Chapter Text
Chapter 1
System Booting..
“I heard the last guy quit after the CEO split his head open with a laptop he threw across the room.”
“I thought it was the vice CEO?”
“What’s the difference?”
“Well I heard it was because he had a nervous breakdown. Apparently the vice CEO didn’t agree with how long it took to reboot the projector in his meeting, so he threw his coffee at him.”
Twenty minutes.
It’s been like this for twenty agonising minutes — these two men sat either side and leaning right across her lap. She would say something, if she wasn’t sat here waiting to be summoned into the room they were all sat staring at.
It wouldn’t leave a very good impression if she turned to both of them and told them to simply shut the fuck up.
But god was it tempting.
Even if the glass walls ahead of her were soundproof — the occupants inside the office, the two people she was desperate to impress, would definitely see the hand gesture she wanted to shove in both of their faces.
Whether the gossiping idiots were right or not, even if the vice CEO was Satan himself, Rey was not going to throw away the chance of a lifetime. The vacancy was for an IT technician — a role so low on the corporate food chain, she would never need to interact with the cause of all the gossip.
A position, in a company that hadn’t taken external applications in two years.
This was her foot in the door. The opportunity of a lifetime and she was the only woman in the whole line up for the job. She was not going to let some generic office gossip scare her out the building.
So Rey ignores them. She counts to ten, then to a hundred and then frustratingly loses count. But they’re still going, the one guy now practically sprawled across her lap and the guy to her left, even began using her knee as an armrest.
There’s something about a paper shredder and tie and then a very vivid retelling of a threat made with a USB.
“No way. You’re lying.”
“True story! Apparently he had to go to the emergency room.”
Thirty minutes — It’s the longest thirty minutes of Rey’s life.
But then the men sit to attention. Their backs slamming against their own chairs, the very ones they had neglected to use. There’s twelve of them in total and every single one of them is now sweating and shifting in their seats.
The silence is bliss.
“Miss Kenobi.”
Until it wasn’t.
There’s a group collective of chairs creaking, all trying to get a better look at her. But she’s only focusing on the man stood at the door, guiding his last victim back to his seat. Now only to exist in a painful purgatory of waiting to find out whether it was enough.
Number eight, she had named him, looks likes he’s about to vomit.
The red headed man watching him at the door, looks like he’s put money on it.
Rey swallows. Smoothing down the creases of her skirt, she rises from her seat and strides towards the door. She refuses to entertain the idea of spewing up her nerves on a floor that probably cost more than her entire apartment.
The redhead is now offering up the empty seat at the conference table in centre of the room. It’s like sitting in a display box. All four walls encasing her in glass, while the country’s largest growing company operates around her oblivious.
It was distracting and even more obvious — it was deliberate.
“Thank you for taking the time out today Miss Kenobi. My name is Armitage Hux, head of Human Resources at First Order Industries and today you’re going to be interviewed by myself and my senior manager, Phasma Parnassos.” He gestures while taking his seat beside her. “Who is going to follow up with some questions at the end.”
His partner, a platinum haired woman leans across the table that separates them. Her handshake is firmer then his and it’s with an underlining strength that causes Rey to like her immediately.
“Nice to meet you.”
“And you, Miss Kenobi.” The platinum blonde smiles back with warm admiration.
Maybe being used as a makeshift armrest hadn’t gone unnoticed at all.
“So Rey, looking at your resume, I see you have an extensive background with computers and IT, that started in your school years.”
Her smile is instantaneous. “Yes, that’s correct.”
Hux looks up from her application. The words that had caused sleepless nights for weeks, shouting from the table. There’s a subtle smile at the corner of his lips.
“Tell us some more about that.”
So Rey does.
By the time she was thirteen, Rey had built five computers and sold them for triple the cost. At sixteen, half the students at her school lined up at her locker to ask her about problems with their laptops, phones and sometimes even cars.
The money of which funded her plane ticket from London to New York.
Her interviewers, clearly British themselves, nod and smile with understanding. Phasma even winks at her.
However the questions aren’t so easy after that.
“Can you describe a time where you used your technical skills, in a practical way, to solve a problem?” Hux smiles warmly, sitting back in his chair.
Being the ninth interview today, Rey had watched enough of the other eight men before her to realise she had now reached that part of her interview. It was around about this mark, that she saw each one visibly shift in their chair and tug at the collar of his shirt. She also noticed Hux and Phasma sit back and enjoy every second of the apparent bullshit they were being served.
They were already prepped and ready for hers.
“Well—” Rey swallows, going to reach for her glass of water — just like the other eight before her.
But then she stills.
“Actually yes.” The grin stretching across her face. “My second year at college, the entire network was down. The technicians couldn’t understand what went wrong until I identified the malware destroying the entire server. They didn’t believe me at first but it wasn’t until they ran a complete system scan and removed the files, I explained would be corrupt, that they started to take me more seriously.”
She reaches for her water now. Smiling into the glass as she takes small tentative sips to fill the surprised silence between them.
“Actually my reference, Maz Kanata, on the bottom of my resume, was the technician involved. She offered me my first job in her team after that.”
Rey smiles at the memory. Maz was the closest thing she had to a parent. She taught her everything she needed to know to get her here.
And it was for that reason, Rey had her saved in her phone as ‘Motherboard’.
Yet, despite her stumble, the questions that follow are easy in comparison. Generic, simulated issues that they ask her to explain her process in solving. Rey does so without thinking — even managing to spot the trick question that basically requires the computer to be rebooted. The classic ‘Have you tried turning it off and on again?’.
From watching the last eight interviews, Rey can tell she’s near the end as the mantle was now passed to Phasma.
“Miss Kenobi. Your knowledge on IT is incredibly impressive. Your strategies are inventive and quick thinking. However, working for a company as large as ours, sometimes the issues are not always so clear. Human fault and error can be the cause of issues you may face here day to day.”
There’s a telling smile on her face and the conversation across her lap now comes to the front of Rey’s mind.
“If someone was the cause of this, how would you address and handle the situation?”
Rey highly doubts the rumours are true. After all if the vice CEO really did launch a laptop at her predecessors head and what was it they said? — scold him with coffee because of a faulty projector, surely there would not be twelve hopefuls sat behind the glass, all hoping to be the successful candidate.
The rumours were just that. — rumours.
And it’s with the sweetest smile, that Rey answers.
“Of course it is common to encounter individuals who are reluctant to follow your advice and guidance, especially in a very male dominated field. However it is important to remain patient and understanding.”
There’s a knowing glance between the two of them — so she continues.
“But you’ll be employing me with the primary purpose to fix your computers.” An innocent sip of water passes between her lips. “So I won’t allow anyone to prevent me from doing just that.”
“Oh I like her.” Hux splutters into his own drink.
Phasma had long given up hiding the traitorous grin across her face. “Miss Kenobi, one last question.”
But Hux is the one that delivers it.
“When can you start?”
This wasn’t how Rey imagined her first day.
The tire on her bike wasn’t supposed to be flat, her breakfast and morning coffee were not supposed to be left untouched and turning stale on the kitchen counter and the overcast of grey cloud was not supposed to be darkening by the second.
Then she felt the first cold drop of rain against her cheek, — the very reason she practically swung from the fire escape stairwell like a mad woman.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Rey was not supposed to be sprinting to her new job. But here she was — shoving and shouldering her way through a grumbling Monday morning herd. Apologies were thrown over her shoulder and within five minutes of her run, the first pathetic drop of rain was now a harsh downpour lashing against her skin.
She was soaked through.
When agreeing to the job, Rey was told there would be no need for smart dress in her job role. Unlike her other colleagues, Rey could, if appropriate, wear whatever she liked. Evidently there were perks to residing in the basement amongst the servers.
However, she was sure Phasma hadn’t meant she could turn up, soaking wet and flooding every corridor she walked through.
But that was exactly how Rey started her first day.
Even though at six am, the building was pretty much just assistants waiting for the arrival of their superiors and maintenance staff gearing up for their demands, there were still sideway glances at her appearance.
She was now practically barrelling towards the elevator. Her jeans chaffing loudly with the saturation and her sodden shoes squelching with each step. But when the janitor looks you up and down and then continues to shake his head — that’s when you know you’re fucked.
It was mortifying.
She practically punches the basement button and when the elevator begins to take her the opposite way, clearly prioritising it’s programming over her desperate need to hide, Rey slumps against the wall with defeat.
“Fucking typical.” Her three buns now collapsed and squashed against the glossy black panelling.
It stops somewhere on the eighteenth floor and the cold damp has begun to seep down to her bones. Her entire body now seizing in a violent shiver.
But that’s no longer the issue. — No, the issue is now the six foot three stranger crowding the entire space next to her. When the doors opened on the eighteenth floor, he had barely looked up from his phone as he typed with a manic frenzy.
And with the way his thumbs were punching into it, Rey was amazed at how the screen continually survived the assault. But they ride the next five floors down in complete silence. Rey still remains very much unnoticed and the man next to her remains very much pissed off at his phone.
But then Rey begins to drip. — loudly.
The rain practically pools around her feet, flooding her shoes all over again. She’s not sure if she’s heightened with the awareness of just how loudly she is dripping or if her wet clothes are really out to betray her.
But then his back immediately straightens — she can actually hear the moment his jacket begins to strain under the tension. If her clothes were out to get her, his were definitely not far off. The material of his suit was barely holding on across the wide plain of his back and although it was obviously tailored to his size, each seam and stitch strains under the sudden tautness.
Her elevator buddy, Rey realises, is fucking big.
And her elevator buddy is no longer typing into his phone.
Which is the exact moment, a loud resounding slap of water from her shirt, hits the tile.
And just when she thought it couldn’t be any more mortifying, the entire time Rey has been staring at his back, she had failed to notice he was no longer glaring at the device in his hands — which — wow — also big.
Instead, Elevator Buddy was now glaring at her.
And Rey? — Well Rey wants to melt into the already existing puddle on the floor, because the man whose eyes are now burning into her with a newfound hatred is annoyingly attractive. The thick black hair that had covered the side of his face, now rested perfectly at his shoulders, revealing even more features she had failed to notice. The sharp cut of his jaw, the soft cluster of moles across his skin and the strong aquiline nose that dominated his side profile. All of it — all of him was ridiculously attractive.
But then he did that annoying thing that Maz says all attractive men do. — He opened his mouth and ruined it.
“You’re wet.”
“Yup.” She nods, rocking on her heels. Immediately cringing at the wet sounding squelch it creates.
“Well can you stop?”
“Stop?” She repeats it like it’s a foreign word.
“The dripping.” Elevator Buddy elaborates, his hand gesturing up and down her with some dramatic exhibit of annoyance. “It’s distracting.”
“So you want me to just stop —”
“Flooding the elevator.” He finishes for her — and of course, just for good measure, he continues. “Do you think you can manage that?”
The words just don’t exist. She just stares at him for the longest time. Her mouth just opening and closing, like some sad pathetic fish and he’s completely oblivious to it. The tense silence between them, now disrupted with the return of his furious typing into his phone.
Floor ten — If he doesn’t open his mouth again, he might just survive long enough to make it to ground level.
But of course he does.
“Couriers aren’t allowed up here.” He’s not even looking at her this time. Not even giving her the common decency of eye contact when he insults her.
And whether the rain washed away her first day excitement, or her abandoned breakfast left her with a painful cramp of hunger, it’s the slight smirk into his phone that seals his fate.
“Are you fucking serious?”
The typing stops.
“Excuse me?”
Rey fully holds his attention now and she’s not sure she wants it anymore. His eyes are a piercing black and she can see the anger rippling through his entire body. An energy that hums and spits around them, charging this small square of space she’s trapped herself in.
But leaving a good impression had fallen through her fingers ten floors ago. So Rey decides she might as well leave a lasting one.
“Listen pal.” Her finger jabbing into his chest. “I don’t know what your fucking problem is but just because you wear an overpriced suit and you take up ninety percent of the elevator space — that does not give you the right to be the world’s biggest dick.”
His knuckles are white around his phone and he’s reached a newfound height Rey didn’t think was possible. It would be menacing in any other circumstance, but once your finger jabs into someone else’s chest — you have to accept you are now fully committed in owning your shit.
So Rey does exactly that.
“Even if I was a courier, which by the way I’m not, don’t think for one second, after the morning I’ve had — that I won’t hesitate in wiping that pathetic smile off some, jumped up, overpaid, executive lapdog’s face.”
She’s expecting it. This loud, aggressive response. The anger practically rolls off him with a searing heat that stings her damp skin. His eye twitches just barely at the corner and his throat bobs violently with each hard swallow. He's never been spoken to like that -- and it shows. But there is no shout, no dramatic outburst. The reality is actually far more sinister. The response is barely a whisper. The depth of which is so low, Rey has a struggle to hear it, even when he has her edging closer to the wall.
“Do you have any idea who I am?” The threat sounds like thunder in his throat.
And then the doors are opening — They’re back on the ground floor and although she has only one more level to go until the basement, Rey decides she would rather take the stairs than entertain his presence for another second longer.
“Yes.” She answers sweetly, now standing outside of the elevator.
A small puddle already forms around her on the lobby floor. Her middle finger elegantly poised with one final farewell between closing doors.
“You’re a fucking arsehole.”