“So what are we pulling today?” David asked as he walked into the Central Office.

  Sitting at the large Octagon of screens and desks were his fellow work colleagues along with his boss, an astra named Josh. It was night shift, so while the overhead lights were on and on normal lighting settings, they had dark filters over the lights to defuse the light so that it didn't shine harshly on anyone. Despite that, Josh's angular head still had a sheen to it, “probably buffed out his metal,” David thought to himself, before tuning back into what Josh was saying.

  “We also have a Steam pull scheduled for after the Sports Statistics pull.” Josh checked his screen before looking back up at David. “Your main one will be sorting out the Steam pull, which is currently in progress. Your desk is number,” he paused, “...45, this evening.”

  David huffed, “Thank you,” he said to Josh, who said, “You're welcome” to his back as David walked towards the forties area in this office. At the start, David had thought the amount of space and the open plan was just a design choice. He now appreciated it a bit more, after the disaster training that had happened yesterday morning.

  Finding the desk, he sat down and checked what he had this evening, a regular mouse, which was good after yesterday, and a screen which had been specialized for Wolfkin.

  “Manageable,” he decided, with nothing else on the numbered desk. He put his bag in the bag nook under the left side of the desk and, jiggling the mouse, he got to work, analyzing and sorting out what could be sorted by the automatic sorting algorithm, and helping resolve and refine that sorting area of algorithm where it couldn't decipher the data. Reviewing it himself and putting what labels that he figured would be appropriate to it.

  It wasn't a high-paying job, but it was one that always had space for more workers. No matter their background and no matter the Dimension that they were from. Because of that, David was glad that they allowed self-defense weapons in the office building.

  “Hey, are you working on the Steam data pull as well?" David turned around in his seat to see a man-wolfkin standing with a stack of papers in a binder.

  “Yes,” David responded. “I've just started sorting out what statistics might be relevant from the sorting algorithms. What is your name?” David asked.

  “Max,” the wolfkin responded.

  “Well, Max, is this your first day on the job?” David inquired after a moment.

  Max adjusted his stance, and responded with a solid “yes.”

  “Ok then,” David turned slightly and gestured at the computer. “Your best bet to start with is the images on the latter part of the table. Meanwhile, I'll go get another monitor from storage,” David said, getting up out of the chair.

  “I will give you some pointers and hotkeys to sort the data out quicker after I've gotten a monitor better suited for me from storage. Be right back.” David stated, getting up out of his seat in the latter half of his sentence and walking to the nearest storage area, leaving Max at the desk. By the time David got back with a computer and a wheeled chair, Max had figured out the UI and had begun looking at the data to see if they could make any useful conclusions from it.

  David set the monitor on the other side of the desk and plugged it into the computer under the desk. “Um,” David looked at Max with raised eyebrows. Who looked sheepish, “I was told that you were the guy who would train me in data interpretation?”

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  David managed to keep himself from shouting, although by the expression on Max's face, he could tell it looked like that was what he wanted to do. He breathed in through the nose and out through the mouth. He said plainly “I was unaware that that was part of my job. I'll have to check with my supervisor, but I'm happy to get you started on the basics.”

  And so he taught Max how to make the various graphs and about what might be worthwhile to aggregate data for based on what was trending, after giving him some basics. And told him to get started.

  He walked back through the office space towards the Main Office Central Area Front Entrance. David's scowl was not just at the weird naming scheme that Astras usually implement. Josh, seeing the scowl, quickly logged off on the computer, confirming David's suspicions. He waited, tapping his foot and managing to keep himself from snapping, when someone else came over and asked if he was okay. By the time Josh had logged off and came over, the lady had left.

  “I am aware that it's not your job to train others. But I can add overtime pay for this one occasion for the act of training up someone else.” Jason said softly as he stood next to David. That calmed David down a bit.

  “But, this is the third time that you've asked me to do something extra. On top of my usual duties, I am falling behind on submissions.”

  Josh murmured, "I know. But this will be recorded, so you could get promoted and have higher pay. Which is what you are looking for with your submissions anyway. Also…”, Jason added on, seeing David's expression. “... there weren’t enough trainers for the latest group of applicants, so the plan was to make group sessions with the trainers that we do have. But not everyone starts on the same day.”

  David fumed for a moment before saying, “I will be applying for a transfer”, and stomping off. He wasn't just mad about the extra work (although that was a factor in his anger). And in any case, taking it out on his new co-worker would not help him, David reminded himself by the time he got back to Desk 45.

  He was moderately calm and was focused enough that he could keep working and help bring Max up to speed. And helping newbies was amusing at times, like when Max activated the filters, only he had the settings the wrong way around, so instead of filtering out overly graphic games, those were the only games that showed up. Other than that, the work day went by slowly. By the end of the day, David had almost forgotten about why he was the one to have trained Max instead of someone else. Almost. So, sitting down at his home desk, he got to work writing up emails and reviewing his contract.

  By the time the next day had rolled around, he had managed to send an email to his boss, Josh, and the boss of his boss. He had figured that it would result either in a meeting or in another email. He hadn't figured that it would garner a response from Josh and another Astra'n, whom he did not recognize, meeting him outside of the building. Josh looked nervous, and the reason why was revealed when the unknown Astra’n introduced himself.

  “Hello, my name is Samuel Alfred from the Federal Business Commission. I was sent here to review the business in charge of this facility.” After a moment of silence, David managed a response.

  “Hello, Samuel, Josh. I wasn't expecting this much to come out of it.” He answered, honestly, “Not that I was expecting them not to respond”, he added immediately after, “but I would have thought the answer would have been simple.”

  Samuel simply responded with, "I also hope that it will be simple,” and left it at that. Josh spoke up next. “Let us head inside to discuss what we're going to do.” David and Samuel both agreed, so they all headed towards the office floor where David worked. Which gave David plenty of time to internally stew on what he was going to ask for and on what was going to happen next.

  When the elevator door opened to cheering, David abruptly remembered what specifically was scheduled for this day. This day had been scheduled months in advance by the higher-ups in the business to “Increase employee morale.’ And upon seeing that on this day that any individual employee would be allowed to use any individual workstation to get what data they wished from the prime universe, he figured that it would result in a lot of failed hackings or shattering, as viruses were changed to conform to the rules of this particular universe. But otherwise, generally, it was a write-off of a day for David himself. David just put his face in his hands now, and tried to hide behind Samuel.

  "It's employee data pull day,” Josh explained to Samuel, shifting slightly, “so any single person can pull what data they want from the prime universe, so long as they still make something we can use the data for by the end of the day.”

  Samuel simply shrugged, “Lead on,” he said to Josh, and so Josh did. They went to the private offices, which were usually reserved on this day, but some of the employees who weren't just browsing the games saw them and quickly vacated one of the private office spaces.

  The three of them entered into it. After an awkward pause, Josh started the conversation with David. “I have forwarded your email to Jake, and I am awaiting a response.” David nodded and thanked Josh.

  Then quiet descended; after a moment, Samuel spoke, “If that is all you two have to talk about this morning, then I request that David leave the room.”

  After a look between David and Josh, Josh replied with “Yes, Other than letting David know that Jack will be the one giving the desk numbers this morning, that's all I have to talk with him about.”

  David followed that up with a nod and “then I'll go see him about where I'm working. Have a good day,” and he turned and didn't run away from the impending conversation, despite what his fellow office employees would say in the coming days.