Page 1 of The Scrooge Effect

1

EDU

“So, if you’ll all turn to the blue tab in your folder, you’ll see I’ve added in the safety procedures in the event that we’re attacked,” Lock said as he stood in front of the whiteboard, showing us his very organized, very annoying binder that we all had to read through in case of an emergency.

That was Lock for you. Out of all the people at Owens Protective Services, Lock annoyed me the most with his filing systems. If it wasn’t that, he was organizing a seating chart or telling us how to properly write out a job report. The man didn’t know how to unclench.

Leaning over, I got IRIS’s attention. “How much longer do you think we need to pretend to listen?”

“Listen to what?”

His eyes shot down to the table, then back up to me. As discreetly as possible, I took a peek at the game on his handheld player.

“Is that new?”

“Latest tech. Not even Bill Gates could get his hands on this.”

Tilting the screen toward me, I couldn’t believe how amazing the shot was. Crystal clear, almost as if I was in the middle of the football game. “Nice. Where can you get me one?” I whispered.

“Can’t. I had Dash make this special for me. Look, he even took one of our comms and adjusted it so I can use it for both my device and if we’re out on a mission.”

“Won’t that get confusing?”

“What? You mean like I might accidentally give someone the wrong instructions?”

“What if someone asks if we’re ready to breach a building, and there’s a game-winning touchdown? And at that moment, you shout out ‘yes!’ Aren’t you a little worried you might fuck things up?”

He looked down at his device sadly. “Okay, so maybe not in the middle of a mission.”

“Am I interrupting something?” Lock shouted.

All the focus in the room was pulled in our direction. Shit, I’d been caught, just like in school.

“Uh…” I cleared my throat uncomfortably, trying to figure out something to say. Even though I wasn’t afraid of Lock, damn, I really didn’t like being put at the front of things. “It was him,” I jerked a thumb at IRIS.

“What?” IRIS snapped.

“He’s got a new device. He was showing it to me. Yeah, and he even had Dash rewire it to use on missions.”

Every set of eyes in the room swung to Dash, who was looking at the ceiling, pretending he wasn’t a part of this.

“Okay, first of all,” IRIS said, shoving his chair back as he stood. “This is no mere device. I mean, sure, it’s great for watching the game during one of Lock’s stupid meetings⁠—”

“Hey!”

“But it’s so much more than that. I can, uh…see how the kids are doing at home, and I can check the security feed, and…oh, you know, I can even spy on the boss to see if he’s still in his office,” IRIS grinned.

“Maybe you should have been paying more attention to that feed,” Cash said from behind us, where he was sitting in the corner of the room.

“Right,” IRIS chuckled. “That’s a good one. See, I was just pointing out to everyone else in the room that…that if they were to have one of these made, they’d want the reception to work better because this one is shit.”

“It so is not shit,” Dash snapped.

“Did I see him coming?” IRIS asked.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have been watching the game,” Dash retorted.

“What’s the score?” FNG piped up.