I climb out from under my desk somewhere around 5:30 AM, wiping sleep from my eyes, and begin groping around for my lucky mug. I find it next to a stack of perfectly clean mugs and take it to the kitchen to give it a quick wash before filling it with the last of yesterday’s coffee and stumbling to one of the conference rooms.
I pull a marker out of the tangled mess that is my hair and begin scribbling madly on the whiteboard. The door opens and closes softly behind me.
“I thought I heard someone,” Jill says. “Did you sleep here again?”
“Jill,” I say, “I figured it out. We need more cats. Everyone knows that when a cat sits on you, you CANNOT move. If we increased the office cat population by 50%, we should see 50% more productivity, right? And that’s not even factoring the morale boost it will bring with all of that furry joy running around. And, and in the winter we can cut our heating bill because the cats can sit on our feet and our laps and act as space heaters!” My marker is squeaking furiously as I scribble my calculations on the board.
But Jill looks a little skeptical. “Sure, cats are great, but I think Hannah is allergic, and I’m not sure how Wicket will handle it. He’s just gotten used to Pidge and Maximus.”
I frown thoughtfully and obliviously tap the wrong end of the marker against my nose, leaving a red smudge. “If we let Hannah wear a batman costume to work with an air purifier in the mask, it shouldn’t be a problem. And Wicket is so small I think we could convince him that he is a cat.”
The door opens behind us and Cameron waltzes in, wrapped head to toe in Christmas lights. He gives a small cry of alarm when he sees me. “Who are you and what are you doing in our office space?”
“She doesn’t look that bad!” Jill protests.
I roll my eyes. “He still hasn’t forgiven me for changing my profile picture a couple of months ago.”
“The new Beth is grumpier than the old one,” he whispers to Jill.
“What are both of you doing here this early, anyway?” I ask.
“I came early to decorate the office for Christmas!” Cameron begins unwinding the Christmas lights. “Figured I’d better do it while my kids are asleep.”
“No!” Jill puts her hands on her hips. “No Christmas decorations until AFTER Thanksgiving. It’s in our articles of incorporation.”
“We don’t have articles of incorporation,” I mumble, turning back to my messy whiteboard. “Not yet, anyway.”
“Well, it will be!” Jill insists passionately.
“Fine,” Cameron shrugs, “I’ll just add these to the decorations in my office.” He waltzes back out of the conference room, humming Christmas carols before I register what he said.
“No, Cameron, Matt said if you use any more extension cords you’re going to blow a fuse!” I try to chase after him, but Nate pops up in front of me with a tablet.
“Beth! I know I already sent you that one graphic, but then I realized the derivative of the delta mass index was off by 1%.” He swipes the tablet between two images.
They look identical to me. “Ohh,” I say, trying to sound smart, “is that because you rendered it under a full moon?”
He gives me a funny look. “You know graphic design is not actually magic, right?”
“Pffff,” I wave my hand dismissively, “of course. I was just messing with you.”
“So I’ll send you the new graphic?” He’s already turning to walk away.
“Yes! Absolutely. And I’ll definitely make sure to delete all the old ones to make sure I don’t mix them up, even though they are so completely and obviously different that even a baby wouldn’t make that mistake.” I turn to Jill. “He’s a wizard or a mage or something and he just doesn’t know it, right?”
“Definitely,” Jill says.
A voice speaks out of nowhere. “There are a number of unexplained phenomena in the history of the life of Nathan Philbrick.”
Jill and I jump and spin around but there is no one there.
“Including how he manages to look so young when he was born in 1956…” Kyle’s voice continues.
“I think you’re thinking of Nathaniel Philbrick,” I say to the air.
“Ahh, but what if they’re the same person?” Kyle says in his most mysterious voice.
“Kyle, are you in the vents, again?” Jill asks, looking at the ceiling.
“What an outlandish claim,” Kyle scoffs, “I’ve developed a cloak of invisibility.” He sneezes suddenly, shaking the entire ceiling.
“This is ridiculous,” I say, crossing my arms.
“I know!” Jill agrees. “Those vents weren’t made for grown men to climb around in.”
“I’ve gone to your office every day this week to give you your paperwork and you were never there. You’ve been hiding in the vents all week, haven’t you?”
“Hogwash,” Kyle scoffs. “I love paperwork. I’ve often told Nate’s hamsters so. I would love nothing more than to do paperwork twelve hours a day. It truly brings joy to my heart. It’s this darned invisibility cloak. I activated it last week and I can’t seem to turn it off. What they don’t tell you about invisibility is that you can’t even see your own hand, much less grip a pen.”
I narrow my eyes. “I think you need to spend some time in Beth’s office. She’ll sit you in a comfy chair and give you tea and make you think about what you’ve done.”
“Or maybe you should spend time in Beth’s office,” Beth says, coming around the corner. She’s wearing the same outfit as me. “She’ll sit you in a comfy chair and give you tea and make you think about what you’ve done.”
“Wait, what’s happening?” Kyle asks. “I can’t see well enough. Which Beth are we talking about?”
Beth and I whisper together, “Bethception,” and walk away.
“Guys?” Kyle calls after us. “Guys?”
“What are you doing here so early?” I ask Beth as we walk back to my office.
“I have to pick up some PFW books to use with my students so I thought I’d come a bit early and paint something,” she says.
“That sounds lovely, I say. Can you paint a Dalek and put it up in one of the vents? That should get Kyle out of there.”
“Well,” she says, “I prefer to paint lovely things. Maybe Kirsten can write a program that simulates the sound of the TARDIS.”
“A clever alternative,” I agree. “Don’t forget to change outfits at 1:00PM precisely. We’re wearing yellow cardigans.”
“I won’t,” she promises.
Jill follows me into my office. “So about the cats?”
I sigh dramatically and collapse into my chair. “Fine, fine. No more cats.”
“I’m not saying it’s a bad idea,” she says kindly. “Just maybe not super practical. But I would get you a hundred cats if you really wanted them.”
“No, you’re right.” I sip my coffee. “A hundred cats is definitely a year five kind of business decision. File it away under future development ideas. Is our newsletter set to go out?”
“Almost done,” she says. “I just have to add links.”
“And you made us sound like angelic professionals, right?”
“Much professional. But I’m not sure angelic is the right term for us…”
I sigh dramatically. “It’s true. I founded a marketing collective of unpretentious hooligans and adorable mischief-makers.”
She grins. “That’s why we’re so lovable.”
Kirsten stumbles through the door looking ragged and dazed.
“Kirsten, what happened?” I ask in alarm. “And doesn’t anybody sleep around here?”
“The tumbleweeds,” she mumbles, “they assaulted me as soon as I got out of my car.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I protest. “I haven’t seen a single tumbleweed all month. Granted, I haven’t left the office in two weeks–“
“It’s me they want,” she says mournfully. “Maybe I did something to offend them, but I wish they would just tell me what it was. What do they want from me?!”
I pull the other six markers out of my hair and snap them together, then extend the rod to touch Kirsten’s shoulder sympathetically. “There, there,” I say. “You’re safe now. Janelle will prescribe you some anti-tumbleweed pills. Because that’s how medicine works.”
“That’s not actually how medicine works–” Jill protests.
“Shh,” I say.
“How do you even write science fiction?” Jill laughs.
“Passionately!” I insist.
Suddenly the sprinkler system activates, showering us all with cold water.
“Blagh! Yeech! Uggh!” I scramble to my feet, trying to protect the papers on my desk. “Matt, help!” I scream at my phone.
Jill takes the phone from me and dials him calmly. “Matt, we seem to have a situation. Here’s Beth.” She hands the phone back to me.
“The system’s going haywire!” I moan.
“Well,” Matt replies calmly, “there are bound to be some kinks when you choose to build your office in an old spaceship. Get down to engineering and maybe I can help you figure out what’s wrong.”
“Ok.” I take a deep breath to calm myself. “I’ll send Kirsten to bang on the flux capacitors with a can opener. That worked last time. Jill, order everyone umbrellas!”
“I’m on it!” Kirsten screams, sprinting out the door.
“I don’t even know why you have flux capacitors,” Matt says over the phone, “they’re not compatible with a WordPress class spaceship.”
“What kind of umbrellas?” Jill asks. “Should we put our logo on them?”
“I want mine to be TARDIS blue!” a muffled voice shouts from the vents.
“Ooh,” Hannah pops her head around the door, “can I have a batman umbrella? Wait! No! A jellyfish! With tentacles hanging down. I’ll send you the link.” She disappears again.
“Hannah, you’re not livestreaming this, are you?” I call after her. “ARE YOU?”
Nate walks in casually. “I’d really prefer a poncho, if it’s not too much to ask. Once I spent a whole year trying to do art with my left hand…it didn’t turn out very well.”
The rain from the sprinklers stops as suddenly as it started.
A voice drifts over from Bethany’s office. “Aww, did it stop raining? I just made tea.”
“Do we still want those umbrellas?” Jill asks.
I see something gripped in Nate’s hand and squint suspiciously. “Wait a second…were you lighting matches again?”
He hides the matches behind his back and gives me his best innocent face. “They’ve never set the sprinklers off before–I mean, what matches?”
“But something must have set off those sprinklers,” I protest.
Just then Grace slips quietly into the office. “Guys! I was working on this painting when the sprinklers went off, and I think I’ve discovered a new form of art!”
She holds up her canvas to reveal an exquisite painting. The colors and figures swirl and move hypnotically.
I blink rapidly, peeling wet hair off my forehead. “I know I’ve been working long hours, but I didn’t think I was that tired.”
“What was in those sprinklers?” Jill whispers.
“Isn’t it amazing?” Grace squeals in excitement.
“We’re all gonna die,” I moan. “Where’s Janelle? Maybe she can give us all penicillin!”
“That’s not how penicillin works,” Jill says.
“Oh, you’re not hallucinating,” Grace explains. “I used sentient paint from the home world–I mean country–of my friend Seplffr–Septimus.” She smiles innocently. “It had nothing to do with the sprinklers, although now I can see how I phrased that might have been confusing.”
We all stare at her with wide eyes.
Then I laugh. “Wow. For a minute there you really had me worried that there had been some sort of weird chemical leak. Is Septimus an exchange student you met at your job?”
“Ye-ess.” She smiles broadly. “My job…that’s where I go late at night…and meet interesting people…”
“Thank goodness we all live completely normal lives and all the crazy things happen in our stories,” I laugh.
“Ye-ess,” everybody says, suddenly shifting their eyes away from me. “Responsible, normal, uneventful lives.”
I narrow my eyes. “Good. Because now that I think about it, Kyle’s not the only one who owes me paperwork.”
The office clears in seconds, people mumbling excuses about day jobs, cats, and malfunctioning technology as they go. I sit back in my chair and prop my feet up on my desk with a satisfied sigh.
Then suddenly I remember something. “Guys! Will somebody tell Kirsten she can stop banging on the flux capacitors?”
I glance at the calendar on my desk and smile. All projects are still on track. We’re operating like a fine-tuned machine. Granted, that machine might be the Millennium Falcon flying through an asteroid field, but who in their right mind would ever complain about being on the Millennium Falcon? Not us. Now, if I could just get them to start calling me Captain…
