Page 142 of A World Apart
He groaned. “Tell ya what, why don’t you pick a department to hang out with today. Get some hands-on experience. It’ll be good for you.”
For when I have to update my CV, is what he doesn’t say, but we both know. Honestly, I could probably get away with taking a book down to the storage cave and just chilling out, but call me a glutton for punishment, that’s just not who I am.
“Ok, I’ll hang out with the office today, I’ve been wondering how they do all the marketing crap in-house.” Not strictly untrue. I’d had some thoughts about my blog recently, and Pisces had had some excellent viral marketing lately. Plus, you know, hanging out with Becka didn’t suck.
“You do that, kid. Go with my blessing.”
“Thank you, Godfather.” I saluted, grinning when he groaned.
“Hey babes,” Becka briefly looked up as I walked into her office before going back to typing away at her computer.
“Sup, delinquent.”
She just rolled her eyes at me. This was not the first joke I’d made about public indecency, defacing public property, etc. True to her word though, she had thoroughly cleaned the sofa.
“What do you need?”
“Somewhere to hang out today, Jeremy is starting to admit defeat. I’ve been too good at my job, Pisces is now so thoroughly ordered, tidied and otherwise catalogued into it’s correct place that I’ve made myself redundant.”
“Please, take a seat and welcome to the valley of broken toys,” Becka motioned to the chair opposite. “With AI on the near-horizon, we’ll all be obsolete in a few years anyway.”
“Don’t say that!” One of the other office girls cried, looking up from her own computer.
“I’m kidding, Clara-Beth, we all know the Government will implement labour laws to protect the jobs of office workers before that happens.” Becka said with so much authority I looked at her in surprise. The illusion shattered the moment she rolled her whole face back to look at me, and I had to muffle my sudden giggle as a sneeze.
“Gives me the creeps, that stuff does,” said Clara-Beth. “Machines thinking for themselves.”
“Don’t say it,” Becka muttered, giving me a hard side-eye.
Ignoring Becka, I turned to look across the office, meeting the eyes of the pretty blonde with the ceramic puppy figurines on her desk. “Don’t worry Clara-Beth, ‘The future is not set. There is no fate but what we make for ourselves.’” My face was as dead pan as if I were delivering the news. Clara-Beth nodded, albeit uncertainly, like she knew there was a joke in there somewhere, before she shrugged and turned back to her computer.
“Done, John Connor?” Becka leaned her head over to one side, one eyebrow raised.
“For now,” I grinned.
Despite my sass, I really was interested in the social side of things, so I spent the morning hanging out behind the desks, looking over Becka’s shoulder, mostly, butalso sometimes Celine − once I’d convinced her I wasn’t interested in any kind of espionage.
Then, sometime around midday, just before Becka and I were due to get lunch, Celine got a message on her laptop that made her click her tongue in annoyance.
“Mr Kyle wants one of us to clear out the conference room.” Becka and the other girls in the room groaned.
“God forbid he do it, with his own manly hands,” Becka sighed, pushing back her chair.
“I’ll do it,” I offered, “not like I’m doing anything useful right now.” No one objected, which was fair, but also… ouch.
“Thanks!” Celine trilled, giving me a wide view of her veneers before turning back to her computer.
“Be right back,” I said to Becka as I got up and walked out the office door. The conference was a straight shot down the corridor from the main office, past the corridor on the right that led to Jeremy’s office, the lockers and the tech suites and the elevator on the left. I walked past the tech corridor and the elevator and then the employee lounge on the right, briefly looking in, but it was empty.
I pushed open the door to the conference room, not bothering to check if it was empty before entering.
“Oh-” I pulled up short at seeing one of the chairs occupied. “Sorry, I-” The chair spun round and sat there was Jihoon, who grinned and stood up as he saw me.
“Hey, you.” I grinned as he approached. “I didn’t know if I’d see you before you left."
“I was waiting for you. I just sent you a message.” He reached out to run his hands up my arms, leaving a trail of goosebumps in his wake.
I patted my pockets. “I must have left my phone in the office.” I shrugged, even as I reached for him.
