Synergeist: The Haunted Cubicle (17 page)

Martin groused, “What are you so happy about?” As he asked, he realized he hadn’t even asked him if he had gotten a notice. Some friend he was.

Wesley was hungrily scanning the brunch menu. “Finally done dodging the ax. What a relief.”

“
They didn’t offer you a job?”

“
Nope, and it’s just as well. I don’t want to work for those jerks anyway.”

That was a new Baby Ruth in the swimming pool. Not only would Martin have to work for the jerks, but Wesley wouldn’t even be around to lighten things up a bit. But were they jerks? Was that a given? He sometimes thought he was a bit too open-minded, getting abused occasionally while giving the benefit of the doubt. He figured he could see how it went and start looking for a job if it was as bad as he was afraid it might be.

And then there was Millie. If he took the job, would he even be working in the same building? He certainly wouldn’t be if he didn’t. How much misery could he endure to be around Millie? Could he move her to somewhere else?

A ninja dressed as a waitress appeared at the table out of nowhere, “What can I get you, Hon?”

Martin held the menu up as if reading it but didn’t have the slightest idea what he was looking at. “Uh, you first.”

Wesley ordered a giant combo thing with a sports analogy name. Was it a last meal or had the excitement worked up his appetite? Martin ordered an omelet and coffee. He wasn’t hungry, but he figured he should order something.

Wesley didn’t seem the least concerned about finding another job. He had connections with many people he had worked with before and mad skills in programming languages that were in high demand. Possibly leaving the area and friends behind didn’t seem to concern him either. It was all just a great adventure. Martin wished he felt that way. He nibbled his food and questioned Wesley about his plan of action to avoid lapsing into another non-communicative daze.

Wesley didn’t ask Martin directly about his plans. Martin knew that he would listen if Martin wanted to talk about it but would wait until Martin brought it up. It was another thing he liked about Wesley. He was wide open about himself and what he thought and felt, but he didn’t expect everyone else to be that way.

Thankfully, when he returned to the office, the marketing pep rally had ended. Only the decorations and a few uneaten breakfast sandwiches that no longer smelled appetizing remained. As Martin made his way back to his beige box, he passed Don’s empty cubicle. The flower planter with the plaque “Rest in peace little soldiers. They can’t hurt you any more,” had been pulled back out to the edge of the desk along the aisle. It was crammed full of new nameplates.

Back at the World’s Worst Cubicle, the message light blinked on his phone, an urgent email indicator pulsed on his email client icon, and the instant message icon on his desktop danced the Important Message Shuffle.

Before he could even decide which to deal with first, Project Manager Herb appeared in his cubicle entrance, “Did you get my message?” He placed a hand on each side of the opening, preventing escape.

Martin was in no mood. Without even turning to look at him he said, “I just sat down. What is it Herb?” trying not to sound to annoyed.

“
Will you commit to having the project deliverables completed by Friday?”

Martin cut his eyes at Herb. It took a moment to drag from his brain what project deliverables Herb might be referring to. The only thing he could think of wasn’t due for three weeks. “I don’t have anything due Friday.”

“
You do now. The project board is escalating all deliverables. They have deemed the outsourcing to be a significant vulnerability and decided to address the risk with proactive measures. I am trying to get buy-in from all stakeholders.”

Martin swiveled in his chair to face him. He felt like letting him have it, but he didn’t. As usual he choked it back and just stared at Herb, not trusting himself to say anything.

There was something in that stare that made the normally unflappable project manager squirm. “I’ll uh… Come back later.” He sped off, Martin assumed to elicit buy-in from the other stakeholders.

The nerve,
he thought, boiling. He had already finished the task and was holding it for the due date, but he wasn’t going to tell Herb that. As astonishing and ludicrous as it seemed, turning things in early counted as a missed date. Under commit and over deliver was a precept he lived by, even if the stupid system didn’t allow you to over deliver. It was a far, far greater sin to miss a commitment than to be less than fully productive. To fill up his time, he always found things that needed to be done which they never wanted to fund. Items such as refactoring chunks of code modified so many times by so many programmers over the years that it became inefficient and nearly impossible to follow.

On the conference call he had been stunned and unsure of how he felt. Now he was unquestionably angry. Martin hated to be angry, going to great lengths to avoid it. He wasn’t going to do any work. Why should he? He started packing up to leave when he decided to check on Millie first. He looked to make sure she hadn’t sent him any messages. She hadn’t, but maybe a visit would prompt contact.

Somebody might see him brazenly going into her cube in the middle of the day, but he no longer cared what people thought. He would tell them he was from IT and needed to check something on the computer (which he did). An emotion akin to reverence washed over him as he entered the cubicle. He stood briefly in the doorway, seeking a sign of her presence. He sat in her chair and felt her touch his soul.

Tame the ghosts in my head that run wild and wish me dead

—
From “Lovers’ Eyes” by Mumford and Sons

Millie hovered in the sweet spot of her Millie Field and waited for the worst. But it didn’t come. She watched as the observer’s viewpoint rotated around her cube a few times and then left. She wasn’t going to leave her spot for a while. There was no way of telling if the voyeur was the beast from the hospital or a new entity.

She briefly fantasized that an Angel had found her. After having finally realized the oversight, it would come and take her under its wing. Nothing came. If something friendly had been watching her, surely they would have come to visit.

After a few such musing she gave in to either realism or pessimism and concluded that it was most likely the beast. It had tracked her here. If she took that as her assumption, then she could further assume that her field was enough to protect her from it, since the monster hadn’t already showed up and sucked her down like a preschooler would a pudding pop.

She concluded that she was safe as long as she stayed in her nest. There may have been flaws in that plan, but she couldn’t (or didn’t want to) see them. There she was, Mighty Millie, afraid to leave the house. The insecurity of her predicament kept getting worse. No wonder there weren’t ghosts everywhere.

The sun came up and began the cosmic trickle charge on her battery. People began to arrive. There was a lot more activity than usual in the marketing area. Martin arrived and watched the activity briefly with weary displeasure. He went to the copier and checked it. Then he surveyed his cubical before sitting down and putting on his headphones. He was looking for a message from her. She was tempted to send him a hello, but she had so little energy still. She decided to wait until she had a full day of the sun’s ray stored before she started a conversation. Surely she would be safe for that bit of time. She had so much to say, and she didn’t want to waste it on small talk.

She studied Martin’s aura. Something made him anxious. Then she recalled the ominous conference call invitation she had read off his monitor when he received it Friday. He put his headset on and his hand over the other ear. She had no way to listen. Learning to translate sound wave energy to recognizable speech was a project she would work on if she got the chance. She imagined Martin typing the words and then speaking them aloud. It would be like the inverse of learning to read.

Apparently the call was bad news. He worked on the computer. He got more upset. Millie didn’t read over his shoulder. It felt too much like spying. Martin would hopefully share his news. Wesley came, and they left the building.

Millie withdrew her perspective to the confines of her little workspace, soaked up sunshine, and reviewed the situation. She tired of chewing the same gum. She wanted to digest, or at least bite off, something new.
Why the heck not.
She hadn’t done it for a while. Maybe a vacation would clear her head. She took her Millie Vision on a little journey out through space. Her view moved much faster than the speed of light as she traversed the network that connected everything.
Once around the block, James
.

Her superluminal journey took her through nebulas that looked breathtaking when approached but were much less interesting to pass through. She zoomed straight through planets and stars. She found a black hole at the center of a swirling galaxy, humming a version of the familiar refrain, the counterpoint of the stars’ burning Song of Creation. It was not what she envisioned. She expected a huge sphere, into which she would send her Millie-Vision, becoming the first to know what was inside. Instead, in her Millie-verse, the gigantic black hole that was maybe an Astronomical Unit across in real universe, appeared to her as a point. A point much like the wraith, it was an intersection of its own pocket universe and the physical world. Just as she could the see monster’s power supply within the point, she saw this singularity’s vast well of creation energy, waiting to be used.

Martin came into her cubicle. He sat on her chair as she studied a distant elliptical galaxy. Her attention jerked back to Earth on contact. She hadn’t noticed him coming. She had her Spider-Sense turned up full, but Martin couldn’t sense her, so there was no Observer Effect for her to detect.
Kind of a lame early warning system,
she thought.
If you close your eyes, I can’t see you coming.

She enjoyed the contact of his aura as he logged into the computer. She noted the changes since their last contact: the dark tinges of anger, the new layers of experience, and the new potentials. The changes were not for the better. Martin was in a dark place. She wasn’t sure that what she wanted to tell him would improve his mood.

He had a text window up. He typed, “Millie?”

She couldn’t help it, entering, “xxoo,” with tiny pulses of power.

“
I have so many questions.”

“
Not much power.”

“
Is there anything I can do to help that?” She couldn’t think of anything. But before she said so, he entered, “Where can you get power from?”

“
Sunlight - takes 4ever. Off of things I created or used in creating - one time only - not an option.”

“
Why?”

“
Later.”

“
Are you sure nothing else?”

She paused. She had seen other means of obtaining energy. The beast had consumed a soul. That was not something she would ever do. She had also seen it draw from a living person. Having seen it, she knew how to do it. “Can pull from people.”

He typed, “Take it from me.”

It touched her that he would offer, but she couldn’t do what the ravenous wraith did to those people at the hospital. She created, “No.”

Disappointed washed his aura. “Why not?”

“
It hurts them.”

Without hesitation he typed, “I can take it.”

She didn’t respond. She was moved but not convinced.

He added, “Please Millie, we need to talk. We may not have much longer.”

If he only knew, she thought. Her power supply dwindled. It would be wonderful to talk longer than her current, meager supply would allow. Was she being selfish? Maybe, but he wanted it too. He was willing to make a sacrifice for both their benefits. She might try the smallest draw possible and see how he reacted. There shouldn’t be any harm in that. She made the characters, “OK,” appear.

“
What should I do?”