Chapter 1
Willow
“Yes, just turn it off and then back on again.” Willow stifled a sigh and tapped her pen against her knee.
“Are you sure about that? I don’t want to lose my work.”
Two seconds. That’s how close she was to hanging up.
“Did you save your spreadsheet to the drive?”
“What drive?”
Fuck’s sake.
“The place things are saved for your department. Let me just remote in—”
“Can you transfer me to someone else?”
Right. One of the guys.
“They’re all occupied at the moment.” She put on her most friendly customer service voice. “I’d be happy to create a ticket and they’ll get back to you.”
“Okay… well… maybe you could do that thing.”
Mm-hmm.
Willow took control of Barry’s PC and saved the spreadsheet to the drive—not the desktop, which was where it was currently located. The amount of icons was unreal and the open tabs inhis browser made her question how the PC was functioning at all. Had he ever restarted this thing?
“Okay, it’s saved,” she said. “Now we can restart.”
“Wait, wait. Am I going to lose my searches?”
“The browser will close, yes,” she replied, perplexed.
“Don’t restart. I need those.”
“You can bookmark anything that’s import—”
“Go ahead and make a ticket.”
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Barry was hardly the only one who doubted her ability to do the most basic computer shit, but her shoulder was sore, making her tolerance lower than usual.
“I’ll go ahead and do that. One of the technicians should contact you shortly.” Probably tomorrow. It was almost the end of the day.
“Thanks,” Barry muttered. Then the line went dead.
Willow tossed her headset down and pinched the bridge of her nose. She didn’t really need to put up with working as the IT Help Desk, but she was only twenty-five and wasn’t sure if she’d be mentally ready for retirement. Every interaction like that made her second guess that decision, though. She could pull a scam big enough that she’d never need to work again. That’s what her friend Landon had done. He was set for life and living in Costa Rica. It was cheaper there so he didn’t need as much money and could stay inconspicuous.
As tempting as moving to a far away tropical land was, she wanted some familiarity. She didn’t speak any other languages, and she liked having more than rain and not-rain as seasons.
She peered out the window. Spring was here and the trees were almost fully green. It rarely snowed in Lakeview so the winter was usually brown and gray. If you wanted to see the white stuff, you needed to drive into the mountains. It was nice up there; towering trees and little streams. She’d rather live there than among concrete and exhaust fumes. The lake for which the town got its name was nice, but it was too crowded.
Right, she needed to input the ticket. She entered the information into the system as politely as she could muster. Writing “has never heard of a power button” would not win her any favors.
Willow hit submit and like she had anticipated, a notification appeared stating that the technicians wouldn’t be available until the following morning. If Barry would just restart his computer, then it would probably resolve itself.
I could force it to restart…
