Tradition is a cultural continuity in social attitudes, customs, and institutions. For Tara, babysitting her mother was a Saturday morning tradition she resented because she missed out on her cartoons. Friday night ensured her mother gone for the rest of the evening. She made sure her friends, the few she had, never stayed the night. By more morning at an ungodly hour her mother would be stumbling in loudly, it was bad enough she had to endure it. She wouldn't expose her friends to it.

For years tradition scared the hell out of Tara, in some aspects it still did. Though, as she got older with a broader understanding of duality, she didn't fear it as much. In fact she embraced it on mornings like these, where she could pick out the newbie. The first day as a game tester most employees are surprised at the laid back atmosphere. No one wore suits; no one ironed their clothes by necessity. As long as they weren't blatantly sloppy they were presentable for work. But on the first day most people came looking especially presentable influenced by the suits they see walking around the Mortcom building.

"We got a live one," she heard her colleague and roommate needlessly hum leaning on the wall separating her cubicle from his.

Tapping her pencil on her bottom lip she watched his awkward movements. He had a bag slung over his shoulder, probably holding his lunch. His button was complimented by a dark blue tie and tan corduroy slacks. He had sandy blond hair with chiseled features that made him universally attractive.

"He's sexy."

"He's straight."

"I'm not going ask him to make a life decision bitch."

Tara swiveled her chair away from the amusing sight of the newbie batting away hands fingering his tie curiously. It reminded her of the scene in Toy Story, where the little alien toys were gawking at Woody in the claw machine in the alien arcade, so funny, but not as funny as her roommate.

Lafayette eyed her oddly when she noticed she was staring.

"What?"

"You look like the guy who was sitting beside me during the sexual harassment seminar."

Lafayette dismissed his coworker, "bitch don't trip. You know you're the reason they scheduled it a month early." Dodging a balled up piece of paper he laughed hysterically. Tara cracked a smile. The real reason for the early seminar was sparked by a marketing executive's complaints about a Lego heart placed in her office. Tara had a reputation as being the office prankster so naturally she was blamed.

Tara's hard life made her angry, all the time. The gamer twelve years ago was a troubled kid. She didn't like who she was. With a little money, her love of videogames and four dead end jobs later she made Mortcom her home. Inspired by the laid back atmosphere and her roommate Lafayette she mellowed out. The pranks began as a friendly rivalry with her roommate that was received kindly by human resources as long as it didn't interrupt the working environment. To everyone's surprise it even spawned a laser tag team for the game testers while other branches of the company, who were interested in spending their Saturday's in a laser tag game house, were welcome.

Pamela Swynford De Beaufort, the marketing executive who made the made the complaint, knew of Tara by reputation. She rarely dealt with the gamers personally using their game reports as a reference to their personalities. As the lead of her own team, she used her employees to talk to the game testers finding many of them lacking in common courtesies. She would even go as far as to say they were socially inept. Pam wasn't a snob; she just accepted the majority of people who worked in The Pit, weren't up to her standards of social expectations either by choice or environmental design. Tara's name circulated a lot as a prankster and with no other material evidence to prove she was the culprit the dark woman was immediately blamed.

Lafayette knew that Tara thought the executive was attractive. And he also knew the person truly responsible left the company three months ago for personal reasons. It was old news now, but Tara had taken offense to being pin pointed without having ever had a real conversation with the blond.

"Give me the hat."

Her dark roommate frown visibly, "for?"

"It's tradition," Tara stated simply.

"It's mean," Lafayette returned.

"Its bad luck to ignore tradition Lafayette," she chose her most ominous tone. The knowledge of her roommate's penchant for believing superstitions at first amused her. There were few times she lowered herself to exploit it, but today it was to serve a higher purpose—revenge. Tara was attracted to Pam as much as she could be with only being familiar with the exterior of a practical stranger. Though, if the game tester had ever entertained the thought or been inclined to act on that attraction, it couldn't happen. Pam had ruined the bubble of perfection that surrounded her with false accusations. Tara took it personally more so because she was rejected before she even mustered the courage to ask the executive out.

The phrase bad luck made Lafayette shutter. He disappeared from view exaggerating the task of opening and closing his desk drawer before he reappeared again.

"Here bitch," he scowled pursing his lips. Sympathetic eyes, colored green courtesy of tinted contacts, fell on the innocent face of a man eager to work.

She got up with the baseball cap in hand. Folded pieces of paper mixed under her fingers, "you coming?"

"No," he pouted in his seat.

Tara didn't pay him any mind.

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The Pit was a rectangular building with posters of the videogames from past to present, Tara was more partial to the retro designs, but knew redesign was necessary to keep their company current. The Pit, as a lot of people liked to call their work place, was a collection of cubicles and odd furniture from oversized plastic blocks to 53 inch high bean bags. There were twenty three game testers in all. Despite the diverse personalities and background they agreed on one thing when everything else divided them, getting paid to play videogames was the life.

She followed the trail sandwiched by nerds of all shapes and sizes to arrive at the lost looking newbie. He jumped when he heard her greet him. Straightening his tie he gave her a dumb smile that almost made her want to abort her selfish mission.

"I'm Jason," He stood to shake her hand, "Jason Stackhouse." He shook her hand as if he was genuinely eager to meet her.

"Tara," she offered brightly missing his hand when it was pushed away by an overzealous Lafayette who took it instead.

"Oh, what a strong grip," the darker man teased batting his new eye lashes, "I'm Lafayette, but if it pleases you to call me anything else you go ahead."

Jason's smile didn't falter from Lafayette's flirtation. There were some coworkers that liked to think of her roommate as another species in order to make sense of him. It was their unconventional coping mechanism. That shit got on Tara's nerves, but he encouraged her to ignore it understanding that people coped with different things in different ways. Tara found that she immediately liked Jason folding the hat in her grip listening to the newbie explaining that he didn't know how to dress and Lafayette complimenting him on his tastes.

"What's that?" Jason nodded toward the hat Tara was holding without explanation.

"What's what?" Tara stalled.

Jason pointed chuckling at the oddities of his coworkers, "the paper in the hat. Ya'll do Secret Santa this early in June?"

Tara looked down at the hat. She looked at Lafayette to help make up an excuse. While they struggled to come up with a lie, a thin man with dimples hovered over them pointing the hat eager to be included in the office prank. "We're a pretty tight knit community of gamers. We like to think of ourselves as more than the oompa loompa's the gaming factory," Tara cringed as Dylan barreled on enunciating 'we' in a way that would make anyone suspicious. She looked at him waiting for him to wink at her in front of Jason, so he would know it was total bullshit. "We think of interesting ideas and the newbie to feel included gets to pitch them to—."

"Marketing," Tara jumped in. If she couldn't abandon the plan she might as well put it back on course.

Dylan their tall helper encouraged him to dive in and choose. Jason smiled at the expectant gazes that looked up from their respective cubicles. He even heard snickering chalking it up to excitement for them. Turning his head to the right and away from the hat he pulled out a piece of paper.

"What's it say?" Dylan asked.

Lafayette and Tara peeked over trying to read it upside down.

"Using the Changlar Dance of War in a commercial to market the C-verse game," he frowned, for a moment Tara thought he might figure out their ploy. Instead his head came up frown gone and the same dumb smile that endeared the dark woman to her new colleague was firmly planted on his face. "I know this dance," he held the paper up excitedly.

"Great," Tara smiled warily.

Lafayette smiled as Dylan took Jason aside to give him the details," marketing?"

"What?"

"Marketing?"

"Their full of people with a sense of humor," Tara defended. She half listened to Dylan explaining that Jason ha d until the end of the day to complete the assignment. Almost everyone would be relaxed after the hectic morning demands of meetings and paperwork and pitches. Deadlines are usually in before four thirty and that was the time he suggested he present to the Executive of Marketing.

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Pam stood in the elevator pressing the button to the sixth floor. She looked at her phone as her phone dinged from a new message. Her face softened at the sight of his handsome smile. Her best friend was a true lothario of excess. The man took bachelor party to a different level. Almost every weekend since he announced his engagement with she threw him a bachelor party at his behest. Eric's bride- to-be wasn't privy to his premature celebrations. Pam didn't doubt if she had known then there would be no wedding to celebrate. She didn't know why Eric was getting married at all.

She'd known him for fourteen years. They were friends with benefits for two of those years before they grew bored with each other. Their relationship consisted of talking about thriving careers or nonexistent sex lives; the non existent sex life was more Pam's personal topic. In that time they shared a bond that each of their prospective lovers envied even though it was now and forever platonic. Eric's fiancée Nora, hated her, but went out of her way to show Pam she didn't. Pam thought it was amusing and Eric paid it no mind. The executive had to admit that she was impressed by the lengths Eric went to just to ensure that his fiancée never found out about his indiscretions—she supposed that was his way of loving her.

She got off the elevator and stopped to read a text while a lanky intern pushed a cart of files and drawings across the hall, barely missing her shoes.

Looking at the perfect woman for you

He enjoyed meeting women on the pretense that he was admiring them for Pam. It was a game he liked to play that she never took seriously. Pam expected a text message later stating that this mystery beauty just accepted his proposal for a trial date in which Eric could feel her out for her. Simply put, he would romance her and sleep with her then tell Pam all the details. He knew her well enough that if he was serious about one of these women being for her she would flake on the date. Surprised and inspired by the number of women that fell for the line, 'you look like my best friend's type' he continued it just to get laid.

When the intern pushed the cart of out her way she strode to the other end of the floor to her office.

Pam walked with confidence. She was envied and admired for her tenacity as a designer and a business mind. Games weren't her first choice when she entered the workforce, but she saw that it held a lucrative future. Video games were a billion dollar business and with popularity of online games rising exponentially, it seemed to be the best place to be as a career. People liked to be entertained. Entertainment in all its forms, at least for a while, let people forget about their problems.

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A box of honey coated peanuts and a bottle of wine kept, Pam's secretary Venus, pliant and happy. The Pit formed an alliance with select secretaries. They offered them a heads up on company projects or offered them gossip from their floors. It was Lafayette's idea to keep their band of misfits in the loop, especially when the rest of the company perceived them as a weird collection of nerdy gamers. It always paid off to be underestimated.

There was a fifty inch TV on the wall where they could watch shows that were a majority favorite. Dylan hooked it up so that the image on his computer screen could be seen on the large TV. Via web cam they were being streamed the view from Venus' computer. Tara and Lafayette stood at the back watching Jason sit in the chair expectantly twiddling his fingers. The others had moved forward like eager children crowded around their favorite show.

The image moved so that it was looking directly in the office with the blinds opened wide enough for them to watch the show.

A borrowed boom box, volunteered by a gamer, sat at his feet. Inside it were compilations of C-verse scores collected over time. Jason introduced himself as a new employee from The Pit. He bent down and began playing the music that started off with drumming. The Changlar Dance of War played as Pam stood warily by her desk. He pushed the chair out of the way and with gesticulations of his body, that had Lafayette and Tara appreciating how well he moved. Jason did the dance perfectly. There were three pivotal flips that were perfectly executed and the last left him on her desk giving it all he had.

Tara no longer able to stand sat down in her chair wiping the tears from her eyes. It was hilarious to watch his commitment to it and even more so than Pam's reaction. His arms spread wide concurring with the rhythm of the chanting.

The Pit erupted in a mixture of excited laughter and applause when he was finished. Everyone close enough to hear would think they were having a celebration. And anyone who knew them would know they were up to no good.

The last image they saw was Pam pointing to her door and Jason packing his things and leaving dejectedly.

"I know some part of me should feel bad," Tara wiped the tears from her eyes.

"Girl there are parts of me feeling just right," Lafayette stroked his chest looking at Dylan's Pac Man screen saver.

Tara's face folded in a scowl, "put that in the category of shit you never need to share with me again."