MOAB

Chapter 6: Galene @ 0.7x nhs

Chapter 6: Galene @ 0.7x nhs

Galene woke up and darted to the bathroom. What she considered as ‘darting,’ others would call ‘took her damn well time.’

A mere forty-five minutes later she was waiting for her metro to get to work.

Sitting on her seat, she slapped her forehead. “She’s the Muse!” The lady next to her started. “Sorry,” she said awkwardly.

How could she not recognise an android when she saw one? They were made and operated by Hermes after all, but her job was too low-level for that. Plus, the nerds who worked in the departments in charge of the Muse program could handle their own computer issues just fine. It was rare for one of the IT to go there, they usually just called and handled things on their end with cooperation from Gal’s department.

But everyone knew about the Muses. The boys even ranked the gynoids as if they were calendar girls.

Of course, the gynoids themselves weren’t made to be sexy. That would defeat their purpose by making them a constant distraction. They were more like… the girl next door.

Like Galene, actually.

She pinched her cheeks in realisation.

The train showed up, and she headed to work.

Back in the IT department, underneath the tower of glass and metasteel was her desk. The boys greeted her as she strolled in, late as always. The boss gave her a glance that said ‘You’re late, again,’ but she gave back a glance that said, ‘Hey Mister, I stayed late yesterday, get off my back,’ so he drank some coffee and glanced back something like, ‘Okay Gal, but don’t make a habit out of it.’

So, all was well.

She found it funny that in the old movies she enjoyed watching, people punched cards to work. This was a technology firm, the smartbuilding simply logged your presence as soon as you showed up to work.

Gal was one of the three women in the department. It’s not that there weren’t any women in computers, it was just that they had the brains to get to more high-paying jobs. This job was grunt work. Pulling cables and kneeling under desks. Remember the kneeling under the desks? That was practically the whole career path ahead of her, on her knees, leery executives casually glancing at her butt.

Gal sighed and made a frappe for herself from the kitchenette. She left a mess behind. It wasn’t worse than what the boys had done already, but it wasn’t anything cleaner for sure.

George was there, all high and mighty and important. What a malaka. He got all the important support tickets, getting asked by name by all the bigshots. ‘No, we need George to fix this, nobody else can handle it!’

What a load of-

Galene sucked her straw and suddenly saw George winking at her.

Her eyes widened, and she swivelled around in her desk chair, turning her back at him. Had she inadvertently seemed to flirt while sucking on the frappe straw?

And, more importantly, had George responded?

Galene sent a quick text to Nat for her wisdom. Her friend lived and breathed gossip and furtive glances. Gal found it boring.

She found many things boring.

Boys, were boring. This job, though necessary, was very boring. Her flat was boring. Her life was boring. The studying she had to do to finally get her degree was boring. Catching up on the new computer stuff was boring.

Boring. Boring. Boring.

She glanced at the clock in her field of view. She had programmed her Augmented Reality eye implants to show her the time when she was at work, and count down the holy pentalepto. That was the amount of time that was holy and unassailable by any boss or support ticket or emergency, devoted only to getting one’s bearings for the start of the day by sipping his coffee.

Five glorious minutes.

She sipped coffee with her eyes closed.

The pentalepto counted down to zero.

“Gal!” her boss yelled from his office.

Her laptop glinged. She gave her boss her ‘too tired to complain’ glare. She tapped the ticket and forced herself up to get on with it.

Galene propped herself up on the elevator. She hated the sleek design, there was nowhere to plop yourself while spacing out. Would it hurt them to put some surfaces with a normal amount of friction coefficient? Like wood. A pillow would be best. She fought and managed to stay upright, and it was only the middle of the day.

As soon as she stepped off the elevator her phone rang. “Yup?”

“Gal, this is Mike. Your regular on floor 3 needs to speak with you,” he said quickly.

Sheesh. “Patch her through.”

“Hey, sweetie? Yeah, my computer is on the fritz again! Can you come over and fix it because I have so many files to get ready before a meeting and the manager is breathing down my neck on this.” Christy, her regular customer. Always something with her computer. But not her fault! Never!

“Sure, tell me.”

“I start the computer but it just beeps and doesn’t do anything.”

“How many beeps?”

“How man- I don’t know!”

“Turn it on and count the beeps.”

A pause, and shuffling. “Three beeps. Hold on. Yes, three. Definitely.”

“Okay, Christy, give it a hard kick. On the tower, just whack it,” Galene said calmly as she walked towards her tickets with priority.

“What? No, I can’t do that. Isn’t there a key to press or something? You know, on the keyboard. What do you guys call it? Oh, I remember! A keyboard shortcut!” she said proudly.

“Look, Christy, I’m forty floors down and have three tickets to get to before I can even come near your office. So, you either give that computer a good kick or wait for me for about thirty-five minutes.” Gal held the phone in place with her shoulder and showed the ticket to the receptionist to let her through.

“But what if breaks?” Christy complained with a whine.

“Christy, it’s just the RAM. It moved a bit and it’s not touching the motherboard properly. Somebody must have moved the tower while cleaning or something. Just kick it and it will sit properly and boot up. Or open it up with a screwdriver and push the RAM.”

Silence. “Oh, what the hell…” Then a thwack! “It’s working! Thank you, so much!” Christy exclaimed over the phone.

“No worries,” Gal said and went on to fix another computer. Preferably without needing to kick this one.