Stuck at the Galleria

Intermission: The Division (NOT by Tre Listman) (part 3)

There was a kink in the plan. There was always a kink in the plan.

His thoughts were starting to repeat themselves over and over again, like some sort of broken tape recorder. Boss would make the cell phone lying face down next to the computer keyboard make that annoying vworp-vworp noise, and the voice on the other end of the connection would fill the room around him with burning words of disappointed fury.

Jones watched the footage again on the MacBook, tapping his lanky digits onto the table next to the keyboard. He wished he had some popcorn-- boy, Boss may not have been a fan but he was. The boy and girl caught by the cameras were trading shots with some grayish ghostly folk, and the girl was better at it than the guy was.

Figures, the kid never showed up on the old recordings before that night. He must've been a newbie.

The two of them blew right through that set rather quickly. Pow.

Dang, that girl was good with a tagger. What was her name again? Noreen? Norma?

Whatever, it didn't matter.

He scrolled through the tape on fast forward until his computer froze at one particular part.

The weird deathy part. Geez. It reminded him of what he hated about this job at times, like how that boy and girl were actually there, having to defend themselves. And for what? A grudge Boss had? Norma's previous actions? It was all pretty frivolous.

Jones blinked, then sighed a bit before he played the tape. With a flash, two beams fly toward the girl, only for her friend to show up in a split second. He tried to catch both with his arms.

He didn't.

He almost felt bad for the dude, but he made sure not to get too attached. Boss would get mad if he sympathized with their kind. "Underlings", he called them.

"Lowlifes without any sense of confidence. All they stay here for is cuz they're spoiled rich brats who got bored with living on their giant pony ranches."

Jones couldn't help but wonder if Boss was even one to talk, there. His dad was a major investor in some bigwig company a few years back, or so the Internet said. As he pondered it, he heard a vworp-vworp. The phone pulsated atop the table, waiting to be answered.

Jones bit his lip, then turned the phone around. He knew who was on the other side.

With a smirk, he pressed the phone's "decline" button, killing the incessant noise.

He could deal with Boss later, he thought, and with that in mind, the tape rolled on forward. Jones smiled when the girl went back for her friend. He already knew it happened, but still, it was nice to look at.

The vworps returned soon after. Jones caved.

"Hello, sir," he said into the phone. "I've got news."

"I know what it is, Jones. They're not dead. Why not?"

Jones shrugs. "Maybe there was, I dunno, just a kink in the plan."

"In that case, start prepping for Plan X," Boss says. "And get me a milkshake before the boom."

A click.

God, Boss could be such a jerk. Jones muttered a few dirty remarks under his breath as he pocketed the phone, shuffling through the door out of the camera room. The hallway ahead was a snowy white, and Jones could almost feel himself freeze as he trodded through its storm.

He felt like there could be a truce.

But that wasn't how things worked. That was never how things worked, Boss would be furious with the thought of that even crossing his mind. Ol' peabrain was always one for the ultra-violence.

Eventually that attitude would bite him in the butt.

Well, that was what Jones hoped, anyway.