032 choke

Character: James

James choked on the food in his mouth. He hit his chest a couple times with his fist until the blockage was dislodged. "What did you just say?" he asked as he struggled to regain his breath between coughs.

"I said I want you to run the next demolition on your own. I think you're ready and the guys here trust you. Am I asking too much?" James' father frowned, a slightly concerned look on his face. "I'm not putting too much pressure on you am I? I don't want to push you into something you aren't ready for. I know that you might be very busy with school and such and the stress of senior year."

"No, I want to; I just always figured you'd make me wait longer until I could run a job alone." James was now grinning; thrilled by the amount of trust his father was putting in him. "Which job do you want me to take?"

"We'll which job do you want to take?" his father asked. "You've seen what jobs we have lined up. Which do you think is best?"

James considered the jobs they currently had lined up. "I'd have to say the Abstergo job would be best. It's a large building but has a sort of buffer zone around it so there is room for slight fault if it does happen," he reasoned.

"Very good, that is a good first job for an amateur. So you'll be on the Aperture job. You'll have Ted's crew at your disposal." He started to go through the files on his computer and transfer them over to a datapad.

"Wait," James stopped him. "You said Aperture, not Abstergo. You meant Abstergo, right?" James hoped his father had just miss-spoke. The Aperture job was a much more complex job and was a big deal for the company.

"No, I meant Aperture," his father confirmed. "Abstergo is for an amateur, which you are not. You can handle the Aperture job without any trouble."

"But the Aperture Labs wants a building only feet from another building taken down and a area twice as large built. I don't know how to do that. Not to me toon it's downtown which means a lot more safety risk. The Abstergo job is in the industrial part of town, much safer."

"You don't know the building part but you know how to take down a building that is next to another one. Jacob will be assisting with the build but the demolition is all yours." He handed the datapad across the table. "That's all the information you'll need for the job. Any last questions?"

"Just one," James said as he took the datapad. "Are you nuts? Yeah I know how to do this stuff but this is a big job to give me for my first time."

"I have absolute confidence in you James. You have a skill for this and I think the Abstergo job just wouldn't test you well enough. I know you can handle this." His father returned to his lunch, biting into his sub.

"But Aperture is a big source of income for us. I'd prefer if I weren't putting a major contract source in danger. I appreciate the trust, dad, I really do, but I don't know if I trust me," James explained.

"Son, you have a skill for knocking buildings down that is rare, a gift. I basically let you run the last job just buffered between you and the crew so you wouldn't realize. The crew respects your work ethic, your skill, and will listen to you even though to a lot of them you're still just a kid. That's saying a lot. I worked with some of these guys for a decade before they would stop questioning me." His father leaned back in his plush leather chair. "Have a little more faith in yourself."

"The only thing I have faith in is physics," James muttered.

"Then have faith that physics will help you complete the job. As your boss I'm giving you the Aperture job. You don't argue with the boss, particularly when he's giving you a big chance like this." His father tapped his desk. "Now eat your lunch."

"Can I argue with my father?" James asked. His father shook his head and James sighed. "Yes, sir." He grabbed his sandwich and started to look through the information on the Aperture building and planning out how best to bring it down.