To Reach Your Orbit... ★ (3)

For the moment, I decided to take stock of the situation, relieved that the computer—as vital to an office worker as life itself—had come back in one piece.

...Or was that the wrong way to feel? If the thing had stayed broken, I wouldn't have had to work. Wouldn't that have been the real prize?

Click.

I picked up the mouse to check the state of my files.

...No!

The reset had gone through, and every file—all of them—had been wiped clean. The realization landed all at once.

AAAAAAAH!

The important things, old projects and the rest, were backed up on the shared server, so it wasn't a total disaster. There was, however, one very large problem. The portfolio I'd been organizing, due tomorrow, was gone. I was going to have to do the entire thing over from the start.

AAAAAAAH!!!

...So. Overtime tonight, then.

Screaming on the inside, I finally pulled out my phone and texted my trainer.

My precious fifty dollars...

It had come out of the welfare stipend. I tried to soothe myself with that.

"Gah. I haven't been back long, so there wasn't much on it, but my computer got wiped. Henna, is yours okay?"

"Oh? Mine's fine!"

A murmur was rising from the team next to us.

"AAAAAAAH! Are you insane?! Die—just die, all of you!!!"

...So the resets really had hit at random.

Team Leader's quiet. Maybe he's all right.

The seat of honor sat in the farthest corner, where you could barely see it. Curious how Pascal was holding up, I craned my neck over the partition.

"..."

...And there was the reason for the silence. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠He was sprawled with his forehead planted on the desk!

Team Leader... something truly magnificent must have been wiped.

"..."

I felt bad thinking it, but there was a strange comfort in knowing a misfortune bigger than mine existed. Hehe. At least tonight's overtime wouldn't be lonely. I wouldn't be doing it alone.

So I worked late instead of going to training, and the next day—

"...Let's look over the portfolio work each of you handled."

Pascal came into the conference room with dark circles a shade deeper than before. We gathered what each of us had done and stitched it together, and out of our blood, sweat, tears, and my fifty-dollar session fee came a genuinely handsome portfolio.

"Good work, all of you. I'll send the images along and have them uploaded to the company site."

Oh. So this was how the Vanta Design website I'd seen in the human world actually got updated.

"New project now. Museum name and slogan. Three drafts each, by tomorrow's meeting."

"Sure~ How hard could any of it be, hahaha."

The bleached-hair guy lit up the moment he heard there was a new commission. Nothing like his earlier apathy—his eyes were bright and alive.

He's going to bomb the messenger again while we work, isn't he.

That focus-deficient menace had been pinging about once every fifteen minutes yesterday. I hadn't gotten any real work done until I muted Seo Gwan-yul!

Tak-tak-tak—

Back at our desks, each of us at our own work. In the quiet office, only the keyboards sounded.

...Strange.

The chat with Seo Gwan-yul was dead silent, unlike yesterday. Well. That suited me just fine.

Tak-tak-tak—

Time slipped past. I'd been working for a full hour with nothing but keyboard ASMR for company.

...Did seeing an alien make him so happy he actually collapsed?

That hellish communication addict going quiet was unsettling in its own way. By now I was curious whether something had happened, so I quietly leaned through the gap in the partitions to check on him.

Tak-tak-tak—

There he was, bleached hair and all, sitting bolt upright in his chair. Headset on, eyes locked to the monitor as if he might get sucked into it, his fingers dancing as they shuttled busily between keyboard and mouse.

Judging by the screen, he actually is working.

...No. He was working too hard. Three museum names? He was closing in on fifty!

"..."

...This was a little infuriating, wasn't it? Only yesterday he'd been bombing the messenger and getting in everyone's way. He'd skimmed the design brief like he couldn't care less. Had he wanted to catch the alien's eye that badly?

...Fine. I'm not letting that guy's draft get picked.

I turned back to my monitor and deleted every scrap I'd doodled just to fill the quota, resolved to leave that villain with a proper sense of loss.

"Everyone bring naming? Let's share."

The meeting hour had arrived before I'd noticed. Henna went first and put three clean names up on the screen.

"I likened the spaceship—heaped with artworks, drifting through the dark—to an ark of light, syo."

An ark motif. A poetic, beautiful comparison. The sound of it spoken aloud was a touch unrefined, though, and that was a shame.

"I drew the slogan to match the ark concept, too."

The line that ran from ark into voyage was metaphorical, and it worked. Henna seemed as fluent in planning as she was in design—always steady, always reading the direction and bringing back work you could stand on. The sort of teammate you could trust with anything.

"I brought all kinds. More is always better, right?"

Seo Gwan-yul's turn. The slide count alone was obscene.

"Hahaha~ Ideas just kept welling up. Picking only three was hard."

The drafts were as scattered as he was. Splendid words to do with space, but difficult to say and harder to parse.

"I made a bunch of slogans to match the names, too~!"

As abstract as the name drafts. Grand to the point of excess. He'd focused on padding the count, and it showed—name and slogan never quite locked together.

"Right. Good work. Next, let's see Lee-hyun's."

"Yep. I'll set it up."

My turn, last of all. The draft I'd prepared was exactly one.

I advanced the slides and began, bringing up the pages ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that explained the name.

"I built a double meaning into it. As you can see, Universal carries two senses."

"Canvas is a field of pure white. A blank page anything can be drawn on, and a symbol of possibility."

I caught my breath as the explanation ran long, then picked the rhythm back up.

"A canvas that is the infinite universe, and a possibility held open for everyone. Those are the two meanings I put into the brand name. I think it's the right branding for a beautiful museum that drifts through space to deliver beauty to all."

That was everything I'd prepared. Closing out, I added one last line.

"...I couldn't think of anything better than this, so I didn't fill the number of drafts you asked for. I'm sorry."

I met my boss's blue eyes one last time, to say the presentation was over.

"...Right. Good work. Good sound to it. Good meaning, too."

Pascal, now seated at the laptop, opened a fresh deck and sorted the team's drafts.

"We'll take these three to the client."

"Of the drafts you brought, Option A appeals to me most. Please proceed with A."

Our genteel alien client had chosen my Universal Canvas.

Haha! Of course! I'd known it would be mine.

People like things that are intuitive and still fun to interpret.

So I'd been certain a draft that caught both—easy to grasp, and worth unpacking—couldn't lose. Bringing only one on purpose had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠worked, too. With so few options, attention settled hard on that single idea. Part of it was impact. The rest was to hand Seo Gwan-yul, that bastard who'd gambled on volume, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a proper sense of loss.

Yeah. This is how you do drafts. Quality over quantity!

Seo Gwan-yul looked disappointed. The bleached hair snapped back to his usual wide grin soon enough, though, and turned to me.

"Hey~ Lee-hyun. Yours really was the best. Congrats on getting picked~."

Haha. He could say that all he liked. Inside, he had to be burning. Suffer as much as you want—as much as you made me suffer!

Honestly, I am a pacifist.

Some people pitch hard and dirty in a draft review just to get their own design chosen. Me? As long as the team's result comes out well enough that I personally get through in one piece, that's plenty. I'm a small-time citizen without even that much greed!

So, under normal circumstances.

If a teammate were burning with this much drive, I would have thought, he really loves this project, and cheered him on from the back. But Seo Gwan-yul, that bastard, had a track record, and I hadn't wanted to let him have it clean...!

While I was crowing in triumph on the inside, Pascal closed the meeting.

"Yes. Then we'll design from that direction. Next meeting, we'll come back with logo drafts."

"Thank you for your hard work. I'll take my leave first—please tidy up at your leisure, and go when you're ready."

Today, too, those of us left in the conference room after the client departed cleaned up. Haha. Now all that remained was heading back to the company in high spirits!

...Ah. One second.

I slipped the door-shaped miniature off the carabiner on my bag. This time, I'd do it. It had quietly bothered me that Pascal, the team leader, was the one stuck with the chore of setting the door every single time.

Confucian DNA, soaked all the way into the bone. It isn't going anywhere.

The order heading back, too—I had the least seniority, so I ought to go last. Yeah. A seniority system just sits easier on the heart.

"Team Leader, you first."

I opened the handle and gestured, as polite as I could manage.

"...Right. Follow right behind."

Pascal glanced at the teammates still there, then stepped into the black swirl.

"See you soon."

Henna next. A light wave, and she was pulled through the door. And now... Seo Gwan-yul's turn. I wasn't sure the bastard even deserved to be treated like a senior, but I'd feel better sending him through first. Like setting a child down at the water's edge!

I was heading over to catch him—he was nosing around the spaceship's gate—when—

Eeeeeeeee—!

...!

Again. That same ringing from before. On reflex I looked down at the clock in my smartwatch. The time was—

One o'clock.

...And this time, too, without fail, the hour struck one and the phenomenon began.

Chijijijik—!

"...!"

The display panel fixed to one wall of the spaceship burst into noise. Beep— beep— beep— Programs stabbed themselves on and off at random, a malfunction unraveling into chaos. And then, a little later, a grotesquely warped mechanical voice.

...Damn it!

Something was going wrong...!

"Quick—back to the company...!"

I grabbed Seo Gwan-yul and ran for the door we'd set up.

But—

Fwaaaaaah—!

An instant before we reached it, a black vortex blooming from the spaceship closed around us both.