Page 47 of Code Mages & Empty Pages
“I really enjoyed the event at the shelter. As far as I understand, you and Mr Atkins put Perky up to it.”
I admired the man for being able to use Carson’s husband’s name without even cracking a smile. It sounded genuine, too.
“Uh, I don’t know,” I hedged. I’m fully aware of the nosy woman from HR listening in. “Luc and I adopted a Cat-sìth together, and we ran into Mr Carson when we had a check-up appointment for Ruffles to get his shots. And one thing led to another.”
Alaric Dunmere tipped up one corner of his weirdly plush lips. “Oh, I see. Good ole Perky. It was funny though. I fell in love with one of the Fire Worms they had, and I’ve decided to adopt it.”
“Congratulations. Having a pet is so worthwhile, isn’t it?” I said. I’d seen the Fire Worms. They looked like lizards with long, snake-like bodies and squashed snouts. I found them quite intimidating, but they were supposedly very nice pets.
“Yes, I love Roja already. She’s so sweet.” He gave me a benign smile.
“That’s really great.” And I meant it, even though I preferred something fluffy and a little more cuddly, like Ruffles…or Luc, my brain supplied. I tried my hardest not to grin at the thought of cuddling Luc.
“Yes, I’ve been telling all my friends to drop by in person. I couldn’t bear seeing all those animals there with their sad faces.I wish I could adopt them all, but of course, I am on the road quite a lot.”
“Of course.”
Jeannette cleared her throat.
“Oh, right. The paper jam.” I hastened to slip open the top of her printer so I could extract the cartridge and the stuck piece of paper.
“Just a minute, Mr Dunmere,” she said in a sweet voice, and she fluttered her eyelids at the Obsidian Gargoyle. “Mr Dunmere needs a new badge,” she informed me.
I just nodded and cursed when the paper tore in two.
“Oh, it’s been such a pain with all the paperwork,” Jeannie MacLeish said to no one in particular.
She had to print out two pages that you had to sign: one so the company was legally allowed to store your picture for future use, and the other sheet that made you promise you wouldn’t abuse the clearance you had on your card.
I remembered Luc letting me into the server room so we could fuck and decided not to dwell on it longer. We should probably stop. I hated breaking the rules.
“Your printer is ready to go,” I told her as I crumpled the destroyed sheet of paper with ink-stained fingers.
“Thank you ever so much, Ms Kent,” she trilled. Alaric Dunmere gave me a little smirk over her shoulder.
“Goodbye. If we could get on, I have an important appointment to get to,” Dunmere said as I left her office, peering down at a black paper calendar. “It’s gone from my digital calendar again.” Alaric Dunmere rolled his eyes. “What a mess.”
Chapter 17
Luc
Ididn’t even hear Dawn return from fixing the paper jam in HR.
I was about to wrap up the calendar bug, which turned out to be more of a pain in the arse than I’d expected. They’dall been able to edit, overwrite, and even delete each other’s appointments. No wonder they were frustrated.
Once I’d run my script and had assigned the correct access rights to all the realtors, I marked the ticket that I’d pulled from the “Needs better solution” folder in our inbox as “complete.”
“What the hell is going on with our inbox?” Desmond asked about twenty minutes later.
“What do you mean?” Dawn said. She’d just been tidying up her desk, taking spare keyboards and cables to our storage space.
I checked out the emails. They were from our realtors.
“Thank you, Mr Atkins. You’re a lifesaver.”
And another, “Hi, Luc, this is fantastic news.”
One even said, “Our IT hero.”
