Young Writers Society

Chapter Three

That Notification Turns into A Proper Mess

(Narrator)

“This is bad,” said Kate, shaking her head as she sat back in the chair. Looking over her shoulder, the two agents in charge of the place just seemed to be frozen in place. Curly Hair and Glasses both just had their mouths open, looking like they didn’t quite know what to be doing.

At the sound of her voice, one of them did snap out of it and walk up to her.

“Yes,” asked Curly Hair, sounding a little monotonous, but Kate didn’t seem to notice, or she did and simply didn’t acknowledge it.

“That’s… well… yeah. What I said. Its bad. Something needs to be done here. Are you guys ready to run that through, or do you want me to get someone else in here to take over for the day?”

“No, no, no, no,” said Glasses, finding her voice as she also worked over. “No Agent Hardy. We are perfectly capable of handling this, thank you very much for the offer but I think we can stand guard here and run the show. Right?”

Curly Hair nodded, still looking a little mechanical.

Kate didn’t seem to mind because she flashed them both a brilliant smile and stood up.

“That’s wonderful to hear. Alright you two sit tight then. We’ll need quite a team to investigate whatever the heck that is, and we’ll need to see what other smaller anomalies might’ve occurred around this whole thing and see about getting teams on those or if there already will be teams being dispatched, we’ll need them to connect somehow. Lot of work.” Kate let out a sigh. “I sense a long stretch of overtime and long hours approaching. If you’re going to remain, buckle up.”

Curly Hair and Glasses both nodded.

“We know the risks,” said Glasses. “We’ll get it done.”

“That’s what I like to hear from my team,” said Kate. She flashed them another brilliant smile and then she was gone.

“We’re doomed right?” asked Curly Hair the moment she was gone.

“So doomed,” confirmed Glasses, “but like in the best way ever.”

“What do you mean the best way ever?”

“Do you have any idea how big this might turn out to be?”

“Well duh. That’s the part where I mentioned we were doomed.”

“So, we might get into those history books.”

“Most people get into them after they die.

“Alright fine, maybe not that way.” Glasses rolled her eyes. “You’re here, aren’t you? You did hear the offer to leave if you thought it was too much?”

“I know, I did hear it. It was so tempting,” said Curly Hair, “but I guess this is what I signed up for. Dealing with the more dangerous parts of things, not just sitting here doing the easy stuff day in and out, might’ve as well have worked at a help desk if I wanted that.”

“That’s the spirit. Now as director so kindly said. Buckle up.”

Curly Hair rolled his eyes as he did a mock salute. “Aye, Captain.”

(Sally)

Saliana Tervine had officially woken up to the worst day ever. Okay, that was an exaggeration. Correction, that was a massive exaggeration. The only thing bad about this day was that she’d been called into work on an off day. Of course, normally that then led to more bad things, which is where her mind had drifted to as she put on the comfiest clothes, she could get away with wearing to work.

Hoping she didn’t currently look ridiculous in the sweater she’d put on over her yoga pants, she stumbled out of the house, bee lining out of pure instinct to the nearest coffee shop. Whatever was about to be thrown at her head was going to need a nice strong helping of caffeine to survive. Maybe she shouldn’t have stayed up until six in the morning gaming just because this was a day off. She was no longer in college, or sixteen.

She stumbled into the coffee shop; her hands already outstretched like she was some sort of caffeine seeking zombie. Thankfully, most of the people around her didn’t look too much better off so she managed to blend in long enough to stumble out there with her dignity – mostly – intact. She was unlikely to recover from the thorough look of disappointment a woman who couldn’t have been more than a year older than her had given her. The pantsuit, the sensible hairstyle. Sally shuddered at the memory. That was never going to be her.

That image was still haunting her very soul as she finally stumbled into the briefing room she’d been instructed to go to. Her supervisor Ray as usual didn’t say a word. That was one thing she liked about the guy. You could walk into work wearing a clown costume and he wouldn’t bat an eye as long as the work got done. Sally personally thought allowing the clown costume was a step too far, but she wasn’t complaining. Getting kicked out of a place wearing a clown costume would’ve been far more embarrassing than the laughing Sally had endured from the moron she’d brought in for questioning that day. It had been a good clown costume and that idiot was completely tasteless.

“Glad you could make it, Sally,” said Ray as she sat down. “Sorry for calling you in on your off day, but it’s been a day and a half.”

“When is it ever not,” said Sally, with a sigh. “What happened this time and what do I need to do?”

“Nothing too bad. We just had a very old signpost send a signal after well, a troubling amount of time. But you don’t need to worry about that. We’ve got the teams actually on duty running after that and making sure that’s all okay. I called you in to replace one of those teams on a training run.”

“Training run?” asked Sally, confused. She checked the date and let out an involuntary “Ohh”. “It’s that day of the year.”

“Yes. We don’t want them tangled up in this mess before they’re even really start work nor do we want them to miss out any training because of said mess. Think you can do it?”

“Well like I said over the phone. I’m always up for it. I can definitely handle some training. I know what lesson to teach them first.”

Ray chuckled. “I can guess.”

“I know. I know. This sweater is clean. I promise.”

Ray raised his hands. “I didn’t say a word.”