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WENDY WELDINGTitle: Executive AssistantLatest Performance Review: Wendy is the embattled yet optimistic aide to Fastrack, Inc.’s CEO. In this position she finds herself at the center of the company’s maelstrom of weirdness, trying to find a balance between home vs. career, parenthood vs. sleep, and corporate loyalty vs. the urge to hurl her laptop through a plate glass window. |
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ART WELDINGTitle: Tech droneLatest Performance Review: Art’s major accomplishments in life are in winning the heart of his wife Wendy, and being a caring father to Rusty and Patina. Other than that, he toils contentedly in the Fastrack computer room year after year, free of ambition and its consequences. |
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ROSE TRELLISTitle: CEOLatest Performance Review: Ms Trellis is the cheerfully ruthless ruler of Fastrack, Inc., wielding power over the company with an iron hand, an unbending will and the ever-present threat of sending the staff on yet another ‘team-building” retreat. A steadfast conservative, she’s married to liberal corporate titan Thornton Saguaro. |
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CHELONIA AND BUD SPORETitle: Information technology co-department headsLatest Performance Review: Chelonia and Bud run the computer network of the company. Chelonia is the daughter of Ms. Trellis, and their child Cookie takes after her grandmother in every way except that she’s too young to read Machiavelli. |
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PATINA WELDINGTitle: Cyberspace SuperheroLatest Performance Review: The 15-year-old daughter of Wendy and Art inhabits a virtual world that her parents are only dimly aware of. In this online universe she is the superhero “iPatina”, bringing justice to the beleaguered citizenry of computer users around the globe. Like most superheroes she has a romantic interest who requires constant rescuing, and in Patina’s case it’s world famous teen blogger Thom Tumid. |
RUSTY WELDINGTitle: Cyberspace SuperheroLatest Performance Review: Wendy and Art’s 10-year-old son is also active in cyberspace crimefighting. While his big sister has general-purpose abilities, he has one specific superpower: As Adapter-Boy his arms can connect any computer to any other device, even across the vast gulfs between Macs and PCs. |
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PERCY, THE COMPUTER BUGTitle: Online pestLatest Performance Review: The bug is an immortal being whose role is simply to prevent anything from running smoothly. Thus, he’s the only member of the cast to regularly experience career satisfaction. |
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THRIP, THE CYBERVAMPIRETitle: Data suckerLatest Performance Review: Once a computer bug, Thrip was transformed into a creature consumed by a hunger for online data. She prowls cyberspace in search of files to drain of ones and zeros. She’s earned the friendship of the staff by restricting her diet to spam. |
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ADA DOMAINTitle: Cybersecurity CzarLatest Performance Review: Ada is in her mid-sixties and has worked in technology for over four decades. She’s seen everything, and has recently been put in charge of our nation’s online security by the current Administration. She is married to Mark, a much younger man who happens to be Ms. Trellis’s son. |
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CANDY MOATMONSTERTitle: Chief of SecurityLatest Performance Review: Somewhere in the toxic chemical waste of the Fastrack dump site, an organism spontaneously developed that grew to become this amiable creature with the ability to morph at will and the inability to tell a lie. As she was found to contain DNA fragments of the entire staff, she literally embodies the soul of the company. |
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DETHANY DENDROBIATitle: Wendy’s Personal AssistantLatest Performance Review: Wendy’s assistant is a 25-year-old single woman with an unconventional fashion sense. Dethany feels life is a fleeting, transitory stage which is too short to waste on work that isn’t one’s best, and her high performance creates in Wendy a sense of mortality; for the first time, Wendy has encountered someone actually qualified to replace her. |
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DONALD ARGUSTitle: Safety InspectorLatest Performance Review: Donald keeps the building free of potential dangers to the staff, and is proud that no serious accidents have occurred on his watch. He suspects, however, that much of that record is due to there being so few employees after the numerous job out-sourcings. |
On the Fastrack
by Bill Holbrook
