User:Conquest/UnBooks:A Bad Day at the Office
11:15 PM, The Night Before
It was midnight, and I'd love to be able to say I was laying in bed, dreaming sweet dreams involving sexual contact with somebody - anybody - other than my wife. But no. Instead, I was laying on some godforsaken hill outside city limits, going through the dwindling supply of beer I'd brought with me and staring at the stars with my son, Billy. My back hurt from the ground and, Christ, I was freezing. We'd been out here since sunset.
So, why was I out here laying on cold grass with Billy instead of on my warm, comfortable bed? Well, my wife had been wanting me to do something nice for him for a while now. "You never spend any time with him," she said, "I'm surprised he even knows you're there." Bitch, bitch, bitch. So, mainly to shut her up, I decided to take him star-gazing. The kid was obsessed with all things space-y, so he'd love it. And now, well, here I was.
"Look, dad, there's the Orion constellation!" he said, pointing up.
"I'm sorry son, I don't see it." Really, I didn't. It looked just like everything else to me.
"No no no, Dad, look closely. You see that line of stars right there?" he said, pointing to some random patch of sky. "That's his belt, daddy! And that star right there?" Another random star. "That's his arrow! Isn't that awesome?"
"Mmm, yeah, fascinating. Could you toss me another cold one?"
"Sure, here. Ooh, look Daddy! It's Scorpio! He's a scorpion." No shit, really? I thought he was a duck. "Ooh, Daddy, look there, it's the Big Dipper!..."
And so, the night continued on like that for a while. He'd point up and I'd pretend to see some stupid Greek figure from some stupid Greek myth, and then I'd gulp down another beer. Around one o' clock he pointed up again to show me the first thing that night I actually recognized.
"Look at that light, Daddy! Did you see it? I bet it's a spaceship! Do you think there's aliens on it?" The little bastard had been obsessed with aliens ever since he read that stupid War of the Worlds book for school.
"No, son, don't be stupid. Aliens don't exist. That's obviously a shooting star." Jeez, you'd think that a kid who knows all the constellations by heart would know what that is. Whoever wrote this crappy story didn't do a very good job. "Look, Billy, I think it's time to go home."
"Okay, Daddy. Whatever you say."
But the idea of a spaceship in the sky fired his imagination, and so the whole drive home he was off, talking about aliens, and flying saucers, and crap like that. It was enough to drive anybody nuts. I mean, why waste time talking about something that isn't real? Right? Right?
Chapter I: Free Parking[edit | edit source]
7:45 AM, On The Way To Work
So there I was, sitting in my crappy little mid-nineties sedan, in the midst of yet another traffic jam. And the mother of a hangover I had wasn't helping. Cars were backed up for miles and I was clearly going to be late for work. Stupid idiot drivers. This happens almost everyday, for Christ's sake! I mean, you would think people would learn to friggin' drive after the first twenty horrific accidents! But no, some moron had obviously tried to cut another moron off, and there was probably a huge pile-up some distance ahead. And now traffic was, literally, not moving.
But then I realized... something was different. I don't know what it was, really... it was barely noticeable. Maybe it was the smoke visible in the distance in the general direction of my office, rising slowly. Maybe it was the crowd rushing around my car towards whatever was creating the smoke. But I'm telling you, damn it, something was different.
My curiosity piqued, I decided to flip on the radio and listen to the local news station. Maybe they would know what was going on. Conveniently, the traffic report was just starting when I tuned in.
"... and here's John with the traffic. What's it look like out there, John?"
"Well Bob, I'll tell you: it looks pretty ugly, that's for sure. It would seem that a UFO has crashed near the parking lot of an incredibly generic office building downtown. And running all around the scene are what would appear to be aliens, Bob. You heard me right, aliens. Well, I'll be. Traffic's backed up for miles in every direction around the crash site, largely due to the massive crowd of on-lookers forming around the downed spacecraft. And over to Nick with today's weather. Any aliens in our future, Nick?..."
I turned off the radio. Aliens? UFO's? My mind wandered back to last night. A vague memory surfaced out the drunken haze...
"I bet it's a spaceship! Daddy, do you think there's aliens on it?"
No. It was all way too convenient to be true. There had to be another explanation, damn it!
I looked at all the stopped cars around me, and decided that traffic was going nowhere fast. I got out of my car, figuring I'd make better time if I walked to work.
Crashed alien spaceships? Ha ha! Those fools will believe anything.
8:30 AM, At Work
As I approached the "crash site" (what a joke), the police were clearing up most of the crowd. Some punks in store-bought alien costumes were being escorted into squad cars. One of them was spouting some apocalypse shit to me, the cops, stragglers from the crowd, whoever would listen.
"This time might have been fake! But E.T. is out there, man, and we gotta be prepared! Because he's coming, man! He's coming, and if we aren't ready, we're screwed," he said.
The whole thing had just been a massive hoax! Now I was in a distinctly bad mood. I mean, honestly! It would be bad enough if I was late because of a real UFO crash! But that, not even that, was the reason! I was a whole half hour late to work over some obvious bullshit stunt pulled by psychotic teenagers in some bullshit doomsday cult, for Christ's sake! What's wrong with people? Stupid morons rushing to any event that seems halfway supernatural, then just standing there like deer in headlights, getting in the way of honest, hardworking American citizens. Ugh! People these days.
As I walked through the door of the office building and into the lobby, I didn't see the real alien spaceship descending slowly through the air behind me.
Chapter II: Paul Revere and Cloning Devices[edit | edit source]
8:35 AM, The Office
I stepped off the elevator, and was immediately greeted by my boss. There was something odd about him. Well, odder than usual - today's ugly-ass tie was odd enough to deserve a case study all by itself. But there was something more. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but he seemed almost... fuzzy. Like he wasn't really there.
Like a projection.
"Greetings, Earth drone unit Dave," he said. Okay...
"Uh... hi?"
"You are twenty Earth minutes late, were you aware of that?" he said. Earth minutes? Oddly specific.
"Uh... yeah. Sorry. Some stupid-ass kids set-up a "crashed" flying saucer in the parking lot and ran around pretending to be aliens. Traffic was backed up for miles."
"Aliens?" he said. He looked nervous.
"Yeah. Kept shouting crap about the end of the world, too. 'The aliens are coming, the aliens are coming!' or something like that. Probably thought he was like the Paul Revere of the end of the world or something. Stupid, huh?"
"Ha ha. Stupid. Yes. Very amusing. But that is not what I wanted to discuss with you."
"Okay?"
"I have assigned you a task. Before you begin your usual duties, you are to go over to that cloning device in the corner there, and duplicate these documents," he said, handing me a stack of papers.
"Cloning device? What the hell? Oh, you mean the copy machine. Okay."
He seemed to look inward for a minute, like he was consulting an internal reference book or something. "Affirmative," he said. "I meant to say 'copy machine'. Forgive me, it was a silly mistake."
"Uh... yeah. Sure. I'll go copy this stuff now." I wanted to get away from my boss as fast as possible. The guy was fucking weird. This whole day was fucking weird.
I walked over to the copy machine. Nanette, a co-worker of mine, was using it. She seemed a bit fuzzy around the edges as well. I made a mental note to get my eyes checked this weekend. That's just what I need, I thought. xA day like this and then find out I'm going blind or something like that.
Nanette looked pissed off at the copy machine. This, at least, was normal. The poor lady had no clue how to use anything technological, and was in severe need of an anger management class to boot. Copying a memo was, for her, an hour long lesson in stress. She was, as usual, mumbling angrily at the machine.
"... Fucking Earth machines... Still using electricity, I can't believe this pathetic planet hasn't been wiped out already..." she said. Hmmm, an unusual angle from which to approach the rant, but let's see how it works out.
The way it worked out was this: She continued mumbling angrily. Then, she backed away from the machine. Then, she pulled out a ray gun, and vaporized the copier.
"What the hell, Nanette! What did you do that for?!" I yelled.
She turned around, and smiled awkwardly. "Oh, hello, fellow drone unit. I didn't see you there."
"And why does everybody keep calling me that?!" I yelled.
"That is your rank in this company. Is it not customary to refer to a unit by his or her rank?"
"No, Nanette, that's what names are for," I said, exasperated.
"Oh, yes. Silly me, I'd forgotten. You appear to have something on your suit there," she said. She brushed the remnants of our copy machine off my shoulder.
I sneezed in an angry manner, and glared at her. Christ, what was wrong with people today?
Chapter III: The Coffee is the Last Defense We Have[edit | edit source]
8:40 AM, The Employee Lounge
I walked over to the rec room, dropping the uncopied papers on my bosses desk as I went. I sat down on the sofa. Joe was there, sitting in fetal position in the corner, and man, he was buzzed. Way too many cups of coffee.
"Uh, Joe, are you all right?"
"Everywhere, man, they're everywhere," he whispered.
"Who's everywhere?"
"Them. I tried to warn the others. They didn't believe me, until it was... too late. And now they're all dead."
"Joe, the others are not dead. I can see them, right there." I said.
"That's not them, man. That's... them," he said.
"Joe, this is stupid, and you're a dumbass. Who is them?!"
"The ALIENS, man!" he said. Oh Jesus. Another one of these guys. He grabbed the nearest cup of coffee and cradled it to his chest.
"Those are not aliens. Those are co-workers. Now give me that cup of coffee. I think you've had one too many," I said.
"NO! I can't. The coffee is the key, it's the last defense we have. It's the only thing that repels the aliens, makes you safe."
"Joe, aliens don't exist. Show me one good piece of evidence."
Just then, all the co-workers fizzled out, and became aliens. It was just a projection! They all talked amongst themselves for a few seconds, then one gave a signal, and they disappeared in a flash of teleportation. That was pretty good evidence.
Holy crap, I thought, He was right!
Then the building exploded, and I ended up trapped under a piece of rubble. Rapidly losing consciousness, I looked up at the sky. The last thing I saw before I slipped into blackness was a huge alien mothership floating silently away from the spot where my office used to be. That was pretty good evidence too.