Flash, Cricket, Thunder

Monday, June the 1st

You wake up, have a shower, get dressed, walk to Starbucks, get an iced caramel macchiato, smile as the barista comments on your apparent good mood, walk to work, smile at the old woman walking out of the front door of the clinic (prompting a warm smile back), jog up to the third floor, skip to your office, log in to your laptop, and realize you’ve actually been smiling like a madman since you woke up.

And, really, why wouldn’t you be?

After the (amazing, hot, wonderful, sexy, heart-stopping) events in the old museum barn the three of you had returned to Karissa’s home. The walk had been quiet, a tiny bit bashful, but full of blushing giggles and satisfied grins. You had almost wondered if you and Jayne would ask Karissa to join you elsewhere, or if she would invite you all in, but eventually by tacit agreement it was decided to leave it at that. A long, rather sweet, kiss goodbye ended the unusual date, and you had loved watching Jayne and Karissa softly press their lips together just as much as you had when Karissa pressed her nubile body tightly against you and darted her tongue in your mouth. With a final, stammering demand that you two leave before she tackled you on the porch, the bubbly young woman had winked and you had left with your girlfriend. Your other girlfriend. Right?

Jayne had dropped you off at home, but she had a supper planned with her mother and sisters. You could tell she was debating asking you to join her but the memory of Brianna and Morgan catching you when you were, you know, their older sister on Thursday was still fresh. So, you agreed to call it a day, and you spent the night by yourself in your apartment. Naturally, you had texted Jayne and then both Jayne and Karissa later that night, chatting about all manner of silly things, so it never even felt like you were alone.

A sudden knock on the door startled you from your reverie, and you look up excitedly.

“Ah, someone is in a good mood? Don’t look so disappointed it’s only me!” You shrug as your other office neighbor, Mati Tremblay, steps into your office. “Were you perhaps expecting someone else?” Her teasing voice makes you blush, but before you can stammer out an explanation, she waves her hand and laughs.

“No, I’m sorry. Just bugging you, it’s just you looked so excited when I knocked and then looked so sad it was me and not another person… perhaps someone else close by? Rumours are swirling, but I’ll say no more! Discretion is a virtue, as they say!” Considering she is personally responsible for a solid percentage of the gossip swirling on any given day, you think it’s a bit much for Mati to be talking about discretion, but with a final triumphant smirk she lets the subject go.

“I just wanted to let you know that shipping/receiving got a shipment of big computer boxes and left them in the mail room again.” Naturally, you would have discovered that right away regardless, but you’re in too good of a mood to begrudge Mati’s desire to see how you’re doing on this Monday morning. Clearly, the whole office knows you and Jayne have been together after hours, and she probably wanted to check in and see if you were wearing a sweater that said “YES WE ARE DATING”.

'But what would they all think if they knew about Karissa too?' The question pops into your head and you feel a twinge of nervousness. You tell yourself you’re completely on board with the idea of a polyamorous relationship with two wonderful women at the same time, and you are! But… the doubts creep in. What will other people think? You hate that it matters, but it does. You all work together, would it reflect poorly on the three of you? Inevitably, some people wouldn’t understand. Maybe a lot of people wouldn’t. There are dozens of coworkers on the third floor who know you all, surely some of them would actively disapprove. And while it’s not like anyone could stop you, or would if they could, the doubt puts a sliver of cold in your heart. Would people think less of Karissa, the younger woman? Of you, the lecherous man?

These are the thoughts that cloud your mind somewhat as you grab the boxes from the mail room. Sure enough, it’s two moderate sized boxes of Cisco network hardware for the eventual core switch upgrade. You bring it all back to your office and unpack it, mulling it all over.

The bottom line is simple - you know you love Jayne. You haven’t said the ‘l’ word yet, but you do and it’s probably obvious. You’ve cared for her a lot for weeks now. Hell, you had a crush on her very shortly after you started working here, even if it wasn’t immediately apparent to your dumb self. And… you are rapidly developing feelings for Karissa too. You see the budding attraction between Jayne and Karissa, and it doesn’t make you scared or jealous, which you hadn’t been sure about. So, where does this go now?

Just before 10 AM you hear footsteps outside your door and smile - you recognize the distinctive sound of Jayne’s shoes on the tiles. The flat heeled black ones she wears most days, they don’t click like high heels so much as make a tapping sound, Jayne’s long-legged stride so familiar. Huh, how long have you been subconsciously listening to the people in the hallways, hoping to hear her footsteps approaching?

She pauses at the door but enters, smiling, at your eager face. “Hi! Uh, my meeting ended early, did you want to get coffee?” It was very common for the two of you to go get coffee, of course, but you had to grin at how Jayne seemed to say it a bit louder, maybe for the benefit of any potential listeners.

“Normally yes,” you say as you type a quick chat message, getting an almost instant reply, “but if you have a minute, I wanted to talk about the network upgrade.” In the past you would let Jayne or others know about infrastructure changes occasionally, but you glance at the network rack and the TAM server on it and she nods, understanding the real topic.

A second later Karissa bustles into your office, a shy smile at you both. You get up and walk towards the network gear sitting on the table near the network rack, and the two women join you. The office door is open, but you quickly reach out and give Karissa’s hand a welcome squeeze, which she clearly appreciates, and then you touch Jayne’s hand as well. You may not be able to welcome them as enthusiastically as you’d like, but you feel a tiny gesture is worth it.

“I wanted to talk about the unlock. With how quickly things are going, I thought we should continue our testing and investigation into TAM. But also, selfishly, I was thinking about the ‘Traits’ and wondering what they do.”

Karissa lifts a hand, like a student in a lecture, “You guys have mentioned that before, but what are they again? I don’t remember reading about it before when I looked at the instructions.”

“It’s only a fleeting mention in the tutorial, it says that when someone maxes out a score by getting it to 100 then you can learn about what it calls Traits. So, we can assume they are expanded capabilities or admin settings. Now, I am sure Jayne would max my scores for her… but we are dormant now. It may still happen, but do we want to wait and find out?”

She had blushed and smirked at your admission you’d hit 100 on her PoI list, but Jayne nodded, “It does feel like we need to be more proactive. I think we can just check the unlock feature and at least see if it will let us explore the Traits. We don’t have to go further than that if it seems dubious.”

That had been pretty much what you had been thinking too, and Karissa agreed. You start up the SGI server and launch TAM.

===WELCOME Jayne and Zach!===

1) SHOW Summary
2) EDIT PoI's
3) ADMIN PORTAL
4) SHOW Tutorial

5)EXIT
==CHANGES DETECTED! SHOW UPDATED SUMMARY? [Y/N]===

“I’m tempted to see the scores,” mumbles Jayne with an embarrassed shrug. Karissa laughs, knowing she is the only active PoI and seems like she is about to agree but Jayne continues, “oh no we shouldn’t. It’s not fair.”

“I think you’d be surprised at the scores,” the young blonde clerk smiles. “I mean, I control my feelings, and that hasn’t changed. But let’s just say I’ve been thinking about you two a lot today already. Just remembering the museum, you know, the tour of the barn and so on…” She shoots you a long, lingering look and then bites her lip subtly while staring into Jayne’s eyes.

“Oh my god,” you mutter to yourself, shifting to hide your sudden erection and blushing as Karissa laughs even louder. You remember what Karen Harding had told you about the help submenu and decide to press on before you do something crazy like ask Jayne to close the door. Instead, you recall that the help for the unlock was not under the help screen you already pored over. Is it hidden? Or just added after the fact? Regardless, it can’t hurt to just look.

_unlock help

{
The unlock rule set is LOCKED! Traits are currently LOCKED!
*warning* The trait unlock should only be used in case of code run-away.

If the time needed to execute a TASK is longer than the runaway task time interval (ICVR) parameter in the SIT, CICS assumes that the program is looping and terminates it with code AICA. These types of tasks are referred to as RUNAWAY TASKS. If a RUNAWAY occurs with the Package interface dire consequences are predicted including reality alteration!

The unlock rule set is LOCKED! Traits are currently LOCKED!
*do NOT alter code base without express written permission of X Project Lead _and_ signoff from head of Station project!*

Usage: unlock <passcode>
Options:
/ all
/ traits
/ reset
}

After everyone has had a chance to read through all of that, Jayne thoughtfully says, “Well, if nothing else we have a lot of new leads.” She takes out her phone and takes a photo of the screen, and you do the same, just to have a copy of the text.

“It seems a bit… scary?” Karissa admits, and you must agree.

“Yeah, obviously ‘reality alteration’ seems a bit out there? It may be programmer humour or something. The stuff about code run-away is pretty tech-heavy but it’s a good bit of info that would be good to remember if you’re using very old computer languages, most programming today wouldn’t let that sort of thing happen I believe. But a few decades ago? It would be a way to interrupt the TAM program if it stopped responding. I suppose.” You can see a few glaring holes in your own logic, but really, it’s all so weird you are basically guessing.

Jayne taps her chin and says, “The stuff about needing signoff is interesting. Sounds very corporate, or governmental, to be nagging the programmers that they can’t alter this code without written permission.”

“I think we should try the unlock anyway, if only to see what it does,” you say. Sure, there are some weird things you can investigate first, but while you are here why not try the Traits now?

Karissa and Jayne both nod and you type, without hesitation, the passcode phrase Jayne found in SB2-07.

_unlock flashcricketthunder /traits
Error! Trait unlock fail! Multiple admins!
Check debugging file (Ogilvie) or use RESET.

“Well that was anticlimactic,” Karissa mutters, and you feel a sense of deja vu. You’re more than a little disappointed too, but you’ve come this far.

Taking a breath, you try to keep your voice light, “We may as well just try the reset, right?”

“I don’t know, we have some stuff to check now, this Ogilvie file too. Do we need to?”

It makes sense, but there is something that makes you want to push on. The disquiet you felt this morning when you thought about how people, your coworkers, will act when they realize your unique three-way relationship. The notion that you are so close to finding out more, your fingers twitch and you have to stop yourself from typing without thinking.

“I think we can try it if Zach wants to,” Karissa says. Jayne hesitates a moment, then gives you a nod as well, and your fingers input the new command without a second thought.

_unlock flashcricketthunder /reset

==This cannot be undone! Only proceed with signoff!==
==PROCEED [Y/N]===

You hit Y, almost trembling with some strange burst of… what? Anticipation? Nervousness?

===The Affection Multiplier!==

Unlock /RESET Engaged
File Error 00 on tam.pas
Condition: Operation successful

Rebuilding Database!
***ALERT*** Disabling Housing! ***ALERT***

This may take a while, do NOT power down!
Estimated time: 2432 minutes, 47 seconds

==thank you Grace Coooper and Eckert-Mauchly for the idea==

Even the normally positive Jayne can’t hide her disappointment. “Huh, well Karen did say it took a long time to when she used the reset code before? Still, 2432 minutes?” While you and Karissa read the screen, Jayne taps on her phone, “So this will be done doing whatever it is doing in a day and a half, so after midnight on Wednesday?”

Karissa looks for the bright side, “Well at least you have time to research those other terms and names. There are definitely things here we have never seen before. Grace Cooper and Eckert-Mauchly, for starters. Maybe that’s important?”

You can’t stop staring at the giant warning about the housing, whatever that is. “We won’t do anything until Wednesday then, and like we agreed if it’s unlocked but the Traits seem weird, we just won’t use them.” The other two agree, again.

The feeling of vague worry dissipates, and you shake your head, unsure why you had been so strangely concerned. TAM seems to need a good deal of time to, as Jayne says, do whatever it is doing. No sense worrying about it now, and besides if it looks sketchy you just won’t use the Traits. Feeling better somehow, you smile at the ladies.

“Well I guess we’ll revisit on Wednesday then. Do you two want to get out of here for a bit? Someone mentioned coffee.” Jayne chuckles and Karissa nods enthusiastically, and the three of you go for a walk.