Stevo had never been a fan of Tuesdays at work. It was still a long way from Friday, and in this particular office, it was generally a day the manager would choose for a meeting. Having got her marching orders from Head Office on the Monday, Helen the manager would generally call a staff meeting for Tuesday morning to share the joy with her staff. “Shit rolls downhill” thought Steve to himself.
So that's how Stevo found himself sitting in a windowless meeting room at 11am, having been there since 9am, watching a Powerpoint presentation on how a software update to an application he rarely, if ever, used would revolutionize productivity. He finished the last dregs of his luke-warm coffee, and grabbed the last of the bourbon biscuits from the paper plate in front of him. “Most of this should have been an email.” He muttered to himself.
“Sorry Steven, was there something?”
“It's OK Helen, I was just wondering how this would work with email. You know, with attachments.” Stevo responded, thinking on his feet.
A few platitudes and buzzwords later, Helen was back to droning on. Finally she ran out of steam, and the meeting came to a close. As he got up to leave, Helen called to him.
“Wait a moment Steven, there is something else I need to talk to you about.”
He hated being called Steven, but she would never call him Stevo. He put on his best “work smile”
“No Problem Helen, What's up?”
“Claire from Billing gave her notice yesterday, she wants to go back to college apparently, child care or something. Anyway, I'm going to move Amber from your team over to Billing two days a week to pick up the slack until we can bring in a new hire. It will mean a bit extra work for your team, but I know you can manage.”
Well that's just brilliant thought Stevo, we are already a person short.
“Whatever you say Helen, we'll make it work.” He responded.
“Teamwork makes the dreamwork Steven! Have a good day!”
At that moment Stevo imagined the club he'd pretty much rejected as a weapon at the weekend, and imagined it smashing Helen's smarmy, corporate-waffle filled, head in.
His already bad day, had got much worse. Extra work, and although she clearly wasn't interested in him, he'd miss seeing Claire around the place. Who knows, maybe the woman of his dreams would be her replacement? Some hope, he thought. It'll probably be some granny with a hairy top lip and squeaky shoes. He despised squeaky shoes. His lunchtime ham and mustard sandwich did little to cheer his spirits, and he dropped bright yellow mustard on his white cotton polo shirt.
Stevo's thoughts wandered during the afternoon, and he kept thinking of his secret world. He wondered if anyone else had been chosen by the voice? Would he be able to recognise them in some way? Or even work together? I guess I'll just have to play it by ear, he decided. Then his thoughts turned to the message from the voice. “Earn the skills to build a society”. What skills would be needed? This was worth pondering, perhaps if he could identify the skills he'd need, he could select and complete missions in a way that would give him a good chance of gaining them?
He decided that some research was in order. He'd look into finding some survival stuff on the internet, perhaps a message board or something? Google had the answers to everything, after all?
Then he had another brainwave. If the scratch he'd received had followed him back home, then if he got fitter and stronger, would it help him in the secret world? Also, he needed to think of a better name for it. “Secret World” seemed silly. Perhaps it already had a name? He'd try to find out more on his next mission. Stevo had already decided he'd try another quest at the weekend. He was nervous about doing it during the week, in case something happened that would make him late, or miss work entirely. As much as he complained, it was a job. Considering he liked eating food and sleeping indoors, a job was important.
A glance at the clock on his desktop showed it was 5.05pm, so he saved his work and shut everything down. He looked around and saw that most people had already left for the day, and the cleaner, a short Ukrainian woman called Irena was dragging the vacuum out of the storeroom. She smiled at him as he walked past, and he nodded and said hi. She was always cheerful.
He climbed into his Mini and started the engine. The radio burst into life, he caught the end of the news. Apparently there was a major outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Now that was a horrible way to die, Stevo thought to himself with a shudder. Vomiting blood and bleeding from the eye sockets! No thanks! He changed the station, and was greeted by Bono from U2 belting out “Beautiful Day”. He couldn't help but chuckle at the absurdity of the contrast. The rest of the journey home was uneventful, he stopped at the Chinese take-away and grabbled sweet and sour chicken and egg-fried rice for his dinner, and parked outside his home at 6pm.
After plating his food and grabbing a bottle of Becks from the fridge, he decided to act on his earlier thoughts and start doing a bit of research. He opened up Amazon on his browser, and started shoveling forkfuls of chicken and rice into his mouth. If there was going to be a breakdown in society, Stevo thought that access to healthcare might become stretched, or even non existent. He also thought that having some first-aid knowledge might come in handy on his missions. A few clicks later and he'd added the latest edition of the “First Aid Manual” to his basket. He chewed a piece of his chicken, and thought of food. Supposing supply chains broke down? Next he added a beginners guide to foraging, and a copy of “How to Grow your Own Food”. What about fishing? He'd save that topic for another day. He gave his credit card a workout, and typed in the office address for delivery as he was never at home during the day.
Now what could he do to improve his fighting skills when he went on a mission? Stevo knew there would be skills he would be able to unlock and level up, but could he help the process in some way? He remembered there was a Karate club in the town, and also there were Judo classes available at a couple of places, but what about weapons? He'd have to think on that, he parked it next to “fishing” on his further research needed list.
After rinsing his plate in the sink, Stevo grabbed another beer from the fridge. This was unusual, as he generally only drank two or three bottles a week, usually with a meal after a bad day at work. A second bottle was usually reserved for particularly stressful days. He though back to his conversation with Helen the manager. At least if society collapses, I hope that bitch goes down with it. He popped off the top and took a large swig of the cool amber liquid. After flipping channels on the TV, more about Ebola on the evening news, Stevo settled on a Star Trek re-run, and started to relax. During the evening, he opened an unprecedented third beer, and may even have gone for a fourth had there been another in the fridge. He went to bed around eleven, and just as he closed his eyes a thought popped into his head. “Archery!” Then he fell asleep.
The next day passed without incident, and it was looking like Thursday would also be pretty dull, until at lunchtime the receptionist, Amanda, told him that there was a parcel at the front desk for him. His books! He took the box back to his desk and opened the parcel to check the contents, they were all there and looked to be in good condition. It was fairly quiet in the office, so he took a few minutes to flick though the first aid book. Stevo realised that his next job would be to assemble a decent first aid kit!
