Episode 39

The device in Sharp’s hand was thin and black with squishy, rubbery buttons on it. It fit easily in his grip as he waved it around and pushed buttons while pointing in front of him. Even his sensors couldn’t detect any activity coming from the device. It seemed to be functionally dead.

“Ow!” Sharp noticed Cattleya was standing beside him again and knocking her horns gently into his head. “What are you doing?”

“How can you be this thick-skulled!?” Cattleya said with a huff. Sharp had heard of nostrils flaring, but this was his first time seeing them in person.

“What? Were you trying to crush my skull?”

“Never you mind, you ninny.”

“I don’t…Look, can you stop bugging me? I want to finish scanning this.”

“Yes, yes. By all means, scan the bugs.”

“Right. Oookay.”

Sharp turned back to the device. At the top, there was a red circular button surrounded by two buttons that formed a half ring around it. Underneath the central button, six orange buttons, but in a rectangular grid with a groove in the center dividing them in half. The top four were transparent and perpendicular to the groove. The bottom two were also orange, but oval and shorter than the others. All the buttons seemed to be made of the same solid, but squishy, material. Sharp couldn’t understand what design purpose the layout served.

Over all, the device gave the impression of being an old remote control, except at the bottom of the device there was a panel using the identical instantly changing high tech text that the Deck of Places had.

Sharp suddenly noticed that he was being proded by something soft. He looked down to find Cattleya’s tail daintily poking at his side while she looked up at the ceiling innocently.

“Will you stop it? I’m trying to work here!”

Cattleya’s innocent face became another scowl.

“Is your heart as stubborn as your head?” she snapped.

“What is going on with you? You’ve been acting weird since I was coerced into describing how you smell.”

“Coerced?! How rude!” She walked towards the portal with an angry pout.

Sharp spent a moment staring at her with an open look of incredulity on his face. He noticed that Isabelle, Phoebe, and that other girl he hadn’t been introduced to yet were all having a laugh at his expense. Apple was up at the observation window, too, but she was glaring at him.

I am woefully unequipped to decode this situation.

Sharp turned back to the device as he gathered up the threads of his frayed attention. Each button caused a new readout on the panel, but he couldn’t figure out how it was powered—if it was powered—nor could he tell what purpose the device had. Whatever it worked with was likely somewhere in the grass on that other world. Giving up for the moment, he put it in his pocket and looked over at Cattleya who was stealing looks his way while pretending to not be interested.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Why is she playing coy with me? Does she want something from me? I need to smooth things over, or I’ll never be able to concentrate.

“Is there something you need from me?” he asked.

Cattleya’s features softened as she breathed out loudly through her nose, then composed herself.

“You haven’t told me about this AR technology yet.” Cattleya held the goggles in her hand and waved them for emphasis. “There is a lot that I don’t know about this world, your customs…you. Since we are stuck here together, I’d like to get caught up to speed.”

“Sharp,” interrupted Isabelle. “We really need access to the WMD lab again so we can analyze data, too. Also, Fauna here needs to collaborate with you since she’s in charge of data and records management. We’d like to include your observations the reports.”

The girl in question slowly nodded her head at him and smiled closed-mouthed from the other side of the observation glass. She had a languid manner about her, which Sharp thought gave her the perfect temperament for her job. There was a lot Sharp wanted to keep from them, but he couldn’t horde the information about their own experiment. His gambit for now was to claim authority over everything that happened at the portal and beyond, but if he bided his time, he might be able to help them while learning how the portal worked and escape the lab.

“Right. Now’s a good time to do that.” Then turning to Cattleya, “You have questions, right? Ask them while I repair the network. Just don’t get in my way.”

Sharp ignored her shocked reaction and turned to the wormbox generator. He began estimating the work involved to get it up and running again. He’d have to consult with somebody about repairing the wormhole aspect of the device, but getting the OS and network running would be the easy part, even though the massive cable between the wormbox and the generator was likely damaged.

“Isabelle” he shouted out while crouching by the CPU tower underneath the wormbox. “I need permission to access everybody’s computers to get the network up and running again.”

“Permission granted”

“Hey! I don’t want him hacking my workstation!” Syd and his crew began to voice complaints. Sharp noted that Apple and a few other technicians who weren’t usually in his crew complained with them.

Interesting. Maybe one of them is culprit.

“Afraid I’ll find your stash of loli manga?” Sharp quipped.

“You’re a riot. I’d like to come down there and show you how funny I think you are.”

“Hey, knock it off you two,” Isabelle intervened. “I don’t even want to know what ‘loli manga’ is. Keep it clean and civil.”

“Sorry, Isabelle. That was a low blow. I should have said ‘shota manga’.” Syd began to rush the window, but his crew held him back.

“Sharp, I don’t need to know what that is to know it’s worse than the first one. If you’re management, you should act like it.”

For a moment, Sharp had nothing to say. He was so used to using his mouth to retaliate against people like Syd that he had forgotten to put his boss hat on.

I can’t act like a snarky grunt anymore. Dang. That sounds all sorts of boring, and it’s my own fault.

“Alright. I hear you. All I’ll be doing on their workstations is verifying network settings. They’re welcome to watch. In fact, I insist.”

Given the choice between fighting for his life and repairing a network, Sharp knew which he should prefer, but he was surprised that now he’d have to do both. He knew he’d have to act fast before the portal opened up to a hostile environment.

Why hasn’t anybody noticed I can connect to the internet even though their network is down? I should be grateful they’re too distracted. I don’t want to explain to anybody yet how I’ve harnessed quantum entanglement in an apparatus small enough to fit inside my car.

His ad hoc network functioned before because he had drones extending the network wirelessly down the hallway and connecting to the Bloop, Inc. campus-wide network through the elevator shaft repeaters, but for some reason, they were now cut off. Sharp guessed that the biohazard shielding must have run along the walls in the hallway, cutting off radio signals. If he couldn’t reach his drones, then how was he to setup a new network connection without revealing his unpatented, proprietary technology?