Joe sifted through the papers Ms. Harris had brought him, fuming as he went. He should have expected it, he knew. Her shift had only lasted until midnight because he had been there. Of course her hours would change when his did. Of course she was still his boss.

The papers were daunting—about half the stack was composed of refreshers on company policies and guidelines, all stuff Joe hadn't bothered with the first time and definitely wasn't going to attempt to get through now. The rest was a mix of six months' worth of in-house newsletters and clippings from newspapers about strikes and the public's dissatisfaction with the corporation's services. Joe shoved it all toward the far end of his desk and moved once more to turn on his screen.

This time, he succeeded in starting his machine up.

Once booted and logged in, Joe opened his mail client, eager to see if dorito had discovered anything new regarding his girlfriend's location. The "scones up front" that Dan had mentioned no doubt came at the cost of meeting the rest of his new team and that was something Joe wasn't feeling up for after the exchange with Ms. Harris. He figured he'd put that one off a day or two and keep to himself as he always had at night.

Upon checking for new mail, however, Joe found only one new message—one from an unfamiliar address. It read,

"hey noob! the team gathers in irc.stable.gov/amturd so get in on that :))) we mostly communicate textually for convenience so if you have any questions shoot'em over -- jp P.S. scones up for grabs up front"

Joe gaped.

IRC? His team used IRC to communicate?

Joe laughed silently. He was fine with that. He could communicate great if it didn't mean talking, and he could judge the average intelligence of his new colleagues easily this way.

He launched his IRC client with a deft double click, connected to irc.stable.gov, and joined the #amturd channel.

<b>@japes_11</b>: here he comes ... !
<b>+dan_s</b>: hi joe :)
<b>+dan_s</b>: scones good?

Joe stopped himself from admonishing Dan for being pushy and adopted his best netiquette. He was in no mood to leave bad impressions.

<b>guest000001</b>: Greetings.
<b>@japes_11</b>: register any nick you want pretty much
<b>@japes_11</b>: the govt irc server doesn't get a lot of traffic
<i>you are now known as king_j</i>
<b>+dan_s</b>: a king eh :)
<b>+dan_s</b>: hey jp, there -were- enough scones, right?
<b>@japes_11</b>: yeah
<b>@japes_11</b>: yeah
<b>@japes_11</b>: hold on
<b>king_j</b>: Introductions are in order, I believe.
<b>+sam_b</b>: hepllo goopd sir, i apm spam
<b>+dan_s</b>: still plagued by the sticky p key, eh sam
<b>+sam_b</b>: yes
<b>+sam_b</b>: cpurses! >:P

Joe smiled. He'd been afraid that his new colleagues would be stiff lovers of the rigid normality that Ms. Harris conformed to. Thankfully it seemed like there was a bit of harmless playfulness in the team.

<b>@japes_11</b>: maria is out sick today, and pig's on vacation
<b>@japes_11</b>: but i'm jp, and as you can see, these are sam and dan
<b>@japes_11</b>: good to have you on board, noob
<b>+king_j</b>: Thank you, JP.
<b>+king_j</b>: My name is Joe.
<b>@japes_11</b>: hmm
<b>@japes_11</b>: you ever play galactic civilizations ii, joe?