Sharp was used to being the center of attention. He couldn’t even pop into a gas station for a candy bar without being gawked at, photographed, or screamed at. Sometimes the screams were the nice kind that only made his ears bleed as they ascended into dog whistle territory. Other times, the screams had all the comfort of a pyroclastic blast. When neither extreme occurred, there was always whispering and staring. Over time, that sort of behavior became as commonplace for him as Christmas sales in September.
Even for Sharp, though, an entire room of people intensely staring at him without a word was a bit off-putting, not that he was going to let them know that. At first, the babble and murmur of employees at work had greeted him as his approached the office, but once the shake hit the wall, all eyes were on him. Somebody on his left was filming him. Somebody on his right was taking pictures. Three people ahead of him were mashing their fingers on their phones as they consulted each other. They were probably posting updates somewhere, but they would pause to look up and glare his way then return to their typing. Moments like this one caused him to question whether working for his friends was worth the bother.
He stopped in front of a young lad with purple hair trying to hurt Sharp with his power glower. The effect was more like a grumpy puppy with the runs, which improved Sharp’s mood immensely. Sharp began to hum a happy, tuneless ditty while he filed a maintenance report for a critical vanilla shake leakage in his virtua display. The only sound in the room was Sharp’s voice as he dictated his report.
He smiled out over the silent crowd of comptrollers, accountants, assistants, data analysts, and government liaison officers while waiting for Darity to reply to his report. Not a single employee said a word. They all continued to stare at him in unison. He took a few steps to the right and all eyes quietly followed him. He returned to the purple-haired kid, and all eyes followed him back.
This is a joke, right? I’m being punked.
A moment later, a pop-up pane appeared in his virtua screen. Sharp turned his body so that the text pane was layered over purple hair’s face. This made it seem like he was staring down at the kid while he read his friend’s reply. Some might call this petty, and others would definitely call it a grotesque breech of virtua display etiquette, but Sharp saw it as setting the stage for his entertainment.
Get ‘em angry; get ‘em stupid.
He put on his most annoying grin and glanced over Darity’s text.
Darity: I will probably regret asking this, but what on earth is a critical vanilla shake leakage?
Ahaha! She sounds nice and irritated. Let’s keep her in the dark a bit longer.
Sharp took a look around again to get his bearings. The room was filled with cubicles from edge to edge with several windowless offices along the back, as well as a few private offices with a view. There were 3D printers stationed at intervals around the room, alternating with water coolers. Even in this digital age, finances called for paper trails. The printers spit out data drives loaded with quettabytes of info to be handed off to couriers all day long. Sharp wasn’t surprised 3D printers in a high volume office like this one ran into issues. They typically had problems with nozzle clogs, layer misalignment, or network issues, but Sharp wondered if this bunch had merely forgotten how to turn it on.
He didn’t have to search hard to determine which printer was having problems. There was only one printer in the room with two sour-faced employees flanking each side of it. Sharp casually sauntered over, drawing the attention of the room along with him.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
“What seems to be the problem?” he said without looking either of them in the eye. They both had an officious bearing, so he expected one of them to get huffy as he looked over the printer. There in the back, a cursory glance told him what the issue was.
Ah, plain as day…idiots.
“You’re the genius. You figure it out,” said the taller one. She looked down with a snide smile at the other guy who snorted supportively. He reeked of aftershave.
“Yeah, fix it as well as you fixed our investments, Mr. Billionaire.”
“So it’s gonna be like that, huh?”
They sneered in reply, and the room tittered with sycophants snuffling in laughter, though there were a few requests for him to dump their trash scattered about.
“Allllright, then.” Sharp pulled his tablet out of his bag and made a large sweeping movement as he brandished it in the air. Then he brought it close to his face and spoke loudly to the black screen, “Have they plugged the printer in?” He squinted his eyes and screwed his mouth up tightly in mock concentration as he gave the inactive tablet a dramatic shake.
“Oooh, the magic pool ball app says, ‘Not Likely’.” Wiggling his hands as if performing a magic trick, Sharp reached behind the printer and pulled up a heavy binder that had fallen behind. He handed it to the boss and winked at her. It had yanked the power cord out just enough from the outlet to disconnect it. Once he nudged the plug back into place, the printer’s front panel lit up as it began the boot procedure. The managers were stunned.
“All fixed.” Sharp turned around and began walking back through the sea of dumbstruck faces.
“Hey, wait! That’s it?!”
“It was unplugged all this time?”
Sharp smiled to himself as he prepared his incident report. His bots had already filled in the details. He’d have to photograph the shake mess and send that along as well. Before he could select “SEND”, however, a loud, slow clap filled the room. Sharp looked past his virtua screens to see his least favorite person on earth clapping theatrically at the entrance.
Wudgepuck…
Gerald Wudgepuck, CFO of Bloop, Inc., was a dapper man with a manicured beard which was so perfectly styled, he could have lifted it from a fashion doll. He wore an impeccable Italian suit. No wrinkles. No creases. It shined with all the slick of oil as he stood in his platform shoes, filling 5 feet, 4 inches with as much malice as he could muster. This was a guy who hated Sharp more than any other.
Sharp reciprocated the feeling exponentially. He saw Wudgepuck as a Gen Z dinosaur who should have been memed into irrelevance decades ago. He probably took a bit too much pleasure when BitStorm buried Wudgepuck's company. It's possible that dancing on a tombstone with Wudgepuck's face on it, then releasing the clip online, may have been a bit excessive. That one video was played over and over again on news outlets across the world the day Wudgepuck turned the tables. Now Wudgepuck looked across the room with feral glee. Sharp could see the old gears turning in Wudgepuck's head as he calculated how to best use this situation to his advantage.
“This your handiwork, wiseguy?” Wudgepuck slid his eyes sideways at the aftermath of a shake’s dance with a solid object.
“No, I usually drink my shakes, not decorate with them.” Sharp saved his report with a flick of his eyes, then shuffled all screens to the back. He’d need full focus to deal with his former competitor as he moved towards the elevators.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“I’m all done here. I just filed the report, and now I'm reporting back to IT.”
Wudgepuck looked past Sharp at the printer in the back of the room. It was already printing data drives under the supervision of the two managers.
“Sloppy work as usual from a low-life hack” Wudgepuck now turned to face Sharp. His beady, black eyes unnerved Sharp because they never seemed to reflect back any light. “Go back there and do a full diagnostic on the printer. Check the nozzles. Check the output. Make sure it works safe and secure on the network.”
“Secure?”
“Of course. Then write it all up. I’ll be checking with Darity in the morning to make sure you’re doing your job. You aren’t worth what we pay you. Keep it up, and I’ll have your hide soon.” Sharp could practically smell the malice off of Wudgepuck like roadkill baking in the hot Utah sun.
“Safe and secure… Okeh, boss.” Sharp said the words with his own share of malice, but he turned around without saying anything further. As he moved back in the direction of the printer, he caught the eyes of the kid with purple hair. Whatever the kid saw in Sharp’s face terrified him.