Science Fiction Story #1
Humanity has built offices in the stars. Yet, office intrigue lingers, people hunger for revenge, and cosmic secrets threaten us all.
If you ever found yourself perched on a rickety steel ladder, attempting to catch the scent of a star burning in the night sky, you’d inhale a peculiar mix; spent coals, musty metallic-garlic, sweet barbeque, and petrol, with the subtle tint of fresh shit.
Every morning, the employees of Star Brand descended into a labyrinth of cubicles and copy rooms inside one such corporate star. A universe corporatized, its pillars of life had been office-ized under the ever growing wall of grey cubicles. All set to the steady march of keyboard clacks.
Today, after a cosmic commute of 45 minutes, Mr. Morrison would reach his breaking point.
Hair wisped across the canyons of a large forehead, eyes sagging beneath the clear rims of glasses sitting on a rather prominent nose, Mr. Morrison had always been self-conscious of his size. Too big for his Office Essentials chair. Despite making four separate requests for a new one, this exceptionally large man was often ignored.
“Good morning Morrison,” a grim hand landed on Morrison’s hunched figure, contorted painfully. “Hard at work with that spreadsheet assignment? Good, I’ll need it by noon tomorrow. I’m presenting to the to the board,” said Andrew T. Edgar.
“And a good morning to you as well, Mr. Edgar”. Morrison couldn’t help but notice that Edgar’s shaved head resembled a rather flat prick. In the break room, the T. had come to stand for “taint”. Morrison didn’t really know what it was, but he started that rumor in hushed tones.
“I know you’re new here. Frankly, I don’t know how they did it wherever you came from, but you must be more mindful of the floors,” pointing down to the grey carpet.
“I’m sorry, sir?”
“You tracked all that disgusting dirt and slush from the street in here,” Edgar’s disdain was palpable. “Do you have any self-respect man? Mr. Morrison, you are lucky to work here, honestly the whole fucking lot of you. Without fail, every day you track slush in this office,”
Morrison glanced across the office to the water cooler, where his colleagues huddled around each other for warmth, glaring back like creatures left in the pitch-blackness. Their feet were bare and blue. Edgar continued his tirade.
“It costs more than your annual salary to keep every one of our 15 floors polished and waxed every morning. Now, if you don’t listen to me, I won’t be responsible for whatever happens. Your performance review, your bonus. Whatever happens.”
Morrison blinked, his mouth agape. Edgar stopped him. “It was fucking rhetorical. Wipe that expression off your face, you look like a orangutang. Throw your shoes in the garbage. It happens again, I’ll send you to copy.”
“Naturally,” Morrison hid his teeth with a half-smile. He relished in the thoughts of exploding like a supernova and beating Edgar to an inch of life.
But ultimately, it was best to fade away. Decay into a heat death.
In his finest pristine suede shoes, Edgar tracked mud or some unpleasantness— Morrison couldn’t tell — down the line of grey cubicles to the elevator, swallowing the life like a black hole. Morrison retrieved his shoes from the trash can, yet walked barefoot to the break room. Just in case the man emerged from the shadows.
He put his spaghetti lunch in the microwave, mesmerized by its rotation under the flickering light.
Visions of spreadsheets danced before his eyes. Invoices, electronic transfers, product drop offs and pick ups, even accounts payable (in a star- creation company? You would be surprised how many forms they have). A cascade of numbers, blocks, and names sinking down the night sky.
He closed his eyes. And he began to dream. He pictured getting up from his desk. He followed the smells lingering in the office to the emerald handle. It was next to the mail room. It was the Room.
The beep of a timer jolted him back to reality, and he carried his lukewarm spaghetti back to his desk. And his misery. A damn shame he gave up the taste of a good dart.
The incessant smacking of gum rounded the corner.
“Morrison, long time, no talk. Are you busy right now? I really could use your help,” Alise-Anne said with rapid-fire precision. “You’ll love this, trust me, it’ll be a thrill ride.”
The consummate saleswoman, accolades posted on every wall and on the signage to every email. She simply excelled. Excelled more than Morrison, even though he hated to admit it. He was painfully old-fashioned in that way. He never thought she deserved to be shown the keys to the kingdom.
He flipped his tie over his shoulder, began to eat his spaghetti. “I helped you yesterday with those spreadsheets, and now I got tons of spread sheets to finish,” he said, noodles half in his mouth. His fingers instinctively reached for their home on the keyboard.
“Yes, and you did so great, and now I need your help again,” she flashed her golden eyes. “It’s going to make a big difference this time, Morrison, not just for you and me, but for everyone at this company.”
“I’m not sure,” Morrison looked away to blush. Alise-Anne hypnotized with eyes that shimmer like twin suns. “But I guess I could.”
“When you change your mind, I’ll meet you in five minutes. Bring the dossiers of Mr. Mist, Mr. Steel, and Mr. Acquano. And don’t be late, or I’ll leave without you, and that would be a shame.”
Morrison started shuffling his papers and went back to his desk. He scoffed, but felt the paranoia circling his head. Was this a office power ploy? Help her do all her work, to the best of Morrisons abilities, and then leave his in the bin?
“Oh, and I’ll meet you at the Star Room. To the bounds of the universe, right Morrison?”
Morrison perked up, his eyes raising above his frames. She didn’t fill as many spreadsheets as he did, she didn’t take as much bullshit as he did, but here she was, given the keys to the kingdom. Of reality. His reality exploded into a fiery flurry, as filing cabinets shot opened and papers flew like tornados. Morrison scrambled, excitedly slurping the last bit of coffee and scarfing down the last scraps of spaghetti.
Dossiers in hand, he sprinted to catch up with her, past the avant-garde, office art and ringing phones. He didn’t even go back for his shoes.
Alise-Anne was humming a victory tune from the crusades when they emerged from the Star Room. “Did I tell ya, or did I tell ya, Morry,” she gave a half-smile. “Bastard has been up to no good, rotten to the core, since the actual beginning of human civilization as we understand it.”
Morrison dusted sand off his coat from the deserts of the Abbasids. He had a glare in his eye like he just lost his parking spot. More so taken, rather than lost. Morrison felt he had nothing to lose.
“I’ll kill him, I’ll fucking kill him,”
“You can try, but who is to say that he won’t come back? In one form or another, Edgar stinks like cigar smoke. He lingers on the fabric of space and time — we can try to wash him out, we can try to ignore it,”
“And if we smoke him out?”
“ — But he will always linger.” Alise-Anne said. “We’ll be given a new leader, one that has the stench of Edgar all over him.”
“What if I ran things then?” Morrison said. “Better than Edgar. Better than the board.”
“Only been gone for thirty minutes, Morrison, and you already got sand everywhere. Clearly, you forgot my lesson in cleanliness. We’ll go over it again, with both of you actually, when we discuss your resignations,” Edgar leaned in the doorway, his frail hands clutching a lit cigar.
“He heard everything we said,” Alise-Anne whispered to Morrison.
“Shut your damn mouth, Edgar.” Morrison glared from under his brow. “10,000 years, and I’ve never smelt worse human garbage.”
“Repeat it again for the class Morrison, the board will love to hear how you played hopscotch all over time using our patented technology. And how you can run our company better than them. I’m sure this will go over well.”
“He will never let us leave,” Alise-Anne whispered. “We can run back to the Star Room, buy some time in the 35th century, he’ll never find us. Not with that cloaking technology.”
“We aren’t running. Edgar, if you don’t get out of our way,” Morrison gritted his teeth. “I’ll run right through you. Besides, what will you fire me for? Doing my fucking job? Ten years and I’m nothing if not a model employee.”
“If you keep this up, harassment, threats, leaving before a scheduled break time — ”
“Save all that crap you peddle. I know the deal you made, for all of us, and I know what the ending of that deal is going to be. One where we don’t mean anything in the grand scheme—”
“We never did — ”
“ — of it all, we never did. I saw what you did Edgar, I watched you do it, and I’m certain, no, it is undeniable, that the board will want to hear about your deals that put you on top. I’m sure the entire universe will want to hear it.”
“You think they don’t already know?!” Edgar was angry, but his body, it shook like a child in trouble when a cookie was missing from the jar. A primal fear. “You don’t know what I’ve sacrificed to get to the top.”
“He’s forgetting about Lianne,”
“Yeah, how did Lianne feel? Leaving her to die — ”
“You shut her up,” Edgar pointed at Alise-Anne. “You shut up right now you fucking bitch — “
“2,000 leagues under the Arctic waters? Do you think she still loved you when you left her to freeze alive?”
Edgar was silent.
“Edgar you’ve completely taken the lights from the sky. You’ve laid plans for this since Babylon. Glorifying your ego, your bank account, and forsaking all of us to be doomed,” Alise-Anne said. “It comes because of you, and we can do nothing to stop it with you still here.”
“You vile female! You never could understand my hustle, the depths I would go to, because in the end, I grinded to build all this. All this is mine!” Edgar took out a knife from his back pocket and held the tip out at them. “It was a mistake to share it with you, the fruits of my labor. Edgar is the picky boss. Edgar is the micromanager. I am Edgar the Great!”
“A room with the power to create anything, to bring people who are unfortunate to literally lifechanging knowledge, and yet you waste it away.”
“I should’ve left you in the gutter,” Edgar turned to Morrison. “A mistake I hope to rectify, like when I hired this gorilla. Honestly, I’ve never met anyone so eager to be so stupid— ” He couldn’t finish his sentence because Morrison had his hands firmly wrapped around Edgar’s aging neck.
Picked up by the collar and flung through the cheap drywall, Edgar was splayed across Ms. Monae’s vintage typewriter. Morrison leapt through the opening in the wall towards his splayed employer and straddled himself across his employers battered chest. He landed punch after punch.
“After all the years I worked for you, all the bullshit, all the times you spilled coffee on my suit, all those midnight emails, you never were going to respect me!” He cried and yelled in between blows. Finally, it stopped when Edgar’s face looked more like a stain than a person on the floor.
“I never was going to give you the keys to the kingdom,” Edgar spat his blood on the floor. “Keep watching the play, like every sheep in this office. You pathetic excuse for a man.” He reached for a cigar, trying to have that last moment of dignity and glory that all men dream of, but Morrison’s fist broke through Edgars face first. Ms. Monae told police she could see the cigar buried in Edgar’s gums when they arrived.
Security arrived soon thereafter, and Alise-Anne watched Morrison be injected with a sedative. He was smiling, however, tasting the iron, the garlic, the blood, the sweat, the petrol. Morrison finally understood what it meant to win at Star Brand, for that he would go away feeling complete.
According to company policy around the pre-existing hierarchy in place, Alise-Anne was deemed the successor to the CEO position, and granted exclusive rights to direct the usage of the Star Room as the board deemed necessary.
She smiled with closed teeth. Every night, as Morrison often lamented, she dreamed of the Star Room. But there was no wonder to this incredible power, only terror. She remained hopeful, and the next day sat at Edgar’s desk, and lit a cigar. An assistant asked what to do with Morrison and Edgar’s remaining belongings.
“Have them shipped out to their families. Give Edgar’s family a bouquet of flowers, pick them up from the grocery store. And inspect Morrison’s files on the Room, I know he has a personal affinity for it, I want to make sure we don’t miss idea and threat alike,” Alise-Anne said. “In fact, put in an order to comb every file in our file rooms, every note on every employee’s computer, I want to know how our employees use this room. Or plan to.”
The assistant scurried away with her instructions in hand. Morrison’s family held the funeral that week in the Virgo Cluster.
Three months later, Alise-Anne fled the company. She disappeared. It was the same day the Board arrived.
The next day, the Board took over with new branding.
The stars never did shine as bright, and eventually, they were snuffed out.
