Happy Birthday, Operator
It's been a while since he's celebrated his birthday, but a call from a close friend is set to change that this year—in its own way.
[4k, no trigger warnings]
“Backup, backup.” His fingers lightly press against his keyboard keys as he squints at the screen in front of him. Although the slowly progressing waves of static that glide up and down the screen would typically invoke a headache in anyone watching them, Operator is reluctantly proud to say that his many, many years on the job has permitted him an immunity to this. A pro to the many cons, he supposes.
“Backup where? I’m literally against a wall right now.” Detective Ross’ stress-filled voice filters through the other side of the line that he and Operator are on right now. On the screen he is, indeed, pressed against the wall right now with his de-escalation weapon in hand. Around the corner from where he’s positioned stands Voltaic—looking marginally less impressed at the detective’s sudden vanishing act.
Where Voltaic is, Malachi isn’t far from. Operator bites on his lower lip as his fingers nervously dance across the keys. He has three options here; permit Voltaic to find Ross and encourage Ross to use that fancy new de-escalation weapon he has, trigger the security system and force Voltaic to make a tactical retreat—but risk Ross getting caught in the crossfire, or use a diversion to draw Voltaic away but risk Malachi finding Ross. The situation is terrible—and it’s very typical of what Operator usually deals with.
“Fair enough,” he finally murmurs, hitting a certain sequence on the keyboard. “I’m going to trigger the alarm system in the warehouse nearby. Voltaic and Malachi aren’t dumb—as soon as it goes off, they’ll know that they need to get moving, lest Pariah or another of the Triumvirate arrives. This should buy you enough time to get down to the first floor and out the back entrance.”
He rapidly flips through a few of the camera’s on the property until he finally spy’s Malachi by one of the storage sheds. The property Ross found himself on was an old farmhouse by the Wastelands—allegedly abandoned, until Ovo took an interest in it. Ross has been trying to find out what the organization wants with a place that’s practically rubble for a while now, and just when he believed himself to have a lead, he ended up in this situation.
Fortunately Operator owes him a few favors, and although he often tries to play the neutral party, a debt is a debt in the end.
Ross lets out a soft swear as he leans his head back against the wall. After a moment, he subtly waves one hand at the camera, indicating to Operator his consent for the plan. Voltaic is already beginning to move closer to where the detective resides; and given how brightly their eyes seem to be glowing, they aren’t lacking in charge right now. If he intends to do something, it needs to be done now.
Years of training display themself in how rapidly he sets off the alarms, all hesitation now absent from his movements. Within seconds of Ross’ consent a high pitched wailing noise can be heard from the other side of the line; Operator watches as Voltaic’s body stiffens at the sound before they spin on their heels and bolt down the steps. Ross’ hands are covering his ears as the triggered alarm continues to sound out. Operator quickly activates a few more security systems—locking the warehouse's gate and setting off the emergency lights—as he watches Malachi move to join up with Voltaic. As quickly as they arrived, the two of them depart, leaving Operator convinced that whatever Ovo wants with the farmhouse must not be as critical as initially assumed.
He continues to watch the camera focused on where Voltaic and Malachi departed from for a few moments more before finally hitting the last few codes to shut off the alarm systems. Despite this, he already knows the C.A.P have been dispatched to investigate the area; the police radios are going absolutely ballistic.
“Ross.” His voice is curt as he flips back and forth between the detective’s camera and the camera focused on the warehouse, watching as two squad cars pull up. “It looks like the C.A.P are at the warehouse and your two companions are gone. I reckon you should head out.”
Ross’ hands drop from his ears as he peers around the corner towards the now empty hallway. He nods to himself, as if satisfied that Operator’s being honest, before waving another hand at the camera.
“Cheers,” he grumbles, deactivating his de-escalation device and sliding it back into his pocket. “Also… sorry you had to do this on your birthday.”
Operator feels his jaw tighten at the comment and, in response, he rolls his neck and shoulders to force it loose.
“Well. Work never stops, yeah?”
_____________________________________________________
He has a routine of sorts. It’s the only thing that keeps him sane, really; if he didn’t have a routine and he just lived day to day, he’d probably forget what day it even Is, and time would become nothing but a river that he continually drowns in—save for the few occasions when he remembers to raise his head above the water and breathe.
Wake up at 4. Feed the cat. Get the first cup of coffee. Check the cameras and messages to see what he missed. At 12, get the second cup of coffee and maybe whatever leftovers he has. Play with the cat. Continue checking cameras and documenting events. Meeting, meeting, meeting. Maybe get dinner. Third cup of coffee. Go for a walk. Feed the cat. Check the cameras. When it hits 1 am, maybe try to get a few hours of sleep.
At one point his birthday was a day that he looked forward to, a day where his routine would change. His father would often prepare a celebratory breakfast, or spend a few minutes longer with him in the morning before he went to work. It was small but it was still incredibly significant to Operator. After his fathers passing however, the concept of celebrating his birthday lost its appeal, and now it serves as just another date on the calendar.
Or at least it did serve as such. Then he had to go and associate himself with people.
The harsh chime of his ringtone going off jolts him out of his write-up for the Ross incident, causing him to misspell several words in the process. He clenches his jaw again as he grabs at his phone to see who on earth is calling him at this time, only to see ‘Crowes Court’ written as the caller I.D. The pit of dread he feels forming in his stomach at seeing that name can barely hold a candle to any other traumatic event he’s experienced in his life. Getting ripped apart by Markos Crowe over the phone was not on his bingo card today, and yet.
Well. Ghosting one of his contacts probably isn’t the best method of practice, but that doesn’t mean he has to enjoy this conversation. He sucks in a breath of air between his teeth as his thumb moves to lightly tap the ‘answer’ button. He holds the phone away from him like it’s an explosive for several seconds before finally pressing it against his ear.
“...Hello?”
His voice sounds incredibly meek as he waits to hear the raspy, low voice of the Crowe Court leader filter through from the other end.
“Oh, Operator, have I caught you at a bad time?” Instead of the dreaded tones of Markos Crowe greeting him, Operator is surprised to hear Suha instead. Her soothing voice quickly causes his jaw to unclench and his shoulders to relax as he blinks dumbly in response.
“Mm, ah!” Then, realizing that she’s waiting for him to speak, he quickly straightens himself up in his seat—not like she can see him, anyway—and clears his throat. “No, no no. Not at all. I’m just surprised—um, you usually don’t call me on this line…?”
“Oh, well. I’m finishing some paperwork for Markos right now and so I took the liberty of using his private line instead, considering that I’m here. In his office. Doing work that he failed to do before the deadline.” She punctuates each sentence with an air of irritation as the sounds of papers in the background can be overheard. “However, I received a curious notification earlier today that I wanted to call you about.”
“Oh?” Operator’s voice seems to raise in pitch as he squirms uncomfortably in his seat. His mind runs a mile a minute trying to figure out what Suha could have possibly been notified about pertaining to him; did detective Ross say something? Did something happen when he triggered the warehouse alarm? Did Ovo do something in response?
“Why didn’t you remind me it was your birthday?”
Suha effectively shuts down the train of anxiety that Operator was riding on in nine words. His expression falls flat as he stares at one particular chip in his computer screen; he should really get that fixed.
“What do you mean?” He finally asks, deciding that playing dumb is the best method of handling this. Suha clicks her tongue in irritation as more shuffling from her end can be overheard.
“Don’t ‘what do you mean’ me! I had to find out via our synced calendar that it’s your birthday! You already know that we have a policy permitting employees to take birthdays off—so, pray tell, why are you not taking some time for yourself today?”
“Technically, I’m a contract worker for you.” Operators quick to the defense as he shifts the phone to his other ear. With his free hand, he reaches out to absently scratch Lily’s chin, hoping that the familiar sensation of his pet's fur can act as a de-stressor for him.
“Contact still means employment, Operator. What are your plans for tonight?”
Plans for tonight? According to his routine, tonight involved going for a walk, feeding Lily, checking on his league, checking the cameras, and then going to bed. But that sounds incredibly lame to say out loud, so instead he decides to go with:
“Stuff, I guess.”
“Stuff.” Suha draws out the word. “Stuff. Stuff doesn’t sound all too important to me, you know. Why don’t you and I grab dinner together? There’s a new restaurant that opened downtown—quite the rarity, these days—that’s been drawing in absolutely rave reviews. I’m very interested in checking it out.”
Dinner. She’s asking him to dinner—asking him to go out. Suha is a woman who is very established and very sure of herself; doing something as simple as attending a dinner is little to no concern in her eyes. For him, however, it means being thrown into a crowd of people and into a situation that he needs to carefully navigate, lest he embarrass himself in front of his company. Despite knowing Suha now for many years, he still doesn’t feel comfortable enough to relax around her.
But what happens if he says no? He’ll spend another birthday in a dark room with nothing more than a cat and a bunch of virtual friends to keep him company. Nice, sure, but also not as nice as a paid for meal. Operator chews on his lower lip as he looks towards Lily. She blinks slowly, as though questioning why he’s even waiting, and he sighs in subtle defeat.
“... Okay. Send me everything you know about the restaurant, the dress code, the price range, the exit and entrance points, the bathrooms, and the nearest hole I can crawl in.”
His fingers fly across his keyboard as he begins searching for recently opened establishments in town. Suha lets out a soft chuckle in response.
“Sure, I’ll forward you the website. You can do your open source gathering for a while, and I’ll pick you up around eight, alright?”
He hums in acknowledgement—now utterly engrossed in his search—and Suha laughs again.
“See you then.”
_____________________________________________________
It’s as he’s standing outside of the restaurant that he begins to regret his initial agreement. The car ride to the location was as uneventful as he hoped it would be; Suha’s driver had picked him up from the entrance into the Under City—considering that Crowe’s employees refuse to go down there—and had driven him in silence, allowing Operator to stew in his thoughts for a while.
He had decided to forego his usual mask, glasses, and hoodie for a marginally more dressed-up appearance. It had taken a painful amount of digging through his closet, but eventually he had found a nice dress shirt and pants that remained untarnished by electrical grease or other such substances. He had even taken it upon himself to tackle his unruly curls into a much more suitable look.
When he looked in the mirror afterwards, he felt like he was staring at an absolute stranger. It was him but it also wasn’t him and his mind felt unable to process it. He didn’t look in a mirror after, didn’t check his appearance in the rearview of the car or even in his reflection on his phone. He had sat in the backseat as rigid as a corpse and dug his nails into his leg as he watched the buildings go by. In an attempt to ease his anxiety, he had mentally tracked all the areas with security cameras as they drove past them, but even this did little to help.
Then the driver had stopped, and Operator had stepped out of the car, and now he was here: standing outside of a restaurant that looked like it would take several paychecks worth to buy just a glass of water. A prickle of heat breaks out across his cheeks as he looks between the sign above—L’amore—and the window showing the patrons within. Dreamy classical music filters out onto the dark street that he stands on as he finds himself torn between the desire to flee and the obligation to enter.
He has never gone out for his birthday, let alone to a place like this. Places like this were fleeting fantasies in his mind growing up—he never had the money to imagine himself dining here, nor had his father. It was take out or nothing in the young Operator’s home.
He picks at his dress shirt sleeve, shuffles his feet, and chews on his lower lip some more. He’s pretty sure it’s probably bleeding at this point from the amount of biting he’s done.
“Sir?”
At the sound of a voice, his gaze snaps towards the door and his expression shifts to a guilty surprise. A young man in a server uniform is standing with the door partially open, looking at him with a vaguely curious expression in his eyes. Upon noticing he now has Operator’s attention, his lips pull into a warm smile and he tilts his head. “Are you waiting to come in?”
“Ah…!” The sound is a mere whisper as it escapes Operator’s lips while he looks between the server and the restaurant. He can feel his cheeks burning in embarrassment—god, he hates how awkward he can be. “I was meant to meet a friend, but I’m not sure if she’s in or not yet…”
He fumbles to pull his phone out of his pocket as he checks the screen. There are no messages from Suha, despite it being the hour of their designated meeting time. He hears the server shift and push the door open some more.
“Why don’t you step inside and we can check to see if she has a reservation?” When Operator glances over, the server’s eyes are focused on the dark sky above them and his warm smile holds a more wistful touch to it. “I believe we’re set to get rain tonight.”
He stares at the server for a moment, listening to that dreamy classical music continuing to play, before finally letting out a shaky breath.
“That’d be great, actually.”
_____________________________________________________
It takes a lot of confidence to go out on your own, and this is something that Operator is keenly aware of, alongside the knowledge that his anxiety debilitates him more than he cares to admit. His hands are shaking as he follows the server inside and to the small podium containing the reservation book. Operator diligently parrots off Suha’s name without much concern, and after a moment of checking, the server nods with a smile.
“She does have a reservation, and she left a message informing us to tell you that she may be a few minutes late.” The server closes the book as his smile shifts to a more sympathetic one. “She says to put the blame on her brother, in case you were curious.”
Operator grimaces in response, but even still, he feels his nerves begin to calm at the server's words. A reservation exists, he isn’t going to be stood up, and he isn’t being looked down on for standing in a place that’s painfully above his budget.
“Why don’t I take you to the table in the meantime?” The server tilts his head again and gestures for Operator to follow. The two of them traverse through the restaurant—allowing Operator to get a good look at all of the Elite’s sitting in the dark booths—before they come to a stop at a small table by the window with a single candle burning in the middle. It’s a beautifully set up space with a perfect view of the misty rain that’s beginning to fall.
One can tell that it’s March in Attollo when the rainstorms begin.
“I’ll get you some water in the meantime.” The server taps the back of the chair twice before turning and marching towards the kitchen, leaving Operator to settle into his seat on his own. He rests his elbows on the table and looks back towards the window, allowing himself to become engrossed in the sight of the rain outside.
On the bright side, this is oddly therapeutic for him. On the down side, it means he fails to notice the other person approaching his table until they collapse in the seat across from him, nearly causing him to have a heart attack in the process.
“Please tell me you weren’t waiting long.” Suha’s expression is pinched as she shrugs off her raincoat and hangs her purse on the edge of her chair. Her glasses are slightly fogged up from the transition to the inside, but even still, Operator can make out the way her eyes are narrowed to slits in frustration. He clasps his hands together and shakes his head.
“No, no. I just arrived here myself—the server was nice enough to pass on your message.”
Suha shakes her head as the very server in question returns to their table, setting two glasses of water down. When he questions if they want any other drinks, Suha orders herself a green tea while Operator declines the offer. When the server departs once more, she turns her attention back to him.
“I ended up running into Markos before leaving and I had to discuss with him the paperwork I completed. You would not believe how strangely organized he keeps his office, you know. There were so many locked filing cabinets in there I—” Suha cuts off abruptly midway through the sentence and stares at Operator with an odd expression. “... Are you okay?”
“Hm?” Operator’s eyes widen in surprise as he stops chewing on his lip. He hadn’t even realized he had started doing that again until Suha pointed it out, and now he can feel the heat of embarrassment creep its way along his cheeks once more.
Suha presses both hands palm down on the table as her expression shifts to a look of concern. “Is everything okay? You seem a bit anxious. Did something happen on the way here?”
The taste of metal fills his mouth as he realizes that he has caused his lip to bleed from chewing. He hastily grabs a napkin and dabs the open cut as he stares down at the white table cloth; in the mood light of the room that they’re in, it seems to glow, almost as bright as the barriers dancing their way through the waters outside. He then looks at Suha—at the genuine concern in her face and the way the candle light dances across her features—before slumping in defeat.
He can trust her, and he can trust the fact that she has no ill intent behind her question.
“I really appreciate you taking me here but, to be perfectly honest with you, I don’t feel the most comfortable here…?” He quickly straightens up and moves to explain further before Suha can jump to conclusions. “The people are wonderful, and the area is nice, but this isn’t my usual haunt and I just feel like I can’t relax properly. I’ve never gone out for my birthday—truthfully, I haven’t even celebrated it in almost a decade—so I just,”
He trails off a bit before adding; “I don’t know.”
Suha is silent for a moment at his confession before she reaches up to push her glasses back up the bridge of her nose. “... I didn’t even consider that, honestly. I didn’t consider how you’d feel about this place at all, and that was poor of me, especially since this is meant to be for you.”
“You didn’t mean any harm by it,” Operator shifts nervously in his seat, torn between not wanting to make her feel bad for doing something genuinely nice, and also wanting to affirm how he feels about everything. After another moment, Suha shakes her head and grabs her purse and smiles at him, her eyes glimmering with something akin to mischief.
“This is your birthday celebration—what do you want to do? If it’s something you usually can’t, I’m more than happy to put my credentials to use.”
What does he want to do? It’s been a very long time since anyone asked him that question. If he wasn’t following his routine, he was often following the instructions or requests of those that he worked for—he was following the commands of the city. Despite the fact that this newfound autonomy will only last for the evening, the fact that he has the opportunity in the first place is already making his tongue tied. He looks between Suha and the world outside, at the way the misty rain still falls and the barriers glow in the distance.
What does he want to do? Where does he want to go? There’s really only one place that comes to mind, and although he can feel the prickling of anxiety running through his body, he steels himself to look at Suha and speak.
“The drive in theatre on Park. It’s abandoned—but the projector still works. There are some old noir films I’ve been wanting to see but… haven’t really had the time to.” He forces himself to not chew on his bottom lip again as he adds, “If you want to join me, I think I would really like that.”
Suha stares at him for a moment before her smile softens into genuine happiness as a chuckle escapes from her. “I know that theater—Alexander and I used to sneak out to go there and watch the late night shows. I remember they showed an old film—Frankenstein, I think?—and Alexander ended up having to sleep with me for a week because he got so afraid. I would love nothing more than to visit it again.”
Operator can’t help but scoff in his own amusement at the image of Alexander Crowe cowering beside an irate looking Suha at the theater. He watches as she throws on her coat, sets down a handful of ventacoins to pay for the tea and tip, and then slings her purse back onto her shoulder before he rises as well. She links her arm with his as they both begin to move to the door.
“Do you have a copy of Casablanca on hand? It’s not quite noir, but I’ve always had a soft spot for those tragic films.”
“Casablanca?” Operator glances up at the roof as he mentally checks through the films he has before shooting Suha his own smile—now far more relaxed than he was moments before. “I think I do, actually.”