Infiltrating Harmony

Infiltrating Harmony Part 6

I awoke to my communicator beeping like crazy. From the urgency of the alerts, I could tell that it had been going on for a while.

    Pulling it out of my pocket and holding it above my face, I discovered that I had about 10 new messages from the leaders, each one more furious than the last.

    The messages ranged from: WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY KNOW? To: WAKE UP YOU LAZY ASS!

    I decided that I would throw them a bone, so I started to type my explanation: DESTRUCTION KNOWS ABOUT THE OPERATION, AND THEY AREN'T HAPPY ABOUT IT. THEY ALMOST KILLED ME YESTERDAY, AND NOW I HAVE TO GO INTO WORK, SO AS YOU CAN IMAGINE I'M NOT TOO HAPPY. LET ME KNOW IF YOU HAVE ANY MORE QUESTIONS.

    I pressed send and then pulled myself out of bed. My back cracked as I stood, and every part of my body ached. But I had to go to work. The fate of humanity itself hung on whether I put on that fish tie or not.

    Stumbling into the bathroom, I looked at myself in the mirror for the first time since the smack down. Every part of my face was puffy, and I sported two black eyes. A cut staggered across the length of my face, making me look like a villain from an old science-fiction movie.

    "Jesus Christ," I mumbled as I put on my cracked glasses.

    I arrived at HARMONY Headquarters half an hour before 9:00 to be safe, and walked through the doors. I prayed that Berlin wouldn't notice me, but I was out of luck.

    "Oh my goodness," I heard from Berlin's spot in the lobby. "What happened to you?"

    I was on my way to the elevator, so I turned on my heels and forced my award winning smile upon my face. It hurt. "I was jumped," I said.

    Berlin ran out from behind the counter and over to where I was standing. "Are you okay?" she asked with genuine worry.

    "Yeah, I'm fine. Just a bit beaten up is all," I said.

    "Well," said Berlin, "I'm supposed to give you a tour of the building. Something about being the only other human here makes us compatible in the eyes of the vocations I guess."

    "Alright." I gestured towards the elevator. "Lead the way."

    Berlin took the lead, and together we got into the elevator. After a moment of silence, Berlin turned to me. "Oh, by the way... my name's Berlin Lewis."

    After all this time, I hadn't even realized that I wasn't supposed to know her name yet. I smiled awkwardly.

    "Jerry Jackson," I said, and shook her hand.

    "You're going to love it here," she told me as she nodded vigorously. "At least I do. We can start with what the vocations call the Containment Room."

    Berlin pressed the button that held the number 22.

Suddenly, we shot into the sky at a neck-breaking speed. The expression on my face must have been funny to Berlin, because she laughed hysterically as my eyes widened in fear.

After a couple seconds, we arrived at our destination. The dusty doors of the elevators slid open, and what was on the other side is to this day the most magnificent thing that I have ever seen in my entire life.

Gray chrome covered the walls. A giant window sat on one side of the room, so that one could look out at the sunrise. The biggest container I had ever seen was suspended in the middle room, a glass tube... flowing through it the largest amount of HARMONY that I had ever seen. Smaller tubs shot out of it, going in all different directions, smaller amounts of golden liquid flowing through them. The color from the HARMONY reflected off of the chrome walls, creating a sort of breath-taking experience.

Deep down, however, the experience was bitter sweet. I was a good enough Bounty Officer to know that this was the place that Destruction was going to hit. They would break into this place at some point in time, plant a bomb onto the giant glass tube, and blow it to smithereens.

Then, the terrorists would send WAR coursing through the system instead, followed by them planting more bombs on every single square inch of gorgeous chrome, and the whole place would explode. I swallowed hard.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" asked Berlin.

I turned to look at her. The golden glow created a sort of hew that reflected off of her eyes. "Yeah, truly beautiful," I said.

Berlin turned to look at me for a second, and then turned towards the elevator. "Well, time to show you where you will be working."

"Sounds exciting," I said, following her.

We rode the elevator to the 10th floor, and with a BING entered into what seemed like an extremely boring office. Vocations of all genders walked around, placing things in copier machines and drinking coffee, as they were programmed to do.

Berlin led me through the maze of cubicles to one at the end of the row to the left. It was spacious, and one other vocations sat in the cubicle, his desk decorated with pictures of his family.

"Here you go," said Berlin. "Enjoy!"

"Thanks," I said, and took a seat in the spinny chair. The vocation that was my cubicle mate turned to me.

"Hello, I am Vocation 5123. It is very nice to make your acquaintance."

"Nice to meet you too," I replied, and turned to stare down at my desk. Vocation 5123 did the same.

My official title was Human Resources, so I spent some time on my computer trying to find out what exactly I was supposed to do. After a while of being totally lost, I decided to play with my communicator for a while. I had one message.

WE CAN'T FIGURE OUT HOW DESTRUCTION KNEW ABOUT THE OPERATION, said the message. WHO HAVE YOU TOLD?

My eyes widened in horror.

"Genie."