Bureaucracy

“WHAT!?” A third voice roared, the sound echoing through the walls of what passed for representation of an office

“Errr” the first voice answered.

“Well...there was an incident with the transfer matrix. Bad calibration after an update” the second added, scrabbling for an acceptable excuse that wouldn't land blame on both of them.

A moment passed. The three beings looked at eachother through an atmosphere that could have been cut with a knife.

“A bad update?” the third said slowly, the roar turning into thoughtful tone as it rolled the words over in its head, working out the story he was going to relay. “Yes. Bad update. Damn equipment, happens often enough. Do you at least know _where _he went?”

“We err...” the second voice answered, words suddenly failing as it's excuse had only been thought out so far and deep down it knew that this whole thing was its fault. Consciousness transfer was fine in itself, but the higher-ups got really upset if there wasn't the correct papertrail, and there was every chance that its rule-abiding colleague would throw them under the proverbial bus.

“We know what sector he was transferred to. We can find him.” the first voice interrupted, causing both the third and second beings to sigh in relief, although for different reasons.

“Good!” The third voice said, the relief in its words almost palpable as its tone moved back to its usually jovial nature. “Great infact! You know it'll take a while for the review board to get round to checking us, so you've got plenty of time! Find him and get him back, and we can tick all this off before there's an inquest! Excellent!”

***

“Do you really know where he is?” the second voice asked a few moments later after they left the office and were headed back to their lab

“No” the first admitted, shaking what passed for ahead.

“Then why did you...?”

“You heard what the boss said! We have time to fix things.” the first replied “If I'd just said 'Sorry, our bad! We have no idea what happened because we were too busy getting lunch' they'd do more than banish us!”

“Good point” the second conceded.

“We have a good cover story and plenty of time. There are only, what, three or four hundred realities he could have been pushed to?” the first reasoned, rubbing its chin “Call in a few of the guys and we'll have him found in a few cycles!”

“So does that mean...?” the second asked as the re-entered the lab, and approached their workstation.

“Garking right it means you owe me lunch!” the first answered, starting to fiddle with some controls on the reality scanner and try to fix what they'd done.