Ready Player None

Chapter 1.1 - Wyett "Working Class Dog"

I haven't had my coffee yet.

I can tell, you're going to judge me, and you just need to know that no matter how bad it looks as I describe my morning, you should balance out your condescension and disapproval with the understanding that I have been working with a severe caffeine deficiency. It's a superhuman miracle that I'm even alive.

I have reports from the 5 communities on the West Coast that were maintaining the required level of supplies and utilities, and desperate pleadings from the 162 who weren't. I have a series of meetings planned with people theoretically under my chain of command who were quite certain that they knew a lot more about the subject matter than I did, and were completely right about that. Most problematically, I have a private message-list full of insulting comments about my performance in the weekend's team assault on Thulsa Doom, a regrettable performance with a highlight of somehow getting eaten by a large snake after walking into its mouth. What I do not have is coffee.

Just be aware of that one detail, that's all I ask.

So when Jen appeared at the door to my office, arms full of things that were not intended to carry hot liquids, things that instead were intended to get me to make decisions, I may have been a bit harsh in my form of greeting.

"What the hell do you want?" I growled. Actually, it was a tiny bit harsher than that, but allow my self-esteem some editorial license.

Jen didn't look up as she strode in. "I want you to finish last week's work so I can give you this week's work with a clean conscience. I also want you to know that stepping over the monster's fangs and onto his acidic tongue as you command the group to go 'This way!' is astonishingly stupid, and I don't heal stupid," she said.

"Noted."

Her eyes finally met mine as she glanced over her shoulder. I could see many layers of self-amusement there, colored cornflower-blue. "How many levels did you lose for that one?" she asked.

"Three."

"I couldn't even resurrect you. When I tried, it said you were dissolved." She seemed on the verge of breaking out in laughter, but was graciously trying to hold it back. Or maybe she just didn't want to get fired. I was pretty sure I could fire people, although when I had tried to do so in the past, they just kept showing up the next day.

"Let's keep the gaming discussions outside of work, ok?" This was an extremely hypocritical thing to say; I had on occasion spent the greater part of a workday recounting successful team raids to a captive audience of underlings. And would do so again, in the event that I led a successful raid at some point in the future.

"Yes, boss," she said, cradling some papers carefully as she offered a quick salute. "Here are the admin reports, and system performance analysis you need but didn't ask for. Don't forget you have a meeting in-sim in 15 minutes. Toodles!" As she turned back to the door and ducked out, I could swear I heard a "hisssssssss" and an accompanying giggle echo down the hallway.

Papers. We still call them papers even though they're actually just soft computer screens about half a millimeter thick. I tended to rely on them more than I should, as all of this information could be stored in the main system, and instantly displayed on any screen or viewboard, but long ago I made everyone aware that I processed information much more clearly when I could hold it in my hands. The folks upstairs were once again on a paperless kick, and were determine to move everything purely online within the next fiscal year. I didn't like their chances.

Well, it was time to get to work. The one negative to paper reports at this level of technology was that they couldn't be torn up, lost, or stuffed in the trash. I couldn't even spill coffee on them.. oh, coffee, coffee, coffee... it just rolled off and dripped on the floor. My go-to move was to stack them on the side of the desk, and then put something on top that would provide plausible deniability about their existence. Today, that would be a stuffed Garfield, in honor of Mondays.

Back online, a quick filter of my private mailbox excluding anything referencing "snake", "eaten", or "LOL" left only a few items. The usual complaint from Janis that my reports were late. Markel, a new guy who just started, was letting me know via his personal account that he didn't have corporate system access, and how should he go about getting said access. I responded that the answer was available in the online corporate documentation, and that he should sign in and read it for himself.

One automated alert caught my eye; it was from Morde, a jungle world way out in nowheresville. Someone may be taking a run at my personal best time in bringing down Hunquawen and his howler monkey friends. I didn't have time to make a personal visit, but I logged the gaming tags of the only two people on the planet to the guild kill-on-sight list. Hey, they started it.

Morde was a heavily scripted fight, the kind I absolutely loved as it kept out the riff-raff. With only two people, I don't know how they planned to get past the part where players had to dance across the stone sprockets of the control machine in the deepest level of the temple, or handle the final massive battle where the pale god required everyone to touch his, and only his, monkey. Nevertheless, there were many discovery points and achievements left in that zone, and competition was never welcome.

An urgent request jumped to the front. It was my first meeting of the day, and apparently the discussion was going to be with a farming group from the mountain district about the recent drop in.. this can't be happening.. coffee production.