MOAB

Chapter 21: Galene @ 1.5x nhs

Chapter 21: Galene @ 1.5x nhs

It was one of the quite rare, slow days at IT. Most of the crew was down at the basement, wasting time and chatting away in cliques. A couple of diligent workers were refurbishing hardware that would have otherwise gone to the recycling bin. But computer geeks can pick apart ten damaged computers and make a perfectly working one during their lunch break.

Two nerds had a noisy dart-gun fight, and were trying to get the others to join in. Galene hated that part of working with boys the most. Even though the darts were deadly accurate, they’d always strike her by ‘accident.’

George the jerk was telling some story and had a group of lackeys listening in.

Galene ignored them all and read up on the AI specs she was given the day before. Naturally, she didn’t have time at home so she took advantage of the lull in the workplace to catch up. Plus, it was quite interesting stuff, cutting edge. It was what she actually wanted to work on, not replacing keyboards dunked in coffee or resetting passwords.

Eugene’s desk was right next to Gal’s. The man was normal, a boring, closeted nerd like any other. If you squinted really really hard, you could actually say he was cute and sweet. But he had this… speech impediment. It wasn’t an actual speech problem, he’d just endlessly pad his sentences with filler words, and ums, and ahhs. It. Was. Maddening.

She saw him coming a mile away, he wanted to chat her up. “Hey Galene, slow day, right? I mean… we do need to be needed but what I want to say is that it’s nice to have some time, to, you know, be like this, you know, sitting around…”

Just get to the point already! “Yeah, slow day,” she replied not turning. Perhaps he’d get the hint that she was busy and leave her alone.

“Hey, I wanted to ask you, not to be too forward or anything, um, that, well I wanted to ask you… I was gonna ask you yesterday but you were gone all day and I didn’t get the chance…”

“Yes, Eugene? Ask me what?” she said with patience.

“Well, um, we got these new desk chairs with the guys. They’re, um, very nice for your back, you know? They’re what pro gamers use for all those hours of sitting and playing, you know? And it’s, um…”

“I’m fine with the one I have, Eugene. But thanks anyway!” She turned to him and smiled, then resumed her reading.

“Right. Uh… Then, the matter is settled. I should leave you to read, um…”

Galene sighed softly. In her mind’s eye she was seeing the code needed to parse his speech pattern and remove all extraneous detail, the pauses, the ums, the repeated words. She could remember afternoons with her ex, He-who-must-not-be-named, she lounging on a videogame, him editing audio from some project and removing all those useless mannerisms of speech to streamline the video.

“Well,” Eugene carried on.

Trim.

“I should probably note that you don’t want one of the new chairs, right…”

Trim.

“Um,”

Trim.

“Maybe one of the guys will want it. The order, you see…”

Trim.

“Is bundled, you know…”

Trim. Sigh.

“Yes, got it!” she nodded, cutting him off. “Ten chairs minimum or you pay the extra shipping, you guys have been talking about it for days.”

“Right. Sorry. I’ll leave you to it then,” Eugene said and finally turned away.

George casually walked in front of her desk and said loudly, “It seems I’ve been permanently replaced by Galene here at Mr Raptis office.”

Gal froze and looked up. She gave him her finest glare.

“That’s understandable, of course,” the demagogue said, “because I don’t have breasts.”

“It wasn’t just that, I raised his department’s performance,” Gal said, frowning.

“Yeah, right! It wasn’t the only thing that you raised!” He turned back at his posse and they all laughed along.

“Malaka,” she whispered under her breath.