October 16, 2009
Thousand Oaks, California
Beep… beep… beep…
Head still buried in his pillow, Greg reached for his alarm clock, fumbling, trying to find the off switch. With a groan, he gave up and looked. Why was the off switch on these things always so small, while the snooze button was so big? he wondered. Do the manufacturers want me to get up or not?
He ran a hand through his shoulder-length, brown hair and sighed as he got out of his warm, comfortable bed. He hated Mondays. Fridays too, which today was, and every day in between for that matter. No, that wasn’t true, he just hated his job.
He got ready slowly, dragging his feet. When he finally made it to work, he was over ten minutes late―as usual.
Barely a minute after he sat down at his desk, his boss walked by, making his morning rounds to see that everyone looked busy. Greg turned on his computer, then grabbed a random piece of paper from his inbox and pretended to read it.
“Morning,” his boss greeted casually. Tom was a balding, middle-aged man who always managed to look smug. He made a show of looking over Greg’s desk. “Not too much on your plate today, huh?”
“No, but that’s good because I need to leave early. I’m going to a funeral,” Greg told him.
Tom wasn’t the brightest of people; the office joke was that he was too stupid to figure out people’s excuses for getting out of projects or leaving work early. Like Doug saying he was going to his grandmother’s ninetieth birthday―it was her third birthday this year. People made bets on what they could get away with, whether Tom would catch them or not. Luckily, his secretary didn’t say anything about it.
Greg would have felt sorry for Tom and his perpetually clueless state, but frankly, he didn’t like the guy. His excuse for leaving early was also a lie, but only because he didn’t want to hear the mocking comments that would come with the truth. He was going to a medieval event to fight in a tournament. He was good with a sword; he had won thirteen battles so far, though he had yet to win a tournament. He felt that he did better in a medieval setting than in his normal life. He fit in better. But unfortunately the events didn’t last very long, and real life couldn’t be avoided.
“Who’s the funeral for?” Tom asked.
“My aunt.”
“Ah. Were you close?”
“Yeah, it’s very rough on the whole family,” Greg told him solemnly, though he had no living relatives that he knew of.
Tom nodded and walked off, not even offering condolences.
“Gotta get back to your fantasy games, huh? Gotta hot date with an orc?” Mike, in the next cubicle, snickered. He was joined by James, who sat near him.
So much for getting out of being mocked. But Greg ignored them. They were just those people who thought that if you liked to play fantasy games or read fantasy novels, then you spent all your time at science fiction conventions, had no life, and definitely didn’t have a girlfriend.
The last was true, but it was by choice. He was picky―or maybe it was that he had a hard time finding a woman who wasn’t fake, incredibly stupid, or a little too freaky for his taste.
Just then―in the category of fake women―Tom’s secretary walked up to his desk. They had worked together for two years, but he could never remember her name. She was one of those nondescript people, the ones you never really noticed. She was kind of bland in every way: average height, slender body without any real curves, hair that wasn’t really blond or brown but somewhere in the middle, eyes that were sort of blue, and no personality. To be fair, she might have had one away from work, but here she was Ms. Professional with an unfaltering, pleasant business tone and a phony smile plastered on her face.
“Good morning, Greg.”
He barely glanced away from his computer screen as he started looking over his emails. “Hi.”
“Tom wants the Anderson proposal,” she told him.
Of course he couldn’t ask himself when he was there just a few minutes ago, Greg thought. No, Tom had to send his minion. “Sure.” He shrugged and opened a drawer, pursed his lips, then looked at her as he closed it again. “I was working on it at home, guess I left it there.” He cocked a brow. “But he doesn’t need it for another week, right?”
“Two, actually,” she said with a shocking hint of exasperation in her tone. “I’ll let him know. Thank you.” She smiled that polite smile and left.
The proposal wasn’t at home. There was no way he would ever take work home. He hadn’t even started it. Tom had given him a three-week deadline for something that would take a couple of hours to do. But Tom, knowing nothing about actual work himself, didn’t realize it. A person could do that when they were the boss―never do anything and yet get paid more than anyone else. So to make himself look useful, Tom nagged about things that weren’t even supposed to be done yet.
As always, the day dragged on. The clock on the wall ticked by the tedious minutes until at last the short hand was pointing to the one. Late enough, Greg thought, and headed out. He passed the reception desk and gave the nameless woman the usual nod.
“Bye,” she called after him. “I’m sorry to hear about your aunt.” Her words sounded sincere, but that was part of her mask: the friendly, sympathetic customer service mask. Not that it mattered at the moment since there was no aunt to mourn.
“Thanks,” he mumbled without glancing back, and left through the doors labeled Fisher and Dunn.
Twenty minutes later, he pulled into his driveway to see Bill, his next-door neighbor, washing his red sports car―again. Greg smiled at the little girl in the front window of Bill’s house as he got out of his car. She was two, with a sweet face and big brown eyes. She was slapping her little hand against the glass, trying to get the attention of the one person who never paid her any: her father.
“Ann, get her out of the damn window; she’s going to break it!” Bill yelled to his wife. “Oh hey, Greg,” he greeted, his tone suddenly pleasant. “Home early?”
“Yeah,” Greg replied, but what he really wanted to say was, Pay attention to your daughter, you stupid prick! Bill had a wonderful wife and three great kids, but somehow that wasn’t good enough for him. Some people would trade anything for that, but Bill always found something to complain about. Greg felt sad for the family, for putting up with it, and wondered why they stayed.
Greg shook his head as he walked away from the man. Finding his house key, he paused just before the front door. Sitting on his welcome mat was a CD. It had no cover, just a gold disc with the word Kelstone handwritten in black.
He picked it up and went inside. Now, of course, he had to go straight to his computer and check it out―curiosity would have it no other way. But the phone rang. He grabbed it from its cradle and pressed talk. “Yeah?”
“Hey, you’re home.”
“Wow, Gabe, you astonish me with your perception,” Greg said dryly as he walked into his office.
“That’s Lord Gabriel to you, peasant,” he returned in his best regal voice.
“Bite me, your lordship.”
Gabe chuckled. “Hey, let’s leave early.”
“Bored?”
“Unbelievably.”
“Yeah, sure. I’ll pick you up soon.”
“Hurry up.”
Greg rolled his eyes as he set his keys down on the desk and sat in his chair. “I just got home,” he told him, leaning back and turning the mysterious CD over in his hands. “Besides, I wasn’t supposed to be here for another hour, so why are you even calling?”
“’Cause you’re predictable. You keep leaving earlier and earlier. Soon you just won’t have a job anymore.”
Greg laughed shortly. “Not an unhappy prospect.”
“Just leave if you hate it so much.”
“Eh.”
“Too much effort?”
“Yep. Besides, who’s to say another place isn’t going to suck just as much? And some people don’t live off their grandmother,” Greg teased.
“Heh, sucks to be you,” Gabe returned with a chuckle. “You should take a week or two off, though. We could get out of here, go camping.”
“Yeah, why don’t we just take off after the tournament? I’ll call work on Monday and say I have the flu.”
“Is it flu season?”
“Do I care?” Greg asked rhetorically.
Gabe laughed. “So we camping all week or what?”
“Yep.” They both liked getting out of the city when they could. They loved the outdoors, where the world wasn’t in such a noisy rush. “Well… I’ll see you in a few, okay?” Greg said, looking back at the CD in his hand.
“Yeah, but be quick. Gram’s quilting group will be here in a half an hour and I’ve been pinched enough by old ladies this week.”
Greg chuckled. “Okay, I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
“Thanks.”
“Bye.”
He hung up and set the phone down, then slid the CD into the computer. Immediately the screen went black. Strangely, only one red word appeared―Play. He bit the inside of his cheek, considering. With his luck it would be some nasty virus, but once again, curiosity dictated his actions. He moved the mouse and hovered over the now glowing word. Shrugging, he clicked.
