The sounds of some sort of techno-beat combined with heavy metal music drifted up to Jackson’s office. He shook his head and tried to return his concentration to the tangled contract he was working his way through. Scrolling down the page, he briefly entertained the thought that this was a lot like reading an ancient scroll by simultaneously rolling up the top while unrolling the bottom.
The music increased in volume and Jackson reached for his noise-canceling headphones. If he could finish reading this spectacular piece of lawyer-ese in the next half hour or so, he could be home in time for an actual dinner with his family. That amounted to something of a minor miracle these days.
“What the hell is going on?” he muttered as the music cut through his headphones. He pulled them off and the music sounded at the same volume. Puzzled, Jackson turned the headphones over checking – against all common sense – to make sure they weren’t connected to his computer or his phone. The music wasn’t at all like anything on his many playlists, but sometimes the app screwed up and pulled weird stuff from somewhere out in internet-land.
He turned back to the screen determined to finish up so he could go home. Giving up on the headphones, he simply focused his concentration to the point the rest of the world fell away.
Forty-five minutes later, Jackson sat back in his chair. He had fought his way through all the tangled legal-ese and decided that this contract was definitely not one he was going to take. There were too many ways for the other party to back out of the deal and leave him holding the bag. He shook his head again and closed down the document and his computer.
He gathered up his briefcase, shoved his phone into his suitcoat pocket, and walked out of his office. Standing by the elevator, he realized that the techno-heavy metal mash up he’d been hearing all afternoon and into the early evening, was drifting up the elevator shafts.
Smiling, he punched the down button again. That explained why his headphones had only amplified the music. The IT demons in their basement lair were having fun again.
What most people didn’t realize was what when they commented that the IT guys could “do magic”, they were exactly correct. The IT guys at Tenebris Modus Technologies really were magic, and in fact they really were demons. They must have solved some particularly tricky problem today and were celebrating. That would explain the music.
Still smiling, Jackson stepped into the elevator and headed down to the parking garage. Thanks to their IT demons, TM Tech was on the rise.
******
Just a short little blurb. My brain is still recovering from a weekend at Liberty Con. It was a great weekend, but tiring. I’ll do an AAR tomorrow morning. In the meantime, this week’s prompt came from AC Young: The IT demons were having fun again… My prompt went to Leigh Kimmel. You and make your way over to More Odds Than Ends to see other challenge responses. You can also pick up a spare (or even one of the assigned ones!) and write your own response. Just have fun with it!
