The Bomb, ch a
by Nix Winter
Disclaimer: Don't own Weiss Kreuz. No character depicted in this story is derived from any real person anywhere in the world, or any company either. It is a complete work of fiction.
To say that Youji worked in a specialty queue was an understatement. It was a diverse department, as such things go. Twenty-four representatives, outcasts from Kritiker mission ops from around the world and speaking probably nearly every language known to humanity, and then some. Some communications came in encoded, after all.
The building was tall and gleaming in navy blue glass. It had a day care and two gyms, even a room with nap spaces which employees could use. Free drinks, a subsidized cafeteria, and discounts on in-office massage therapy, and it was likely the best-paid call center in the world. A person needed a bachelor's degree just to get an invite to the first interview. Samurai Cellular was the premier cellular carrier in the world.
Youji, however, technically worked for Hell's Cells and they were in the basement of the gleaming navy building. The free drinks were on the other side of a metal detector that saw all the way down to if a person was circumcised or not. There was an optical scanner, finger print scanner, voice imprint recognition system, and nothing would save you if you forgot your badge. Fail any of then and the prize could be a full body cavity search; by people farther out of favor with Kritiker than Youji ever hoped to be.
While the basement demons got their share of invites to company lunchtime barbeques - they were surprisingly anti-social. Short ribs just weren't worth the risk coming back in from the sunlight. The iris scanner failed half the time - and well, even retired killers aren't all that keen on sharing their body cavities.
Youji's cube had a window made of blue finger paint and little girl smears. There was even a single - perfect - Aya thumbprint and several dozen white cotton ball clouds. It was the prettiest window in the florescent cave and Youji was very proud of it.
He had two computers and twenty-five demo phones. The desk could sit or stand and his supervisor swore that the chair wouldn't stain even it a person was disemboweled in it. Yeah. Youji did not want to now.
They'd had a supervisor the year before Youji got there who had told them they had to keep to the dress code and no ear buds. The headsets were one side only, after all. Everyone felt so badly about how he'd been viciously mugged and killed while on vacation - far, far from Tokyo - Far enough away that no one could say the cave had anything, whatsoever, to do with the man's untimely death. The memorial display was always well dusted and glowing in praise of the man's efforts and well, the actual crime scene photos were very educational.
Youji got to wear jeans and he loved his music player too. That supervisor had gone on to whatever afterlife he'd signed up for well before Youji got there. Why he'd had to point that out to two transitional supervisors, he just didn't know.
Coming through the last line of defense and into the cave he almost felt a sense of relief. The morning had started with a lovely chat about how Aya was going to France, with a blond green eyed little prick that could have been Gackt's wet dream, and they weren't coming back for two weeks. Youji didn't know the details of the mission. He wasn't jealous, no matter what Aya said. It was just that it was two weeks and Amy didn't like the daycare in the building.
Kritiker hated him. That was it. He was sure that one word of complaint would get him a nasty reply about how he was blond. He fit the role. Did he want to go to France? With Aya, and stay in a very nice hotel, and only off a couple of Hades worthy nasties? Sure he did. Of course he did. There were moments….
The blue of his own personal sky caressed him though and he knew he couldn't do it. His hands, long lanky fingers and faint blue nail polish, these hands had not taken life since they'd touched Amy's tiny little hands. Amy was life and so his hands picked up his headset and put France and Aya's snarky ass out of mind. Out of sight, out of mind. Yeah.
He kicked his sneakers off and slipped into decadent silk flip flops he'd stolen from a Thai 'hotel' that he'd met Aya at a couple months back. Cocky grin, worn out jeans, a tee-shirt with Green day fading from the front of it, and he punched into his phone. There were seventeen calls in queue. Great. The bad guys out there had the good guys on the run. Youji made a small tisking sound and kicked himself into available.
A recording of his own voice played, "Thank you for calling Hell's Cells, where your life is our life. How may I help you?"
There was a blood curdling scream, a wet splatter and the call ended.
"Thank you for calling Hell's Cells, where your life is our life. How may I help you?"
"You damn bastards sent me the wrong charger! What kind of idiots are you?"
Youji scratched his head and wished he hadn't given up smoking. Maybe just one. "I'm terribly sorry. The wrong charger can be very frustrating," he said, with his best attempted at empathy.
"Oh like you give a shit!" The caller, an older man, from the sound, maybe sixty, a little less, said his voice calming down, if only from just lack of energy to be that irrate for so long. There had been a hold time, after all. "I'm never going to be able to reach my contact!"
"Look, let me help you. I gotta verify your account and we'll get you a new charger, okay?"
"I'm in Ethiopia!" There.. that gave the guy some energy. Maybe he was solar powered.
"Hot there?" Youji asked, trying to build rapport as he looked over the guys account. Yup, had sent the wrong charger. He'd have to rib Karna about that later. Smiling, Youji started an order for another, not even batting an eye at the 1,500 over night express fee. Their mistake, after all.
"Oh yeah! Hot where you are?"
"Not really," Youji said. "Okay, so I'll overnight the right one, no extra charge, okay? Oh yeah, give me the password on the account?"
"What password? There's a password?"
"Look I can't send the charger if you haven't got the password."
"I gotta have that charger! Do you think there's a Radio Shack around here?"
"Oh, so you're American?"
"As if that matters!" And then the man went into some profanity that probably wasn't American at all. "Please? Just send me the charger? I'll give you my credit card number."
"Sorry. I understand how frustrat…"
There was a nasty crash and explosion in the background and Youji wondered if the call might have ended appruptly.
"Please," the man said, as genuine as a person about to be fertilizer can ever really be, "Please, I need to reach my contact. I'm not going to make the pick up point."
"Give me a number to call?" Youji asked, pencil in one hand, fingers brushing over the soft cotton ball clouds his daughter had glued to his window.
The man gave a number, which Youji wrote down.
"Hold the line," Youji said, cutting the guy off mid way, so he could use his other line and dial out. Sounding a touch more professional, even sitting up a little, Youji announced himself to the receptionist on the other line, at the cough Board of Education of the state of Montana, "Hello, yes, my name is Youji and I'm calling from Hell's Cells. I'm trying to reach Richard Blake, about," and he gave the number the caller had called in about. "Yes, I'd be happy to hold the line."
Hold music. Youji loved hold music. He had taken up drawing, usually Aya, but a lot of times he drew Amy too, with big chibi eyes, on a swing, with a kitty. He was going to get her a kitty someday. "
"Yes, yes, Richard, Hi! I'm Youji. I'm calling from Hell's Cells, Oh my, the other line just went dead, but do you have a, uh, teacher in Ethiopia? Yes? Great! Let me verify the password and I'll give you his gps coordinates. He's about to be croutons. OH yeah, I understand it's very hot in Ethiopia. Sure, special educational mission, Oh yes, I understand totally. Sure. Just to let you know, I'm pretty sure that there was a heavy round of ak-47 fire right before the line went dead. Yeah, terrible, yeah, I'm sure. Okay, and the password? Great. I'll send those coordinates over the secure channel and thank you for choosing Hell's Cells. Uh, we appreciate your business. Have a nice day."
"Thank you for calling Hell's Cells, where your life is our life. How may I help you?"
The rest of the morning was pretty uneventful, not that there had been anything real stunning about the morning. Youji really hated France.