"What's on your mind, Carl?" Gab said. She sat up a little straighter in her chair and looked down at him.
Carl blinked in confusion. What… He looked across the table again. How is she taller than me? A sense of disorientation settled over him, and he suddenly felt as though he was back in fourth grade with Mrs. Rosencrantz looming over him at her desk while she asked where he'd copied his very technical, detail-oriented report on fishing tackle from—though obviously he hadn't copied it, he'd just written it from his existing, comprehensive knowledge gained from regularly going fishing with his dad.
"Uh," he said, his mind trying to cope with the unfamiliar situation. "Just thinking I'm not really sold on this test thing, I guess, since all these types of mind games are a bad way to start building trust," he said, moments later realizing what he was too-bluntly saying to his new boss and deeply regretting that he'd obviously just been hit by the devastating, high-level manager combo of Seated Loom to a What's On Your Mind? finisher, which was guaranteed to inflict the Confusion and Blabbermouth status ailments with durations based on class level.
It was a combo that he himself had only managed to successfully use on a single occasion due to the difficulty in timing.
Gab nodded as though she'd expected him to say that, seemingly unaffected by the strain that using such a high-level finisher technique always brought him in his attempts. "Understandable. It's much easier—in a certain sense—for me to earn your trust than it is the other way around though, especially when we talk about the time needed to do so. It's always tough to trust a new boss, isn't it? So that was always going to be a challenge for me."
She kinda reminds me of Vol. Just so direct about everything. "And you think being more…let's say open about things now is going to help that along?" Carl took another sip of water.
"Nah." Gab waved a hand and pulled out a small folding tablet from the pocket of her slacks. "I told you, Carl, I don't believe in wasting time. You put in your time doing the work that I asked you to do, so I put in time doing the work I imagined you'd be doing to compensate. I find it always helps to put myself in the shoes of my managers or directors for a little while, just to see what they're dealing with." She tapped the tablet a few times, then spun it around and pushed it across the table.
Carl stopped it with one hand and looked down. A table of numbers was shown on it, with timestamps in one column, IPv4 addresses in another, and a different number in the last column, with one row at the top having an absolutely massive value. "What's this?"
"Well, I was talking to some of the other department heads and execs yesterday, trying to get a handle on the more people-related issues we might be facing, and I kept hearing grumbling about how annoying the network has been early Thursday afternoons," Gab said. "I've seen you're a bit short-handed, so I imagined this was probably a longstanding thing on one of your task lists that you hadn't gotten around to. Did some poking around as part of my own network traffic analyses—had some fun with that since it's been a while—and it looks like that's our guy."
Carl stared down at the tablet again, now rubbing his beard with increasing speed. "Where'd you get this from? I checked all the logs—"
"But did you check the logs from the network switches, sorted by combined transmit and receive?" Gab asked.
Carl's hand moved up to his forehead, and he leaned back into his chair, also tipping his head back as he let out a breath. Obviously I should've checked that first! Only core hardware on the network that I personally installed and configured from scratch, so there's not gonna be anything crazy happening with log tampering. Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
"That one IP with the huge number is shooting out a crazy amount of packets," Gab said, unaware of or politely ignoring the fact that he was currently suffering infinity points of self-inflicted regret damage. "Probably a good starting point when you decide to tackle that issue. Otherwise it seemed like everything was running about as well as it could, and nobody had any real complaints. Nice work."
Carl returned his weary gaze back to the tablet in front of him. "Can you mail me—"
"Already in your inbox," Gab said, reaching over to retrieve her company-issued tablet. "Now, let's get to the real work we need to talk about…"
He didn't want to admit it after how the lunch meeting had started out, not to mention how annoyed he'd been to find out the entire network organization discussion had been a test, but the more he thought about it, the more he was coming to the conclusion Gab might actually be the perfect boss.
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
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Carl fell into his chair in his office. Alright, I'll admit it, I was wrong. Gab's gonna be a big help all over. Just knocked so many meetings out of my schedule… I didn't even realize I was going to that many meetings. They all kinda blended together.
He turned to his main keyboard, feeling a certain sense of rejuvenation at the thought that he'd have so much more time to be doing productive work. Time to get back to it. Gonna finally fig—
A text message notification with a special icon appeared in the display of his glasses.
Annie: Come home early. Sooner is better.
Carl frowned. That's kinda out of character. Barely after one in the afternoon. How's… She's home already? Don't remember hearing anything about today being a half day. He eyed his computer monitors. Well, I guess I was thinking about going home earlier anyway, and I can do most of this from home over the VPN. Just gonna shoot Gab and the team a quick mail saying I'm heading home for a family thing… And a reply to Annie saying I'm on my way… And cue my car to start driving over, and now I'm all set.
The Director of IT for Fire Entertainment grabbed his corporate laptop and coffee mug on his way out, depositing the latter into the dishwasher in the nearby break room as he did every day. He decided to take the stairs down to the lobby and spent a couple minutes chatting with John about kids and grandkids even though the timer on his glasses display which showed his car's approach had long since expired.
He settled into his car a short while later and set his laptop bag on the seat beside him. Right, gotta make sure I pick up stuff for dinner. Did I… He spent a moment checking since he didn't remember this specific detail, but it seemed that his past self had accounted for the need to visit the grocery… Actually, I'll just get it delivered. Not really in the mood for that. Just change the route and cut out that stop…
His car started off, though it wasn't like it was going to be making any kind of fast progress with how much of a freaking disaster the roads were—but then again, it wasn't rush hour, at least, so they weren't nearly as bad as they might have been if he was leaving later, which was something he could appreciate. As it drove, he checked through the grocery ordering app on his phone. Let's see, what was I gonna…
Carl rubbed his beard for a few seconds while he remembered what he'd been planning to make. Yup, must've been Annie's favorite. Can't wait to see her. So that means I need chicken, some Parmesan, a little Mozzarella, some tomatoes, green beans, and potatoes. He hesitated, feeling like he was forgetting something. Then he added a tub of his—and Sammy's—favorite brand of Rocky Road ice cream, pressed the checkout button, and his grocery shopping was done, with the bounty to be delivered by drone in a couple hours. Still not quite as convenient as the game's inventory, but pretty close.
What else was I… Oh yeah. He began reading up on learner's permits. It had been a long time since he'd had one, and he wanted to make sure he was up to date on everything relating to them when Sammy came home. The process took more time than he'd thought since so much had changed at the bureaucratic level, but he still wasn't home yet when he finished.
Feels like I'm forgetting something that I needed to make time to look into. He thought about it. He scratched his beard. He leaned against the door. He scratched his beard while leaning against the door. He leaned against the door while scratching his beard. Nope, doesn't seem like I—Oh yeah! I was gonna try mailing Tim. And I guess I should try Max too. Alec…not sure I've got enough energy to talk to him right now. Ugh, what am I even gonna say? Guess I'll just go with something normal-sounding…
He let out a sigh after the mails were sent. Shouldn't feel this hard to just talk to friends again after so many years. Not like anything bad happened. We just kinda drifted apart as we got busier.
His car pulled into his driveway and activated the garage opener, then drove into his bay.
Huh, Annie really is home. Rebecca's not though, which is pretty nice. Made good time on that drive too. Just over an hour. He shouldered his laptop bag and got out of his car, walking past Annie's car to the door into the house. Wonder what's up. He pulled open the door. "Hey, I'm back," he called.
Annie's head appeared around the corner from the den, and then she walked quickly over towards him, a relieved smile on her face and looking even more beautiful than he remembered. "I missed you so much," she said quietly, just before she draped her hands over his shoulders and tilted her head up with her lips puckered.
Carl leaned down and wrapped his arms around her, meeting her lips with his. Their kiss—which was more like a series of kisses—lasted longer than their usual welcome home kisses. Much longer. After at least a minute or two, Annie leaned her head against his chest. "I missed you too," he said, squeezing her tightly.
He hadn't even fully realized how much he'd missed her until this moment. It felt like a nagging sensation of something missing from his life had finally been silenced, and his thoughts even felt a little clearer.
"Carl, we need to talk," Annie said. "It's… I know we always talk about big things before we make decisions, but I… I had to do this." She grabbed his hand and tugged him forward.
"Er, what?" Carl wasn't at all sure what was going on. He walked after his wife to the den, still slightly dazed from the dueling sensations of the memory of the great kiss they'd just shared and his re…
His…
He, uh…
"Hello, Carl," Mina said as she waved shyly from the couch, wearing a pair of sweat pants and one of Sammy's hoodies.