “That it did,” said the tech. “Sunning xecs. They think they can save credits by outsourcing all the work to third party companies. But it only makes the work harder for us.”

  “And do they care?” said Zagarat.

  “Are you kidding me?” said the tech, scoffing. “They couldn’t care less. All they care about are numbers in the red and numbers in the black. Nothing more.”

  “And we’re stuck in the middle,” said Zagarat, commiserating with his comrade. He made a fist and held it out at arm’s length. “Chips on a board, man.”

  The tech bumped his fist. “Chips on a board. Follow me. I’ll show you to Geektown.”

  Zagarat followed the tech, Fletcher falling in step beside him.

  “Chips on a board?” asked Fletcher as they walked.

  “It’s a unifying cry in the tech world. The xecs have no respect for us, even though they live and die by our prowess. We’re just circuitry to them, made to do whatever task is required. And if we don’t do our jobs well, they happily toss us out and replace us with a newer model.”

  “Like chips on a board,” said Fletcher. “Gotcha.”

  Zagarat sped up in order to catch up with the tech. “I hope my little stunt back there didn’t get you into any trouble.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” said the tech. “Deus needed a swift kick in the asteroids, anyway. I mean, if the stockholders knew how vulnerable this system actually was, they’d sell their stock,” he snapped his fingers, “like that.”

  “Exactly,” said Zagarat. “That’s why I revamped security on Leranda.”

  “But I bet you didn’t get any credit for it.”

  “Of course not,” said Zag with a sarcastic smile. “That’s what management is for.”

  “My name’s Leevee by the way,” said the tech, pausing to swipe his identcard in a passcard slot. “Callsign AstralStrike448 if you play LLoLL.”

  “Zag,” said Zag. “Callsign Lord Amon RuneSLayer. And who doesn’t?” He looked over his shoulder at Fletcher. “LLoLL stands for Legendary Legends of Legionnaire Lore.”

  “I knew that,” said Fletcher defensively. There was a slight pause. “What is that?”

  “I’ll tell you later,” said Zagarat.

  “And here we are,” said Leevee, opening his arms wide. “Welcome to Geektown.”

  Techs often renamed their corner of the corporate universe, reappropriating a derogatory term and wearing it as a badge of honor. There was Geektown, Nerdgasm, Virgin Wi-Infi, which stood for Virgin Wireless Infidelity. Others called their areas the Dungeon or the War Room; something either menacing or depressing, because a tech’s life was like that sometimes.

  The techs on Leranda actually named their section Dunjin and Dragans, in honor of that popular role playing game whose name cannot be reprinted without expressed written consent.

  Oh, what the hell. Everyone knows what it is.

  Of course that game was called Dunin and Dragass.

  Geektown was large, dark, and filthy as if the cleaning crew either did not know of its existence or were intimidated by the mere sight of it. A sundry selection of plastiglass bottles littered the consoles, running the gamut of manufacturers. There was Percy’s Sudsy Soda, Professor Frounk’s Special Brew, Effie’s Effervescent Effigy, and CWASS, which stood for Carbonated Water and Simple Syrup. Honesty in advertisement for once.

  In between the myriad of bottles were console components in various states of disrepair. Some were covered with dust, while others were covered by foil wrappers and the delicious orts of processed food upon which most techs subsisted.

  Various plastisheet posters lined the walls. There was a brilliant illustration of Syreon, a legionnaire from LLoLL; his golden armor stained with the blood of his many victims. Twenty-four levels worth of victims to be precise. On another poster, there was a white ^ in the middle of an ebon canvas. A tribute to that classic game Hak: an oldie, but goodie where a tech travels through the kingdom of Goristad, fixing computers as he made his way to the tower of Orstad. If you made it all the way to the tower, Princess Kista rewarded you for your bravery by telling everyone in the universe that you were the smartest and most handsome tech ever.

  The game was popular amongst aspiring young techs for obvious reasons.

  The back wall was lined with enormous servers, red lights flashing every few seconds as if the computers were sending tacit messages to each other.

  Coincidentally, this was in fact the case on Terek Nor. The computers there had developed their own artificial intelligence based on the actions of their users. As a result, they spent most of their time complaining about the banalities of a digital life, all the while gossiping about how the new AV-2700 had interfaced with nearly every single terminal in the office and had even infected a few with a particularly virulent virus. The slut.

  “T-ball,” said Leevee as he entered Geektown. “BFW4477789948788999.”

  Two men looked up. One was surely a Lassen, with long ebon hair that reached all the way down to the middle of his back and bronze skin that glistened with gold specks. He wore a t-shirt that said, “Only techs know how to jack into a terminal.” Of course, it only said that when you depressed the button in the middle of his chest.

  While the first man was thin and lanky, the other one was short and rotund. His plump orange face was mottled with small black dots. A desultory side effect of puberty in Corsen males. His slick auburn hair was pulled back, making him look prematurely bald.

  “Wait a minute,” said Fletcher. “You three are the tech department?”

  “Don’t get me started,” said Leevee, shaking his head.

  “We don’t matter,” said Zagarat. “In their minds, we don’t actually make the company any money.”

  “Yeah,” said T-Ball. “We just make all thei
r work possible.”

  “Chips on a board,” said BFW4477789948788999 morosely—who, for the sake of expediency, will now be referred to as BFW.

  “Chips on a board,” the others said in unison.

  “All right,” said Leevee, turning towards Zag. “Where would you like to begin?”

  “I think the main server,” said Zagarat. “I’ll need executive rights to your database and corporate rights to your security.”

  “Figured as much,” said Leevee. “I hope you don’t mind, but I’ll be joining you on your audit. This way I can I see all of our vulnerabilities firsthand.”

  Zagarat smiled. “Bent told you to follow my every move, huh?”

  “Of course not,” said Leevee with sardonic innocence. He then continued as if reciting lines from a script. “You are here from corporate and therefore we trust you implicitly.”

  “That’s what I thought,” said Zagarat, nodding. “So, where can I work?”

  “You can use this terminal over here,” said Leevee.

  “Then let’s get to it.”

  letcher’s head bobbed up and down as he tried to stave off sleep. He was for the most part successful, save for fifteen minutes or so.

  “Don’t interface in there!” exclaimed Fletcher, jerking upright. He looked around the room. All the techs were staring at him. “Sorry. I was just, uh, reviewing company policy.”

  The techs shook their heads and went back to work.

  Blinking the sleep from his eyes, Fletcher stood and walked over to Zag’s terminal. He hovered over Zag’s shoulder, trying to look as though he was actually interested in what Zag was doing. But try as he might, he just couldn’t do it. “So, how’s it going?” he said, yawning.

  “Pretty good,” said Zag, picking at a bag of Captain Oozle’s Bacon Chips. “I think I’ve isolated all their weak points. We should be done fairly soon.”

  “Glad to hear it,” said Fletcher, stretching his arms. “I think I’m gonna go for a little walk. Do you want anything while I’m out?”

  “No!” exclaimed Zagarat. “You never give executive privileges to a Tier 3 employee. Corporate only.” He turned as if Fletcher’s words had only now reached his ears. “Yeah, yeah. No, no. I’m good. I’m good.”

  “All right then. I’ll be back soon.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” said Zagarat, licking his lips as he worked. “Go, go, go.”

  Zag’s eyes darted from side to side as he battled furiously with some unseen digital nemesis. It was like watching a UES documentary about techs. See ze Tech in his naturel habitat. Here, ze normally anxious Tech stands as alpha male, proud and erect, but not in zat way. See how he stalks his prey, slowly, meticulously, but mercilessly. Although the databit does not know it, it shall soon die at his port, az zo many databits have died before it. Now, if only ze Tech possessed such confidence in the rest of iz life, what vonderz could he achieve?

  Fletcher left ze techs… Fletcher left the techs and made his way back to the fortieth floor. Now that Zagarat was nearly done and seemingly safe from danger, it seemed like a good time for a little corporate reconnaissance. And there was no better place for a little corporate reconnaissance than the office break room.

  Although Fletcher had never actually worked in an office before, the mere idea made his stomach churn, he had seen plenty of sitcom vids to know that all employees eventually migrate to the break room in order to vent, gossip, or participate in some whacky hijinks.

  Unfortunately, there was no venting or whacky hijinks going on in this break room, but there was plenty of office gossip. Evidently, but you didn’t hear this from me, Jezz from accounts payable was currently dating Holb in accounts receivable while sleeping with Amos in accounts pending and flirting with Aubrey in accounts billable.

  “I guess there’s no accounting for taste,” said Fletcher, looking around the room. “Am I right? Am I right?”

  But apparently he wasn’t right because all the gossipers quickly, and quite rudely as far as Fletcher was concerned, left the break room without uttering a word.

  Fletcher shook his head. Some people just don’t have a good sense of humor. After all, the joke worked on so many levels. Well, at least two levels and, according to Penualt Qolt, that automatically qualified the joke as pithy.

  Penualt Qolt was Professor Emeritus of Sentient Sociology on Academia, focusing on comedy and its role in sentient societies. After years of research, he determined that there were five distinct levels of comedy. First, there was mundane comedy–a comedic style that was so obvious that there was no need for innate knowledge or fluency of language on the part of the jokee, i.e. slapstick and the like. Next, there was pithy comedy that dealt mostly with puns and wordplay. Third on the list was subversive comedy where the bitter hypocrisies and injustices of the universe were laid bare on the plate of sentient understanding and made palatable by the sweet nectar of humor. Fourth was political humor, which was somewhat of a contentious subject amongst critics. For many, comedy was defined by laughter and political humor tended not to illicit laughs. Most sentients either applauded because they agreed with the political commentary or scowled because the comedian was too stupid to see the truth.

  Either way, sentients rarely laughed.

  And last was gruesome comedy where sentients laughed at the misfortunes of others.

  Qolt tackled all these subjects in his august work, YOU MIGHT LAUGH–a 369,846 word tome analyzing comedy in all its forms. Although many did not know this, Qolt had turned to the world of Academia after an unsuccessful stint as a stand-up comedian. This was reflected in the fact that he spent the first three chapters of his opus explaining why his joke about the Quilar priest and the lame horse was extremely funny. And as all sentients know, nothing makes a joke funnier than describing every aspect of said joke in great detail and then explaining, in rather condescending tones, why you really should be laughing right about now.

  Fletcher ordered two Solian lattes from a vending machine then made his way out to the main office. Since he couldn’t get some dirt on Bent via some harmless eavesdropping, he would just have to get it the old fashioned way. He’d have to charm it out of them.

  He stood at the doorway, scanning the room like a predator searching for a limping gazelle. After all, there was an art to flirting. If this had been a bar or if Fletcher had been feeling particularly amorous, he would have warped directly towards the Somnian secretary over there in the corner. He had always had a weakness for Somnian women. And Bylarian women. And Lerandan women, come to think of it. Oh, and Armedian women weren’t bad either.

  Well, suffice it to say, Fletcher had a weakness for women.

  Unfortunately, this Somnian looked like she enjoyed a little tete-a-tete before allowing anyone to touch her tete-a-tetes, and Fletcher didn’t have time for that. He needed someone who would be instantly smitten by his charm and greatness of being. He needed…

  Fletcher paused when he saw a homely Lassen secretary off in the distance.

  He needed a Lassen gazelle.

  He flashed his best winning smile and approached her. But the minute she saw him, she stood and scurried away. The same happened when Fletcher approached the Bylarian secretary beside her. She stood and left. At least the Somnian secretary didn’t run away. She simply dropped her head when he winked at her, looking around at everything but Fletcher.

  Was it him? Fletcher took a whiff under his armpit. No, his deodorant was working perfectly so that wasn’t it. Could it be that they just didn’t find him attractive?

  Fletcher chuckled. Suns, he could make himself laugh sometimes.

  That left only one other reason. His eyes drifted over to Bent’s office. Augus must have gotten to them and cowed them all into silence.

  Damn it. He had hoped to learn something about Bent from his employees.

  Then, out of the corner of his eye, Fletcher noticed someone who might still be amenable to his charms.

  He placed a cup of coffee on Ms. Xa’s desk. “
Here you go.”

  “For me?” she said, looking up from her console. “You shouldn’t have.”

  “Oh, it’s nothing. Besides, with all the work you do here, I figured it’s about time someone brought you a cup of coffee for once. Secretaries are so underappreciated.”

  “That is so sweet,” she said. “Thank you, Mr. Griffin.”

  “Please,” said Fletcher, placing his hand on his chest. “Call me Fletcher.”

  “Xena,” she said, inclining her head.

  “What a beautiful name. It suits you. Do you mind if I join you?”

  Xena blushed, squirming slightly in her chair. “I really should be working.”

  “Oh, but this is business related.” He placed his hand over his heart. “You have my word.” Fletcher then pouted his lips and blinked his doe-eyes, saying, “Please.”

  Over the years, Fletcher had crafted a corpus of looks for these kinds of situations. There was the Intimidating Brigand, the Arty Dodger, the Idiotic Indigent–which Aurora claimed Fletcher wore with a natural élan, although he didn’t quite understand what she meant by that. In this instance, he affected the Adorable Privateer, which consisted of pouting lips, wide doe-eyes, and an innocent mien, all the while emitting a musk of somber desperation.

  He didn’t know what it was about that look, but women of all races would invariably melt at this affected expression. And there were times, mostly when he was pulling his trousers back up, when Fletcher felt something akin to compunction for having taken advantage of the female sex’s loving nature. This sensation was only akin to compunction because Fletcher had no idea what compunction actually meant. The only thing that made sense to him was that compunction was what he had contracted from Lady Sevah on Oohla Oohla My.

  But she was so worth it. She had the most beautiful…

  Never mind.

  For a moment, it nearly looked like the Adorable Privateer wasn’t going to work on Xena Xa. And then came that look Fletcher knew so well. “Of course,” she said with an acquiescent tap of the chair. “Please have a seat.”