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It was his birthday. Ugh.
Yet another humdrum day of feigned well wishes from silly little sycophants that just want to be as high up as him, hoping to step on him on their own way up. (He knows he's better than all of them, but do they really need to remind him every time they open their mouths and let drivel pour out? NO. But they do it anyway. *Sigh*)
Yet another backpack from the higher ups as a show of "appreciation" for his dedication to the organization all these years.
Yet another pointed text from his ex-wife reveling in his advanced age -- congratulations waylaid and thrown over a cliff long before she ever got to the "happy" part of happy birthday.
The only joy this day brings him is the wonderful dinner his daughter treats him to every year. Since she was 7 she decided it was her job to get her dad to show one real smile (not solely aimed at her) at least one day a year, so she always sends him some sort of surprise gift when he leasts expects it. Ironically, he has therefore come to completely expect it, but she still manages to surprises him every year (though it really shouldn't given the type of woman she has become) with caring and thoughtful gifts that mean the world to him. She may never understand how much, but she is the reason for his joy, and if she wants him to be happy, then he will, simply for her.
Therefore, he was excited (deep, deep down in his gut, probably somewhere behind his left kidney), and not all that suspicious, when he came back from yet another meeting on this damnable day to find the CD port of his computer popped open, with a disk lying in the slot, topped with a large pink bow. On the CD, someone had written "SURPRISE!" and beneath it, "Happy Birthday!"
Feeling a small bounce of excitement within him (that he will forever deny on pain of death or sodium pentathol), and wondering what his daughter had gotten him this year, he moved the bow aside and pushed in the disk.
BOOOOOOM
Confetti explodes from tubes hidden throughout his office!
His plants somehow start singing happy birthday songs, each in a different language!
His blinds act on their own accord, closing to reveal another birthday message across the shutters!
A party hat descends from a pulley machine lowering down from the ceiling tiles, to hang jauntily off the side of his head!
His drawers pop open to reveal a cake that looks like it was baked, iced, and decorated in his desk!
And his computer!
Oh his computer...
His screen has been taken over by a repeating video of Eliot Spencer, Alec Hardison, and Parker, all in party hats, blowing kazoos with shrieking noises emanating from his speakers, and hoisting red solo cups and cupcakes at him mockingly from under a banner declaring "Happy Birthday!" in joyful, bright font. At the bottom of the screen, once the video had replayed enough times and he could hear again after the confetti pipe bombs stopped exploding in his face, a small message appeared at the bottom of the screen.
"Check the confetti."
He scowled.
He checked the confetti.
"Your birthday present is in your couch."
He scowled.
He checked his couch.
A close examination revealed the cushions were not at the exact angle he always left them in (to allow any interlopers who dared one, enter his office or two, sit on his furniture, to immediately slouch and slide forward in an unbecoming manner). Pulling away the cushions revealed a large streamer acting as a pull tab to open the base of his couch, and when he pulled it (cringing inside at the thought of any more...surprises) it revealed...A man.
A man, wrapped in wrapping paper and ribbon (is that duct tape?), in a surprisingly secure manner to keep him from escaping.
A man with a bow on his head and a USB taped to his forehead, along with a note.
A note that read, "This is Colin Mason (also know to very few people as "Chaos," and to many more as "that asshole"). Please feel free to detain him at your leisure, you will find proof of many of his more embarrassingly simply hacking crimes on the USB (see: forehead)."
Suddenly, there was a knock on the door, and a young blonde woman hesitantly stepped inside while the rest of the floor looked in behind her, attempting to see what had transpired in his office in the past two minutes. Looking around curiously, having missed the start of the party, she finished her look-about to give him a small smile and said, "Heyyy, Dad, what's going on in here? And...nice...hat?"
He growled.
It is Jim Sterling's 53rd birthday. Ugh.