The door banged open without warning, crashing into the chair arm with enough force to rattle my teeth, and the only thing that saved my hand from being smashed were reflexes sharpened by copious amounts of caffeine and first-day jitters. A large, round man thundered into the room, moving with alarming purpose.
"Is Harry in?" It was more of a statement than a question and he didn't even pause to hear the answer. The receptionist, who was still recovering from Tom Wallace's SWAT-like entrance, was left with her mouth open and poised to answer to his rapidly departing back. It was obvious that Tom was completely unaware that he had nearly amputated my hand. He was a man on a mission, almost running towards the office of what was most assuredly a man named Harry.
I stood up and pushed the door shut, turning to the receptionist. She was still staring at the spot where Tom has roared through, her mouth hanging slightly open. With an audible "clack" she clenched her teeth, and turned back to me with an apologetic smile, "It would appear that Mr. Wallace is in now…" She trailed off, apparently at a loss with what to do with me.
"Yes…well," I cleared my throat and took a deep, cleansing breath, "Why don't I just head on in and make sure that he knows I'm here?" I gave her my most professional smile, and indicated with a tilt of my head which direction I would be going. She seemed relieved, "You know which office is his?"
"Yes, but I have a funny suspicion he isn't heading there." I winked at her and moved to follow my new boss. She grinned, and as I walked out of the reception area, she called after me, "Welcome to Sandbox Gaming!"
* * *
I headed towards the sound of yelling, absently wondering why I had winked at the receptionist. I didn’t normally wink at people, and typically thought it kind of smarmy in a ‘70’s lounge-lizard sort of way. My self examination was cut short by a head popping out of a doorway, and I made the kind of sound that people make when they are suddenly confronted with an imminent collision. Not that I was in any danger of physical contact, but the head was surmounted by such an enormous afro, any further movement by this head would most assuredly result in an encounter of the hirsute kind.
“Wh-,” I managed to get out, skidding to a halt.
The head whipped around, and the hair whirled with such force that I actually felt a breeze on my face. The face was shaped into an expression that could only be followed by, “What the f-…” The eyes behind black horn-rimmed glasses noted that I wasn’t who he was expecting, and his split-second quizzical stare broke into a smile. “Hey you’re the new guy!”
I stopped staring at the massive eruption of hair enough to remember my manners. “Jet Kingston,” I said, sticking out my hand. But I just couldn’t let it slide. “Wicked ‘fro.”
“Huh?” Horn-rims blinked at me, and I thought for a split-second I had committed a faux pas within minutes of my first day on the job. Then the horn-rimmed eyes rolled upwards, as if seeing the head of hair above for the first time. “Oh this? I wake up like this.” He stuck his hand out the doorway, “I’m Max.”
As I shook his hand, a snort of derision from inside the office drew my eyes towards the half-open doorway. Max pushed the door all the way open and stepped out into the hallway. Inside the office, another head popped up over the backside of an overstuffed couch. This one was adorned with a baseball cap that appeared to be covered with binary code. “I’d hardly call spending an hour in front of the mirror with a pick ‘waking up like that,’” he rolled his eyes.
“That’s Rajiv,” said Max with a dismissive wave of his hand. “He’s obviously not a connoisseur of the ‘do as you are, so pay him no mind. He is a person of little consequence.”
“This person of ‘little consequence’ is currently kicking your ass,” Rajiv tossed over the couch. I noticed a rousing game of football was underway on the plasma screen hanging on the office wall across from the couch. Max’s head snapped back to look in the office, and again I was buffeted by a hair wind storm.
“Hey fucker! I paused that!” Max bustled back into the office and vaulted over the couch, nearly knocking it over with his substantial, but apparently agile bulk. Profane smack talk ensued and the sounds of digital tackles and stadium roars poured out into the hallway. It would appear that would be the extent of the greeting I would get, so I continued down the hallway towards the muffled argument I could hear through the thin walls.
I stood outside a door that was decorated the entire length with an elaborate, computer-generated illustration that looked like Superman's Fortress of Solitude on acid, falling into a black hole. Or maybe it was falling into a black hole while on acid. Either way, it was mesmerizing. Leaning closer, I noticed it was a printout. A very high-resolution printout that must have taken hours on a plotter on very expensive, archive-quality paper. I stopped staring at the image when I heard what appeared to be a pause in the argument on the other side of the door. I raised my hand to knock, but pulled it away sharply when the shouting began anew. I don't know how long I stood there, chewing my lip, staring at the whirling shapes on the door, waiting for an "opportune moment" to interrupt what was obviously a very heated discussion, when a voice startled me.
"Nice picture, huh?" The receptionist was staring at the image on the door, her nose wrinkled and her head cocked to one side, as if she was trying to see if a better angle made the image any easier to comprehend. "I think it looks like the Fortress of Solitude. Harrison says it's not, but I'm betting it was." She turned to look at me, "What do you think?" She had those funky, cat-eye-shaped glasses that always reminded me of librarians and school teachers, and it was plain to see that she needed them, as her eyes were hugely magnified behind them. It was highly disorienting, the way her eyes seem to bug out of her face, to the point where I blinked rapidly, as if to signal her eyes to stop freaking me out. A part of my brain pondered why I didn't notice the strange glasses earlier while another part tried to formulate an answer.
"I...uh-" Before I could finish my thought, she stepped forward, opened the door and poked her head inside.
"Hey, Jet's here!" she shouted. The argument stopped abruptly, and the door was pulled open. Tom Wallace, founder and lead programmer of Sandbox Games looked supremely pissed off, but once his eyes focused on my face, he looked surprised, then chagrined. The march of expressions across his face would have been amusing, had they not been directed at me. I imagine the look on my face was equally comical as I tried to smile and look apologetic at the same time.
"Hi, uh, Tom. Was I not supposed to start today?"