His eyes drifted back up towards the warden, hanging on that same pallid wall and looming over the entire office. It read exactly five minutes to three - just about time. Nimble fingers resumed tapping keys on the board just in front of them as the posture of the body attached straightened and pulled the rolling chair slightly closer to the desk. The glare of the brightly lit screen threatened to induce a headache, but he had barely made it to the end of his shift. He could hardly make out the litany of lines his muscle memory currently produced through the cloud of his own wandering thoughts. Sure, he was still on the job even after he would set foot out of the towering skyscraper he worked within, but taking in fresh air would do wonders for his waning disposition and slumping demeanor. He was so absorbed in the thoughts of his coming freedom that the shout of his name pierced his eardrums and caused a visible shutter before he briefly composed himself and casually whirled his chair around.
"You know where you're going, Jaeger?" A well dressed, obviously managerial man asked.
"Come on, Wallace. I told you, call me Calum. Caaalum. And you ask me this same question every time it's my turn to do a delivery and install. I know where I'm going, rest assured," Calum replied. Wallace grunted before pulling out his much-too-big-for-a-pocket smartphone. He appeared to scroll through a few pages, tapped on the screen a few times, and turned to check to the clock on the wall before facing his charge once more. His visage was steeped in stone cold business and his forehead was wrinkled underneath his professionally styled crop of brown hair, probably from all the brow furrowing he had done in his long career.
"All delivery and installation employees should clarify their understanding of the destination at the time of send off. You know how this works,
Jaeger."
Calum chuckled at the blatant disregard of his previous requst as Wallace turned to march off to another area of the office. He quickly hit the power on his monitor, shutting it off, and beelined for the bathroom. His floor being higher than the others meant that the bathroom came with a lock on the door and a single occupancy design. He locked the door and heavily exhaled. Brown eyes climbed up to face the mirror as Calum pushed off the sink and took a few steps back. He had alawys hated wearing formal attire. The generic black suit, white button down, and black tie he wore made his face wrinkle in disgust. It clung to his slender, lanky body as if it were a loose second skin, the product of custom tailoring provided by the business. With his dark brown hair slicked back and runing down the back of his neck, Calum felt like regular exec number thirty four.
A few minutes later, a white panel van rolled down the city streets. The sides of the vehicle read
Grimm Technologies in crimson font and an industrial ladder rested on one side of the roof, the universal look of technician vans everywhere. Calum leaned back in his bucket seat, one hand on the wheel and the other trying to tune a radio station. His business attire was nowhere to be seen and his renewed comfort level was obvious with black jeans, sneakers, a thin navy blue, unzipped hoodie, and a crimson colored beanie now adorning his figure. He gave up on the ever static radio and sighed as turned down a narrow strip of road into a residential community. The van slowed to a perfect stop in front of a modest sized house with a manicured lawn and an immaculate stone walkway arrangement. "This is the only kind of person that would pay for the most expensive internet option," Calum muttered to himself as he shook his head at the house.
He hopped out of the van and strolled to the back where a pile of various pieces of technology lay strewn about the cabin. He took a few moments sift through modems and cables and tools and old routers until he finally came to an unopened brown package about the size of an encyclopedia. A pocket knife made short work of the tape on the box and a brand new, pristine black router lay insde, a crimson
G stamped into the center of the unit. Calum shook his head again and chuckled at the thought of the exorbitant price one had to pay to acquire such a thing. At that same moment however, a throbbing pain pounded into his head and the pocket knife dropped to the concrete road. Calum grabbed his head in agony and stumbled backwards, unable to scream because of the pain and unable to orient himself properly due to the immediately loss of his bearings. His teeth grit hard and heaved grunts escaped into the air in sporadic intervals. Finally, he felt a strong falling sensation and could only watch as the world around him went dark.
Beeping noises were the first sounds to reveal themselves. A spell of dizziness washed over Calum as he slowly started to return to the conscious world. The first thing he felt was the pain in his head from before, but it had been dulled by a significant degree and devloved to simply annoying from devastatingly painful. His ears were still ringing as well, but it only took a few more moments to realize that he was slumped down in a chair rather than on the ground where he could swear he remembered falling. Slowly, he pulled himself upwards against the back of the rolling office chair he found himself in and blinked furiously, trying to adjust his vision to the dark room around him. It was almost pitch black except for the blaringly bright screen invading his peripheral vision. As he turned to face what was assuredly a computer screen, an errant hand discovered something in the ear it was going to attempt to quell the ringing.
Calum quickly pulled the device out and raised an eyebrow at a solid black bluetooth earpiece in his palm. A crimson
G was engraved on the outer side. It was also then that the delivery boy realized his throbbing headache had subsided almost as soon as he had removed the foriegn object. "Okay then... " He muttered to himself. Turning to finally face the computer screen, Calum squinted for a few seconds at light as blurry lines came into focus to become sentences - a message of some sort.
Has the world around you become normal, average and over all simplistic to the point it's scary? Does your mind feel unclouded for the first time in forever? Do you even know what day or year it is? Does everyone around you tell you that there is nothing wrong in a monotone voice when you question what this world has gone too? Perhaps at dinner they pray to 'The Man' now before eating, praising this person even though you have no idea who he is? Well then congratulations, you have successfully woken up from the mind control you've been under. You're not safe though above ground, you're being watched at this very moment. Someone will be to your location very soon but for now exit this browser page and delete all your history. Get on some nice clothes and wait at the door. You have about 2 minutes before your computer acquires a virus to make sure he doesn't find out what's going on. For all he knows everyone is still under his control, still complying to every rule he has given them. We will explain more later, just get ready to be extracted. Welcome to the Revolution my friend, see you soon. Calum would have laughed had it not been for the fact that he just randomly awoken in a strange room. It was like reading the plot of some generic sci-fi movie. He leaned back in the chair causing it to roll back just a few inches. If there was an even a chance that this could be true, there were so many questions to be answered. How did this come about? Was this some kind of prank gone too far? Most importantly, how and when would it have been possible to get caught up in this mess? The last question was what worried him the most. If it was true, Calum immediately settled upon wondering how and when he could have been enslaved to mind control. It didn't take long for the light weight of the bluetooth in his hand to jolt his memory. "Is it even... A possibility... " Calum wondered aloud before reeling himself back in to the computer screen to the read the message once more. It did say that someone would be by to "extract" him soon so chances were that if this was a real situation, he wouldn't have to wait long for his answer. The knock at the door followed that thought by seconds.
Having finally regained his bearings - to the best of capability considering he still did not know where he was - Calum jumped up from the seat and slowly made his way towards the door. He noted that the room he was in was freakishly small with only the chair, desk, computer, and a blacked out window barely lit by the bright computer screen behind them. The floor was old wood judging by the creaks and the feel and the walls were barely visible due to the enveloping darkness. Following the sound of further knocks to the door, Calum felt around the wood until he felt the cold sensation of a brass knob. He took one breath and pulled the door open allowing a dimly lit hall light to cut through the darkness of the room and highlight a hooded figured standing under it.
"You got the message?" The figure asked. Its muffled voice made it hard to tell whether it male or female.
"If you mean that shit on the computer over there, yeah, I read... It... " Calum trailed as he briefly turned to see plumes of smoke rising from the old CRT monitor. He felt his body begin to enter fight or flight mode as he faced the figure again.
"We don't have much time and I don't have much patience. Are you gonna come or not?" The figure asked
harshly. Calum tried to slow his heart rate as he spoke.
"How about you tell me who you are and what the hell this is first?"
"Did you not hear what I said about
time?"
"Do you see me, standing here in this room? I didn't ask to be here."
"No one asked to be here."
"Instead of being cryptic, you could just tell me exactly where I am and what's going on... "
"That would make me a liar."
"What?"
"I also said I don't have much patience."
"You don't understand-"
"And you don't listen. I'm going to turn around and get going now. We're almost out of time. Either you follow me or you stay here and die. I don't give a damn in any case," The figure immediately turned and began a fast walk down what looked to be a narrow corridor. The choice was an obvious one, but it didn't make Calum anymore comfortable. With one last look at the smoking computer, he zipped up his hoodie and briskly walked out of the door and after the figure - right into at least two more individuals who quickly threw a bag over the head of the already nervous delivery boy and plunged a needle into his neck.
For the second time, Calum opened his eyes, but this time there was no grogginess or pain. A quick inspection revealed another small box of a room, but this time Calum sat at an empty table with another dimly light hanging above it from the low ceiling. There were no windows, just four metallic walls and a hard, uncomfortable chair to sit in - that he was also handcuffed to. He sighed loudly and almost cursed before a hooded figure opened the heavy metal door. "She'll be with you soon," It said, promptly shutting the door. Calum shook his head and relaxed himself. Whatever was going on, it was too late to do anything about it now. He could only hope that whoever
she was would provide some sort of explanation.
