"Mhm. Sure. I'll call you later."
Click.
The end of the phone call reminds me of the shithole I'm in.
This chair is too stiff, the air too smoky, and the atmosphere too dead. Monitoring a base I know nothing about. The job information barely let on- and I've signed a waiver for secrecy- I'm not allowed to discuss this sort of thing, honestly. The waiver is simply a formality, though. It's so hidden, this job is, there is nothing to talk about. Because I don't know what anything does, and how can one speak about things they know nothing of?
You don't know enough to know enough here, I suppose.
And if I wanted to talk, there would be the issue of talking to anyone. I have all of four coworkers in this area. I know no other staff aside from the supervisor and the guy who interviewed me for the job.
My nine-to-fives are staring at gauges and wasting time. I'm tired and want something more; I'm bored out of my fucking mind. That's the only reason I can comprehend even thinking about this.
"Hey."
One of my coworkers snaps me back from my malevolent stupor. I swivel in the chair to meet him. He's not very old, maybe in his 40's, but he's already balding. His eyebrows are thick and curved and he always seems to have as much as a disinterested look as I do, if not more.
I draw a blank at his identity for a brief moment, then it all comes back to me. His last name is LeBlanc, he's divorced and living comfortably. I recall thinking during one particular stretch of nothing that he smelled faintly of gasoline.
"Do the input readings look any different to you, HVD?" He says, and I cringe at the statement. Even if it's simply my initials, I've never been taken well to anything that wasn't simply my name. Furthermore, the idea of a 40 year old man calling me by a nickname doesn't sit well.
My friends say I'm petty. I don't blame them.
"HVD?"
I breathe in, exhale loudly, and turn around to the displays. Reading these screens don't come easy, and right now my mind is drawing blanks. I can see the numbers, charts, lines and diagrams, but can't make heads or tails of them.
I feel data dyslexic.
"Everything looks fine on my end."
LeBlanc grounds his teeth loudly. "Pretty strange, it looks weird. Maybe it's not refreshing quick enough or I'm ahead with the info."
I sigh, a thousand fantasies running through my head about putting my fist through the monitor. "Yeah, maybe I'm behind."
LeBlanc grounds his teeth again.
And again.
And again and again and again and again and again.
And again. I can hear it, and it's drilling into my temple. Cracking and popping and krrrsh-ing.
"Hey, can you fucking quit that?" I snap, maybe putting too much venom into my voice- but then again I don't care- and shutting my eyes. "I don't mean to be an ass, but it's pretty damn loud."
It continues. I swivel back around to face him- he does not return the favor.
His head is too busy being crushed by the hand of an alien.
I hear his skull crack, break, fracture... And ground.
Immediately kick back to the wall, letting the seat roll to the farthest point of the room. More of these hulking sauropods enter, with backwards looking legs and their mouths... Jesus fuck. Another co-worker echoes my thoughts.
By screaming. Her vocal cords have to had been torn, damaged or worse. I felt it more in my chest than in my ears, honestly. It only lasts a few seconds, in between one of these intruders producing a strange plasma blade-shaped object.
I couldn't see it all too well because it was impaled in the woman very quickly.
Two more advance on me, dwarfing me by feet. I'm in the corner, crouching, staring wide eyed. One gives a quizzical tilt of his many-toothed face. The other says something I can't hear because of the alarms ringing.
The one on the left reaches out towards me and
everything is pretty murky now. i promise business will pick up. i hope so, anyway. stay tuned.
