“Mr. Cavendish? Is that you?” Nigel Declan from HR trundled over to the wooden bench, carrying a laptop bag and an expandable office file stuffed with papers. “I’m so glad you’re here, sir. We have a problem.”
“What’s going on?”
“It’s the network, sir.” Nigel struggled with the file, and Iris reached out to relieve him of the laptop bag. “Ah, thank you. The network's down, sir. I got a call from IT and they told me all inter-office systems are offline.”
“Do we still have access to client data?” Iris asked hopefully.
“That’s the strangest part of it.” Nigel explained. “Only the internal systems are down. It isn’t a blackout. IT has no idea what happened, but it’s affecting Communications, Time Clock, and Payroll.”
“Are those manual sign-in sheets in your file there?” Mr. Cavendish pointed to the laden expanding file.
“Yes, and our outage contingency plan.” Nigel hefted the file with his twiggy arms. “Hurry, sir. We should get everything set up for when the employees come in to punch the time clock.”
Mr. Cavendish glanced back at Iris, who was standing still as they started to walk away from her. She had a curious, pained expression on her face that he had difficulty identifying. It could be that she was distressed about the network being down, but he didn’t believe that warranted such a grieved response. He reached a hand back to gesture for her to follow, as Nigel passed through the revolving doors ahead of them.
“Come on, Iris.” Mr. Cavendish coaxed with a friendly tilt of his head and the hint of a smile. “We’ll get it figured out.”
The whole office was pandemonium, with phones ringing off the hook to relay inter-office messages that were usually filtered through their computer software. Evelyn was already in the office by the time they arrived, having volunteered to run phones with the other interns. Michael, Travis, and Paulo already had themselves hooked up to headsets, frantically fielding confused phone calls. Iris loaned her headset to Evelyn, who hadn’t received a new one since hers broke a few months ago.
“Thanks, Iris. You’re a life saver.” Evelyn passed a fresh travel cup of Valencia’s premium cold brew to Iris before connecting her headset. “Here, take it. With how everyone else is busy, I doubt I’ll have time to drink any. See you at lunch?”
Iris merely nodded before turning to dash back to her workstation. Without a headset, it would be significantly harder to take calls, so she sought out Mr. Maker to volunteer for a different task.
“Sir? Are you in?” Iris knocked on his office door and waited patiently for Warren to get off the phone. He seemed upset about some kind of cancellation of service, but Iris paid him no mind until he hung up the sleek black receiver. “Good morning, sir. Communications are running with a full staff, but Time Clock and Payroll both need help. May I assist them?”
A flicker of emotion ran across Warren’s face, but Iris tried not to infer what it meant. He was clearly upset about something, but it wasn’t her place to offer comfort or counsel, so Iris ignored his distress.
“Time Clock’s fine.” Warren shooed her away with a flick of his hand. “I don’t want you messing around with Payroll, understand?”
As Iris scurried off to help with signing people in and out of the immense office, Warren sat back down in his task chair and clenched his jaw to suppress a fiendish laugh. He’d kicked up enough chaos and paid the right people to hide his tricky dealings with Payroll. Not only that, but a new revenue stream opportunity had opened itself up to him in the process.
He only needed to keep busy until late afternoon, when the system would reinitialize and everything would go back to how it should be. The only thing an investigation would turn up were deprecated files and missing data. Warren fielded a few phone calls as he spied on Iris frantically trying to keep up with the demands of the employee time tracking system.
Lunch never came for Iris, as she was so bogged down by employees coming and going that she hadn’t a moment to rest. Violet had agreed to take a shift after Iris’s, but she never materialized, abandoning Iris to it alone. Iris didn’t want to resort to pulling rank, but she was desperate for a restroom break and some food, and she called Paulo over to relieve her.
“Please, Paulo. Just fifteen minutes.” Iris pleaded urgently. “And you can have first pick of the next set of invoices. Deal?”
Paulo knew a good deal when he heard one, and he sat in Iris’s chair to take over while she sped to the restroom. Her peace didn’t linger, however, as Iris heard a pair of coworkers clip-clop into the restroom to restore their hair and makeup. Iris flinched once she recognized the catty, shrill voices of Claire and Wanda at the bathroom mirrors.
“…Plus, the tracking software they use on our machines is down. No one can tell what we’re doing.” Wanda laughed. “I've gotten in eleven games of solitaire already. We should have these outages once a week.”
“Tell me about it.” Claire wiped away her excess lipstick and preened her immaculate hair. “I need a vacation.”
“You just had one, you greedy bit—”
“That doesn’t count!” Claire protested. “A weekend at some claustrophobic little river house isn’t Rio. Besides, my bed warmer spent half the time on the d*mned phone. It was hardly a pleasure cruise.”
“It’s better than what I got.” Wanda chided. “I’ve been seeing this guy from…”
Iris couldn’t risk being seen by either of her coworkers, as they would surely torment her for eavesdropping. She had little choice but to wait in her stall for the pair to leave, even if it ate up precious minutes of her break time.
She had only a few minutes left before Paulo would leave his post, so Iris sprinted down the hall to the kitchenette, crashing into a dark-haired man in an equally dark suit who looked odd in their break room.
“Oh my gosh. Are you all right?” Iris’s hands clasped his arms before she realized what she was doing. “I’m so sorry, sir.”
“It’s okay.” The man’s voice had a comforting, quiet tone that put her instantly at ease. “No harm done. Hey, can you point me to Alden Cavendish’s office, please? I’ve gotten turned around up here.”
Oh, he’s probably a client. Iris felt foolish for thinking he was out of place.
“Absolutely sir. This way, please.” Iris escorted the stranger to the C-suite, kissing the last of her precious break goodbye as they approached the office. “Here we are. Have a pleasant visit, sir.”
Before he could even turn around to thank her, Iris was off like a rocket to resume her duties with the time clock. He chuckled at the spritely creature’s hasty retreat before letting himself in Mr. Cavendish’s office without knocking.
“You’re four minutes late.” Paulo grumped at the approaching Iris, who was ragged and out of breath.
“I’m… so s-sorry…” Iris choked out. “Please… forgive me.”
Paulo wasn’t a villain by any means, and winced at Iris’s obvious struggle for air. “It’s fine, I guess. But next time, don’t be late. I have things to do too, you know.”
The guilt was overwhelming. Iris chattered away and shook at the prospect of disappointing Paulo, and cursed her wretched body for being so slow getting back to her duties.
She had so many things to worry about, especially if this outage interrupted paychecks and computer access. With the mortgage due in two days, Iris feared once more for the house if paychecks were late from this nonsense. The afternoon continued with anxiety and tension, as Iris barely had a moment to spare a thought for anything else.
“I… I can’t hold it any longer.” Curtis wheezed from his planked position on the soft carpet of his apartment with his belly grazing the floor. Sweat dripped down his face and soaked the back of his ill-fitting T-shirt as he pleaded for his trainer’s mercy. “Please, I need a break.”
“Ten more seconds.” Byxx towered over the prone man, looking more like a demonic colossus than a personal trainer. “Come on, man.”
Curtis only managed to hold position for a measly three seconds before crashing to the floor, face-first. He made no effort to get up, figuring that as long as his nose wasn’t broken from the fall, he could afford a breather. All Byxx could manage was a subtle shake of his head as he stared down at the pathetic display at his feet. None of his previous coddling was working, so the archfiend tried a different approach.
“Were you being serious when you asked for my help?” Byxx stooped low to the ground, close enough for Curtis to feel the immense warmth radiating from his body. “Or is this some kind of joke to you?”
Curtis averted his eyes from the gilded sharpness of Byxx’s penetrating gaze. He trembled and sniveled there in a heap on the floor while he desperately tried to form a complete sentence. Though he had improved his time since their last training session, the progress was glacial at best. Curtis had no excuse, and he silently got back up into position to try again, fighting back tears.
“Again?” Byxx puzzled aloud.
If Curtis was unable to hold a plank before, Byxx was certain that he would have an even lower chance of doing it now that he was tired. Regardless of his personal beliefs, Byxx dutifully started the timer on Curtis’s ancient plastic stopwatch and eyed his pupil’s form. It was shaky and creaked under Curtis’s weight, but he held out as long as he could. This attempt added another six seconds to his record before he collapsed again, scraping the back of his forearms until it left a raw rug burn.
“Okay, let’s take a rest.” Byxx turned to grab a water bottle Curtis had filled for him earlier. “That last one was better and—”
Curtis still refused to look at Byxx, and assumed the plank position again without a word. His face reddened until he nearly turned purple and his eyes glazed from exertion, finally culminating in Curtis crashing once more to the floor, gasping for air.
“Hey now, that’s enough.” Byxx abandoned the water bottle and crouched down to get a better look at Curtis, who still refused to speak to him. “You’re gonna hurt yourself if you keep trying like that.”
A soft, pudgy hand thrust against Byxx’s chest with all his remaining strength, though it was not enough to topple him backwards. The shock of Curtis’s push was more startling than anything, leaving Byxx perplexed and concerned. The human was relentlessly pushing himself once more, growing more exhausted with each attempt.
“I said stop, Curtis.” Byxx pressed the issue and scooped him up from the floor as if he were a child. “You can do real harm to yourself if you—”
“JUST LEAVE ME BE!” Curtis cried out, nearly deafening Byxx. “You don’t believe in me either! None of you do...”
Tears cascaded down the rounded curves of his weary face and he shoved his hands repeatedly into his captor, causing Byxx’s eyes to widen. “Not you, not my dad, or my coworkers. NONE OF YOU!”
Curtis descended to the depths of despair, sobbing openly where he stood. Byxx knew he’d been pushing the young man to do better, but hadn’t realized that they were so close to his breaking point. The depleted human threatened to hyperventilate from crying so hard, until Byxx threw his arms around him, smothering Curtis into a relentless hug.
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