Fluorescents. While not as luminous nor scorching as the sun they are somehow far more uncomfortable. The angry buzz and almost imperceptible pulsations give a parasitic life to the light. Colors washed out, joy leached away, a cubicle farm aglow. A dozen other military demotees and a few renamed protected witnesses that talk too much work endlessly to keep the wheels of bureaucracy grinding along as slowly as possible, the Smiths doing their due diligence. God Bless America.
His ass hasn’t even begun to heat up the cracked vinyl of my chair when It begins.
Lewis, lanky, loud, and far too chipper for the hour fires the first shot. “Hey Maggie! You do anything fun last night?”
Maggie…they all know. He doesn’t know who told them. but they all know.
“Are there actually fun things to do in Cleveland?” He snipes back.
“C’mon man, Cleveland Rocks!” A hard gaze informs him that his banter is unwelcome so he takes the rest of the conversation back to his cubicle.
The inbox is already full. File this paperwork in triplicate. This goes to the mailroom. Why did Drew give send this here when it’s clearly labeled for Oswald? The incompetence is staggering. Every day, noble gasses bathe government ineptitude in miserable radiance. Every day, here he is, begging for an end to it all. Morning becomes lunch then afternoon. It’s getting close to quitting time. Then go can go back to his studio apartment and watch vacation videos on YouTube.
A gravel road voice rocks the office. “Maggie!! Get in here!”
Maggie. he hates that it’s become the norm. He hates himself for responding to it.
From the tone of Boss's voice, it doesn’t sound great, but at least it’s something different. He pops up to peek over the top of his cube, like a mole hoping to be whacked. His eyes are locked on him, not his mustache, him. Making his way through the cubes toward the office, glances and smirks following him to the door.
“Sit down,” The door clicks, silence. Soundproofing that could muffle a massacre plunges them into solitude. His wispy combover prevents him from being any kind of intimidating. He suspects that the Boss keeps it for the same reason he lets a world war one hedge row grow from his upper lip. It’s distracting.
The Boss sits, leaning over his desk, bidding him do the same.
In hushed tones, “It’s no secret that you hate this place.”
He tries to look surprised by the assumption. He hoped he’d hidden it better than that, “No, I don’t hate it...”
“Oh stop,” he cuts him off, “We all hate this place. You, me, the Smiths out there, you aren’t special. But you, unlike most of us, have a chance to get out of here.” Jealousy consumes his scowl for a moment before giving way to his standard air of grump and truculence. “FLAG has an assignment for you. High risk, High reward. All I can tell you now is that if you succeed, you’ll be restored to rank and given a posting of your choice.”
The possibilities explode in his mind. Getting out of here, going anywhere he wants? That is the quintessential meaning of High Reward. But what does he mean by High Risk? 30% chance of success? Does he have to jump into a volcano without a wetsuit? Are there Badgers? What exactly does high risk mean? The only way to find out is to accept. He know how this works. This isn’t his first classified assignment. He can’t see the file or any of the details until he says yes. Accept the task sight unseen. Is the risk worth it? He might be hurt, killed, or worse yet slimed…but he might also get out of Cleveland.
“Good, this assignment actually comes down from your old boss.” He pulls a file folder from his desk and slides it across the glass. “Masters was hoping you’d take this. Personnel has been tight ever since Colonel Smith took his team and went AWOL.”
“Didn’t we have a B-team in place?”
“No, we never expected them to do what they did so we never thought to double up. Now they’re gone and we don’t know how to find them.”
“Damn…” They were good men. “I don’t know why they did it, but we’ll catch up to them someday. What about your Townsend girls? I know they’re usually your first call for this sort of thing.”
“They’re down in Mexico on assignment. Might not be back for weeks. Not to be a dick about it, but you’re our bottom of the barrel.”
He opens the file and starts the quest to leave Cleveland.
It’s a bit of a gut punch to see it. Hawaii…home. A satellite photo of the islands looks back at him. The black, tan, and green piles of firmament laid out in a row contrast against the monochrome blue of the Pacific. A million mixed memories pummel his heart with minute peeks into the past that he pissed away. To the south, circled on the map, an almost imperceptible speck.
“That’s what we want to know.”
on the next page a lone island sits dead center of the image.
“One of our analysts kids found it on Google Earth. Uncharted, no one even knew it was there. We figured, hey we found an uncharted Island, can we put missiles on it? So we focused our eyes in the sky on it. Damned if it wasn’t already inhabited.”
The next page is a closer view of the tiny speck of land. Several circular buildings of varying size bearing thatched roofs dot the island. Dirt paths carved through the jungle connect them to one another, and to a dock built on the southern point near a field of blue flowers. “Satellites show It’s surrounded by a dense coral reef, but you could get a boat in there, if you were good. You might even get a ship in there if you were amazing. We need to find out what’s going on there.”
“What, exactly, do you need me to do?”
“We need recon and potential clean up. We don’t know what this is.” an exasperated shrug accents his cluelessness. “It may be an uncontacted indigenous tribe, or it might be the center of a world spanning evil organization bent on burning the earth to flinders. We hope it’s the former but can’t rule out that it’s the latter until we get eyes on the ground. Which is where you come in. We airdrop you half a mile offshore, you scoot in and get us some intel. If it’s a tribe, make no contact, bug out fast. We don’t screw around with indigenous people any more. The sentinelese were a lesson learned. If they’re evil doers, proceed with whatever you feel is the necessary course of action.”
‘Wetwork?” It’s a good question to get out of the way. Being invisible is more difficult than no witnesses.
“Only if necessary, we’re not trying to start an international incident with a bloodbath.”
“Fair enough,” He never liked killing. It’s easy to do but hangs heavy on the heart. He tries not to show that it bothers him. In this line of work, Empathy isn't necessarily frowned upon, but it will not get you a promotion so he hides the sadness behind a ridiculous mustache and moves forward.
“Back-up?” He asks, not expecting much.
“You’ll have comms and a handler but nothing on the ground.”
“Whatever you can find. We don’t want a semi auto falling into the hands of uncontacted tribes so use what you can find on the island. If you’re going to need weapons, there will already be weapons there somewhere.”
He's been there before. Wearing an earpiece, a stranger telling him the layout and feeding him intel while he reports the details back to them. Hoping to find an arsenal, maybe a medkit. It’s all pretty standard. When he finishes looking over the maps and digesting the files only one question remains.
“Tomorrow.” He says, handing over a plane ticket to Honolulu. "You should leave now. Your plane leaves at 6, you have 3 hours."
Fleeing the office, ticket in hand, he gives the cube farm a long desired, “Fuck you Lewis!” and hits the door.
A short bus ride, efficient shower, and long Lyft later, he's on his way home.
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