Evelyn has a choice to make, though it felt like the options were out of her control. Like everything else. Slipping through her fingers from the moment she was born. But this one… this one she could do. She stared at the two tickets on her screen and tapped a finger on the plastic surface of her desk right under the light of her keyboard.
Both tickets had the same start time—a glance at the clock revealed it to be thirteen minutes away—and the same due date. One was from a regular client of hers that always asked for her first and she rarely turned down. It didn’t matter that it paid better. It was the work that was the problem. It was… boring. It was something she could do without even thinking. But that meant she had time to think about other things. Things she didn’t want to think about.
The other ticket was something new–something she hadn’t worked on before.
She pulled up the details of it on her screen. There was no name for the person who assigned it, but they had already rejected at least five offers from other code cleaners. The details were sparse and as soon as she accepted it, she would have to sign an NDA. Not that she had anyone to share that information with.
Other than the fact that it was something new, something to get her thinking and focused, there was also one line of text in the ticket that kept her hesitating. It didn’t outright say it, but right there—
Wiping old base protocols.
That was… that wasn’t common. Not many programs required for the old base protocols to be wiped. If a base protocol was to change, it would usually be easier to just restart the program and copy-paste the new code needed. There were times where that wasn’t the best option, but they were rare. Mostly, they had to do with older programs that were still running at the time of the cleaning.
Evelyn started scratching at the plastic of her desk, her nail finding a groove she had started creating years ago.
“What do you think?” Evelyn asked the air around her quietly.
There was no reply. She pulled her nail out of the plastic groove and poked at the sphere under her screen. “I asked, what do you think?” she repeated her question.
The sphere lit up, a soft green glow that was so different from the red and blue lights outside that signified the beginning and end of each day’s cycle.
“Sounds different,” Percipio replied.
Evelyn tore her eyes away from the ticket description and to the posting details. Someone else applied to clean the code. They were rejected almost immediately.
“Worth a try, right?” she asked.
“Is it?” Percipio was in a grouchy mood.
“Worth a try,” Evelyn confirmed, and applied. She started scratching at the groove in her desk again as she waited. When the timer was down to five minutes, she switched her screen to the other ticket. Just as she was about to hit the apply button, she got a confirmation on the unknown ticket.
Rejected.
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