1. All the Little Rules

The men walked down the hallway, talking and opening the doors. Their fancy black shoes echoes off the lonely walls, but there was friendliness between the two men.

"This is the break room, and down the hall on the right are the restrooms. And this—this is the room that you'll be working in." They paused. One gave the other free advice, "Don't eat food from the break room unless its yours. Moritie has no problems enforcing even the dumbest VertMed policies." The man opened the door and the workspace was revealed. All eyes quickly shot up at the intruders and then went back to work.

"You don't work here, Koiz." A woman dressed in formal attire stood up from her workstation.

The man who was addressed, Koiz, smiled like a little embarrassed school boy speaking to his first crush. The woman was indeed attractive, but judging from her disposition to Koiz, someone familiar, she must have been a bitch.

Koiz replied to her without waning blush, "I'm just showing the new guy around. His name is Saroma." Koiz motioned to the new comer. The woman only gave them an accusative look.

"He can introduce himself, right? If you're not an interpreter, then you may return to your job station— outside the secure area." She held her hand out for the file in Koiz's hand and he gave it to her.

"Call me." The man motioned to a phone with his hands. The boss woman only rolled her eyes at him. Koiz left the way he came.

"I can't do my job otherwise." She mumbled as she thumbed through the contents in the folder, "So, you're able to put in this work-order or whatever. We've needed someone in your position for a while now, so don't fuck it up. I'm your boss, Moritie, and Rocca is your manager. I'll show you where you work." The man followed the bad-tempered woman through the offices. Eventually, she sharply stopped at a desk that was filled with stacks and stacks of papers.

"I still have questions about my job." Saroma said. Moritie was only quiet, seemingly waiting for him to continue, "What will I be working with? What are my primary responsibilities?" Moritie was still quiet.

She was indeed a bitch. Her reply only proved that she was a distasteful person, "Your only obligation is fulfill your contract. You're the one who knows how to work DRiv, so... you tell me. Look, you just take numbers from paper and put them in the computer. Do I need to do the job for you?" She had delivered a very sassy reply but it was so fast that Saroma barely noticed.

"No, Ma'am," he said quickly, and hid new boss turned and left him alone. Saroma placed his briefcase on the desk and the admired the towers of papers.

"How am I going to get all of this data in all on my own?" Saroma asked himself. This was an impossible task, it seemed. The only thing he did was sit down and go through the important data.

The printer went off and papers fell off of the machine, making the place more disorganized than it already was. As soon as he picked up a sheet of paper, he heard a new visitor approach. "Oh! Are you the new guy?" the man hung over the cubicle wall in a casual manner, "You're the one who walked in with Koiz a moment ago. Welcome to the team." The man continued to introduce himself as he extended his hand for a handshake. "I'm Baser." Saroma shook his hand, happy to finally meet a potential friend, and appreciating the friendliness.

"Saroma." If it wasn't for his quick thinking, he would have spat out his real name. Fortunately for him, he kept his cool and could catch silly mistakes.

Baser moved a stack of folders aside and leaned against the desk. He recounted earlier, "Yeah, Moritie isn't someone you can go to for just anything, you know? Always cover your ass around her."

As I've heard from the receptionist, Koiz." Saroma hesitated, "What do you know about him?"

Baser leaned forward and spoke quietly as if that would control his volume, "You don't ask those questions around here. When you go through that door, you leave your personal life there. This is exactly why we were all given new names before we started working here." Saroma showed Baser surprise and continued talking about the false names, "Yeah, we all know about it, but don't go shouting it." The dark cubicle grew very quiet. It wasn't like Saroma had a reply. The best thing he knew to do was to just keep quiet.

Baser showed Saroma the papers in his hand and said, "So, these are for you." Saroma looked at the papers but did not take them.

"There are so many— I don't even know where to begin. I don't even know what to do with majority of these things." Baser looked as if he knew what to do.

He advised, "You should talk to the manager, Rocca, but he's probably going to tell you to toss all this junk out anyway." He pressed his lips together and looked at all of the skyscrapers of papers.

"Can you show me?" Saroma asked after a pause.

Baser seemed to perk up out of thought, "Sure thing," he got off of the desk, "its this way." Saroma got up and followed Baser out of the more lonely portion of the cubicles and to the offices. Here, it was bright and lively.

Baser stopped at some office and tapped the metal siding to get the attention of the man sitting at the computer. As soon as that sound rang though the room, the man looked up to determine the source.

"Ah! Mr. Baser!" The man, purportedly named Rocca, exclaimed. The man stood up to shake Baser's hand and to motion them to sit down. "What brings you in my office today?" He asked them.

Baser crossed his hands on his knee. Baser began to explain, "This is the new guy."

"Oh, the one Miss Moritie warned me about." They joked, but Saroma was left out and only laughed to appear included. He had never worked in such a strange place before.

He was working on a computer in an office and he was inputting data— all of which he was familiar with. But something was off the second he stepped in the room. Saroma was having second thoughts about the job.

"This is Saroma. He is taking Stone's job." Rocca's face went very solemn and was very quiet.

Rocca replied, "Good that we finally have a replacement. What is it that I can do for you?" This man was ready to listen and potentially write their request down.

"He needs to know more about what he's doing, right?" Baser looked directly at Saroma.

Despite being caught off guard by the sudden question, Saroma swiftly turned to them and said, "I need to know what I'm supposed to do with the papers on my desk. That's too big a task to enter in all that data on my own." Rocca paused. He took a long time thinking carefully. Eventually, he turned to his computer and made a few clicks.

Rocca turned to them and said, "That would be a better question for my boss. I'll send an email to her after lunch. And I'll email you." Saroma didn't like those results but he felt that he should have expected this. "If I don't get back with you, just go ahead and shread everything."

"Everything?"

"Yes."