Ah, four in the morning already? Another good night’s sleep. I get up from my chair and go start the coffee. I turn all the lights on, and unlock the door. As usual, I’m sitting at the table drinking a coffee, today with extra sugar (eight cubes to be precise). Streetz comes in a few hours later with the same grin on his face that he greets me with everyday.

“Morning Ryu, early again I see. ”

“Yeah, same as every day, sir.”

He’s always grinning, always smiling. Just the type of guy Streetz is. He goes into his office and starts working on things. Well I’m done with the paper so I move back to my desk while everyone else comes in over the next hour or so. I’m surprised no one notices I’m always here first, I’ve been living here for a while now.

Tynion calls me over and asks me where my article is. I told him it had to be around here somewhere; not that he’d bother to look, he’d rather keep talking. Everyone here except the new writers knows that when Tynion starts talking, if he isn’t done in a minute, he won’t be done for an hour. Something to watch out for, lest you become an unsuspecting victim and stand there the entire time. I had to figure that out the hard way when I first joined. Knowing that minute's about up, I decide it's time to leave.

Too late, Tynion starts talking and getting everyone together. I go over by Mal to hide, and Tynion starts talking about stuff. I’m not paying attention; really, when you start working here, you don’t either. Of course it is a group rant and there isn’t much else for me to do, so I listen to what he has to say. Daz apparently messed up, as Tynion wants someone to teach him a lesson. Mal of course tries to volunteer, and in doing so knocks me over. Which by the way isn’t very pleasant.

Now normally I would get back at him for something like that, but I heard he wrecked his room again, meaning he lost at N Game, again. I feel sorry for him, so I think I’ll let him use my computer until he gets another one. I leave him a note, but I’m not sure if he sees it. Hopefully he does though. I get up and look back at Mal.

“Oh, hey Ryu, I think Streetz wants to see you.”

“Oh? Probably going to make me a MOD. First forum member of the year, now MOD of the year, then I will—”

“Yeah, well, don’t keep him waiting.”

It’s a good point, which I take. I walk to Streetz’s office to see what he wants to talk to me about.

“Hey, you wanted to see me Streetz?” He is grinning again, honestly I can’t tell if he’s always happy, or if he doesn’t know how to make other emotions; need to look into that sometime.

“Yes Ryu, did you have anything to do with Mal’s office?”

“Office? You mean when he destroyed it because he lost at N Game again?”

“N Game?”

“Yeah, it’s this game on his computer, it’s pretty hard and he usually gets frustrated and breaks things, like his office. Isn’t this like the third one?”

“Yeah, wait—how do you know?”

“I have security cameras installed all around here. One in Mal’s room in a place that even he can’t break. Here, I even have the first two times he’s destroyed his office on tape. I got one on Cashew giving cards bad grades because he’s jealous of their design while laughing manically. I got one on ham eating a sandwich while he was taking a break. One on Amadeus trying to do calculatio—”

“Ah, okay. Just leave the office videos here. I’ll have a talk with him, sorry for bothering you. ”

“No problem Streetz.”

I walk out with a smile. Mal tried to blame me for his actions again. One day he’ll learn and start throwing them on Daz. I go back to my desk and sit down. Tynion comes in with a handful of articles.

“Here, some articles to rough edit.” Tynion sets them on my desk and turns around to leave.

“Sure. Oh, and Tynion…”

“Yes?”

“Here.”

I hand the articles back to Tynion.

“What’s wrong?”

“Uh, nothing. They’re done.”

“Were they all DBB’s?”

“No, just one, it only had four-five small mistakes.”

“…Hahaha, that’s funny.”

“Just the usual I’m seeing from him.”

Tynion thinks I'm joking, but I’m not. I don’t want to say anything though, it might give him a reason to rant again. He takes the articles and leaves. I don’t know what’s wrong with everyone these days. I look out at everyone walking around, doing things. So slow, why is everyone walking around so slow? It drives me crazy. I need more coffee, yes, that’ll do me good.

I hear talking in Streetz’s office, he must be talking to Mal.

“Mal, what do you have to say for yourself? ”

“What’d I do?” Mal’s trying to play dumb—he’s getting better at it.

“This.” Streetz shows the videos to Mal. Mal knows he’s been caught.

“Damn Ryu….”

“Also, what about all those things you said in your editor comments?”

“Wasn’t that Ryu?”

“Are you still trying to blame him for your actions? He told everyone you’d be on his computer while your office was being rebuilt. All those comments were made by you. Asking Luther to marry you, and leaving other weird comments. Enough Mal, don’t make me demote you from editor.”

“No, don’t do that… I’m sorry.

Mal leaves and goes to get coffee, and not realizing there isn’t any sugar in it he drinks it straight.

“Sugar….”

“What’s that Mal?”

“Need sugar….”

“Here, take some.”

I usually carry 20 or so packets of sugar just in case I run out. I was about to re-stock so I let Mal have some. Mal just threw the sugar straight into his mouth, didn’t put it in a glass of water first; guess he likes it straight like me.

I go to my other desk with my other computer. I start whipping through writing up some articles. Luther walks by staring at me like he is worried. What’s with everyone today? Maybe it’s me, I doubt it though.

MZ is not an artist, or so he says. It confuses me though, to see someone draw and paint things and then tell everyone that he’s not an artist. We did need someone to do art for the articles, I mean without art it just doesn’t have that flair you hope to find when reading something. He does write, and edit, so I’m wondering what else he’s good at that he hasn’t showed us yet. Good thing I got my security cameras up, if he makes a move I’ll be two steps ahead of him, or five. I did plant five cameras in his office, just in case he finds one. I’ll have to keep an eye on him to. He seems like he could be a sneaky fellow.

Luther though, he’s a lot more mild-mannered, and there isn’t much not to like about him. Of course without the cigar, there really isn’t anything wrong with him, unless you don’t like the fact he smells like a vampire. I’m used to it, so I’m not complaining or anything, he wears vampire deodorant or something, said he bought it a while ago.

Oh wait, where was I? Ah, yes.

The thing you notice about Luther first is that he usually likes tea, but he likes it strong. I didn’t really have much tea left, but I made him something with a few bits of garlic substituting for spices because I ran out. I guess it didn’t sit so well with Luther’s stomach, because throughout the day he didn’t look so well. Later he was talking to me about his run-in with Tynion about his articles.

“Yeah, he said it was crap, and expected better, and that I wasn’t doing so well.”

“Don’t worry about it Luther, it was probably the garlic you had.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Don’t worry about it, you’ll walk it off. I got you another girl to help. Same room, remember the password.”

“Aw thanks, I need a pick-me-up.”

With that Luther heads off to the gift that I left him. That should make him feel better. It’s funny that people wonder why I’m here so much, I mean I do live here. I installed security cameras everywhere to keep an eye on things. Which reminds me, Amadeus hasn’t been coming in to work. Of course, when you’re on vacation, you probably wouldn’t either, or I hope not. He usually is prompt, he comes in with articles ready, and then goes on his way. It’s made it rather difficult to track information from him, but that’s nothing that a few “extra” cameras won’t fix. I just need to latch a GPS on him sometime to find out where he goes. There may be more to him then meets the eye, but I’ll be the first to find out if that’s true or not.

Lucky for me, my old office is not the office I actually use. It’s more there for show; I do a few articles in there to make it look like I use it, but I actually don’t. I have another place I go to that has a screen for the feedback from all my cameras. I threw in a mini-fridge for my special drinks that would rival Luther’s pick-me-up, not that it’s a secret anymore. I knew it before most though, I’m rather happy I got these installed when I heard the Writer’s Guild was being redecorated and that meant finding a new place. I told them about this place here, and that it would work fine. What they didn’t know was that I was the owner, but I didn’t tell them that. What better way to not pay rent, than to have other people do it for you? I need to be quiet though, Tynion overheard me talking about how I owned the place, so I need to be more careful. I don’t need anyone finding my real office.

All in all, it’s a nice place. Just be sure you’re not around when the MODs visit. I’m usually outside, they would never expect me there. Well, I should go, have to check on Mal again. It's time we had ourselves another Duel* of Brownies….

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