finito
adjective Informal.
finished; ended.
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Josh
blinked through his exhaustion as he tightened another bolt. He was tired, both mentally and physically. But he had to get the project done. He only had a few minutes left before the
deadline, and if he could not make it, he would have to find another job. But if he finished…well, he would be sitting
pretty for the rest of his life. He just
had to finish.
Hi team
had all abandoned him, saying they had family and friends to see. Weak, that’s what they were. Well let them socialize and claim they had a
good time. He would be there, hard at
work finishing what was quite probably the most important project of their
lives. It was almost done anyway.
He wanted
to rest like they were though. He was
not built for heavy physical labor. That
was more Ted’s department. But, there he
was, slaving away. Tightening bolts and
checking connections. He did not mind
the additional muscle mass he had put on while working on the project, but that
was a tiny side benefit. It would probably
not last too long anyway, unless he took Ted’s advice and worked to maintain
it. That was a distraction though. The project was all that mattered.
Finally,
he was done. He had tightened the last
bolt. All the wires were in place. All the connections set up. Every moving part was in working order. The body was done. Now it just needed to brain. He ran to the row of computers, each one
working to compile the project’s programming.
He had been over it multiple times, of course. It would work flawlessly once the computers
finished their jobs. He held his breath
as he watched both the progress meter and the clock.
Twenty
minutes left. Plenty of time. One of the computers let out an almost imperceptible
beep. Josh rushed over to check it. He roared in frustration and anger. An error!
How could there be an error? He
had checked so many times. Of course, he
was operating on almost no sleep. Unlike
the rest of the team, who had gone home every night. He had stayed and worked on their magnum
opus. But now those sleepless nights
were haunting him.
He
poured over the lines of code where the computer indicated the error. He found it soon enough and breathed a sigh
of relief. It was just a simple syntax
error. Someone had left out a few
important characters that made it unreadable to the computer. Well, that was easy to fix.
His
fingers flew over the keyboard, working to correct the errors. The moment he was finished, he told the
computer to resume working. He once
again held his breath as the computers finished compiling the code. He left out the held air and leaned back in
his seat. Ten minutes left. He would make it.
He began
the process of uploading the files containing the code and the specs for the physical
structure. The one he had just finished
was just a prototype, and would be used for future testing and
development. His employers still needed
to have the data at their fingertips.
But it was a lot of information to send. It would be an agonizingly slow process.
Josh
counted the minutes and seconds as they ticked by. Slowly, the progress bar filled. He sat and prayed for a clean, uninterrupted connection. As the computer sent the precious
information, he found his prayers had been answered, and he got the notification
that everything had been sent successfully.
Josh let
out a loud whoop of joy. It was
finished. It was finally done. A year’s worth of effort. Countless hours spent in the lab, slaving
away at the project. And it was finally
done. And one last check of the clock
showed he had made it before the deadline.
The data had finished being sent with a mere twenty seconds left.
He
watched with a large smile on his face as the clock changed. His deadline had passed without a failure to
mar it. He leaned back in his seat,
breathing heavily and smiling. Looking
up at the ceiling, he felt like he should say something, even though he was
alone. He could not find anything that
seem suitable though, so instead, he said the first thing he could think of.
“Happy god-damned
New Year.”
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Happy New Year! And may 2020 be less sucky than 2019 was.
