Stephanie Bond - Body Movers 03 - 3 Men and a Body by 3 Men & a Body

Author:3 Men & a Body
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

20

R ichard McCormick extended a big, fleshy hand. “Welcome to Atlanta Systems Services, Wesley.”

Wesley pumped it and swallowed the pain that shot through his arm. “Your department acronym is ASS?”

“Huh?” McCormick frowned, then laughed. “Oh, yeah, I guess so. Come on, I’ll show you where you’ll be working.”

Wesley followed the lumpy guy through a maze of cubicles and bull pens that hummed with machinery. Huge clumps of black and gray cables snaked everywhere—over desks and floors, clipped to walls and across ceilings. A few faces looked up from computer monitors as he passed through, but for the most part, everyone seemed engrossed in whatever they were doing. It was his first experience in an office environment and he was suddenly nervous. He didn’t know what to expect.

“Here you go,” the man said, gesturing to a workstation connected to three others in a cluster, occupied by two young guys and a girl.

“Everyone, this is Wesley.”

“Hey,” he said, nodding.

“Hi,” they chorused.

“I’m Jeff,” a dark-haired guy said. His shirt was missing a button and he looked as if he hadn’t slept—or showered—in a couple of days.

“Ravi,” offered the other guy who appeared to be of Middle Eastern descent and was wearing latex gloves as he tapped on a keyboard.

“Meg,” the girl stated. She wore a black Georgia Tech sweatshirt and zebra-striped glasses, her dishwater-blond hair twisted up into coiled pigtails.

“Help Wes get settled in,” Richard said. “He’s going to be working on our legacy databases.”

The two guys snickered, and when McCormick walked away, Jeff said, “Dude, you just got the shittiest assignment in this cesspool.”

“Mainframe work sucks,” Ravi said.

“Ignore Dumb and Dumber,” Meg said dryly. “This isn’t a bad place to work. McCormick even lets us work on school projects when we need to.”

“You go to Tech?” Wesley asked, setting his backpack on the empty desk.

“We all do,” she said. “We’re in a work-study program. What about you?”

“A community service sentence.”

She frowned. “Did you get arrested or something?”

“Yeah. For hacking into this place.”

“Cool,” Jeff said, and Ravi nodded. Meg, on the other hand, looked bored with him already.

Wesley scanned the PC sitting on his desk. “Does this boat anchor even have a math coprocessor?”

“Doesn’t matter much,” Jeff said. “It’s basically just a monitor to give you access to the mainframe.”

“No Internet access?”

“Nope. We all use our phones.” They held up various models of expensive PDAs, all of which had more memory than the dinosaur of a PC on his desk.

“Don’t worry. We’ll build you something better,” Ravi offered.

“How long will you be around?” Meg asked.

McCormick had decided to divvy up Wesley’s one hundred hours of community service into four-hour chunks. “Every morning for about six weeks.” He sat in his assigned dusty, upholstered chair and rubbed his arm. The gashes were starting to heal, but the skin was painfully taut. He was down to two OxyContin pills, and would like to get more from Chance, but one problem nagged at him—the possibility that when he reported in to E. on Wednesday, she would make him provide a urine sample for a drug test.

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