Chapter Text
The next morning, Imogene was surprised to see that Moss came to the office wearing the exact same outfit as the day before. Maybe he was like Einstein and had a closet full of beige dress shirts, brown neckties, and corduroy pants. After a brief but cordial greeting, he waddled into an elevator with her—or a lift, as they say in the UK—and they traveled up to the thirty-first floor to begin inventory.
"Now, I spent all of yesterday making a table," Imogene announced. "So we can mark down everything we possibly need to know about each device."
The clipboard she dug out of her blue tote bag had an inch-thick stack of paper clipped to it. Moss leaned over Imogene's shoulder to get a closer look, and she thought she got a whiff of his smell—like the inside seam of a comic book.
"Now that is brilliant," Moss observed, shaking his head at her clipboard in amazement. "And you saved us twenty pounds in printer ink coloring it in by hand!"
Imogene rolled out her sore wrist as her face went hot. "Thank you, Moss."
He cocked his head. "You're very welcome."
He exchanged awkward glances with her, and Imogene was suddenly very conscious of her looks—the matted knots in the ponytail of her sun-kissed, golden-brown hair, the way her round blunt bangs tickled the top of her blue cat's eye glasses, the plethora of orange freckles peppering her upturned nose. She had intially thought it smart to wear her navy-blue bolero and the checkered skirt, but the Converse shoes and the knee-high socks neutralized her whole fit into something entirely childish and unprofessional.
Moss swayed on his hips, which he seemed to do a lot. "Always happy to compliment a top-tier organizational system."
Imogene smiled. "I could probably use a spreadsheet to calculate the answer to life, the universe, and everything."
Moss laughed. "That would just be 42."
Her eyes flickered with excitement. "You like Hitchhiker's?"
Moss stared at her and blinked twice. "Am I a thirty-two-year-old IT man who works in a basement? Yes, I'm obsessed with Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."
This was enough to catapult Imogene into what her family members affectionately called "the zoomies." It mostly consisted of her bouncing up and down on her toes with such momentum that her ponytail swung back and forth behind her head, while chittering about a subject of interest at an unstoppable, rapid-fire speed, like a guinea pig that had been injected with cocaine.
"Oh my gosh!" Imogene said excitedly. "I've read every book twice! My favorite is So Long and Thanks for All the Fish. I was Marvin the Paranoid Robot for Halloween once and no one knew who I was!"
"We don't do Halloween much on this side of the train tracks," Moss replied, straightening his glasses. "But I suppose I would have dressed as Dirk Gently as a child, if I had the chance. I assume you read science fiction extensively, then?"
"Do I read science fiction?" she sputtered. "I read everything. The Left Hand of Darkness, The Dispossessed, Parable of the Sower, Handmaid's Tale, Xenogenesis, A Wrinkle in Time—anything weird and feminist. But I like fantasy a lot too, like Dragonriders of Pern—"
"Ah, you're into the classics," Moss nodded. "I suppose you'll find my love of Marvel comics to be intellectually inferior."
"Oh, no! I like Marvel comics. I cried for four hours when they canceled Spider-Girl. Did you read Spider-Girl? Spider-Girl was my favorite."
Moss threw his head back. "Spider-Girl was incredible. The great tragedy of our times! I admit, I, too, shed a tear. The ending?"
"Oh my gosh! We should talk books while we take inventory. I have so many favorites I could share with you!"
The doors dinged open on floor thirty. They walked into a sharp-edged corporate office full of people typing and taking calls. Imogene adjusted the clipboard inside her elbow as she hurried over the floor, Moss keeping his head low behind her.
"But first," she said cheerily, digging around in her massive tote bag. "Where do we want to start? Since the elevator doesn't take us up to thirty-four, I like the idea of us going up each staircase one at a time, then down back to thirty-one in a big burst at the very end. That way we don't have to walk up three flights of stairs all at once."
"Being a nerd in the traditional sense," Moss agreed. "Any opportunity for me to skimp on physical activity, is a welcome one."
"Also being a nerd in the traditional sense, I agree."
Imogene patted herself down like she had just been dinged by TSA.
"Oh, shoot," she groaned. "I just realized I didn't bring any pens. I'm always losing pens, and it's always the coolest ones, too. Like the fun ones you get at Target or whatever. And I don't want to have to ask anyone here for one. That would be so awkward. And I can't just take one from some random desk, because then they'll think I stole it, or they'll be short a pen in a time of need—"
A ballpoint pen appeared next to her, in Moss' hand. Imogene felt her cheeks go warm.
"I used to keep a second spare on me," Moss replied. "But unfortunately, I gave it to Denholm's grieving widow."
Imogene frowned. "Oh, uh…I'm…sorry to hear that. Is Denholm a family member who…passed away?"
"No," Moss said bluntly. "Denholm was our first boss who committed suicide by jumping from the thirtieth floor."
Imogene's eyes widened at him. "What? When did that happen?"
"A few months ago," Moss explained, before lowering his voice to a scandalous whisper. "He was the current Mr. Reynholm's father. He may have been embezzling money from the pension funds…perhaps the reason behind his untimely departure."
Imogene thought of the man depicted in the photo in Mr. Reynholm's office. That must have been the previous Mr. Reynholm, who bore absolutely no resemblance to his conniving, idiot son. (Were "conniving" and "idiot" too contradictory? Perhaps, but it did fit Imogene's first impression.)
Imogene didn't ask a follow-up question about this as they made their way up to the thirty-second floor, which didn't look particularly distinct from the thirty-first floor. However, she did ponder whether or not she was safe spending this much time at a corporation that had driven a man to end his life, and where the current boss was threatening to take her life—she was becoming increasingly convinced that her adventure in Britain was going to turn out less The Devil Wears Prada and more Goodfellas.
But she pushed this out of her mind. She whipped out her clipboard again, ready to finally start their work—or, more accurately, be able to talk Moss' ear off about their favorite comics for the rest of the day.
"Morris!" said a voice up ahead of them. "Thank god you're here!"
Imogene looked up to see Moss rolling his eyes as a woman in corporate attire, her nose buried deep in the receiver of her phone, waved him down. Instantly Imogene knew their brief moment of privacy was over. The woman kept waving at them as he and Imogene approached her desk with hesitation.
"Fix this," the woman said with a flippant gesture, as she stood up and trailed the phone cord behind her. "It's not turning on and I have so many calls."
She dialed a number and waited, crossing her ankles. Imogene glanced at Moss, who was scowling.
"I'm sorry to interrupt our little excursion," he scoffed, gesturing to the computer. "But duty calls."
Imogene saluted him. "Aye aye, captain."
Moss seemed to hide a smile. "Ooh. 'Captain.'"
He bent awkwardly over the desk and pressed the power button. They waited in silence for the monitor to boot up. Speaking of booty, Imogene wasn't looking at Moss' at all. She was embarrassed that anyone might think she was doing so.
"Why did she call you Morris?" she asked him. "Am I saying your name wrong?"
"No, my given name is Maurice Moss. I just don't bother to correct them anymore."
"I get 'Imogen' a lot, but I can't complain considering…one, my name comes from a misprinting in a Shakespeare play anyway, and two, I have the less-common spelling."
Moss gasped. "Shakespeare, misprinting? I knew he wasn't all that."
She giggled as she picked at one of her cuticles. "How do you like working in IT? Are the people nice?"
"Roy and Jen are nice, yes. Everyone else…they're nice when they're not disabling the flipping firewalls. The field services technician seems like a much more exciting life—so much travel."
"Roy seems pretty…laid-back."
"He is lazier than a chinchilla on Christmas!" Moss grinned, shaking his head. "He makes for a good best friend in that sense. I never have to worry about anything when he's around."
Moss and Roy? Best friends? Imogene was surprised by this. Moss seemed so much more put-together and nice. And here he was, doing actual work, which was more than she'd seen Roy do since she started. Well, Roy did help lift that desk for her. She forgot if she'd given him a point for that yet.
"I'm sure you'll fit right in with the three of us," Moss continued. "More so than the last field services technician, anyhow. He kept trying to talk to Roy and I about Formula 1 racing, whatever that is. Not sure how you can race a formula. And he kept calling me four-eyes."
Imogene gasped. "He didn't! You should have reported him to HR for anti-glasses discrimination."
"You're right," Moss nodded. "It was pure human cruelty, but you've not proven yourself to be the devil incarnate yet. So far, I've greatly enjoyed the highly artistic doodles and the exchange of great works of feminist science fiction. I'm sure there's plenty more good things where those came from."
She blushed, yet again, and lowered her head. "You, too."
Moss frowned. "Me, too what?"
"Nothing."
"You're right, I have got nothing," he replied, referring to the computer. "Which means we need to check the—"
"Power supply?" she chirped.
Moss swung an arm over his head. "Two leagues ahead of me."
Imogene squatted on the floor and crawled on her hands and knees towards the power strip. In retrospect, it was a bad idea to wear a skirt today. She hoped Moss wasn't ogling her booty.
"Nothing's unplugged," she squeezed out. "Wiggle the one for the PC."
Moss wiggled one of the cords from above, and Imogene traced it down to the power strip. She unplugged the offending cord and checked the prongs, then put it firmly back in the socket where it belonged.
"What do you play on your Game Boy?" she asked him.
"I'm a simple man." She heard him fiddling with the computer above her. "Mostly Tetris, Super Mario Land, Asteroids, Centipede, Dig Dug. Are you a 'gamer' yourself?"
"I am! I love arcade games too. I kick major butt at Galaga."
"That's my one blind spot. Still can't beat Roy's high score. Once I lose my second ship, I'm like an ant that's had its hill removed."
"Having a second ship actually makes things harder in the later stages, because you need to be able to dodge as the enemies get more hectic." Imogene fidgeted by checking all the plugs in the power strip were in tight enough. "Did you play Metroid II: Return of Samus?"
"Roy told me I couldn't talk about Metroid anymore, because I can't stop once I start. So before I jump into my extensive thoughts on this subject, I feel I should ask permission: may I open the floodgates?"
Imogene laughed under the table. "I'm sorry, but are you me?"
"Nope, I'm Moss."
Imogene giggled, then looked at the power strip.
"Wait, Moss! I think I found the problem."
She flipped the switch to the "on" position. Up above her, the computer dinged to life.
"Bingo!" Moss cheered. "Now we can get back to business."
Imogene crawled back out from under the desk as modestly as she could without bumping her head. She hadn't realized he had been peeking down at her. Imogene stood up surreptitiously, swatting at her skirt, as he adjusted the woman's chair at her desk. She raised both hands to give him a double high-five, and he obliged by hitting each of her hands individually with only one of his.
"Yay!" said Moss. "Look at that. We make a great team."
Imogene felt herself grinning from ear to ear. A team. She couldn't remember the last time she was part of a team.
"I must ask," Moss continued. "Do I have permission to talk to you about Metroid for the entire duration of the rest of the day?"
Imogene bounced on her heels again. "We'll see if you can get a word in once I start."