Promotion or Pacifier

Chapter 1
Chapter 1

That night, Gary went to bed with hope for tomorrow. He had not felt that way in a very long time.

True, there had recently been a brief stretch where it seemed things might turn around for him. He had, after all, every reason to believe that he would be the one to fill the opening left by his boss"€™ departure. It didn"€™t matter that the other programmers at NoviTech were more adept at keeping up with technology"€™s rapid pace of change, nor that his personality could most generously be described as "€œprickly."€ He had been at the company longer than any of the uppity brats he had been forced to work with, and that"€™s all that mattered.

Soon, his messy divorce and the grind of a go-nowhere career would be behind him. Gary would bubble himself within his office against a world that seemingly had no use for him.

It was, then, to Gary"€™s great anger that they hired some goddamn kid instead.

Kyle symbolized everything that Gary hated about the new generation, a bearded and shaggy-haired avatar of the unprofessionalism that had seeped into corporate culture. The twenty-something insisted on treating the programmers under his supervision as friends, not subordinates. Gary could always tell when he was checking in on his colleagues by the pleasant chatter and laughter that rose from the surrounding cubicles. By the time Kyle reached him, it was all Gary could do to not snap at the sight of his encouraging smile, wanting nothing more than to rip that gauge earring out of its lobe and shove it down his throat.

The man "€“ Gary was loath to even use the word to describe him meditated, for God"€™s sake.

Gary silently suffered under Kyle"€™s leadership for a few weeks, certain that his laid-back and hands-off managerial style would be his undoing. He was not spurred into action until he realized that his colleagues had become more productive since Kyle was brought on board, that their own work had been enhanced by the depth of coding talent their boss brought to the team. Kyle, of course, had attempted to teach Gary some of these new tricks, but little of the lesson had sunk in. This was largely because the older man had spent most of that time thinking up ways to drive the younger out of his position.

None of that mattered, though. What was important was that, in his daydreaming, Gary had come up with a way to get his career back on track and teach Kyle a lesson for knocking it off the rails in the first place.

He had learned of the Dark Web through a security seminar, the Internet"€™s seedy underbelly where hackers and cyberthieves honed their craft and peddled their wares. After sifting through piles of pages advertising drugs and stolen credit card numbers, Gary finally homed in on his target; a program posing as a meditation application that was in fact designed to draw the viewer into a deep and transformative trance. The longer the victim was under, the creator claimed, the quicker the loss of age.

Though Gary was skeptical of the claim, the thought of Kyle becoming what he really was on the inside "€“ a silly child playing at being a grown-up "€“ was too marvelous to resist. He grinned from ear to ear as he purchased the application and rushed over to Kyle"€™s office, grateful for the first time for his boss"€™ open-door policy.

"€œThere he is,"€ Kyle smiled as he looked up. "€œSomething I can help you with, my man?"€

"€œThere is, actually,"€ Gary beamed as he closed the door behind him, for once not having to force his cheer. "€œI saw how much you were getting out of your meditation, so I thought I"€™d give it a try"€¦but it seems like the app I downloaded to help, uh, center my thoughts isn"€™t working properly. Could you take a look?"€

"€œSure bro."€ Kyle took the phone and opened the program as Gary trembled in anticipation. "€œI"€™m really glad to hear that you"€™re taking some time to focus on you. It"€™s super important that all of us"€¦"€

The young man trailed off as his pupils became glassy marbles, his jaw hanging slack as the phone nearly slipped through his loosened grasp.

Though Gary was deathly curious as to what the screen could be showing to draw Kyle into such a state, he didn"€™t dare glance at it lest he too be drawn into a second, unexpected childhood. He entertained the idea of using the program to shave off a few years, but those musings were abruptly cut off when a knock came at the door. Gary hissed a curse and snatched his phone back from Kyle, clearing his throat and wiping the sweat from his brow as his boss blinked himself back into lucidity.

"€œOkay, well, it looks like it"€™s working now,"€ he chuckled as he backed towards the door. "€œThanks!"€

Gary barreled out of the office before Kyle could respond and nearly bowled over his door-knocking colleague. For the rest of the day, it was impossible to concentrate on his work; he couldn"€™t help but sneak the occasional glance at his boss through the glass walls of his office, the changes so gradual that they seemed to escape Kyle"€™s notice. But Gary knew what to look for, and it was with unabashed glee that he observed the thinning of the young man"€™s beard and the growing roominess in the shoulders of his shirt. He felt on top of the world when he headed home that evening, mind occupied with fantasies of how young Kyle would become and of the cushy managerial gig that was now his for the taking.

The triumphant man headed to bed right after dinner, partly out of anticipation of what the morning would bring and partly because the beers he"€™d enjoyed with his celebratory meal had lulled him into a dreamy haze. He tossed the takeout container onto the pile that festered next to the trash can, shuffling past the piles of yellowing newspapers that stood between him and his room.

His eyelids drooped as he climbed under the covers and tapped the alarm clock on his phone "€“ and then shot open as wide as they could go when he realized he"€™d accidentally tapped the app next to it. Gary"€™s earlier curiosity regarding what Kyle had seen was sated, though he had only an instant to appreciate the swirling and pulsing colors before he was pulled into the infinite darkness of a total trance.