Purgatech: Jess' Horror

Chapter 5

Dylan was inputting the information from the applicant sign in sheets when there was a knock on his office door. Before he could say anything, the door swung open and has boss, James Marshall, came striding into the room.

"Tell me something good, Nixon."

Marshall sidled around the two over-sized leather chairs across from Dylan's desk and sunk himself into one of them.

Dylan cleared his throat. He knew Marshall deemed it below him to visit the small outbuilding where Dylan and his staff had set up their offices. But Dylan kind of liked being out there. He was close enough to still have a good view of the old house, which he'd always loved, but far enough from the action that he could take a breather when thing got too hectic.

Now, with his boss sitting across from him, Dylan's zone of refuge had completely dissipated.

"Mr. Marshall, I was just inputting the information from the latest round of applicants."

"And? Do any of them look like they have potential? Or are we going to have to keep searching?"

"I think a few of them we will probably weed out right from the start. But there are a number of applicants who I think will be a good fit for our latest testing phase."

Marshall sat back in his chair and rested one foot on top of the opposite knee. He propped both elbows onto the sides onto the arms of the chair and intertwined his fingers in front of him. He let out that same passive-aggressive chuckle that Dylan had heard so many times before.

"I know what you're going to say, Mr. Marshall."

James raised his eyebrows and then gestured for Dylan to continue.

"I know that our initial user survey had some flaws in it. But I'm convinced, especially after meeting with our latest round of applicants, that the new line of questioning has brought us the best batch of potential users yet."

"That's because I spent a hell of a lot of money hiring the best psychological minds to come up with a questionnaire that word help us to weed out potential lawsuits after what happened the last time, didn't I?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Now, Dylan. I know I don't have to stress the importance of this next stage of testing. Considering how far behind we are on the roll-out, every day we fail to release these products to the market we're losing money. Now I don't want to alarm you, but if we are not successful with this latest batch of testers, I'm not sure how much further we will be able to go. And by we... I mean you."

Dylan swallowed hard and adjusted his collar. "Sir, you have my word that I will not rest until we have found the right applicants. Not only that, I'll make it my personal mission to oversee this latest round as they test our products over this coming month."

Marshall sat there for a few moments, drumming his fingers on the armrest of the chair. He nodded a few times a narrowed his eyes at Dylan before finally clapping his hands together and pushing himself up from the seated position.

"Great. That's exactly what I wanted to hear. I like you, Nixon. From the moment I met you, I knew you had potential. Now, let's just see if you can live up to that. I look forward to your weekly reports. As you were."

Marshall stood, turned on his heel and headed out the door. Only when he had left the office did Dylan breathe. But just as Marshall left, the door swung open again and Lisa Thompson came rushing into the room with a clipboard propped in front of her.

"Dylan, we have a problem."

"That's the last thing I need to hear right now, Lisa," Dylan said turning back to his work at the computer.