Orpheus - Haunting the Dead.pdf - Dice

HAUNTING THE DEAD
SETH LINDBERG
“It can’t be too bad. From what I hear, those guys
don’t know how to do their job. And they have that
moron Farquand running the show.”
Anders snorted. “They’re professionals, Tom. Dr.
Farquand is a bit… yeah, she can be hard to deal with,
but she’s eons better than Raddicks. That guy was an
ass. He hired me, I should know.”
“I’d still like to know how he got fired,” Tom said,
sounding slightly mysterious about it.
“He quit. I told you, he was an ass. You should have
seen him fight with the head of IT, what’s his name,
Porter. Raddicks lost his shit right in the middle of the
office. Stupid office politics.”
Tom laughed. “Guess you’re right.”
“Now,” said Anders. “You want to talk about a
department of incompetents, talk about IT. I don’t
think I’ve ever seen one of them do any work.”
“Hey,” said Tom. “I know some of those guys.
They’re good.”
“Oh sure, good at playing the latest version of
Quake or whatever new networkable first-person
shooter is out. Good at scratching their asses or refreshing
their browsers to reload slashdot.org. But actual
work, no.”
“I’ve never had any problems getting anything done
with them. In fact, they’re always eager to help me out.”
Anders blinked. “Oh, really?”
“Sure, Porter’s an old friend of mine, since before
either one of us came to Orpheus. I like his team, too.”
Anders thought about Frick and his busted computer.
“Really,” Anders said. “Isn’t that interesting?”
Maybe he wasn’t so useless alive after all.
***
That night, Anders had a dream. He could feel a
familiar touch. It sent a feeling of warmth through him,
a sort of impossible joy. He could hear the cadence of
her breathing. He tried to open his eyes.
“Don’t,” said Lila. “Don’t look.” Her voice was
husky and soft.
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