The challenge is Genomex Disco Night. The place is Genomex, and the cast is familiar. Any excuse you can think of, so long as it's a remotely plausible one. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
The interview had gone successfully. Not that Eckhart expected it to go any different, but he always liked to leave a little room for a surprise. They so rarely happened at Genomex. Then again, a man in his position couldn't usually afford to many surprises; predictability and routine were what kept him alive at this point. Predictability, routine, and a six-figure medical budget just for him. Still, a break from routine just this once couldn't hurt him.
Except it didn't look as though there was going to be any. The mousy little man his superiors (there were so few of them, thankfully) had hired was as scared of him as any of his agents. "All right," Eckhart said finally. "Stop by Personnel on your way out." He dismissed the man by leaning back in his chair and turning to face the stasis pods, the usual sign that whoever was in his office at the time could piss off. This man shuffled his feet back and forth and seemed to want to say something. Eckhart maintained his shield of icy silence. Eventually, the man left.
The efficiency expert, mousy little diffident man that he was, had been hired over his head. The powers that funded him had decided, for no readily apparent reason, that his staff turnover rate was too high. They'd decided to treat Genomex like any other corporation, although why they'd decided to start now Eckhart hadn't the faintest idea. And so they'd forced him into hiring the mouse. Who, it seemed, didn't have enough sense of self-preservation to get the hell out of Eckhart's office when he had the chance.
Eckhart sighed. This was not an auspicious beginning.
The mousy little man who had been so intimidated by the Ice King in the office seemed to grow
in assertiveness with each step he took away from the place. He wandered through the corridors,
watching the scientists and agents at their work, making little notes on his clipboard. He
posted memos just about every place he could, making notes for everyone to schedule interviews
with him as soon as possible. Not entirely unreceptive, he tacked Eckhart's name onto the memo
by way of saying that "as soon as possible" meant 'drop everything you're doing and get into
my office NOW.' He was pleasantly surprised by the response this generated.
He was unpleasantly surprised by the interviews. There was definitely an excessively high turnover rate, employee morale was at an all-time low, and the agents seemed to live in fear of failure and yet almost expect it at the same time. It was no wonder they couldn't deal with the Mutant X outlaws, with attitudes like that! For all that this Eckhart fellow looked like Andy Warhol, he certainly didn't have the dead man's sense of fun, or leisure. Something had to be done.
Within a week a second memo had been posted all over the complex. Every single agent (and most of the scientists, although they tended to disregard it as implausible and useless) stared at it in utter shock. Eckhart couldn't possibly know about this… could he? But the efficiency expert had been hired through him, so … The agents shrugged, and complied.
And that Friday, everyone wore Hawaiian t-shirts to work.
Anyone passing by Eckhart immediately closed up their suit jacket as far as they could so as not to be noticed. It didn't actually look as though he had realized what was going on, although with Eckhart you never really could tell. At least, not until you were put in a stasis pod, and then it was far too late. Encouraged by the success of his first attempt, the efficiency expert made next Friday "Mug day," and had all the agents and the scientists bring their favorite mug to work. This garnered much more of a response, as it gave the scientists a chance to break out their caffeine molecule and periodic table mugs.
One Friday followed another, and then another. Even Eckhart couldn't be oblivious this long, could he? The agents wondered, but they were also eerily heartened by his lack of attention to all the strangeness that was going on around him. Maybe he did have a sense of humor after all. Maybe he was human… nah. No one was willing to go that far.
Finally, after a month of Fridays, the efficiency expert hit upon his most brilliant idea of all. Everyone stared at the messages for a full five minutes before returning to whatever tasks they had at hand. He couldn't really be serious. He wasn't serious. Was he?
Eckhart was sorting through reports in his office when the first strains of music reached
him. As it was only a bass beat at first, he dismissed it as some faulty machinery and
waited for the lab technicians to make it stop. Then the flashing lights flickered from
the room on the other side of the window behind him. Slowly, Eckhart stood and turned
around. The only sign of surprise he gave was a slight widening of the eyes and lifting
of the eyebrows.
Down by the stasis pods it appeared as though half the complex's nighttime personnel were, as the saying goes, getting down with their bad selves. Scientists and lab technicians in extremely poor shape were attempting dance moves that even the agents had trouble with. The agents, while they confined themselves to the more plausible steps, seemed to have gone entirely overboard in the clothing departments of some trashy dying strip mall. He saw more than one gold lame suit, and at least one silver sequin pair of pants. And… was that a disco ball on top of the stasis unit?
Someone was going to be sleeping the cold sleep for this.
Eckhart looked around the room, and then panned through the security cameras. Of course. He was the only one in the entire facility new enough and, more importantly, dumb enough to try something like this. He should have put the man in stasis when it became evident that he didn't have the sense God gave a mouse, but his superiors had insisted on the man. The efficiency expert was actually clapping his hands with glee in the corner of one of the rooms.
Well, Eckhart knew how to put a stop to all this. He picked up a portable microphone unit, linked it in to the facility-wide PA system, and began walking through the corridors. As he paced very calmly through the halls of Genomex, all frivolity and hilarity stopped in his wake. It was as though the black pin-stripe suit were the outfit of a jailer; all the inmates knew better than to act out when he was around. The disco music stopped, the ball ceased to turn, and the colored lights stilled in his presence.
He came up behind the oblivious efficiency expert, who was busy getting his groove on and confirming Eckhart's already low opinion of him. Not even the horrified winces and grimaces of the agents could alert the man: he really was just that dumb. Eckhart smiled. A surprise after all. The man turned, and Eckhart opened his mouth to deliver a scathing …
"Ah, you finally decided to come out of that glass hidey-hole and join us!" The man actually grabbed Eckhart's leather-clad hands and dragged him out onto the impromptu dance floor. Eckhart blinked, so startled he actually let himself be pulled and positioned into the most ludicrous of disco positions, one hand upraised and the other hand…
"What the hell is going on here?" Eckhart snapped out of it with an angry shake of the head. This was completely intolerable.
"Disco Night!" the man said cheerfully, as though that explained everything.
"Disco."
The man nodded.
"Night."
Another nod.
"Why?"
The mousy little man gave Eckhart (Eckhart! Him!) a disapproving stare, and then proceeded to deliver a lecture on employee morale contributing to the high turnover rate and bringing down their efficiency and ability to function. Eckhart stared for a few minutes.
"Of course they're terrified of me! They should be terrified of me! Do you have any idea what I could do…" Eckhart got a grip. "Agents who do not have a healthy respect for authority, and my authority in particular, are of no use to me." He turned around to Dr. Harrison, dismayed to find the doctor still boogying in a corner. "Doctor. Doctor!"
Dr. Harrison snapped out of it as though a switch inside him had been turned off. "Yes?"
"Prepare this man for stasis."
The agents sighed as Eckhart walked out, though not too loudly of course. Oh well. It had been fun while it had lasted.
Eckhart leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. With the efficiency expert comfortably
in stasis he could finish his work in peace. More to the point, he could face the next week
without worrying about what new and hideous theme the mouse-man could come up with. Mugs
and bad shirts he was willing to overlook, but disco was unforgivable. At least it had been
entertaining, if infuriating, for the five weeks it had lasted. He would eventually have to
make up some sort of report to deliver to his superiors, but in the meantime he could relax,
lie back, and enjoy the melodious sounds of sil…
"Shake your groove thing Shake your groove thing, yeah yeah!"
"Harrison!"