Necromance in the Air - Chapter VII - (Fiction)
Support Services
Annnnddd we’re back! We last saw Lucy seconds away from severing Felix’s possessed limb, but what else is going on? What’s Tony up to? And did nobody else notice the weird power cut? Time to meet Debs…
If you’ve no idea what’s going on the story starts here-
Support Services
“Maximising individual KPIs via streamlining the communication process, ensuring a steady flow of priority messaging to relevant personal. What a load of bullshit. Stop talking to each other. They should just say, ‘shut your mouths, minions,’ instead.” Debs said to herself as she watched the support request tickets flooding onto her screen. Her inbox had been at zero. For a few brief moments, she had allowed herself to imagine peace, quiet, a tranquil moment spent in the nightmare factory. Not that it was actually called that, not great for company morale that one.
She took a sip of coffee from an oversized mug, cursing as she splashed some down her oversized cardigan. “For fuck’s sake.”
The computer screen continued to fill, and the helpful ‘bing’ of a notification accompanied every new message. Bing, bing, bing. She glared at the screen and placed her mug back on the table. After taking a breath, she reached forward and matched the pace of the binging.
“Delete, delete, delete, delete… Who. Gave. The. Stup-id. Dead. Heads. Access. To. The. Sup-port. Re-quest?”
Every message was similar. “Dear Support, We have had a power-outage.” “Hello Support Team, I hope you’re doing well. I am not, as I am a reanimated head trapped in servitude by your upper management. However, this is not the reason for this missive…” “Oi Support, come sort out our power.”
She cracked her knuckles like a concert pianist and deleted each support ticket in rapid succession. “Who thought giving the stupid dead heads access to the support request system was a good idea?”
The actual centre was on the floor above, as Debs’ office was directly beneath it in the first level of the basement. Once she’d deleted all the expletives, she hit send, then quickly removed the ability to send support tickets from everyone on the call centre customer relationships management platform. “Bing me now, you dead dickheads.”
Looking upwards at the ceiling tiles and fluorescent strip lights, she allowed herself a smile. There was a chorus of groans she could just make out over the sounds of bubbling cauldrons and whirring fans from the apparatus behind her. “That’ll teach you to bombard me with your crap.”
She turned around in her chair to check the terminal that measured the temperatures and flow rates of the fluid flow from the call centre floor. A twisted mess of plumbing, hoses, and cabling led up from the monstrous apparatus, filling most of the office.
At the centre, beating at a steady rate, was a huge black heart. It had come from a blue whale and weighed almost two-hundred kilograms. The design team, who had not, and never would, consult lowly support workers, had decided having too much capacity was a better idea than under-powering the living dead.
“Could’ve used pig hearts, cow hearts, or you know, human hearts, but no, where’s the fun in that?” She said, shaking her head. “Let’s put all our eggs into one massive heart.” The huge organ was in a liquid chamber that supplied it with the same fluids that it pumped up to the heads above. A syrupy black fluid that was cursed by the gallon somewhere in the lower levels. The sound it made as it beat would have been deafening, but the housing reduced it to a slow melodious thump.
“Well Moby Dick,” Debs said, speaking to the heart, “looks like I’m going to offer some support.”
She grabbed a clipboard from where it was hanging by the side of the door to check who was on the call centre floor. “Oh, come on, you’ve got to be taking the piss now.”
There was a knock on the back door of the van, and Tony jumped. Spilling the last dregs of his pot noodle over his trousers. “Son-o-fa—”
“I know someone’s in there. There’s a light coming out of the window. What are you doing?”
“None of your business,” he shouted back as he closed down windows on his laptop at lightning speed.
There was silence outside while Tony hid away the laptop. A purple glow emanated from a toolbox in the van's corner and he slammed the lid shut. He placed his hand upon it and in a whisper said, “Hidden and sealed not to be revealed, and if you open up, release a vicious bastard on anyone but me.”
The knocking came at the rear van door once more and a voice from outside said, “Look, mate. I appreciate you may need somewhere to park up, but this is private property and I’ll have to call the police. I can’t have this place turning into some kind of campsite. They’ll have my job for that.”
Tony opened the door and jumped down from the back of the van. Standing before him was a man in an off-the-shelf security uniform, with a laminated badge on his shirt pocket. He was carrying a large battery powered torch. A torch designed with the explicit purpose of being an effective bludgeoning device.
“I don’t want any trouble, mate,” the security guard said. “Just need you to move your van.”
“I heard you Daniel.”
“What?” the security guard said. Then he slapped the badge on his chest. “Oh. Well read. Bloody dark out here, surprised you could read it.”
“I couldn’t. You’re Daniel Turbitt of apartment 3b Tarkington house, Ayslebury Close, Upper Wolllingham.” Tony said. He put his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “Listen, mate, and listen really closely. “I’m here conducting a special investigation. You blowing my cover would cost taxpayers a fortune.” Tony smirked. “Embarrassing for both of us, yeah? I mean, I’ll get it in the neck as well, proper embarrassing to be caught out by the night guard, I’m sure you can appreciate it. However, if you were to turn a blind eye to the fact that you rumbled me, well, I can’t say that would go unappreciated.”
The security guard lowered the torch. “A special investigation?”
“That’s right. There’s been some dodgy going-ons around here and at this point, we’re not so much investigating as gathering the final nails in the coffin before we charge anyone.”
“What…what sort of thing?”
“Come on Daniel, I can’t reveal the nature of the crimes we haven’t even arrested anyone for. I mean, you might be the sort of person who believes your paymasters deserve some kind of loyalty. Even taking the risk of revealing myself to you could be a huge mistake. You might run inside right now and tell someone, report it to your higher-ups. Christ, Daniel, I’m sorry, but I’ve made a colossal error here.”
“No, no. I’m a law-abiding citizen. If there’s something dodgy going on, it’s nothing to do with me. Am I…should I be looking for another job?”
“Oh, yeah mate. Definitely polish up that CV. Ooh, actually, I mean having this place on there at all would be a dangerous move, ah, and then your references.”
“Oh god. I’m going to have no job and I’m going to have a huge gap in my employment record. This is a nightmare.”
“Now, now. Hold on. We can resolve this. How about you work for me?”
“What?”
“Yeah. That would work. We call you a whistleblower, you’ll probably get a medal and stuff, and you can put me down as a reference.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, definitely. I’ll call it in to my boss. We do this kind of thing all the time.”
“Seriously, you’d do that for me?”
“Absolutely. It’s not your fault your bosses are filthy, thieving, murderous bastards. Oops, forget I said that.”
“Right, well…what do I do then?”
“Easy, pretend you haven’t seen me and I’ll be in touch.”
“Yeah, yeah, I can do that. I mean, seen who? Hah.”
“Exactly Daniel-ereeno, Turbo-Turbitt, you’re part of the special operations team now. Just keep it under your hat, right?”
“Right, thank you, thanks, really. You’ve absolutely saved me.”
“You’ve nothing to worry about. Now, I need to get back to things.”
“Yeah, yeah, of course, sorry,” Daniel Turbitt said as he tucked the torch back into his belt. He bobbed his head while he walked backwards, still facing Tony. “Oh, I should’ve asked for some identification.”
“You should’ve, Daniel, but I’ll let it slide. You’re new to working on special investigations, after all.”
“Oh, right, I appreciate that, it’s just—”
“Night then,” Tony said, climbing back into the van and slamming the doors. “Brilliant,” he said when the doors were closed, “now we’re going to have to kill the security guard.”
“Did you say something?” The security guard’s voice came from outside.
“Yeah, just calling my boss like we said. Pretend I’m not here, remember.”
“Oh. It’s just it sounded like… Sorry, bye then.”
Tony groaned as he listened to the footsteps of a man running away in a state of panic. “Well, Esmerelda, time for walkies.” The toolbox rattled in response.
Next time - Will Lucy finally chop Felix’s tentacled monstrosity of an arm off? What’s Debs walking into? What’s in Tony’s toolbox? Will Daniel Turbitt be brutally murdered given how much information we’ve weirdly been given about him? All this and more COMING SOON! THERE’S NECROMANCE IN THE AIR!!
We’re at chapter VII now folks, even a tap of that little heart thing to let me know you’re there helps. It doesn’t bite back. I’m pretty sure it’s not even a reanimated heart at all…
Love these! So brilliant! Hurray for elephantine organs!
I'm intrigued, bro!