Chapter 3: 3. Coffee is God
Saroma woke up at 4am to to make it to work on time at 5am. He couldn't sleep. Sleep was impossible when the weirdos next door were having an early Samhain party. Saroma definitely wasn't one to criticize other's for their belief, but no one had the right to get THAT lit.
Saroma arrived to work early. He had time to remove all of his papers and enter in the numbers that he received from nightshift. He finally broke out of his productive trance at 8am with the tempting smell of sweet, sweet coffee. The liquid for the soul.
Saroma instinctively pushed himself away from the desk, and followed the delectable scent. When he got to the break room, he felt his stomach growl. He looked up to see Moritie making coffee.
"Good morning." He said as he went through the fridge.
Moritie replied, "You have nothing in the fridge with your name on it." Saroma was embarrassed.
He confessed, "Force of habit, I guess. I forgot to bring breakfast." Moritie pressed the button on the expresso machine and filled her cup. She cooked it slightly and dipped the black coffee.
Moritie grabbed a mug from the cupboard, and tried to make conversation, "You like it black as well?" He filled the cup and looked up to see Moritie holding an empty cup.
She unhappily replied, "If I could inject it into my blood, I would." Saroma stepped away with his cup, and she filled her mug again.
Saroma said, "You're the first person that I've met who drinks coffee like that."
"And you're the first person who talks to me like that. You are at work, so that is your task while you are here. Not chit chat." She walked out of the break room without even looking at Saroma. While she left, she threw her head back and swallowed the coffee as if she was a snake. She might as well have drank the cup as well.
Baser showed up and walked straight to the microwave. He put a frozen sausage biscuit inside and pressed the buttons. Baser yawned, "And that, young grasshopper, is why you never go to the breakroom until after 8:30. Moritie drinks caffeine-anything like a camel! That's why she's so cold. Her heart exploded from too many energy drinks." Saroma laughed. It cheered him up quite a bit even though Baser sounded serious.
Saroma said, "She doesn't scare me."
"Yeah, cause you're the only one in weeks that would take the job. Not like just anyone knows how to operate DRiv." He said as Saroma bought something out of the vending machine.
The bag of spicy pork rinds fell from grace to the bottom of the vending machine. "I don't know why people don't seem to be buying these. They're really good." He opened the bag.
Baser opened the microwave 1 second before it beeped and nearly burnt off his hand trying to get the biscuit out. He shook his hand rapidly, "I have no idea. I would suggest asking them, but that's 'discouraged'." He used air quotes and then tested the hotness of his breakfast.
Saroma kept munching on his false breakfast and replied, "Yeah, that's true. But at least they're not forcing us all to be the bestest of friends!" Baser nodded his head in agreement.
Saroma finished his snack and said, "Well, back to work." He said as he made his way through the double door and to the offices.
He sat down at his loney desk, and the printer began to print a sheet of paper. Saroma pushes himself to the printer in the swivel chair, expecting more numbers to enter. Instead, it was just a bunch of random numbers.
"43.52626391.91422181.93638273.3163436241." He balled the paper up and tossed it in the trash without a second thought.
He entered in number until lunch time, but decided to eat lunch while he worked.
New data was barely changing:
Variable A: 02973
Variable B: 37828
Variable C: No change
Next line
Variable A: 02974
Variable B: 37830
Variable C: No change
Saroma had such little work to do that he decided to check up on Koiz. He got up, squeezed by the shredder that had yet to be moved, and walked past the offices. Moritie was reading, but she saw him in her peripheral, and stretched her hand out to stop him.
Without looking up, she asked, "Are you slacking or are these real numbers?" Saroma wasn't one to slack off. Especially since DRiv was 1 of a 4 part program and changed could be seen by the other parts. If he was slacking, it would affect his coworkers.
Saroma said, "I've only gotten a few papers this morning after finishing the pile nightshift made for me." All of a sudden, Saroma felt tired and sleepy. It was noon and he needed a nap from waking up so early.
Moritie turned away from him and said, "Hmmm. You may go to lunch now." Saroma worries about her sometimes, but past the blunt words, she wasn't all that scary, it seemed.
Saroma walked past the break room and to the reception area. Koiz saw him coming and went through his pockets. Without a word, he gave him a key with a label on it. Koiz acted as if Saroma didn't exist, but he didn't know that he was about to get an apology.
"Koiz, I'm sorry about the other day. I didn't mean to be so mean." Saroma tried to be sincere to him, but Koiz picked up the phone. He heard Moritie's voice but couldn't make out what they were saying. Koiz wrote in cursive on a sticky note, but it was upside down from where Saroma was sitting and couldn't read it easily.
Koiz pushed the hangup button at least twice and dialed in a number from memory as he said, "I have more important things to do than listen to you." He shooed him away and and Saroma walked away, defeated.
He put the key in his pocket and walked back through the double doors to the offices.
Moritie was making an announcement just as he entered. He tried to be as quiet as possible while closing the doors. "We have an unacceptable decline in productivity! If I catch anyone slacking, then we're going to have a chat with my boss. I don't care if things are slow. Don't be caught looking like you aren't doing anything! That is all." She returned to her office and things went back to normal. Quary was near the far end of the cubicles, and he was watching Saroma as he ate the apple. He motioned to his eyes, a phone, and held up the number 5.
Saroma ignores him and went back to his cubicle. Before he got back to work, though, he pushed the shredder aside into an unused desk area.
Saroma sat down, not receiving any work. He looked over his cubicle wall, and locked eyes with Moritie. The printer sounded off, and he got up to sham. Moritie looked around his office space, and Saroma picked the paper off of the printer. Convinced, Moritie left without a word.
Saroma took a step to his desk, and then saw that the paper was the same set of numbers from before:
43.52626391.91422181.93638273.3163436241. 91435353.23215353.@5
Of course, Saroma thought, another waste of paper. But then, it hit him. Query. It only made sense that it was him. Saroma thought of what he was trying to say:
I know what your doing. Will call @5
The person clearly didn't realize their grammatical error. But aside from that, what did that mean? Will he call him at five? Impossible! There was no way that he had Saroma's phone number. And what of the code? There was no doubt that it was from Query.
Saroma assumed that he would either confront him about it or wait until 5pm.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
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