#aka the bavarian fire drill lmao | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

cosmicanamnesis · 6 months

Text

Technofae excerpt: Chapter 10 - The Bells

A pair of women in lab coats came into the room, complaining about how the coffee they were drinking tasted like someone used the coffee pot as a bunsen burner again. Artie glanced at the Lieutenant, and then at the women who had yet to notice them.

“Trust me,” Artie whispered and stepped more into the women’s line of sight before clearing his throat. “Hey, sorry,” he said once he had their attention. “We’re new here, what uh, what printer does this computer print to?”

“Oh, you’re totally fucked, mate,” one of them said in a thick English accent.

“That computer’s cursed,” said the other, coming over to help. “It’s never recognized a printer a day in its sad little life.”

“Oh, well, that explains it,” Artie said to the Lieutenant. “Been trying to print these for five minutes.”

“Yeah, it’s not gonna happen,” the woman without an accent said. Mavis H. was her name according to her employee ID card once she got close enough for Artie to read it. She dug through a drawer in the computer desk for a moment and pulled out a thumb drive with a masking tape label that read POS in 201. “Here, any time we have to print anything in here, we have to put it on a thumb drive or email it to ourselves and take it down the hall. I’m going to assume, based on your lack of employee ID, they haven’t gotten you your email account yet, either?”

“Yeah, not yet. It’s really limiting basically everything I can do,” Artie laughed. Mavis sighed and rolled her eyes, passing him the thumb drive.

“They’re so far behind on the new employee stuff, it’s insane. I feel like I spend half my day letting interns into rooms,” she complained, sipping her coffee.

“No kidding,” Artie said as he plugged the drive in and started moving files. The Lieutenant stood silently amazed off to the side, watching Artie save the day with improvised office banter. “They told me last Tuesday I’d have my badge by the end of the week. Guess what I still don’t have.”

“Don’t hold your breath,” the British one said. “It took them nearly a month before I got mine.”

“Oh, lovely,” Artie rolled his eyes and ejected the drive once all the files were transferred. He closed everything and logged out of the computer, just in case he was using one of the women’s accounts. He didn’t want them to realize no one had let him into the lab or logged in to their employee account for him to use. “Where do I go to print this?”

“Come on,” Mavis said, tossing her head towards the door. “I’ll let you in.”

“Appreciate it,” Artie said, tucking the drive into his pocket. He motioned for the stunned Lieutenant to follow. “I’m Arthur, by the way.”

“Mavis,” she smiled. “And that was Elizabeth back there.”

“Nice to meet you,” Artie said earnestly. Mavis led them down the hall to what appeared to be a dedicated computer lab. She held the door open for both of them and followed them in.

“Here, you can use my login,” she said, snagging the nearest open computer.

“Hey Mavis,” a younger man said from the back corner of the room. “You on intern duty again?” he laughed.

“Always, David. There,” she said, standing up to switch spots with Artie. “If you need anything else, feel free to ask David. He doesn’t know anything, but he’ll come get me if you need help,” she teased.

“Thanks, Mavis,” Artie said, taking a seat in front of the computer.

“Yeah, thanks, Mavis,” David said indignantly.

“Anytime,” she called behind her as she left.

Artie plugged the drive in and opened the files, setting them all to print. For a while the only noises in the room were David typing and the printer spitting out pages and pages of information.

“You are so fucking lucky that worked,” the Lieutenant muttered, taking a seat next to Artie. He shrugged.

“Not really,” Artie said, watching the print queue. “Offices are offices. I’m new is like, magic words to these people.”

#aka the bavarian fire drill lmao #technofae tag #nanowrimo 2023 #text

1 note · View note