Final November StoryBurst
It was a good job, relatively speaking. Jeremiah had only to watch the readouts and make sure nothing went wrong. Every so often he had to fill out a report. He could mostly just read and daydream, while still pulling in those sweet, sweet government benefits. And even though the job consisted of so little actual work, he could still feel like a productive member of society-- and he could still tell people what he did without feeling like a douchebag. Keeping an eye on the water filtration systems was necessary. Most of the time he wasn't doing anything, but sometimes he had to adjust the pressure or replace a part. And if he didn't do that, millions of people would find themselves receiving opaque water. In a sense, he was all that stood between the people of Cardstock City and a complete breakdown in health and hygiene. So he was proud of his job. Just a little bored.
Which was why he had set up his old GameCube with a crappy television on his desk. Nobody ever came down here, but even if they did, he suspected he would receive little more than a scolding shake of the head. He was playing a World War II game with the sound up so that he could hear any Nazis that might be hiding around corners, which was why he didn't hear an alarmed tone emanating from one of the dials. It didn't last very long.
---
Timothy replaced the filtration gate as quickly as he could. He knew that the people whose job it was to watch readouts or security displays or alarm indicators were almost universally more apt to ignore a momentary problem than to bother following it up. Any number of things could cause it, and as long as things returned to normal within a few seconds, the event would be chalked up to rodents or electrical surges. Nonetheless, he didn't want to take any chances. And now that he had passed the gate, he was past the point of no return. Plus, as far in as he was now, the water was murky. He knew what was in it, and was glad for the watertight suit he was wearing. It would still have been nice to be able to see more than a few feet in front of his goggles, though.
The water was flowing at him without reprieve; but this was why he had pneumatic suction poles. He started his slow ascent up the pipe.
Ten minutes later, Timothy arrived at a juncture. Left or right? He consulted his mental map. Left would take him to the eastern pumps. Right would take him to the western ones. Left it was.
---
William strolled along the catwalk, not going anywhere in particular but needing something to do. He had completed the maintenance for the day; the rest was just making sure nothing went wrong. And in his eleven years here, something had only gone wrong twice. On the one hand that seemed to make it very unlikely that anything would go wrong now. On the other hand, maybe it just meant they were due for a catastrophe. William had little to do but to think about this.
He paused at a control panel, checking the simple readouts in a cursory fashion. Nothing amiss there. But... he realized that in the background there was a new sound. A regular thunking, a sound unmistakeably produced by a blunt object meeting the pipes somewhere. And it was muffled. The sound was from inside the pipe.
---
Timothy was well aware of the unavoidable sound caused by every meter he traveled. He could only hope that nobody was paying attention. His options were drastically reduced if someone was. Nonetheless, he had attempted to address every eventuality. And getting out was always the easy part. As for the getting in, well, he was almost there.
He approached the incomprehensible swirl that he knew signified the water churned by the eastern pumps. He needed those pumps to stop. That was where the rebar came in.
---
William was sure something was going on now. He was creeping around the pipes trying to triangulate the source of the sounds. But with the sounds coming from inside the pipes, and the sheer number of pipes going through this room, and the ambient noise of the pumps, it was difficult. Something was in there, though, and it was moving toward the pumps. He decided he should probably alert someone. But as he turned to rush back to his office, the pump made a terrible screeching sound and then ground to a halt. It was still trying to function, and its motor sped up and started smoking before the automatic shutoff engaged.
William raised an eyebrow. Uh oh.
----
Timothy had no illusions now; someone would have noticed a pump shutting down. He removed his rebar contraption, briefly prayed that nobody would start the pumps again right away, and started crawling through. He had been training for this very sort of contorted wriggling for weeks now, but that didn't make it any less claustrophobic. More than once he felt like he would be stuck forever. But he finally emerged from the other side and, the flow of the water much abated with the loss of the pump, began the final leg of his journey.
----
William was running. He wasn't even sure who he would call; probably the police. What would he say, though? "There's someone in our pipes?" It's not like they could get in there to apprehend whoever it was. He did know, however, where the pipe would lead. He stopped running, and turned around.
The pipe itself arrived from the sewers. But between the sewer and the facility's pipes was a massive steel grate designed to keep out any detritus large enough to cause problems with the pumps. Highly-paid and wholly-unenvied maintenance workers cleared out anything that got stuck there--notified by a motion-sensing camera and alarm. Perhaps the intruder knew about the alarm; but more probably, he just knew about the heavy-duty grate.
So the only exit point between the grate and the pumps, where the intruder was right now, was an access hatch. The corridor to which it gave access was but a few meters from the central facility control room. This being Thanksgiving, it was poorly staffed. William wished he had a radio or something, but he didn't and so now he was running again.
----
The hatch was in a little alcove on top of the pipe so that a maintenance worker opening it would not flood the access corridor. It also meant that Timothy could stand up while he slowly lifted the hatch from its closed position. It hinged open, and he guided it to its open position, careful not to let the heavy steel make any inconvenient noises. Nobody seemed to be in the area, so Timothy quickly lifted himself from the pipe. He removed his flippers and scuba gear and dropped them back in the pipe; he wasn't planning on leaving the same way he came in. He quietly closed the hatch and started padding towards the control room.
He had only gotten a few steps before he heard the unmistakable clangs of shoes against an iron walkway. He found a beam to hide behind and removed his knife from its sheath. A man ran right past him, but slowed when he saw the closed hatch. He took up a sentry position near the hatch, oblivious to Timothy's approach from behind.
---
William held a wrench in front of him, waiting for the intruder to open the hatch. Suddenly, he was jerked backwards and felt cold metal at his throat.
"Keep quiet," hissed a voice behind him. "You're coming with me."
William was led toward the control room. He remembered the wrench; the intruder must not have noticed. He ran through potential offensive scenarios in his head, but they all ended quite bloodily for him. He decided to wait a bit. Once they got in the control room, the intruder would likely be distracted at some point, either dealing with whoever was in there, or doing whatever it is he was trying to do. Then he would make his move...
---
The Nazis kept coming. Jeremiah knew this game wouldn't stop throwing them at him until he passed a certain invisible checkpoint. But he kept dying every time he tried to make a run for it. Frustrated, he paused the game and took a gulp of coffee. With the sound of the game suddenly put on hold, however, he heard a scuffling sound outside the control room door. Nobody else was supposed to come in today, and if there was something he should know from one of the maintenance guys, they would have called him, not come to see him. Excited, he dug through a drawer and pulled out a dinky .22 caliber pistol. Trying not to dwell on his sudden fantasies of saving the day from an unknown menace, he took up a semi-policeman-like position with the gun pointed at the door.
It opened, and he saw one of the maintenance guys being held by a hidden captor. A knife protruded from behind and threatened the man's neck, but there was no exposed part of the captor to shoot at. Perhaps this foe had been watching just as many action movies as Jeremiah.
He was certainly a loud fellow, though. "Put the gun down, buddy! You don't want your friend here to bleed out all over the floor."
Jeremiah faltered. "... Tim? Is that you?"
Tim's head popped up from behind the maintenance guy's shoulder. "Oh my god! Jer! I didn't even recognize you, I just saw the gun, and... You work here? That's crazy!"
"No kidding, man! What are you doing here?"
"Oh, you know... I got caught up in this international conspiracy thing to hold the city's water supplies hostage. They really just need some cash to get moving on some bigger projects, so they figured we'll ask for a few million bucks, in and out."
"Hm. I guess that could work. You can pretty much control everything from this room."
"Well, yeah, I mean... that's why I'm here. God, that is so weird, I had no idea you worked here."
"Yeah, I've been here a while now. It's a pretty great job. You see how I spend my days." Jeremiah gestured toward the GameCube.
"Dude, that is sweet. I gotta get me a job like that... This shit is difficult. How did you even-"
And then Timothy was unconscious, his skull caved in by a sudden blow from a wrench that the maintenance guy had apparently been holding.
Jeremiah and William looked at each other for a moment before leaping into the air and high-fiving. As their hands met, the picture froze and some credits rolled.
After the credits, they were each awarded massive monetary bonuses by the municipal government. Jeremiah bet all of his on a long-shot horse at the races and won. With his newfound fortune he quit his job, got really lonely and depressed, took up cocaine, and was found dead 7 months later behind a massage parlor.
William bought a new computer but kept his job. He was able to pay off some of his credit card debt, but, feeling like he had more money than he actually did, he took up playing World of Warcraft, met a woman from Missouri, and spent all his savings flying out to meet her. The airline lost his luggage on the way there, and then she turned out to be like 400 pounds. Disappointed, he returned broken-hearted and empty-closeted. A few weeks later, when the airline found and returned his luggage, it was too late; he had already bought a bunch of new clothes--on credit-- and didn't have space for the old ones in his closet. He gave most of them to Goodwill. One of his button-up shirts was purchased by a fellow who was going to have a job interview for the first time in several months and wanted to look presentable; on his way to the office, however, he was struck by a Mack truck. Twenty-six years later, the driver of this truck would be vetted as a vice presidential candidate, but ultimately rejected.
THE END