A cult. It made so much sense. The three of them grew up in a cult, knowing nothing about the outside world. That’s why they dodged questions, and acted surprised over every small technological advance. Of course, Oliver had to tell Shawn right away. So he had gone in his room to grab his phone and returned to the family room where the three spoke in hushed tones. But he couldn’t hear a word of what they said.
Now, he made his way along a path headed towards the end of the apartment complex, past several trees and a lawn. He called Shawn, who picked up immediately.
“Hey Ollie. What’s up?”
Oliver cut the pleasantries. “I know everything.”
“Everything?” Shawn’s voice perked up. “About the three?”
“Yes. They told me a few minutes ago. They were part of a cult.”
“A cult?”
“Yeah. They grew up locked in a house that had no computers or TVs. Only books.”
“Damn.”
“They said they just escaped it.”
“Where’s this house?”
“It burned down.”
Shawn was silent, probably mulling this bit over. “A bit convenient,” he finally said. “They’re just now telling us about a cult, and saying the cult is gone because the house burned down. Anything else about it?”
“Nope. Just that they don’t like talking about it because of the horrible memories.”
“Also convenient.” Shawn’s voice sounded disbelieving. “Didn’t Jyri say he was a doctor before this job?”
Now Oliver fell silent. It was true. That first day Oliver had asked Jyri about past jobs, and all he said was that he was once a doctor. How could one be a doctor if they spent their whole life in a cult?
Unless he wasn’t completely honest about being a doctor. The way he had said it sounded off. Like he wasn’t telling the full truth. “Maybe he was some sort of healer within the cult?”
“Maybe.”
Silence again.
“A cult where kids were trapped in a house that burned down. Sounds like something that would make the news,” Shawn said. “I’m gonna do a bit of research.”
“If you want.” Oliver was willing to leave it at their word. Though he was curious to know more about this cult. And the three weren’t eager to give details. Convenient, as Shawn had said. “I’ll let you do that then.”
“I’ll tell you if I find anything.”
“And I’ll tell you if they say anything else.”
Oliver hung up, but he didn’t quite feel like going back inside. The weather was nice, and the fresh air was doing him well. He sat down on a nearby bench, and scrolled through news articles on his phone. A headline caught his eye. “Monster Sightings Across Sunnyvale.”
Oliver rolled his eyes. News reporters were really getting desperate for clicks. But he was curious to see what sort of “monsters” were being sighted. He had his money on cougars.
Several people reported on seeing a four-legged monster roaming around Sunnyvale Friday evening. Twice the size of a horse, with long claws and fangs. It had horns on its head and spikes along its back.
Well that certainly didn’t sound like a cougar. But it still sounded fake. Like stories of Bigfoot, Nessie, and UFO’s. Oliver read on about how someone saw it while walking their dog at a lake, and how someone else saw it on their way to Walmart. His mind hadn't changed. It was most likely a bunch of teenagers pulling a prank they saw on social media.
The next morning, Oliver discovered Ran had been newly employed at Wattavolt Electronics, and would now have another person filling a seat in his car every morning. Apparently they were going to tell him about Ran’s new job opportunity, but got distracted by their traumatic experiences of growing up in a cult. Oliver was just relieved Ran would no longer be alone in his apartment. When they arrived, Ran went straight to Jasper’s office.
Around 11 am, Craig showed up outside Oliver’s cubicle. “Hey Oliver.”
Oliver grunted. He had just gotten two emails. One was an order confirmation from DigiWorks, about an online order he placed two minutes ago. And he had just received a second email, also from Digiworks, saying there was a hold on his order.
“Did you hear about the monster sightings?”
“Yeah.”
“I bet they escaped from some secret government facility located inside the library on Third Street.”
“Mmhmm.” Oliver tried focusing his attention on the email. Why was there a hold?
“They’re probably snatching homeless people off the streets. And testing on them. And turning them into monsters. It’s a good thing you took Jyri and Faye in, or they’d be next.”
“What?” Jyri had walked over from his cubicle, towards Oliver's.
“Monster sightings. There was a news article about them.”
“What kind of monsters?”
“These scaley, four-legged things bigger than horses. With spikes on its back and horns on its head. Huge fangs sticking out of its mouth. Long claws. The stuff of nightmares.”
Jyri’s eyes widened. “No. That, can’t be possible.”
“Well it is. The internet said so!”
“How could that have happened?”
“The government has been snatching homeless people and making them into these monsters for tests or something of the sort. I was just telling Oliver all about it.”
Oliver reread the line about the order being on hold for the tenth time and sighed. “Can you all please be quiet so I can finish reading this email?”
Thankfully they listened. And it turned out his order was on hold because…
“Two past due invoices?” Oliver frowned. “We always pay our invoices on time.” He supposed he should go talk to Emily about this. He clicked on the attached invoices and discovered one was for $668.46 and the other was for $386.32. He printed out the invoices, and went over to Emily’s cubicle.
“Emily.”
Emily turned around to look at Oliver. “Yeah?”
“Did you know we have two past due invoices with DigiWorks?”
“What?”
Oliver handed her the invoices. “I was trying to order something from them, but they sent me an email saying we need to pay these before they’ll ship the parts.”
Emily adjusted her glasses to look at the invoice and sighed. “Oh, right. Jasper told me not to pay them yet.”
“Didn’t he know it was past due?”
“He said we couldn’t afford it.”
Oliver scrunched his brow. “What does he mean, we can’t afford it? We never have problems paying for things before.”
Emily shrugged. “Apparently we do now.”
“Are we able to pay them off? Tyler’s pushing for me to order more relays.”
“I’ll talk to Jasper about it,” Emily said. “I’ll let you know what he says.”
“Thank you.”
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Oliver went back to his desk to write up a purchase order for mill-max pins. Before he could do so, Ran interrupted him.
“Hi Oliver,” Ran said quietly, from his cubicle doorway. “What are you doing?”
“Ordering mill-max pins,” Oliver said.
“Okay… Well… Jasper… he wanted me to tell you to go to his office. He says he has something urgent for you to do.”
“These pins are kind of urgent,” Oliver said. “Can it wait?”
Ran shook his head. Oliver stood up with a sigh, and followed Ran to Marissa’s old office, which now served as Jasper’s office. Jasper sat in a large, cushioned computer chair in front of a hardwood desk. On it was a computer, and a laptop. Jasper looked up from the laptop at the sound of their footsteps.
Jasper smiled at Ran, and gave him a thumbs up. “Good job.” He turned to Oliver. “Now, I have something urgent for you to do.”
“I was already doing something urgent,” Oliver explained. “Tyler needs me to order-”
“Forget what Tyler needs.” Jasper flicked his wrist, as though Tyler were irrelevant. “No, I need you to help me with something. You handle inventory, right?”
“Kind of. I don’t do any of the actual counting, but-”
“I need you to count all of these papers.” Jasper wheeled himself to a file cabinet behind him, pulled a manila folder from a drawer, and dramatically plopped it on his desk with a thud.
The folder was thick, and covered in dust. Papers bulged out of it. “Why?”
“I want to know how many pieces of paper are in here.”
“Okay?” Oliver swallowed. It was a lot of paper, and would take a lot of time. “If I have time later-”
“No, I want it done NOW!” Jasper pounded his fist on the desk.
Oliver snatched the folder, and scurried off to his cubicle. There, he dropped the folder on his desk. He sat down, and opened it.
It was but a stack of old inventory lists from 6 years ago. Oliver let out a sigh, and began counting.
He got to 38 when Shawn showed up to share the results of his hard research.
“Nothing came up,” Shawn said. “No stories of a cult raising children in a house with no modern amenities. Nor any houses of any cults burning down.”
“Must’ve been kept quiet,” Oliver said.
“Or it never happened.” Shawn shook his head. “Pretty sure they’re making it up.”
“Maybe.” Oliver struggled to remember if he had stopped at 35 or 36.
“What are you doing?” Shawn asked.
“Counting pieces of paper.”
Shawn raised an eyebrow.
“Jasper asked me to.”
“Why?”
Oliver shrugged.
“That guy is a real pain. He was upset that the microwave broke, and tried getting me to fix it. I’m IT. I fix computers, not microwaves!”
“I know.”
“The two have nothing in common. I don’t know anything about fixing microwaves...” Shawn’s mouth fell open as though a thought came to him. “Wait. It’s weird.”
“What?”
“Jasper showed up around the same time they did.”
Oliver stroked his chin. That sounded about right.
“Do you think Jasper is part of their group? That he’s from wherever they’re from?”
“I don’t think so,” Oliver said. “Jasper knows too much about modern times.”
Shawn agreed. “The others are actually weird. He’s just a pain in the-”
“I hope this conversation is work-related,” Jasper said as he walked up to them, Ran trailing behind him.
“Oliver’s computer is having issues,” Shawn said.
“Oliver shouldn’t even be using his computer,” Jasper said. "I specifically told him to count the stack of papers I gave him.”
“I’ll need my computer working eventually,” Oliver said.
“True. Except...” Jasper eyed Shawn. “I need you to help me with something.”
“With what?”
“Follow us.”
Shawn shared a quick look with Oliver before obeying Jasper’s order.
At this point, Oliver hadn’t the faintest idea what number he left off on, and started over. He got to 48 before he was interrupted by Jyri.
“How do you attach a file to an email?” he asked.
Oliver buried his face in his hand. “Figure it out yourself.”
“I tried but I can’t.”
“The paperclip icon. Click the paperclip icon on the message. You know what a paperclip is, right?”
Jyri had the nerve to look offended, despite not knowing anything about highlighters. “Of course I know what a paperclip is!” With that, he stormed off with his head held high.
Oliver shook his head and, hoping it was 44 he left off on, continued counting. By 94, he was interrupted by a man in a brown uniform.
The delivery man pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose with one finger. “I need a signature for these packages I’m dropping off,” he said, gesturing towards the stack of boxes on a dolly next to him.
Oliver signed for them, then continued from 96. That was where he left off, right? He got to 126 when he realized he could’ve easily pretended he counted, and made up a number. By 138, he did just that.
“186,” he said. “That’s believable enough.” And so he shoved all the papers back into the folder, and made his way to Jasper’s office.
“186 papers,” Oliver said, setting the folder on the desk.
Jasper looked up at him from his computer. “What?”
“The papers you wanted me to count.” Oliver patted the folder. “I finished counting them. There’s 186.”
Jasper raised an eyebrow. “You’ve been counting paper?”
“Yes. Like you asked me to.”
“Why would I ask you to waste precious time counting paper, when you should be ordering mill-max pins for Tyler?”
“What!” Oliver clenched his fists and took a deep breath. “You said-”
“Don’t put words in my mouth, and go order those pins!”
Seething, Oliver stormed off to his cubicle. Tyler stood outside of it.
“Oliver, did you order those pins yet?”
“I’m trying to-”
“I asked an hour ago. My customer is yelling at me-”
“I’m sorry, I’m working on it right now.”
“Thank you.” Tyler patted his shoulder and walked off.103Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFJXjIoIhWE
and then Add to home screen.