Wreck-It Daisy! – Daniel 9

[For back story see lower numbers in archive]

If it wasn’t obvious before it was now. Malcolm was out. Malcolm had been sacked. Malcolm was completely and utterly over. Daniel wasn’t the least bit surprised although he was very much amazed he’d lasted this long. The company had been going from strength to strength, powered by the youthful enthusiasm of its founders and the main (oh so young) techie who had come up with the original idea. Malcolm, from start to finish was old school. Quite how he and his “carrot and big stick” approach to everything had survived this long was a mystery to Daniel. Perhaps he was somebody's dad.

They were in the brave new world now and the old school was definitely over. Although the brave new world had altered somewhat and now had more to do with whether or not you thought you could venture outside without acquiring a virus rather than allowing technology to power you to your dreams as they'd been expecting. Most of the time the government said you could go out, or seemed to think you could, or suggested you could in a limited way, but there were still a few reservations and limitations, if not made clear by the government then generally agreed by common sense. 

Daniel was also somebody's dad and right now he felt like a good dad. Out for a walk before 6am with his daughter – she woke religiously at 5.30 and it was light, so what the hell – the world seemed like it was waking up in more ways than several. He felt Joe Wicks fit, and work was beginning to inspire him again. Best of all he felt he and Daisy were a team. A wild, haphazard, occasionally dangerous a team, but a team nonetheless. And with that spirit on his side, he felt he could deal with any negativity hurled his way by his ex or the rest of the world in general.

That morning there were the usual people around. The occasionally socially distanced queue outside a shop, masked individuals waiting and hoping they'd be in the first wave of careful shoppers. There seemed a sense of relief that at shelves would be stocked and toilet roll would be plentiful. The weirdness wasn't over by a long chalk but Daisy's general chatter was entertaining and no longer entirely incongruous with the circumstances of Daniel's life. They were far away from Sparkledom but this morning the sun was out and the world seemed shiny.

“Daddy, where does the Fruit Shoot flower grow?" asked Daisy.

"Sparkledom's greatest flower grows on the other side of the river," said Daniel without missing a beat. "Shrouded by the leaves of the Advil Tree its roots dip in the River of Martini and its pollen smells of Jameson Triple Distilled.”

"Oh Daddy," sighed Daisy, "I do love being with you. But sometimes you really are a complete hillock."

Back at the house Daniel passed Daisy the remote control (taped up together since it had been dropped) and made her toast under the grill old-style since the toaster had been used experimentally as a half-imaginary aquarium (the fish were the imaginary bit). Daisy knew exactly what to do. Dial up her favourite programme of the moment, and eat her toast off the plywood table top while Daniel caught up on his calls and set his own agenda for the day. Since realising Daisy was going to be with him for some time to come, Daniel had decided to make the best of things. Something he was learning rapidly how to do given his best things were rapidly declining.

"We need to release the updated version," his boss was telling him. "I've lost count of exactly what version this – beta, feta, epsilon – who knows and I don't care. But we have to know it's not going to fall over. We can't release it and then have a deluge of support calls – we don't have the staff. Problems is we don't have the staff to test it either."

Daniel umm-ed and ahh-ed in a constructive manner.

"We need someone who doesn't know the App or how its meant to work to log on and throw anything and everything at it," said his boss. "We need to know if it's breakable or if there's circumstances when it'll fall over."

Daniel's gaze met the cheery tune of today's cartoon offering, and then it lowered a little to find the answer they were looking for. "Leave it with me," he said.

Five minutes later, on his gaffer-taped laptop (the lid cracked when it was unceremoniously swept off the bed because the Princess Sparkledom costume had arrived) and with carefully selected plastic beakers of squash at their sides, Daisy and Daniel loaded up the latest version of the App. Daisy had no idea what it did and that was good. He knew Daisy didn't know what she was doing or why she was doing it. And that was really good.

"Go ahead," Daniel said to her, "Play."