Young Writers Society

Safi just shook her head before, almost out of instinct by the looks of it before she took a deep breath and answered with a quiet. “No. Thank you.”

“Alright, well then, we have a few minutes until everyone is due to arrive and well naturally no one is exactly going to be perfectly on time so you two have a good amount of time on your hands. Why don’t you explore the area? I’ll just hang back here.”

Both of them nodded, even though Serafina was officially internally freaking out. There was no chance a special agent like that was just going to straight up sit there and observe them looking around the room and not judge them based on what they did. No one that important just stood around randomly letting the new recruits touch whatever they wanted.

Serafina tried to catch Safi’s eye but she was already wandering off towards the front of the room. There was an odd sense of purpose to the way she walked that contrasted so much with the way she’d been acting so far. Serafina tried not to think of that too suspiciously. Safi probably wanted to act like she knew what she was going, which was pretty much exactly what Serafina wanted to be doing at the moment too.

Putting her suspicions aside, she decided not to go down that particular thought for the moment, chancing a very quick glance at Ray who for all intents and purposes looked like he was casually browsing something on his wrist communicator. Serafina had to give the man some credit. If he was in fact trying to do exactly what any sane person would assume he was doing, he was doing a good job of convincing people otherwise.

Trying not to go down yet another rabbit hole with that line of questioning, Serafina started on the opposite end of the room. She probably should have followed Safi’s lead. The girl really did know her stuff, she probably actually did have a purpose to what she was looking at, but just following Safi was not going to get Serafina anywhere if this was meant to be some sort of test.

[Narrator]

There was a loud “HONK” from the screen and the two operators sitting in front of jumped. They exchanged a look, an unspoken agreement passing between the two as they both looked at the screen.

It honked again. They both looked equally confused as they entered a mini staring contest with the screen in front of them. It was functioning as normal from what they could see. The forty-inch display was lit up with a three large maps, two of which had orange lights dotted around, while the third one was empty, and dark. It could almost be mistaken for the screen having taken some damage there. The two looked down at the keypads they were typing into.

“Did you?” asked the one on the left, slipping a finger through his long curly hair and twirling it slowly.

The second one shook her head. “No, I didn’t press a thing.” She pulled off her glasses, rubbing at her eyes for a second before putting them back on. “And that screen is no different from what it was like two seconds ago.”

There was a third “HONK”

“Well clearly something isn’t the same,” said Curly Hair.

“Nope.”

A single red dot appeared on the darker section of the screen, the map in the middle suddenly illuminating its outline in red much like the other two.

The two operators exchanged a second glance.

“That isn’t supposed to happen, is it?” asked Glasses.

“I mean. No. Yes?” said Curly Hair.

“How is that an answer?” Glasses frowned at him.

“Sorry. But. Well, what I’m trying to say is, I guess it can light up. Its technically an active site that we are supposed to monitor but well even when I got my training, which was some time ago, well the agent on duty said that we should not bother staring at the center because…”

“…that darn circle is a void that you can get lost in. It ain’t never lighting up.”

“Wait, your trainer was Hunter?”

“It was,” said Glassed, waving her hand dismissively, “but obviously that’s not important at the moment. Clearly this thing shouldn’t be lighting up right? Is this bugged somehow? Do we have to worry?”

Curly Hair shrugged. “I mean this could just be, I don’t know, a broken light? Random misclick?”

“Dude...” Glasses rolled her eyes.

“Alright fine, so clearly we have to call this in.”

“By that you meant to like the boss, right? We can’t just send a set of agents there. This isn’t normal.”

“Well, wasn’t that implied?” asked Curly Hair. It was his turn to roll his eyes.

“Touché.”

Curly Hair got up to reach for the bright red pad on the far end of the room, Glasses right beside him. He didn’t hesitate, plugging in the number right at the top of the list.

“Agent Hardy here. Please tell me this isn’t about the ice cream machine on floor seven again. We will get it fixed. I promise. And no, I’m not mad that you reached out to the head of M.M.R.C about an ice cream machine. Like I said the last five times, I do agree that is a galaxy wide emergency that we’re out of ice cream on an entire floor. Gotta keep people happy if you want to keep a universe safe.”

Curly Hair and Glasses exchanged a look, this time a blend of concern and horror much more severe than about the mysterious notification.

“Agent Hardy, this is Operator Tucker. We are not calling about ice cream. My apologies if that was implied in any way.”

Glasses shook her head, mouthing. “Why would you mention the ice cream again?”

“Oh. Ohhh. Ohhhh. I am sorry. You don’t have to apologize. It just a thing where the thing -- Let’s forget about the ice cream -- I think…” began Agent Hardy's rambled reply.

Glasses rolled her eyes mothing “Ya think?”

Curly Hair had to stifle his laughter as Agent Hardy continued.

“…but so yes. Please tell me your problem. Ignore me being traumatized over an ice cream machine. Happens to the best of us. Trust me on that one.”