James an IT Consultant (Introduction)

James Thomas is a man. He is average height with an average build. He has dirty blond hair that is fading more and more towards brown with each passing year. With a bit of effort, and in the right light he could be considered hansom, but with out the effort and especially the flattering light he knows that he's ordinary, if perhaps a bit above average in the looks department.

James has a short and stubby beard. Too long to be considered 5 o'clock shadow, and too short to be considered a proper beard. The beard wasn't really a fashion statement, as much as it is a consequence of forgetting to shave every morning. After years of only remembering to shave every few days, James got the clever idea to just trim his beard every few days with the lowest guard rail on his trimmer and pretend that it was intentional all along. It was; for him, the perfect solution. As it allowed him to continue being lazy, while still being neat and tidy enough to be professional. It also lent him; in his opinion, a somewhat rugged look.

James is a moderately smart individual but never really had an affinity for school. At the age of 24 he is a high school dropout and holder of a GED, as well as a college dropout with "Course credits" on his resume. However as the saying goes "It's not what you know, it's who you know". Thankfully James had a few good friends that were willing to vouch for him. Which landed him his first job in the IT field with a well known company, straight 'out of college'.

It was a soul sucking, dead end, call center position, but it paid the bills...barely. More importantly it got his foot in the door. With a genuine interest in computers and technology, as well as a general desire to help people, the career choice of IT just made sense. Not to mention the work suited his "work smarter not harder" nature. It wasn't long before his results were being noticed and James received his first promotion, followed by another, and then another. Even though the promotions didn't come with anything you could call a significant pay rise, it was still great to be recognized and no longer doing grunt work.

After a while though the promotions stopped, and even though each promotion came with it a modest pay rise, they also all came with a much more substantial increase in responsibility. In his current position he was in fact doing the work that in other companies, or even other branches of his company, would be getting done by at least a 3 person team. Even with all the shortcuts and improved workflows he had come up with he was still working long hours, and even coming in on his days off when necessary. To make matters worse he couldn't really justify taking time off. The thing about IT work is, if you don't do your job, it just means some other poor schmuck down the line is going to get saddled with it. Knowing full well what it felt like to be on the receiving end of that James didn't want to do it to anyone else. He couldn't really complain much though, he really did like his job despite its setbacks. So day after day he **** is tired ass out of bed, and to get to work.

However after years of the constant grind he was beginning to burn out. He could tell it, his coworkers could tell it, he was pretty sure management could tell it. The thing is, he just couldn't summon the will to do any better. He was finally looking at taking some vacation time as more of a need, rather than a want, and started to plan for taking a few weeks to decompress.

James didn't want his coworkers to suffer from stockpiled work in his absence so he worked with his managers, and all the other team leaders to make sure that no one was going to get the brunt of him taking time off. After discussing schedules and workloads with everyone, he finally had a plan and was going to take some time off in a couple of months. The best part is that while discussing things with his managers the fact that he was doing a 3 person job was brought up, and management was shocked to learn of it. His hard work was once again recognized and he was promised another promotion. When he got back from vacation he was going to be in a position to hire his own team, and finally have the help he needed to keep up with all the work he had been doing.

Then it happened. A week before James' planned vacation, corporate mandated that they were spending too much on IT. All time off requests were canceled, and all promotions put on hold pending a branch by branch review by the reginal managers.

There were a lot of branches.

Months went by with no word from corporate, and James was barely holding on. He had spoken to his managers a few times during the wait, and even though his performance was at an all time low, his managers respected the fact that he had been working well beyond the expected duties of his job for a long time. They promised that as soon as the review was finished he could start his vacation immediately, and they would even pre-screen some candidates for him to pick from for his team when he got back.

6 months after the initial announcement their regional manager finally arrived. One Ezra Davenport.

James initially felt relieved. Soon the review would be over. He would finally be able to get some time off, and hire a proper team. That relief turned to white hot anger not even 10 minutes after being called in to his review meeting.

Ezra was a woman in her early to mid 20's. She was slim, almost petite. Her platinum blond hair was done in a short business cut that somehow looked simultaneously simple and like something that cost hundreds of dollars to do. She was dressed in an impeccable suit that looked tailored and very expensive, and she had the most impressive resting bitch face James had ever seen.

Ezra didn't even waste time on pleasantries before laying into him about this work performance and statistics. Calling him lazy, uneducated, unethical, and making it seem like the entirety of the companies budget issues were caused solely by him and his lack of performance. His responses about how he was working constant overtime, had no team, virtually no days off, and hadn't taken vacation or even a sick day in the last 3 years feel on deaf ears. The other managers that until now had been singing his praises were completely silent. Refusing to back up any of his assertions. Ezra took this silence as refutation on their part and further accused him of being a liar as she laid into him again. The bitch even went as far as to threaten to call the police and press legal action against him for criminal theft. When he asked what theft she could possibly be referring to. She matter of factly stated that his collecting a paycheck with his work ethic was criminal theft, and that he better leave now before the authorities got involved.

James couldn't believe it. The meeting had him dumbfounded. How could anyone believe this bullshit enough to actually say it out loud? Did she expect him to buy the fact that he could be criminally charged for underperforming at work? Then it dawned on him. She was the hatchet man so to speak. Budget was down and they needed to cut costs, but they couldn't cut costs if they had to pay out severance for firing employees. They were trying to **** him to quit.

James took a long look at Ezra as the realization dawned on him. Wondering idly how much of the companies missing budget went toward that tailored suit, and impossibly perfect hair. He was angry. No he was furious. He wanted to scream at this bitch that 'how dare she say such things to him', but looking at her he knew it wouldn't get him anywhere. Taking a deep breath to calm himself down he calmly explained that she could not invoke the authorities for something as petty as perceived underperformance. He however could bring legal action against the company for things like, unsafe work conditions, and unpaid overtime.

Ezra exploded at him in a furious tirade that belied her small frame. Threatening to burry him in legal action for the rest of his life if he ever so much as thought about trying to come after the company. She spent a good deal of time yelling about how he could never prove such claims, and how the company had far more lawyers than he could ever hope to have, and how he should just give up and leave before she called them.

At this point James was far past taking her seriously. He took one final look at his previous managers, and seeing the complete indifference in their faces pushed on. He calmly explained the funny thing about IT, and how it required meticulous documentation, including time entries. Entries that were singed off on by supervisors, but somehow never made it to Human Resources. He explained that he had a paper trail 3 years long for the case of unpaid overtime alone, and with that amount of evidence he didn't need multiple lawyers, or even that competent of a lawyer to sue for damages.

James was dismissed and told to go home for the day. Which he did. Before he left, he sent a mass email to all the team leads he'd been working with letting them know he was going to be unavailable for the foreseeable future, and apologizing for the extra work. Then lastly, he opened up a ticket for his dismissal for the day, and filled it out complete with time entries and the reason for his leaving work and emailed the ticket to HR along with a synopsis of his review meeting.

The next day James was contacted by his companies corporate office for another meeting. After a few round of negotiation, he was let go with the full severance package of someone 3 pay scales above him, as well as being paid out for all his unused sick days and vacation time. This was far from enough money to retire on, but coupled with his current savings; which was rather substantial due to having no life beyond work for the last few years, he had more than enough money to take some time off before finding a new job. Well deserved he thought after everything.

During this vacation James tried to catch up with friends and family. Which was initially great but everyone was just too busy with their own jobs and lives to spend much time with him. It was still nice to have a bit of time with no responsibilities though, so he decided to continue his vacation for a few months before looking for another job. He spent this time occasionally hanging out with friends, but mostly staying home. Reading, playing games, watching movies. Just generally catching up on the stuff that he'd been missing out on while working constantly.

He got to spend a lot more time with his roommate as well. Being a low payed IT guy at the start of his career necessitated having a roommate, and he was lucky enough to get a place with a friend of a friend of a friend. He quickly realized though that he hardly knew his roommate. Thanks to the crazy hours he'd been working, they practically never saw each other. Except for notes left for each other to clean this or that, or his roommate warning the she had friends coming over or something like that. They might as well have been living separately for all the time they were ever in the apartment together.

His roommate's name was Sarah Abe. The last name was Japanese like her great grandfather, but she was 3rd generation American. She had hardly any Japanese features at all except for her jet black hair. If you didn't know already then just by looking at her you'd probably assume she was of European decent, and just had great cheekbones and a light tan. Because of this most people assumed her name was European as well and pronounced like the Abe in Abe Lincoln. Which is something she was constantly correcting people on. Even though she didn't look the part, understand the culture, or even speak the language. She was still very proud of her heritage in her own way.

James and Sarah got to spend a lot of time together of the next few weeks, mostly eating diner and watching movies together when Sarah would get home from work. It started off very well. It was novel for them to be in the apartment together, and they had a lot of fun hanging out. However after the first few weeks, he could see Sarah getting agitated about him almost constantly being home. It started with a lot of unappreciative looks when she'd get home and find him on the couch. Then a lot of passive aggressiveness in her daily routine clearly aimed at him.

Finally after a month and half Sarah came out and accused him of not even bothering to look for another job, and went on about that wasn't fair to her. This despite the fact that he had informed her after getting fired that he would be taking a couple of months off, and had more than enough from his severance pay to cover rent and bills for that time. Which was less than two months ago. James pointed this out to her, and her response was to storm off in a huff with an angry "Whatever, just get a job" tossed over her shoulder.

That night James was laying in his bed. Replaying the little fight with his roommate in his head, alternating between anger and frustration. When there was a suddenly a strange light in the air directly above him. Before he could react the strange light expanded into what looked like a rip in space, or some kind of magic portal. Dumbfounded James didn't manage to move when a object dropped through that portal and smashed right into his face.

After flopping around like a fish on dry land for a minute, during which time he had flung the object to the other end of his bed and the portal/spatial rift had closed. James finally managed to calm down enough to investigate. He picked up the object to find a plastic toy ray gun that looked like it had come straight from the 1960's. Bewildered he ignored the ray gun for the moment and started to look around. He thought he saw something smaller fall through the portal too, right before the ray gun smashed into his face. After searching around for a few minutes he found a folded piece of paper on the floor that he didn't remember being there before. He opened it up to find a small note scrawled inside.

“Hello lucky user! You have been gifted the gullibility ray. This might look like a cheap toy but looks are often deceiving. Like the name suggests this ray will make the target completely gullible! There are three settings. At zero the ray is in safety mode and will not fire. At level one the target will only be gullible to the user who fired the ray gun. At level two the target will be so gullible they will believe anyone! Please enjoy your amazing gift.”

What the hell?

James first instinct was to chuckle and think this was some kind of joke, but unless he lost his mind or was hallucinating he just saw this thing fall out of a rift in space. If it was just the ray gun, then maybe he could explain it away as some freak phenomenon of the universe that time traveled a ray gun from the 1960's into his bedroom, but the note came through as well. The note implied a person and an intention to sending the ray gun here. It wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that anyone who could open a rift in time and/or space could also make good on the claim of the gullibility ray. The only other option is that whoever has the means to open rifts or portals or whatever the hell that thing was, is using it to play a joke on him. That seemed a bit far fetched though. He needed a test for sure.