Chapter 1: Introduction
"Damnit, this isn't working," Vorcka hissed, leaning in towards his coworker, Lisa. "We're not going to meet the deadline if you keep micromanaging every detail."
Lisa crossed her arms, her eyes narrowing. "Well, someone has to, Vorcka. You're not exactly Mr. Reliable these days."
Vorcka felt his jaw clench. Yezbit had been spreading lies, telling everyone that he couldnt keep up, and now half the office belived he was a bad worker. Before he could respond, a sharp voice cut through the tension.
"Vorcka, my office. Now." Yezbit's heels clicked against the polished floor as she strode away, leaving no room for argument. Vorcka took a deep breath, steeling himself for what was to come. He gave Lisa a look that said 'to be continued' and followed Yezbit into her corner office.
Yezbit faced him as he entered her office, hands on her hips and long dark hair held firmly in place on the back of her head. Her green eyes glared at him through horn rimmed glasses.
"This is unacceptable, Vorcka," Yezbit began, not even waiting for him to sit down. "I've been hearing complaints from all sides. You're not pulling your weight, and it's affecting the entire team."
Vorcka opened his mouth to protest, but Yezbit held up a hand, silencing him.
"I don't want to hear excuses. I want results. I need you to step up, or I'll have no choice but to find someone who can."
Vorcka bit back a retort, tasting the bitter tang of resentment on his tongue. He'd worked his ass off to get here, and now he was being made to feel like a failure. Everyone was complaining because Yezbit had told each person on the team that he would complete different tasks, then hadn't told him about. The first Vorcka had heard about a few of the things people were expecting of him was after they were already overdue and people were complaining they were behind because of him.
He glanced down at her desk phone and saw that they were currently in a call. That was the reason for all of these thestrics, he realized.
He nodded curtly, trying to guess who was on the other end of the phone.. "I'll have something for you by the end of the day."
Yezbit's lips curled into a smile. She knew it was an impossible task. "Don't make promises you can't keep, Vorcka. It is very unprofessional"
Vorcka knew what she wanted him to turn in at the end of the day, but he wouldn't give her the satisfaction. "I'm going to lunch, I'll be back in ten minutes and I'll get right on it."
"Ten minutes?" Yezbit arched an eyebrow. "You are so far behind, are you sure you can afford to take so long?" Vorcka heard her sharp laughter as he stormed out of her office.
Instead of heading to the break room, vorcka turned towards the IT department. This wasn't a problem they could fix, but Jaxon and Nico might be able to give him a kick in the right direction.
Pushing open the door to IT, Vorcka stepped into the dimly lit room. Everything he visited, Vorcka warned them that they were gonna turn into mole people, but they preferred the low lighting. "Hey guys," he said, shutting the door behind him.
Jaxon sat at a desk, working on one of his projects, but Nico didn't seem to be anywhere around. Jaxon was the reason Vorcka had applied for this job in the first place. They'd been friends in college, and when he'd left his last job, Jaxon had thought Vorcka had the skills needed here. So had someone higher up than Yezbit, but lately, Vorcka was beginning to feel it had been a huge mistake.
"Hey, man. How's It going?" Jaxon asked, looking up from his screen.
"Not great," Vorcka mumbled, rubbing his temples.
"Yezbit again?" Jaxon asked. "I'm sorry, man. We don't see much of her down this way, so I didn't know what I was setting you up for. Bad luck that it was the same time she wanted to pursue nepotism."
"I think... never mind." Vorcka had given up trying to correct Jaxon's abuse of the English language. "Yes, it's Yezbit again. Sorry, I've only got ten minutes, so I just wanted to stop by and vent for a moment. Where's Nico."
Nico was an eccentric, possibly bonkers, older man who had been the IT department before they'd finally hired Jaxon. Now with the two of them there, they basically took turns being on call for problems and working on personal projects.
"He said," Jaxon looked embarrassed, "he said he smelled something wrong in the server room, and he disappeared about 20 minutes ago. I'd say he was crazy, but he always ends up being right."
"I aint crazy," a gruff older voices calls out from the door leading back to the server room. A stocky man in his late 40s walked through the door, holding a circuit board up to face, then he licked it. "Yeah, that's what I thought," he said, throwing the board on a counter and rummaging around in his desk drawer.
"You got your beeps and boops. You wait until your computer says there's a problem, and then you fix it. But she's my baby, and if I listen, she tells me what's gonna go wrong, and I fix it first."
"Beeps and boops? You just try to sound like an old geezer, but I know better. And I hope you don't have any kids, cause if that's how you check on them, someone ought call child protection."
"Hmphh," Nico grumped. "I'd never tell you how to raise your kids. Besides, what's wrong with a nightly lick to check for fevers." Nico found the tool he'd been looking for and sat at the desk to try and save the circuit board.
"Isn't his oldest, like, 20 years old?" Vorcka asked, smiling.
"Yeah, just ignore him. He knows what he's doing at work, but he seems to think he's also a stand up comedian who only tells dad jokes." Jaxon grabbed a cleaning towel and threw it at Nico. "Hey, Vorcka is struggling with Yezbit breathing down his neck again. Didn't you say you might finally be able to help him with that?"
Nico looked up from his work, smile spreading across his face. "Oh, aye, I think I might have just the thing to solve your problem."