Influx (Book Four)

Chapter One

"I know, I still feel bad just scrapping them. Each board holds a special memory," she says simply before she hits the button to collapse her board and drops to the ground. Hitting her watch, the now small disk magnetizes itself to the side of the watch.

"You're such a sap," I muse, and she knocks into my shoulder before walking inside.

"You're just a robot," she teases, but we both know that isn't true. I try to keep her from seeing everything, but sometimes it's hard for me to get a grip. I guess the same can be said for most though. 

"You shouldn't drop from such a tall height, it's going to ruin your knees," I say as were enter the open space that is our lab.

"Whatever mom," she taunts, and I roll my eyes at her name-calling.

"I have a call with my project manager in ten minutes," I say, and she nods before leaving me be.

"Hey boss," I say, pulling my scarf down so my voice doesn't get muffled.

"Hey Beta, how's the project?" He asks me casually; the background is fairly silent, and I know I am not on a conference call. I hate conference calls; they always drag on far too long and someone always gives me pitiful directions.

"Almost finished, I am going to send the updated schematics back by the end of the day," I say staring at the almost finished device on the table.

"That's wonderful, you've always been our most efficient beta tester," Nathan says, and I don't respond. I believe I am their only beta tester at this point, and I'm also one of their best engineers. Trying to recall who is on the email chains, I remember that the other testers were fired, and one was busted for drug abuse at work. He never answers me on why they haven't hired anyone else though.

"Why did you set up this call? I told you I was going to finish this by today," I say not wanting to drag this out longer than necessary. I hate phone calls. Grabbing a pencil, I flip open my journal to take notes on whatever he is going to rattle off.

"Do you remember that bid we put in with Voyager a few weeks ago?" Nathan asks me and my blood boils at the name. How could I ever forget that? As if Voyager doesn't make enough money, now they are selling off incomplete ideas to companies, it's truly pathetic.

"Of course," I say coldly.

"We won the bid for the three projects!" He exclaims excitedly and the pencil snaps in my hand. I feel my eye twitch but try not to let my aggression show in my response.

"Okay,"

"We will be giving all three projects to you over the next nine months, I am already rearranging your project tracker to accommodate the more important projects," he says.

"Okay,"

"Is everything okay, Beta?" Nathan asks me and I just pluck a new pencil at the jar.

"Everything is fine, just give me the details on the projects," I say coldly.

"You will need to come into the office occasionally for meetings, I know this is something we don't ask of you to frequently, but these are really important projects for the company," Nathan says, and I grit my teeth.

"Is that necessary? I have already proven that I can do the work in the allotted time frame," I say shortly, and I focus on my breathing.

I already regularly work ten to twenty hours of overtime a week to keep up with the demanding schedule they've arranged for me. I don't complain though, I don't have to regularly interact with people, and I get paid enough to support myself and Calikta.