1. Nick

ONE

NICK

In which Nick arrives for his first day at the new job. Late.

Nick circled the block—again—in a futile search for a parking place. Why were there no parking spots on the one day he needed one? He always got parking; it was like his personal superpower, only not very useful. And obviously didn't work one hundred percent of the time.

Today, nothing. Nada. Nil. Bupkis.

Zilch. Zero. Zip.

Huh. He'd never realized how many zero words started with the letter Z .

An honest-to-goodness tumbleweed… tumbled across the street in front of him. What the actual fuck? Was he in the Wild West now? Had he accidentally crossed into another dimension?

"Look, universe—or whoever is fucking with me—I need this job, okay? It's time for a parking place. And no more tumbleweeds."

There was no answer, of course. Nick pressed on the gas, intending to circle the block a third time.

At the last imaginable second, just before disaster of a magnitude even Nick couldn't fathom—and he was pretty good at fathoming disaster—he spotted a huge turtle edging out into the street in front of him.

Tumbleweeds. Turtles. Was there going to be another T thing now?

He slowed. It slowed. Then it slowed more. Nick stopped his car and the turtle's head turned toward Nick.

It was staring right at him.

Nick blinked.

"A fucking reptile now?"

The creature was on the big side; if somebody hit it, there would definitely be a mess to clean up.

"Thanks, universe," Nick snarled, jamming his finger against the Hazard button. He also set the parking brake. It'd be just his luck if he ran over himself and the turtle and never got to his first day of work.

He imagined the headline: LOCAL MAN RUNS OVER SELF IN BIZARRE AUTOMOBILE ACCIDENT.

He'd be fired before he arrived. If he ran over himself, he'd be seriously injured or dead, yes, but possibly also fired.

"What are you doing out here?" Nick asked the reptile as he bent down to pick it up.

Weighing maybe fifty pounds or more, it was even bigger and heavier than he'd first thought. Heavier than a bag of Costco rice, that was for sure. Nick knew this because he'd splurged on an industrial-sized bag several months ago and had lifted it with his back instead of his knees. Every once in a while, he still felt a twinge in his lower spine. Was this what getting old was going to be like? Unexpected twinges?

He'd first intended to move the turtle back over to the sidewalk where—presumably—it had come from. But something stopped him.

"You have a death wish, don't you?" he said to the reptile. "You'll just head back out into traffic again if I leave you here. Where are you trying to go anyway? There's nothing around here."

Luckily for both Nick and the turtle, the street was currently vacant, even if all the parking spots were unaccountably occupied. There was no one around to hear him talking to a turtle. There was nothing but For Lease office spaces and inexplicable tumbleweeds. The neighborhood looked like it could be part of the set for Westworld instead of the local headquarters for a new-to-Nick organization called SPAM.

"Fine," Nick huffed at the reptile. "You can wait in my car and when I'm done getting fired for being late, we'll sort out where the hell you need to be. Did you escape from a zoo?"

Again, no answer.

After snapping a picture with his phone—he'd find out just what kind of turtle it was using one of those handy phone apps—Nick hefted it up and set it carefully on the back seat of his car. It took up most of the cushion.

Piled with old mail and fast food wrappers, the back seat was already a mess. A turtle wasn't going to make it any worse. He was even later now, but it didn't matter. If he'd left it in the street, he would've worried about it and wouldn't have been able to concentrate while they were telling him to turn around and leave again.

Besides, he just couldn't bring himself to leave it there.

Back behind the wheel, Nick checked his watch again on the off chance time had reversed itself. Nope. The first-day orientation was supposed to have started fifteen minutes ago. That wasn't something he could easily fix. Three minutes, maybe. Nothing over five.

"Maybe," he said to the turtle, "if I explain about spilling coffee on my lap first thing and having to go back home to change my clothes, dealing with the traffic and lack of parking, and then rescuing a turtle, they'll be sympathetic. It could've happened to anyone."

If he were being honest, Nick knew his particular types of mornings never happened to anyone but himself. He was a personal disaster magnet; Murphy's Law was nothing compared to him.

"You'd be late to your funeral if you could, Nick," had often been repeated by his Aunt Kat.

Well, yes, he would. Because if he missed his funeral, it meant he wasn't dead.

"On the other hand, I rescued a turtle."

Finally, after a fourth circle of the block and two times through the building's attached parking lot, he spotted a car leaving two rows over. It was pulling out of a space between a white panel van and some kind of maintenance truck.

"There's my spot," Nick muttered.

Anyone who thought they were getting to that spot before he was? Delusional. He pressed on the gas. The engine stalled. Another car turned in, heading for the soon-to-be empty space.

What the fuck .

Nick turned the key in the ignition and pressed on the gas pedal again. Nothing.

"This is not the time to mess with me." He was eyeing the entire universe now. "Knock it off."

The second car was closing in. Surely, they could see that Nick was waiting to park? At least he would be, once the engine turned over. His 2001 Aztek hiccupped to life.

His heartily mocked Pontiac Aztek with a live turtle in the back seat.

Then it happened. The third thing. Seventy feet in front of Nick, the car he was waiting to move on exploded. Burst into flames. Disintegrated before his eyes.

Right in front of him .

One second the car was there, the next there were tiny shards of metal, plastic, and foam falling from the sky like some kind of bizarre snow.

"Why? Why today?"

"I'll leave the window down. You'll be fine," Nick told the tortoise later, eyeing it in the rearview mirror. "You need a name. How about Tim? Tim the Tortoise has cachet to it."

Tim nodded. Not for real, of course, but it made Nick feel good to think he had.

Over by the Unlucky Parking Space, several oversized vans and what looked like an industrial-strength fire engine were cleaning up the mess from the unexpectedly exploding car. One of the first responders who wore a black and red uniform Nick hadn't seen before—and who'd also been quite rude—had ordered Nick out of the way and informed him, "This is just routine."

Just routine?

While waiting for Fire and Aid, Nick had chomped down the last of his stash of Hot Tamales candies and downloaded an app to find out what kind of turtle Tim was only to discover he—it?—wasn't a turtle at all. Nick would need to have a female tortoise around for comparison to figure its gender out. His backseat guest was an African spurred tortoise, also known as a sulcata tortoise. They originated from the Sahara region and were an endangered species.

Huh. Also, their shells were apparently very strong, but Nick wasn't going to test that bit of information. He wasn't a monster.

"The inside of my car will not get hotter than the Sahara. Probably. And anyway, I'll be right back—because, you know, getting fired and all—and then we'll go find some hay and stuff for you to eat."

Tim nodded again. Nick couldn't decide if he was reassured by the assumed nodding or if it was creepy.

The lobby of the unremarkable five-story office building was impressively shabby and dim. Taking in the worn burnt-orange carpet, the faded Frederick Remington prints, and the overhead canister lighting, Nick thought that even he could give the owner some tips on a refresh. A new coat of paint would go a long way—a person didn't have to be gay to figure that out. Probably it was for the better that he wouldn't actually be working there after all.

"May I help you?"

Nick glanced around, trying to locate the source of the disembodied voice, but didn't find anyone.

"Um," he said to the empty room. "Nick Sedgewick reporting for orientation?"

"Are you not certain you are, in fact, Nicholas R. Sedgewick? We haven't had that happen in quite a while."

"No. I mean, yes! I am Nick Sedgewick. With the R. But just Nick."

"Please step forward, Just Nick, and place your forehead against the refractor. Focus on the green dot. Don't blink."

He wasn't fired?

Nick pressed his slightly sweaty forehead against the machine on the counter while wondering if they'd offer an antiseptic wipe to clean it off. He forced himself to focus on the green light in the distance. Now that The Voice had told him not to blink, he needed to blink more than anything else in the whole world, even pee—which he also needed to do.

"You may lift your head up now. Step to the elevators and take number four to the fifth floor. Someone will meet you there."

"I have so many questions," Nick murmured as he moved away from the seemingly empty reception counter to the bay of elevators. "How am I not fired?"

The noncorporeal voice either didn't hear him or it didn't have an answer. Was this comforting or not? He wasn't sure. He still had to pee.

Elevator four was at the far end of the bay and the only button available on the console was marked with a glowing number five. Nick pressed it and automatically looked up to watch the numbers descend, but there wasn't an indicator.

What did a five-story building need with four elevators anyway?

This was one question he did not ask out loud as he stepped inside the Danger Box. When the doors slid open again, he was greeted by the low hum of employees talking quietly. Nick heard French, German, maybe Farsi, English—"No, not the red lever, the orange one. Never touch the red one."—and possibly Pig Latin but more likely Canadian.

"Research is doing practice drills again for the new cleanup crew," said a voice to his right.

"Dude," replied a different voice, "it took weeks to clean that foam off my hood the last time."

A long line of stark white cubicles stretched out in front of him and headed back to a far wall that had several floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over… somewhere. Nick had a terrible sense of direction. Visually, the cubicles reminded Nick of headstones. Another thought he was going to keep to himself.

He'd possibly just set a personal record.

He waited by the elevator for what felt like an hour, trying his hardest not to fidget. Was he supposed to find his desk on his own or give a shout? Someone hidden in one of the cubicles was arguing now; Nick could tell from the tone of their voice. He'd just about decided to—quietly—announce his presence when there was movement to his left.

Nick turned to see a man approaching him.

A man man.

The kind that Nick was always attracted to but who most often had a Nicole at home instead of a Nick . He was tall, at least six foot four, with broad shoulders and a chest made for snuggling on. A delectable Burt Reynolds-style tuft of chest hair peeked over the top button of the polo shirt he'd managed to cram his upper body into. That poor shirt could hardly keep the man's arms inside its sleeves.

Nick was jealous of a shirt. What else was new?

"Nicholas Sedgewick."

The stranger said his name as a statement and as if he wanted to say any other name but Nick's. He also had a five o'clock shadow at not-five-o'clock, and his black hair was stick straight and just a tad long.

Holy moly.

"Yes," Nick admitted with a rasp. "Just Nick, though."

Again, how was he not fired?

"Agent Douglas Swanson. This way, Just Nick."

It wasn't an invitation. The man turned back around and strode away the direction he'd come from. He walked with a slight limp, which Nick found intriguing. Do not ask , he warned himself, do not ask about anything personal.

"Hurry it up, Sedgewick. We're already behind schedule," Swanson said over his shoulder.

Nick started, then uprooted himself from where he'd been stuck on the carpet and followed after the agent. He'd totally been ogling Agent Swanson's ass. Who cared about floor-to-ceiling windows if he had this view? If Agent Swanson was any indication, the day was starting to look up. He hadn't been fired and his trainer was hotter than a five-alarm fire.

He still had to pee though.