Spacebound Chronicles

Chapter 17: New Skills and People Skills

Scott’s last week on his old position had been split in two priorities: finishing the tasks previously assigned to him by Mr. Moore and learning teleportation with Gash Hunter. His initiation ceremony into the Katana had been the first and last he had seen of Meron Trius, despite the alien haunting his shower thoughts. Similarly, ever since Doctor Belle Sloth had implanted the Dark Matter Shard into his chest, he had not seen Snorri or any other of Joey’s characters.

That was not to say he had not seen any of Joe, as he was unsurprisingly at the Friday happy hour in which the company celebrated his promotion into the creative team for the Evergreen project. At the occasion, Scott had told his friend the good news, then proceeded to discuss guild matters only to be interrupted with:

“Don’t you see enough of me already? Go spend time with your coworkers.”

Which he did.

On the next morning, Gash Hunter threw a fit. How dared Logan skip the Friday training session without early notice? Gash was clearly taking that very seriously. What had started as sessions in the non-lethal combat simulator onboard Megafleet had evolved into live fire trials in a space station overtaken by murderous artificial intelligences, and on Sunday they took it one step further.

Gash had rented a crappy shuttle back to the Maze, where they went over teleportation in open space, stealthy teleportation, how to mine Void Diamonds, which fueled teleportation powers, and finished the day with a race back to the shuttle. That race had not gone well for Logan. Regardless, he ended the weekend with a replenished stock of Void Dark Matter Diamonds that would hopefully last longer after they were done with the lessons.

Through it all, he nearly forgot to keep Carol posted, but ultimately did so… to nearly no avail. She had used the term ‘bullpotty’ to express her thoughts on his teleportation tales. Apparently that technique had indeed been developed by Gash Hunter and Doctor Belle Sloth, which would explain his needs to pick seemingly unrelated skills spread all over the Dark Matter Sage and Dark Matter Channeler skill-trees, while also learning techniques not at all registered in class guides.

For all practical effects, Teleportation was a glitch resulting from the chain reaction of several incompatible powers being pitched together. The fact that a twelve-year-old had found the loophole and exploited it made Scott wonder if Gash Hunter was not a prodigy in some way.

The worst part about all that, however, was that he had no way to give Carol proof without meeting.

The morning after his humiliating defeat in a teleportation race to a preteen girl, Scott had leaped out of bed, vigorously shaved, found time for a simple breakfast and pedaled to work under the bluest of the morning skies. His previously ironed jacket and shirt were beyond comparison to the outfits he usually wore, and he radiated optimism on his march up to the office.

He was welcomed into the Evergreen team meeting by Tony, and that was where the sunshine and rainbows ended.

“Astronauts and pirates? Honestly?” Jane, the Chanel haired woman promoted the same day Scott started his Fantasy Stars journey, was leaning over the table in attack position, her gray suit about to burst into flames. The tone between Tony and her had been rising for the last ten minutes of the meeting, and it did not seem about to stop. “I have kids! I can promise you that anyone older than ten would rather die than be caught with a happy pirate backpack!”

“I liked it, Hellen liked it and the client will like it!” Tony yelled. Scott had never been able to imagine that guy angry at someone, let alone turning red as he was.

“Then why don’t you ask the damn client?” she yanked up the phone on the conference table and stretched it out to Tony.

“I’m not gonna ask s**t!” he slammed the phone back into its base. “We deliver solutions, not ideas. We are only going to the client when we have a mockup ready!”

“I thought you said you showed it to Hellen.”

“It was a notebook sketch and you damn right know it!”

“Then show the client the freaking sketch! We have a deadline!”

“Which is not in a month!”

“And that’s…”

“I AM THE PROJECT MANAGER!” Tony hammered the table with a closed fist.

Scott glanced at Amanda, the other member of the Evergreen project who, much like himself, had chosen to stay quiet and let Tony and Jane tear each other’s faces off. Tony’s last outburst had silenced the room, but the tension was still palpable and their breath heavy.

Amanda stood up, a low, lovable voice that fluttered through the tension like a butterfly. “I think we had better…”

“Oh, what do you know, Amanda?” Jane snapped, then realized how gratuitous that was. “Sorry. You were saying?”

“I think we won’t get anywhere with heated heads. I was going to suggest we take a break.”

Jane and Tony stared holes at her, then redirected their gazes at each other again, fuming. Scott could picture one leaping over the table to strangle the other, but Jane finally broke the stare down with a snort.

“Come on, Amanda!” she said on her way out of the conference room.

Amanda looked stunned by the convocation, but ultimately followed, leaving Tony and Scott alone in the room.

“Not the best start, huh?” Tony said after they were gone, his eyes still glazed at the door.

“Is it always like this?” Scott asked.

“Only when we try to get something done. I was hoping bringing you and your ideas into the team would put us on the same page. No pun intended,” and there it was, a trace of the Tony he knew and who he never thought he’d wish to see so badly. “You get it? Because your drawing was on a page of a notebook? So… it would get us on the same… page?”

“Yeah, I get it, Tony,” Scott said. “Sorry it didn’t work.”

“Don’t be. If she won’t play ball, we will throw the ball over her head,” Tony said, the metaphor forcing Scott to cringe as he tried to make sense of it. “I want you to flesh out that drawing of yours on a software. Make it look so cool even Jane would want to dress as an astronaut and buy a backpack.”

“Tony, that’s not really my special-”

“Do it! You have until Friday.”

Tony stormed off the room, the door crashing after him.

Scott remained seated for a while, staring at the wooden table before him. The first day on the new job, and he was back to image work. Except this time, he would be drawing from scratch, not treating pimples out of professionally taken pictures, and using a software he was not at all familiar with.

When he finally stood up, he couldn’t think about anything other than how hard it would be to play Fantasy Stars with all that on his plate.

But he knew he had to do one thing in the game before going all in on work.

He needed to talk to Carol.