muscles bulged below the short sleeves of his dress shirt, indicating that he hadn't missed his morning workout, which usually mellowed the man. His graying mustache was trimmed with military precision.
Bertrand tried to slip past him with an innocent nod, but Whitlock caught his arm. "Bert, thank god. We're down five people this morning. There's some kind of weird flu going around." He turned and led Bertrand through the rows of cubicles to their enclave near the north-facing windows. Bertrand had often looked at the gleaming office towers that blocked his view north. Would he be able to see the trees of his street if the view were unobstructed?
"Get in the queue," Whitlock said. "Start with the chats 'cause they're usually faster. Move onto the phones in between. We're backed up over half-an-hour. I have to go upstairs for a confab about employee absenteeism. As if I have time." He marched away before Bertrand could ask about the promised promotion to programmer. Probably not the right time anyway , he decided. Whitlock may have been willing to overlook Bertrand's tardiness, since the office was short-staffed, but the man angered easily, and he was clearly under pressure.
Bertrand logged on to his terminal and joined the queue, but the list of those waiting for tech support stunned him. "What the fuck?"
"Bert, here dude. It's gonna be a long day." Jeff Aubert, holding two Styrofoam cups of coffee from the office's kitchen, kicked out the chair in the opposite cubicle, leaning his long frame over to place one of the cups on Bert's desk. "Thought you'd skip your coffee this morning." He placed his own down before he sat and pulled back his blond hair, binding it into a short ponytail with an elastic band. Jeff was only a year older than Bertrand, but cigarettes and booze had taken the youthful shine from his face. No one asked him for I.D. anymore when he visited a bar.
"You're a god." Bertrand popped open the plastic lid and took a sip, burning his tongue but still savoring the strong brew. "What's up? How many people skipped off?"
"I think half a dozen or so, but the problem isn't who skipped off here, it's who skipped off from the clients. There seems to be a lot of newbies doing the payroll this week, and they don't know a damn thing about Timetracks."
"Weird. Everybody's run away from the heat, I guess."
"Wasn't like this last summer." Jeff reached for his earphones and mic headset. "Should we do lunch?"
Chicken wings and beer. Bertrand's mouth watered at the thought.
"If Whitlock let's us."
He selected the first chat, a question about pulling payroll reports out of the database, completely basic stuff. He checked the client name—a big corporation, one that should have a deep pool of staff in accounting. Who was doing payroll there this morning? They should know how to do this. It was going to be a long morning.
*
Bertrand wondered if they'd get a seat fast enough at Flynn's to squeeze in a pint over lunch, but he needn't have worried. Only a few tables of the brewpub were occupied, and the young bartender—looking barely old enough to drink himself—just waved them in the direction of the line of booths by the window. "Wherever you want, gentlemen. Tracy'll be out in sec'." He continued hanging clean wine glasses above the bar, since there were no patrons on the stools awaiting his service. To the right of the bar, the high glass windows gave a view of gleaming brass tanks so that patrons could see their suds under production, but the rest of the place was styled as an upscale Irish Pub.
"Okay, this is just too weird." Bertrand slipped into one side of a booth that could comfortably hold six. "Where the hell is everybody?"
Jeff leaned his tall frame back on the opposite seat, one arm resting on its back, the fingers of his other tapping the table. "This has been building for a while."
"What are you talking about? Building? You mean emptying."
"Yeah, maybe. You've been such a lunch-time saint lately