**Ian**

At a quarter to ten, Sloth and Mouth strolled into a darkened Wattpad office with snacks and beverages in hand. Ian sat alone at his computer setting up for the conference call with Amanda--a single light illuminating his work station. Balancing a bag of ketchup chips and 2-liter bottle of soda on a pizza box in one arm, Sloth rolled his desk chair over to Ian. Mouth did the same, but with a tub of popcorn and 2-liter bottle of soda in a different flavor.

Whiffing the scent of pepperoni pizza and buttered popcorn, Ian refocused his attention from Amanda's bug report to his coworkers as they descended upon his desk with their ergonomic chairs. "You do know this isn't the 10 o'clock showing at the Cineplex?"

"I'm here to see a comedic horror," jested Mouth.

Sloth pushed his way between Ian and the side portion of his L-shaped desk. Ian shuffled over to make room, adjusting the monitor so Sloth and Mouth wouldn't be in the camera's view. "I'm just here looking for ideas for a Wattpad story," Sloth confessed in a sea of sarcasm.

Still readjusting his keyboard and support ticket papers, Ian replied, "You think people would read something you wrote?"

Placing his hand on his chest before plopping down in his chair, Sloth proclaimed, "You keep forgetting I play God with code. I can force my story down people's throats."

Glancing at his watch, a nervous Ian issued words of warning. "Not a sound from either of you. When directly dealing with the public, we're a reflection of Wattpad. The shenanigans that happen in our normal work bubble are off limits. I'm dead serious about this."

"Why would you want to be dead Sirius?" Mouth asked, playing on words. "Alive Sirius was more useful to Harry Potter." Ian glared at Mouth. "Okay--be dead Sirius. I'm not here to judge anyone's cosplay."

Mouth scooted behind Sloth, both on Ian's right-hand side. "Are we making bets?" Mouth asked. "Is Yoda gonna be a Leia or a Jar Jar?

"If she's a Leia--." Sloth grabbed his bag of ketchup chips and popped it open. "I get more of these." Throwing a couple chips into his mouth, he added, "But if she's a Jar Jar--." Sloth paused to finish chewing his food. "If she's a Jar Jar--this is going to be awesome."

A ringing sounded from Ian's computer. "I mean it," he warned his coworkers one last time with a stern stare. Sloth and Mouth held up two fingers--the Boy Scouts hand sign for honor. Then just as Ian reached to connect with Amanda on Google Hangouts, Sloth crossed his two fingers and grinned.

"Amanda?"

A woman with wavy hair pulled in a ponytail appeared on Ian's 24 inch monitor. As she smiled, her shoulders rose towards her ears and her nose scrunched. "Yes! That's me. I'm Amanda."

Cute, Ian thought to himself.

"Hi. I'm Ian. I'm one of the engineers here at Wattpad."

"Nice to meet you, Ian."

"Thank you for doing this."

"Thank you for staying late to fix my thing. My--." Amanda paused, looking downward for a moment. "My box."

Sloth turned to Ian. "Dude--what are you fixing?"

Hardly moving his lips, Ian whispered, "I'm not sure."

"My computer box," Amanda corrected. She paused for an awkward moment, then added, "Thank you for staying late to fix the bug in the computer box--or whatever it's called. I'm not too skilled in tech vocab--or tech knowledge."

"However," Mouth whispered, referring to Amanda's drunken bug report. "Yoda can calculate the speed of a fart using complex equations."

"But only if no underwear's involved," Sloth added with a mumble.

Ian--focused on Amanda--held back a smirk. He felt his heart racing inside his chest as breathing became a labored bodily function. "Not a problem."

"Yoda's cute, though." Mouth gently kicked Ian in the calf. "See if she's single." Ian swatted at Mouth below the desk, out of the camera's view.

He looked back towards the computer and smiled. "Before we begin, I'm required to tell you we record these chats, both to ensure quality and for research purposes."

Amanda--looking downward--popped two thumbs up and grinned.

"Does she know where the camera on her computer is?" Sloth asked, shoving a piece of pepperoni pizza in his mouth.

"So you're cool with that?" Ian asked.

Amanda's head snapped back towards the camera. "Yes! That's fine." Adjusting herself into a straighter posture, Amanda stared into the camera. Wearing a classy but low-cut purple blouse, she squeezed her hands together with interlocking fingers. Her eyes sparkled. Cheeks flushed. Lips glossed.

Her profile picture, Ian thought. I wasn't expecting her to be this cute.

Glancing down at a printed copy of Amanda's support ticket next to his keyboard, Ian inquired," It looks like you're having some sort of issue with the mature setting on one of your stories." He looked back up at the monitor just as Amanda projected her chest outward. Ian's remaining words stuck on the tip of his tongue, refusing to jump over his lips--Amanda's boobs now front and center on the screen.

"Oh! Hello--," Sloth whispered, dropping a few ketchup chips on the floor.

"We just went from 2D to 3D," Mouth added, feeding popcorn on his tongue like a zombie.

Ian stuttered. "Is that correct?"

Amanda puckered her lips as though letting out air like a deflating balloon. A moment of awkward silence fell upon the interview. She looked down at her hands as if searching for the right words. "I'm really nervous. I'm sorry. I don't do video chat very often."

"Don't be sorry," Ian encouraged. "I don't typically do the interacting with the community side of support tickets. It's probably my fault. I probably should've done something to make you feel more comfortable. Sorry about that."

"No," Amanda insisted. "I'm sorry. There's a lot going through my head right now. But I'm ready. What did you ask me?"

Ian glanced down at the support ticket on his desk without actually reading it. "An issue with mature settings. Is that correct?"

"Yes. I wrote an innocent story about a snake and a caterpillar. Nothing in it would be offensive to anyone."

"False," Mouth mumbled to Sloth. "In today's world, everything's offensive to someone."

"But for some reason," Amanda continued, "it's marked as mature. It won't let me change it back, either."

Ian nodded at her description of the glitch, despite already knowing what the technical issue was. "I'm going to open another window on my computer to take a quick look about what you're talking about."

Peering at Ian's screen, Sloth whispered, "I think what you'll find is Mouth's shitty code."

"Those are features," Mouth argued through gritted teeth. "A complex and highly advanced series of code!"

As Ian scanned the information on his screen, an uncomfortable silence fell upon the interview. The awkward vibe suffocating the moment was probably why Amanda blurted out a random comment. "I like snakes and caterpillars."

Ian couldn't stop a smile from spreading across his face, the fast clicking sounds of the keys on his keyboard mimicking his heartbeat. Eyes still focused on the task at hand, Ian asked, "Do you have a preference? Snakes or caterpillars?" He cringed at the sound of his own voice. What a stupid thing to ask, he hissed silently to himself. What are you--five?

Sloth's lip curled up so much on one side of his mouth, his cheek pushed his eye closed. "What kind of kinky bullshit is going on here?"

"You should ask if she prefers cucumbers or zucchini," Mouth suggested.

Amanda opened her mouth to answer, but a cat jumped between her and her computer before she could respond.

Mouth and Sloth pulled back in disgust as a cat face filled Ian's giant monitor. "Cat," Sloth said, pointing out the obvious. "Single chick plus cat means crazy. I think we have a Jar Jar." Ian stopped typing and focused his attention on the screen with Amanda's feline.

"Winnie," Amanda scolded, lifting the furball away from the camera and tossing her on the floor. "Sorry! I know what you're thinking."

A bit thrown off, Ian chuckled and asked, "What am I thinking?"

"Crazy cat lady," Amanda answered.

Sloth and Mouth nodded, drinking soda directly from the 2-liter bottles. Catching a quiet burp in his hand, Mouth said, "At least she's woke."

Ian shook his head, a grin still painted across his face. "No. I don't do stereotypes. They're usually not very accurate."

"Agree." Amanda giggled and placed her chin on her hand. "If they were--you'd have Star Wars figurines on your desk. Because everyone knows computer programmers have Star Wars collections."

An awkward pitch invaded Ian's laugh. "Is that a computer programmer stereotype?"

Sloth grabbed Ian's Boba Fett figurine and playfully walked it into the camera's line of sight. Ian froze. He stared at the figurine dancing between Sloth's fingers, glanced up at the camera, then back at the figurine.

"Oh, hey! Amanda exclaimed. "It's like the little girl that interrupted her dad in the BBC interview. You just need the baby walker to come scootin' in."

Mouth snatched one of Ian's Oreo cookies and scooted it into the scene like a baby shuffling along in a round, self-propelled stroller. Ian grabbed both the cookie and figurine and tossed them over his shoulder. Looking back towards Amanda, he said, "If management reviews this tape, clearly our professionalism will pass with flying colors."

"I'm trembling," Sloth mocked with a whisper, Mouth nearly crying from laughter behind to him. "What are they going to do--not let the tech department do customer service anymore?"

Twirling the chain of her Kate Spade necklace around her finger, Amanda said, "Well--if they ask me, I'd give you five stars. How refreshing to call into a help center and be entertained instead of irritated." As Amanda went to pull her hand away, her finger got caught in the chain. The more she tugged, the tighter the metal links bit around her limb.

"Don't pull," Ian instructed. "It looks like you're cutting off circulation to your finger."

"Why won't it--," Amanda mumbled. "I think the more I pull the tighter it gets."

Both Ian and Amanda stared into their computer cameras. In unison, they exclaimed, "Chinese handcuffs!" Laughter was mutually passed through the internet until they shouted in unison a second time. "Jinx!"

In the 80's and 90's, Jinx was a popular children's game initiated when a word or sentence was spoken by two individuals simultaneously. The rule was, whoever spoke first after Jinx was shouted lost the game. But as Ian stared at the weirdly charming woman on his computer monitor with her finger tied up in her necklace, it seemed a different kind of jinx had cursed his thoughts. Ian became speechless not because of a silly game, but because Amanda had somehow hacked something inside him and altered the code.

Ian panicked. What should I say? How do I keep this conversation going after I've fixed her tech issue? If I fix it, I'll have no reason to talk to her again!

SCREAM

SCREAM

As Ian pondered his next move, Amanda let out a bloodcurdling scream. Waving her arms around frantically, she jumped up and swatted at something off camera.

Mouth dumped his popcorn on the floor.

Both Ian and Sloth stood up, Ian knocking his chair into the darkness behind him.

"Holy fuck!" Sloth's eyes were as big as saucers. "What just happened?"

"Amanda?" Ian asked, deep concern woven through his voice. "Amanda, are you okay?"

Amanda whimpered somewhere beyond her camera's line of sight.

Ian moved closer to the monitor as though he might somehow get a different view of the situation inside Amanda's home--his heart nearly jumping out of his chest. "Amanda? Is everything okay?"

"Should we call the police or something?" Mouth whispered.

"Amanda?"

Amanda came back into view, pulling her seat off the floor. She waved a hand in front of her face and took a deep breath. With chair back in place, she slumped down in front of the camera. "I'm sooooo sorry." She looked down towards her hands as though extremely embarrassed.

Sloth rubbed one of his pecs and whispered. "Is that what I think--."

Amanda fell out of her chair and hit the ground with a thud.

"Did she faint?" Mouth asked. "I was just kidding when I said I wanted to see a comedic horror."

The three men stared at each other, then turned and stared at the monitor. "What now?" Sloth whispered, genuine concern in his voice.

Ian leaned towards the camera. "Amanda? Are you okay?"