Page 29 of Single Player

“Yeah, sure.” Caleb smiled. “That sounds cool. I’m happy to help however you need. How about Friday after work?”

“Sure, that sounds great.” Matthew paused before launching into the next statement. “I probably won’t be alone, if that’s okay. The guy I’m seeing is the one who designed the equipment, and he wants to be along for the process.” The words “the guy I’m seeing” slipped out without prior thought, and shit, that’s really what Silas was becoming, wasn’t he? They were slipping past “nothing serious” territory with each new encounter that moved beyond the bedroom. He didn’t feel the expected panic at the thought, though. Maybe Isabel was wrong; maybe he wasn’t averse to commitment. Maybe he just didn’t have any experience in it.

“Oh yeah? Is this the guy you told us about at lunch?” Caleb’s smile broadened. “You’re seeing him now?”

“Sort of. It’s complicated.” Complicated in that they hadn’t defined anything, and he wasn’t sure either of them wanted anything serious. He, for sure, had never been the serious type before now. “Let’s say Friday, and I’ll let you know if anything changes.”

Caleb nodded. “Sounds like a plan. And let me know if you need any specific equipment that you can’t find. I have a lot of stuff.” He took a Post-it note and scrawled something on it before handing it over. “That’s the address. I rent an air-conditioned storage unit at Storage Castle and I work out of there. We can check in later this week about times.”

“Got it.” Matthew tucked the note into his wallet. “Thanks.” He headed back to his desk, turning over the phrase “guy I’m seeing” in his mind and the oddly warm feeling it gave him.

Silas was the first person in the building on Monday morning, which wasn’t surprising, since most of his coworkers like to drag themselves in a little late on the first day of their workweek. With his own tendency to work weekends, it was hard to assess what the first day of his workweek actually was. It generally felt like one continuous workweek. The security guard waved him through, showing the same normal lax level security on any morning, and he rode the elevator up to his lab with an air of anticipation. He had a lot to do today, but he was frazzled and hadn’t slept much the night before, so he felt a little scattered and out of control facing down all of the tasks he had to complete. He wanted them done, and yet he didn’t know what to do when they were done. It was a frustrating cycle.

After dinner with Dee on Saturday, he’d taken her advice and had a day of relaxation on Sunday, which for him meant catching up on journal articles and planning for the week’s work. It wasn’t all that relaxing. He kept thinking about everything he wasn’t accomplishing and had his projects in mind all evening, and hadn’t slept much as a result. Now he felt the aftereffects of only a few hours of sleep. His family wouldn’t have accepted lack of sleep as an excuse, though. His mother would have told him that laziness was no excuse to miss work, and that he was wasting his mental gifts. Her voice echoed in his head as the doors dinged open on his floor. Funny how even all these years after her death, this was what he remembered of her. He didn’t know how to feel about that.

He had two hours of work time before anyone else showed up, two glorious, uninterrupted hours. He settled right in to the spot in front of his computer and started working on construction for his current project.

Only an hour into his peaceful time, though, he saw a shadow in the doorway, and it was Elliot Turner. Elliot’s penchant for showing up in doorways was starting to bother him. “Hi, Silas. You’re here early.”

“Yes. I’m getting a little extra time in right away this week. I thought I would take advantage of the quiet lab before everyone showed up.” He didn’t even look up, hoping Elliot would take the hint and go away. Unlike on Saturday, eventually Elliot did leave.

Despite the early start, his day rapidly went downhill, with none of his work coming together as planned. He snapped at Travis and Pauline throughout the morning, annoyed that he wasn’t succeeding at his tasks. He couldn’t seem to do anything right, and above all, he felt an ominous sense that something terrible was about to happen.

That terrible thing turned out to be Elliot coming up to him, a grave look on his face, about an hour before lunchtime. “Silas, Maria would like to see you in her office.”

This wasn’t good. Silas left his workstation, the sick sensation in his stomach all he could feel, dreading this meeting and dreading it even more as Elliot followed him in. Fantastic; he was going to have an audience for whatever this was.

Maria Baez was not known for suffering fools gladly. She had a frown on her face when Silas and Elliot entered her office, and that wasn’t even noteworthy, since she had a frown on her face all the time. “Ah. Why don’t you two have a seat.” She gestured to the chairs in front of her. “Silas, Elliot has brought some concerns to my attention. Elliot, why don’t you address them with him?”

“All right, Maria. Thank you.” Elliot shifted in his chair. Oh wonderful. Elliot was delivering the terrible news, and Maria was the one here as a witness. This didn’t make Silas feel any better about the conversation. “Silas, you’ve been with Wayscorp for several years now, right?”

“Five years,” Silas replied. He couldn’t be getting fired. He hadn’t done anything wrong. An upsurge of panic in his stomach accompanied his attempt to run down all the possibly fireable offenses he’d committed, but he came up empty.

Elliot nodded and continued. “You’ve been a model employee during that time. You have all the qualities we value in an engineer: you’re creative, you complete tasks efficiently, you seldom complain, and your team members remark on your commitment to quality and your dedication.”

So far, this wasn’t bad. None of these were negative traits.

“I reviewed building access records for the past few months.” Elliot made direct eye contact with Silas. “It looks like with the exception of one or two days, you’ve come in to work every single day of the week in the last six months.”

Silas scanned through his memories, and that statistic seemed accurate. “Yes, that’s right.”

“And before that, you were only taking Sundays off. You’ve been here six days a week or more for . . .” Elliot started leafing through the stack of papers in his hand. “Nearly a year now. Is that correct?”

“Yes, that’s also right.” Silas looked from Elliot to Maria. “I was unaware of any rule against putting in extra hours. I’m on salary, so I’m not claiming overtime. I’m just working to get these projects complete.” Which he should be doing now, actually, he wanted to add pointedly, but he knew that wasn’t going to be well received.

“There isn’t any rule against it, no, but we’re very concerned about the health and well-being of our engineers here.” Maria folded her hands on her desk. “Elliot also told me that you haven’t taken any vacation or personal time in over a year.”

“That’s also correct.” Silas nodded.

“And before that, you only took a day or two off the year before for sick leave.” Elliot was far at the back of his pack of papers. “You took three weeks off once, but that was almost four years ago. Bereavement leave.”

Silas swallowed. “Yes. My parents were killed in a car accident. I took a few weeks off to clear my head.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.” Elliot sounded genuine in his support. “Since then, we’ve seen a steadily increasing number of work hours leading to almost a continuous work schedule for the past three months.” Elliot closed his folder. “Silas, let me be blunt. You’re a smart guy. I’m concerned that you’re going to burn out. I told you this on Saturday. Normally, you’d be free to come in as often as you’d like, but not when this schedule has resulted in a decline in the quality of your work. You’re acting irrationally, you’re snapping at me and at your coworkers, and the last few sets of plans you’ve submitted have shown careless errors.”

Silas felt like someone had slapped him. He was aware of most of this information, but not the careless errors part. He prided himself on being unfailingly meticulous in his work, always. “Careless errors?”

Elliot opened up his laptop and clicked through a few times, finally getting to what he wanted to show, and then turning the screen around. “I’ve corrected these basic arithmetic errors in the last three sets of plans you’ve sent me.”