The Misfit Corner

By Stephanie Dyrkacz Weidner

The new employee cube in the development group of WPG was particularly undesirable to most people in the business. In addition to being under the vent and being separated from the garbage compactors by only a very thin wall, it also had a rather unfortunate location. It was in the Misfit Corner. The corner in the back that held six cubes, five of which were occupied by programmers who had no family and no real friends besides each other. They presumably had lives after work and on the weekends, but did it really matter? The bulk of their lives were spent at the company; they were the hard-core programmers, the ones who were dedicated, talented, and, well, very odd.

As the group’s newest employee, Chip didn’t mind his cube at all. True, the vent was a little inconvenient; dragon’s breath always had that peculiar stench to it. But it meant that he was always warm, and he had gotten used to living with a constant bad smell during his college days. He had also learned how to concentrate through loud noises, so the goblins who did the garbage compacting didn’t bother him much either, although sometimes they startled him by banging on the wall. All in all, Chip was very happy with his situation.

He had already been there two weeks, but everything was still as wonderful and exciting as it had been during his interview. Chip was certain that WPG was the perfect company for him. It was so full of Opportunity and Possibility.^* Here he could make a Difference. Because Chip had dreams, and he had talent, ambition, dedication. He was ready to take on the World.

Gena had said he would lose the capital letters in a month. And Tok had told him that WPG was nothing special, that all companies were the same really.

Chip tried not to listen to Gena and Tok. Okay, they had been in the business longer than he had, and they had been around the block a few times, but he didn’t like the way Tok made jokes about everything, and Gena was just plain cynical. If he could have, he would have shut them out completely. Unfortunately, Tok worked in the cube next to him, and Gena had been assigned as his mentor to “show him the business.” Of course, Chip preferred Gena as his mentor over Exeter or, Gods forbid, Annie.

Chip circled yet another incorrect total on the printout, scribbled the correct total next to it, and then rose and exited his cube. In the cube next to his, the corner cube, Tok’s battered leather jacket lay in a heap on his chair, looking pathetic and forlorn. Tok himself had no doubt gone to the kitchen for his coffee.^**

Tok’s full name was Totoktot. It had been chosen lovingly by his mother who wanted to forever remind her son of a rich and noble heritage with a name that evoked the cry of the eagle, the ferocity of a storm on the plains, and the rhythm of horses’ hooves pounding the raw earth. Tok still hadn’t forgiven her. First, there was the fact that his actual ancestors had been the ones who ripped up the plains, shot the men riding on the horses, and sold various bits of the eagles as souvenirs. Second, there was the embarrassing truth that his name wasn’t even ethnic; his mother had made it up herself. And finally, there was the tiredness and frustration of having a name that everyone stuttered and hiccuped over. Tok enforced his nickname with fortitude and refused to help anyone foolish enough to attempt his full name.

Chip’s destination was the cube next to Tok’s, the cube where Gena sat. He stopped just outside theng in the makeshift walls and lightly tapped the side of one of them.

“Gena?”

In response, Gena lifted her dark head from the pages of code she had been studying and swiveled in her chair towards him. She acknowledged his presence with her purple-grey eyes and held out a hand for the sheet he held. Taking a small step forward, Chip gave her the paper.

Iphegenia had been the name her parents had given her. It was virtuous, noble, and feminine, and it matched her breathless beauty. Or at least, she should have been breathlessly beautiful. Her dark, luxurious hair should have rippled in waves down her back. Her skin was the kind that makeup simply melts into and becomes a part of, and she had a figure more perfect than any sexually repressed doll-maker could ever dream. If she had gone into modeling or acting, by this time in her life she probably would have made millions of dollars, married ten or twenty times, and died tragically of a drug overdose.

But somewhere along the way, Iphegenia had grown tired of her beauty. The first dozen or so men who saw her and then immediately had to go searching in the carpet for their tongues, well, they were fun. The second dozen were amusing. By the tenth or eleventh dozen, though, she was quite sick of it. And a girl can only get so many love letters, so many bouquets of roses, so many diamond rings before she starts wondering what the point of the whole thing is. Iphegenia had had a long discussion with herself about beauty of the body versus beauty of the mind and soul and, with only one weak rebuttal from her “Fortune and Fame!!” side, had made her decision. She cut her hair, threw out her makeup and revealing clothes, bought a wardrobe of sweatshirts and baggy pants, found a suitably boring nickname, and applied for membership in the National Engineers, Researchers, and Developers Society.

Chip fidgeted a little as he waited for Gena to finish looking at his work. His eyes strayed to the small placard that was propped up against the cube wall in the corner, half-obscured by a pile of papers. A placard that, if it were his, Chip would have treated with more Respect, for it proclaimed to any who saw it that Gena was a fully licensed NERD.

Chip bit his lip to stop the sigh. He was painfully aware that he was the only one in the Misfit Corner without a license. Gena and Tok were both NERDs, Annie and Exeter were GEEKs, and Wumble would tell anyone who was unfortunate enough to pass by him how proud he was to be a DWEEB. Chip had been rather unfortunate his first day on the job and had spent forty minutes listening to how, in Wumble’s day, there was only one society of developers and the tests were much much harder. Chip had listened with a polite smile, wondering when he was going to hear about trudging without shoes in ten feet of snow. Uphill. Both ways.

“All right,” Gena said finally. “Thanks, Chip. You can go back to playing solitaire now.”

Chip shifted his weight onto the other foot and pulled a few of the black curls on the back of his head. He asked, “Um, Gena? Do you have any more documentation that I could read? Maybe?”

She shook her head. “Sorry, I gave you all we had.”

“But,” he replied, hesitantly, “but the stuff you gave me is all on projects we aren’t doing anymore. Don’t you have anything on current projects?”

“Documentation on current projects?” a voice behind him laughed. “That’s a good one, Chip.”

Tok’s hand came down on Chip’s shoulder, making him jump slightly. He looked up at the older man’s smile. Quite a ways up. Tok was at least a foot taller than Chip. In fact, Chip noted resentfully, everyone was taller than he was. Everyone, that is, except--

“Did someone say documentation?!?” a high voice trilled from two cubes down.

Gena spun in her chair and fixed darkly worried eyes on Chip. “Run,” she whispered.

Chip didn’t need any other encouragement. Quickly, he ran down the line of cubes towards the kitchen as Tok ducked back into his own cube and Gena tried to look busy.

Two cubes down, a very round red face peeked around the side wall at waist-height. Or at least it would have been waist-height for anyone else. Waist-height was Wumble-height for Wumble. The round face disappeared into the cube only to reappear again a few seconds later, this time on top of an even rounder body which was carrying a stack of folders in its little arms.

Wumble tottered down the aisle and stopped in front of Gena’s cube. He looked around for a moment at the nothingness that had suddenly appeared there.

“Where is he?” he asked.

“Where is who?” Gena asked back, nonchalantly.

Wumble continued to pivot around and around, peering into every corner with his bright blue eyes. “The little squire,” he answered. “I heard him talking to you and Sir Totoktot.”

Hidden in his cube, Tok winced. He had never been able to figure out how the old man had learned his full name. Or Gena’s for that matter.

“Something about documentation,” Wumble continued. “I was going to offer him the opportunity to peruse the documents on which I had been working.” He looked around one more time. “Hmm… perhaps I should just leave them in his cube.”

“Perhaps you should,” Gena replied as politely as she could while still making it perfectly clear that there was nothing even remotely like a conversation coming from her.

“Yes, I think I will. Thank you, Lady Iphegenia.” He turned and trotted towards Chip’s cube. Gena released a quiet little sigh and returned to her work. In the cube next to her, the one between hers and Wumble’s, a low sound began to rumble, like a mountain quietly laughing.^• On the way back to his cube, Wumble threw a look at the originator of the sound, and the rumbling stopped. A few minutes later, Chip slipped back into his seat, looked at the mound of papers that had been left for him, and groaned softly.

There was silence in the Misfit Corner for several minutes. Then, Tok said, “Hey, Gena, want to go out with me sometime?”

Gena smiled to herself. He was doing it early today. “Sure,” she answered.

“How about next Friday?” he continued on cue.

“How about when Hell freezes over?”

“Okay. Sounds good....Damn. What is wrong with you?”

Gena jumped. Tok’s daily asking of her out and her daily rejection of him had become a kind of ritual for the Misfit Corner. They had a few variations on the same theme that they frequently used, and every so often, one of them would add something new just to make sure the other was listening. But he had never said anything like that to her before.

“What?” she demanded.

“No, not you,” he replied. “My machine.” He stood up, draped his long arms over the wall that separated them. “Can you get into the mainframe?”

She stiffened. Slowly, she turned in her chair to look at him and answered in a voice laced with glaciers. “I have only one thing to say about the mainframe: I hope someday someone it up, carefully tears out every last wire one by one, slow-roasts the gremlins over a barbecue pit, and uses the empty carcass as a coffin to bury its creators in. I’d do it myself except that I can’t bear to be in the same room with it. Just the thought that it’s in the same building as I am makes my skin want to crawl inside my body and my organs want to crawl out.”

Tok looked at her for a beat. Then, he stared at a point off in the distance and remarked, “I believe I’ll take that to mean, ‘I haven’t tried this morning, Tok. Sorry I can’t help you.’” He focused on her again. “Do you suppose you could try-- ”

“No.”

“Not even as a fav--”

“Absolutely not.”

He blinked at her. “Well,” he said, “it’s nice to work with such a helpful group of people.”

She smiled sweetly at him and turned back to her monitor. In the cube next to her, the quiet rumbling began again. At the sound, Tok lifted his head and tried to see over the wall.

“Exeter,” he called, “have you been able to get in this morning?”

The occupant of the cube slowly stood up. His folded wings appeared first, followed closely by his mountainous body. He turned to face Tok and crossed lion-arms over the top of the wall. The once-long claws had been cut down so that he could use his keyboard, and the wrists of his paws were wrapped for support. He rested his eagle face on his crossed arms, turned his ears towards Tok, and gazed at him with bright eyes.

“No,” Exeter replied in a voice lower than his laughter had been, “I haven’t. I called the NetTechs to report it, but we all know what a great help they are.” He smiled ever so slightly.

“Wonderful,” Tok sighed. “I actually had a chance of finishing this project on time,^•• and now I’ll have to wait until the NetTechs get around to fixing the mainframe. Just wonderful.”

“Actually,” the other commented, “I was thinking about going down to the server room to try to…” his smile widened, and he showed just a bit of teeth, “…speed up the process. Care to join me?”

Tok grinned. “Love to. Got nothing better to do anyway.”

Gena lifted her head and glared at each of them. “Then go,” she said, “and stop having your conversation over my head.”

Five minutes later, Exeter and Tok wandered into the empty server room. They walked by the vacant help desk with its lonely phone ringing, stepped out of the path of the little robot in charge of switching tapes, and made their way to the back of the room where the mainframe was kept.

They stopped. For a moment, the two programmers just stood there, side by side. Then, Tok remarked lightly, “Well that would explain why it’s not working.”

“Indeed,” Exeter replied and took a few steps toward the large dusty space on the floor where the mainframe no longer was.

Tok reached for the nearest phone and dialed an extension.

“Hi, it’s Gena.”

“All right, Gena,” he said. “What did you do with it?”

“With what?” she asked.

“You know what. Where did you put it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll remember if you tell me what it is.”

“Look, this isn’t funny.”

“No kidding! Here, I’ll make you a deal: I’ll tell you where if you tell me what.”

Tok sighed in severe frustration. “The mainframe, of course. What did you do with it?”

It may have been Tok’s imagination, but suddenly the earpiece seemed several degrees colder.

Gena replied, “I told you, I wouldn’t touch that thing with a ten-lightyear pole.^† If someone took it, good riddance, but it wasn’t me.”

“Now, hold on, Gena,--”

“Tok,” Exeter interrupted him. He had knelt down and was now examining the patch of dust. Tok took the phone from his ear, rested it against his shoulder, and looked at him expectantly. Exeter continued, “Stop harassing Gena and come look at this.”

With a small snort, Tok placed the receiver on the table, walked over to Exeter, and squatted down beside him.

After several moments, Tok released his breath in one long, low whistle.

“Wow,” he said.

“Yes.”

“That’s not good.”

“No.”

In the patch of dust, a large strip had been cleared as if someone had dragged something through it. Except on closer examination, it became evident that instead of one large thing, several small things had disturbed the dust, each in relatively the same place, so that their marks blurred together and became one large mark. But near the edges of the strip, one could just barely see the outline of a tiny footprint.

Exeter rose, walked over to the desk, and picked up the phone. “Gena, you still there? Good... No, not quite. Two things: first, if Annie is in, please send her down here to us. And second, could you transfer me to Wumble, please? Thank you. ...Sir Wumble? This is Sir Exeter. I have a quest for you if you would be so kind as to undertake it. You would? Thank you kindly, sir. The quest is to find a NetTech. ...Yes, I realize it’s difficult, but I know you can do it. Sir Tok and I will be remaining here in the server room so if you could join us once you complete your quest...? ...Good. Thank you very much, Sir Wumble. Goodbye.”

Carefully, Exeter replaced the receiver and turned to Tok who was smiling at him.

“That poor NetTech won’t know what hit him,” Tok remarked.

“Exactly.”

In the Misfit Corner, soft clanking sounds were heard for a few minutes. Then, with a shrill cry of “CHARGE!!!!!” a little metal-plated bullet exploded from Wumble’s cube and streaked down the hallways. Chip barely managed to flatten himself against a wall in time to avoid being trampled.

After the dust had cleared, Gena left her cube, passed the still-shaking Chip, and entered Annie’s cube. It appeared to be empty, but a pair of sunglasses lay on the desk. Gena picked them up, pressed a small button on the side of the computer, took a few steps back, and covered her eyes with one hand while the other held out the sunglasses. In the walkway, Chip quickly recovered and covered his own eyes with both hands. He knew that the horror that had just nearly happened to him was nothing compared to the horror that was about to step into that cube.

During Chip’s first week, he had decided that he really liked Annie. She was nice, helpful, and smiled more often and more sincerely than Gena or Tok. She always wore those long, flowing skirts and soft gray or white fuzzy sweaters, and she had seemed to Chip like a favorite schoolteacher or governess. The only thing that had puzzled him was the fact that she always wore pitch-black sunglasses.

On Friday afternoon, he had asked her to take them off.

“Are you sure?” she had said.

“Yes,” he had replied, steadfastly ignoring Tok’s quiet little murmur of “You’ll be sorry....” as everyone else had immediately ducked into their respective cubes.

And then Annie had taken off her glasses....

....

....

....

Gena had helped him get to his feet again and had held him steady until he had stopped shaking enough to stand. Then, she had gently and kindly explained that Annie was what is commonly called undead, a wraith to be specific. She had helped him sit down in his chair, gotten him a drink of water, and released him from all duties for the rest of the day. Chip spent the following weekend with all the lights in his apartment on, and he suspected he would never fully recover from what he had seen in the deep, black infinities that were Annie’s eyes.

One advantage Annie had in being a wraith was that she could possess the gremlins in her computer and program the machine directly. But she couldn’t take her sunglasses with her. Therefore, you could always tell if Annie was in by whether or not her glasses were on her desk, and you would also know that, if you called her with the button on the side of her machine, you had better have your eyes shut when she came out.

“All right,” Annie’s soft little voice said. “All clear.”

Chip slowly and carefully brought his hands down as Gena said, “Exeter would like you to go down to the server room.”

“What’s going on?” Annie asked.

“Something about the mainframe,” the other answered. “He and Tok are down there together. They didn’t tell me exactly, but it sounds like it’s missing or something. They sent Wumble on a quest, probably for a NetTech.”

“Hmm...wonder why they want me.” She smiled and shrugged. “Guess I’ll find out soon enough.”

She followed Gena out of the cube and had begun to walk down the hall when Chip stopped her. “Umm...Annie,” he asked, shyly, “could I go with you? I’ve never seen the server room. I...I’d like to see it.”

Annie smiled at him. “Sure.” She turned to Gena who had resumed her seat in her own cube and asked, “Would you like to come too, Gena? We can all hang out in the server room together.”

Gena sent icicle stares Annie’s way. “No thank you. You know I never go to the server room.”

“Because the mainframe is there?”

“Yes.”

Annie’s small smile widened just a bit. “Except that right now, it’s not there. In fact, if it’s missing then you don’t know where it is. It could be anywhere. Anywhere except the server room, that is.”

For a moment, Gena just looked at her. Then, she blinked and said, “You are evil.”

Annie only smiled.

“All right,” Gena continued. “I’ll come, too.”

The three walked into the server room to find Exeter talking to a young and very frightened NetTech. The Tech’s terror was increased by the fact that a small, yet surprisingly sharp, sword was resting its point on his back directly between the shoulderblades. At the other end of this sword, the metal-encased Wumble stood on a chair and guarded his captive.

Annie walked up to Tok who was sitting on the help desk and watching the scene in front of him.

“What’s up?” she asked.

Tok pointed to the dustyspace. “The mainframe gremlins, that’s what’s up. They’re up and about. Apparently, they busted through the bottom of the machine and just walked out of the server room. Exeter’s trying to find out what the Techs know. Close to nothing I’m sure. Then, we’ll probably go looking for it.”

“That’s where I come in,” she added.

“Exactly.”

“I swear!” the Tech squeaked. “I don’t know anything! I don’t have help-desk duty until next week.”

“Who does have help-desk duty?” Exeter asked calmly.

“Um...um....” the Tech pointed a shaky finger in the direction of a printed-out list that hung close to Gena’s head. She found the appropriate name, “Arvis, K.”

“And where can we find Arvis, K.?” Exeter continued.

The Tech swallowed. “Um...he’s on vacation until Monday.”

Tok started to laugh. Exeter shook his head and turned to the others. “Well, shall we start looking?”

“How are we going to find it?” Chip asked. “It’s a large building.”

“We could keep an eye on Gena,” Tok suggested. “When she goes into convulsions, we’ll know it’s somewhere close by.” He grinned at her. She gave him a look that would curdle milk.

“Um...can I go now?” the NetTech asked. Exeter turned his head and peered at him. The Tech shrank back from Exeter’s gaze, sprang forward from the prick of Wumble’s sword in his back, and finally ended up trying to pull his body into himself from all sides.

“No,” Exeter replied to his question. “You will come with us. Sir Wumble? Thank you.”

Exeter strode out of the server room and into the halls as Wumble jumped down from the chair, planted his sword in the NetTech’s lower back, and trotted him out into the hall after him. The others followed.

After twenty minutes of searching and five minutes of avoiding the Meeting Monster,^‡ they finally found the machine cowering under the table in the third floor kitchen. When it realized it had been discovered, it tried to run away, but the hundreds of little feet couldn’t decide which way was the best escape route, and it ended up going nowhere. Annie knelt down beside it, shut her eyes, and passed her hands through the outside shell and into the central workings of the machine. The hundreds of little feet suddenly stopped and all snapped to attention.

After a few moments, Annie removed her hands,d her eyes, and turned to the others. “They’re starving!” she exclaimed. “They haven’t been fed in two weeks!”

All eyes swung to the cowering NetTech. He said, “Erk.”

Tok’s face had suddenly gone red. “You forgot to feed the mainframe?!?” he growled.

“It’s not my fault!” the Tech squawked. “I feed the second floor desktops! It’s not my job to feed the mainframe!”

“Whose job is it?” Tok demanded.

The NetTech racked his brain and finally came up with a name. “Elwood, J.”

“Let me guess,” Gena said from just outside the kitchen door. “He’s on vacation, too.”

The Tech tried to look offended. The fear in his face made this less effective than he had hoped. “Of course not. Don’t be silly.”

“Then where is he?” Tok asked.

The Tech swallowed, swiveled his eyes around searching for an exit, and stammered, “He’s...he’s at a very special week-long software convention.”

Now fully enraged, Tok was about to yell something else at the NetTech, but Exeter tapped him lightly on the shoulder and stopped him. Tok looked at Exeter, nodded, and stepped out of the way. The gryphon took a step forward, unfolded his wings a little to look even bigger, and grinned, showing all his pointed teeth.

“What is your name?” he asked.

“D-d-d-d-douglas, M.”

Exeter nodded once and then, in one smooth motion, gathered up the front of the Tech’s shirt in his hand and lifted him easily off the ground. The Tech said, “Eep.”

“Now, listen to me, Douglas, M.,” Exeter continued, very softly and calmly. “You are going to go down to the server room and fetch as much gremlin food as you can carry. You will then bring it back up here, feed these starving gremlins, and then escort them back to the server room where you will hook them back up to the network. And, after today, you will make it your personal responsibility to double-check that every machine in this building is properly fed, because if this ever happens again, I will come looking for you, Douglas, M., and I won’t be as forgiving as I am today. Do you understand?”

“Urk.”

“Good.” Exeter smiled again to ensure one more month of nightmares for the young NetTech and then gently put him back down again. The Tech scurried out of the room as soon as his feet hit the ground. Exeter turned to Tok who had regained his normal color and smile.

“That was far more satisfying than anything I could have done,” Tok remarked.

“Thank you.”

“Poor little things,” Annie murmured, stroking the top of the mainframe. The gremlins inside began to whimper softly, and several of them tried to snuggle up to her, squishing other gremlins in the process. “I’ll stay here with them until he gets back.”

“Well,” Wumble said, sheathing his sword with a small clang, “another quest satisfactorily completed.” He slipped his arm into Chip’s and started to lead him out of the room. “Come, Squire Chip. You know, this reminds me of the time I vanquished the evil temp secretary. It must have been, oh, five or six years ago, and this brazen witch who called herself a secretary, well, she was....”

Chip threw a desperate, pleading glance at Gena as he was dragged by, but she could only shrug apologetically at him.

“So,” Exeter sighed once they had gone, “another day, another good deed.”

“And before 9:30 even,” Tok added. “What did you have planned for the rest of the day?”

Exeter shrugged and began to leave the kitchen. He replied to Tok who had followed him, “I thought maybe obtaining world peace and ending all hunger and suffering. Either that or finish the HMP project.” He smiled slightly at Tok and Gena. “I’m not sure which plan is the less fantastic.”

Tok and Gena laughed, and all three walked towards the stairs to return to the fourth floor.

^*And other words ending in -ity. Back
^**It was generally agreed that about 80% of what ran in Tok’s arteries was pure caffeine. The rest was blood, but because of very high rent and generally sub-standard conditions, it was thinking of moving to better accommodations. Back
^•In other words, like an avalanche. Back
^••i.e. sooner than six months after the promised shipping date. Back
^†Like a ten-foot pole. Just much longer. Back
^‡The Meeting Monster, called that for lack of a better name, is a black hole in the floor that wanders the halls looking for unsuspecting employees to suck into its vortex. The victim is then thrown into a closed pocket of space-time and forced to sit through an endless, pointless meeting, run by the company president, who it is said has been talking about the same methods of employee motivation and company restructuring since the beginning of time. After about two or three hours, the victim, now nearly brain-dead from the monotony, is sucked back into real time and recovers after about another hour. Meeting Monsters are greatly feared throughout the industry. But it is rumored they have a weakness for doughnuts. Back

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