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It was the phone-call Annie had dreaded ever since she first came here. The phone kept ringing, and ringing, and the worst part was she knew the other person was just stretching this torment along out of some vicious streak of sadism. And when the ringing ended with a sudden click she realized, with a suddenly dry throat, that the voice she had learnt to hate was suddenly booming in her ear.
“Hello, I.T,” the voice grunted, thick with scorn and contempt. “Have you tried turning it off and on again?”
Why couldn’t it be Moss? Annie reflected. She liked Moss. Moss reminded her of Abed. Roy reminded her of a particularly grumpy Irish version of Satan.
“Yes, I have Roy,” she snapped back. “It’s not working again.”
Roy sighed audibly. “What’s wrong with it now?”
If I knew, I wouldn’t be calling you! Jackass.
That was what Annie wanted to say. That was what she’d wanted to say to him ever the first time she’d spoken to him, ever since Hawthorne Industries had been been swept up in some kind of complicated takeover that had, for complex reasons of international contract law no one except Abed seemed to understand (and even then all he’d say was something about ‘limitless crossover potential’), involved all of them moving to London and working for him there. But she didn’t, because he was grumpy and scary and Irish.
“I don’t know, Roy. The... thing won’t do anything.”
“Can we further define ‘thing’?” Roy injected a note of condescension into his voice Annie swore was just for her. “Does ‘thing’ have any notable qualities? Anything which might, say, distinguish ‘thing’ from a completely different thing.”
“Look, it’s not my computer, okay Roy? It’s Pierce’s.” Annie was only making the call in the first place because Pierce couldn’t get the hang of the British telephone system. Last time, he’d somehow gotten through to a nuclear submarine and almost managed to get a missile launched at Reykjavik.
For the first time, Roy didn't sound contemptuous and disgustful, but freaked. “Oh, Jesus. What’s he been doing now?”
“I don’t know, but half the screen’s magenta.”
“I’ll be right up.” The troll leaving his lair? This must be serious. “I’ll bring Moss. It’ll be a two-man job. Well, actually, knowing you and your bloody friends it’ll be a fifty man job but I guess we’ll have to make do, won’t we. Bye!” Roy added, sarcastically.
Annie got a certain amount of pathetic satisfaction in badly mimicking Roy’s last words back to the now-dead receiver before slamming it down with so much force her hand hurt.
“You sound like a muppet leprechaun,” Troy noted. He and Abed were wearing matching Gordon Gekko suits. No one had the heart to tell them that Reynholm Industries had nothing to do with the stock market. For that matter, none of them were actually certain what Reynholm Industries actually did; the place made Jeff seem like a hard-working member of society. He literally spent all day in a cubicle playing Angry Birds on his phone without even switching on his computer, and he’d somehow made ‘Employee of the Month’ three times. And no, Annie was not seething with jealousy about that.
“I hate that guy. Why’s it always me that has to call I.T whenever Pierce does something to his computer?”
“Because Roy likes you,” Shirley pointed out.
“No he doesn’t! Every time he speaks to me he’s condescending and rude!”
“In other words,” Jeff retorted, finally looking up from his phone, “he’s an I.T guy.”
“Whatever. I’m telling you, he doesn’t like me.”
*
“I really like Annie,” Roy was enthusiastically saying at that exact moment on the way up from the basement.
“Delightful young lady, Annie Edison,” Maurice Moss agreed amiably.
“Lovely person. Lovely natured. I always enjoy our conversations on the phone.”
“Charming to be around.”
“Her mates are all tossers, but she’s alright.”
"Guys," Jen Barber warned. "Be nice. We want to impress the Americans."
Roy shot her a look. "And why are you here again?"
"I'm helping you!"
"And by 'helping', you presumably mean 'letting us do all the work while you try and get Jeff Winger to notice you'."
"It helps," Jen protested weakly.