I’m back at Eden Enterprises.
After my major screw up that no one has deigned to talk about (I suspect Luke hushed it up), I took a break and tried to figure out where I went wrong.
Some possible causes:
1. Newbie at work – I seriously thought I could go through all those tickets in a matter of an hour without making a mistake. Hence, made a mistake.
2. Hangry employee – I was hungry. People make mistakes when hungry. Hence, made a mistake.
3. Overconfident veteran – I was overconfident in my abilities as a WOE veteran. Hence, made a mistake.
Or all of the above.
Anyway,
I never figured out what happened to Mahmed. Rumor has it that he spent several days and nights in his pod, and then he was finally hauled off to the hospital, unconscious. Some say it was overwork, working overtime on tickets that didn’t need to be resolved until the next day. Which doesn’t make sense, because the whole point of being a software engineer is that you get paid a lot to work reasonable hours.
Call me a hypocrite however. I’d rather work overtime on interesting shit and get shit done than walk away from a mediocre day of work.
I still haven’t told Bruce about the mistake I made. I figured I’ll just bury the hatchet, because I didn’t want to get fired the second week I’m on the job. I know the honest ethical choice would be to come clean about my mistake, but since when is Buffy ever honest?
And to be honest, I’m too busy trying NOT to think about what happened Friday night.
I don’t get it. I really don’t. The expected calculation doesn’t match the actual outcome. A maxim I live by, or a limiting belief I hold, is that:
Guys don’t like Buffy, that way. As in romantically.
They just don’t. I’m not that attractive. I wear unisex clothes that only come in one shade of black. I don’t wear make up. I sometimes wear contacts on special occasions, but most of the time I wear my heavy duty black framed glasses to work and school.
Xan offered to give me a makeover many times, but I always declined every time. This isn’t the time to look pretty and get a boyfriend, this is a time to work and get into a good college.
Or so my mom says. Every day. When she bothers to talk to me the rare instances she and I are home at the same time.
I had a better relationship with my dad than my mom, growing up. He was the one who taught me how to program, how to build spaceships and castles from legos. The first game I ever programmed was Tetris, which was old school enough for my old school dad. He used to joke that the first word I spoke was “sudo”, which is pseudo for “master” in Linux.
“Better sudo, than Daddy, Buffy!” Dad would chuckle to himself. He said Mom wasn’t pleased with my choice of first word.
“Repeat after me, Buffy. You are my master.”
Dad took jokes a bit too far at times.
“Give me some space, Dad.” I would say back.
I shouldn’t have said that so often. Now my dad’s lost in space and I don’t know when I’ll ever see him again.
“Earth to Buffy. Attention, cadet Buffy!”
I jolt back to attention as Luke waves his hand in front of my face. He’s wearing one of those weird prosthetic arms and his fingers literally glow in front of my eyes as his arm rotates.
Why is he wearing that?
Luke has officially gone off the deep end.
I once held so much respect for you, Luke. But rotating your hand in front of me just obliterated my feelings for you.
Somehow though? I like him more this way. He feels more like an actual person now.
“What is it?” I try not to yawn in front of him. I spent my weekend trying to figure out how to undo my bug at home, which includes working Saturdays and Sundays and even Monday mornings before school.
All-weekender.
Trying to forget the disaster of the party I went to Friday night.
And the anomalous act of sin that followed.
I push that memory back and the surge of emotion that’s surfing up. Putting a bin on it.
“We figured out the problem.”
I widen my eyes.
“No effing way.”
“Yes effing way, Buffy.”
“Your name’s way too fun to say, by the way.”
I glare at him. Hurry up and tell me what you did.
“The team and I went into the database and found that there’s been multiple join relationships created in the program due to the denormalization of databases.”
“That’s… not normal.”
“Yeah it isn’t. We’re trying to normalize the tables right now. We’re also running a sanity check on all the affected players, making sure that they’re all encapsulated to prevent privacy leaks.”
“Did you invoke sudo privileges?”
“Yeah we did. Stole it from the big man.”
“You mean Bruce?”
Luke quirks his brow.
“No. The Big Man. Sai Tanaka.”
I gape at him.
“Shut up. You did not. You know him?”
“Hell yeah I know him. He’s my otou-san.”
Okay, I don’t like where this is going. Not only did I not know that Luke’s half Japanese, unlike me, I also did not know that Luke had a dad, unlike me.
And that his dad or “otou-san” is SAI TANAKA.
The one and only legendary founder of World of Eden.
Wait. Hold on.
“Fuck. Luke, you didn’t tell your dad that I, Buffy, made the mistake, did you?”
Luke folds his arms in front of me.
“Buffy, do I look like a tattletale?”
Yeah. You do.
But I lie and say,
“No.”
“Yeah I didn’t. I just blamed Exodus.”
“Your dog?”
“No, you git. My team. Which includes you.”
“So we’re sharing responsibility for this.”
“Yeah we are sharing responsibility for this, git. Not only is your paycheck being docked, I need to contain your acts of sin now. Don’t be my Enemy, Buffy.”
All right, enough messing around. Let’s be serious Luke. What do I need to do in order to excel at this internship, not get fired by Bruce, my main boss, not get under Sai’s skin, and still get accepted into my first choice college by the end of the year?
Tell me, Luke.
“World of Eden needs to be saved. We need to contain the mess that YOU made. Not only did we lose Mahmed to that little act of spiritual warfare or gamified terrorism or however you would interpret the facile debacle last week, but also you need to start taking your job here more seriously. Way more seriously.”
He’s triggering me. Luke’s display of authority is really triggering me right now, and I feel my chest tightening and my stomach getting butterflies.
The bad kind of butterflies. The ones that rule air and darkness instead of light and water.
“Sorry Luke, can I go to the bathroom right now?”
Luke glares at me.
“Buffy, this isn’t the time to go potty. You need to own up to Bruce what you did.”
Shit, this is what I hate about corporate. The politics, the maneuvering, the Machiavellian displays of power.
Luke’s a power player. I’ve always known this but I didn’t make the move to make him my ally until it was too late.
As if he read my mind, Luke says,
“Buffy, I’m your ally, here. I get it, you’re new on the job, you need training, and you don’t know what Eden Enterprise is like. There’s seriously competition here to make the next big WOE, and you just made the biggest gaffe here you ever could. The garbage collectors would be on you any second now.”
Ugh, shut up Luke, shut up. You’re stressing me out like no other.
“I need some water.”
“Here.”
Luke hands me a water bottle.
I take a sip. The butterflies recede a bit. I’m cooling down.
I’m all right, I tell myself. I’m all right.
Luke stretches his arm out in front of him.
“There’s something admirable about you Buffy. You’re a genius, no doubt. But it’s not enough to be a genius at Eden Enterprises. You need to make allies, because you will have enemies. The world’s not divided in lone islands, Buffy. You can’t have billions of lone islands in this world, that’s just too inefficient for space complexity. People divide and conquer here, Buffy. You need allies, mentors, corporate buddies.”
“Buffy. You need to figure out this problem out.”
Now we’re talking.
“What’s the problem?”
“All right. The problem is this. How do you make your time here more efficient, time and space wise?”
Oh. I let out a breath of relief. That one’s easy.
“Joining you. Joining your guild, joining Exodus, and making you my boss.”
“Correct. Leave Bruce and his team now. From now on, you’re part of Exodus.”
He claps my back with his prosthetic arm. I ignore the tingling pain and overall creepy vibe emanating from this man.
I’m a little shaky after everything, a little hyperventilating, but I feel so much better.
“Sure. When do I start?”
“Next week. Take a break. You deserve it. I’ll tell Bruce, we’ll transfer you over, and we’ll get to work on some real projects. You’re mine now, Buffy.”
He cracks a grin and waves his prosthetic arm in the air. Then, he marches off, his leather boots making dents in the furry, carpeted floor.
I rub my eyes.
Is this a dream?
I just got offered a new contract.
Not only can I transfer and move on from my mistakes, but I could…
Make a difference now.
I clench my fist.
Show time. The stage’s waiting. Let’s commit to this.
Sudo’s a privilege, gits.
I bet Dad’s smiling down from space right now.
See you soon, Dad.
