THE MOMENT
Ryan's nerves stiffened when the teenage girl walked in; he reached down to make sure his gun was ready if he needed it. It was after midnight and he was seated at the guard's station at the entrance with a row of monitors. He was the only one in the dim lobby and he was certain the door was locked. The pale girl with rainbow hair should not have been able to just walk in. Although, it did ease his mind that she wore the company colors, white and red. And, she was carrying a red leather briefcase.
"Can I help you?" he tried to keep his voice even. She smiled and placed the briefcase on the counter.
"You're expecting a delivery, I hope," she said. "Here you go." Ryan nodded, though he was puzzled. He was told there would be a large number of products delivered; but, that was all. With nothing else to go on, he imagined crates being unloaded from a semi. He anticipated directing the delivery to the back of the warehouse.
"Is.. is that all?" he asked. The teen nodded; but also let out a faint giggle.
"You don't know what they are, do you?" she asked.
"I don't ask too many questions," he replied. He'd only been working for Sharp Development for about a month. In that month he'd seen a lot of strange things that his mind refused to try to explain. Mostly because he'd also seen a lot of employees disappear. It seemed like he was surrounded by new faces every week. He attributed his own longevity at the company to the fact that he kept his head down and minded his own business.
"Well, you didn't ask. But, I'm going to tell you anyway. It's important that our employees know what we do here." She unlocked the case and opened it in front of him. Ryan didn't know what to make of it. The interior was lined with a soft white material and it seemed to be holding a solid block of glass.
"Glass?" Ryan asked. The teen shook her head.
"This is a node," she reached in and peeled a layer off the block. It was a transparent rectangle about the size of a playing card. It was only 1/4 of the total width of the block; there had to be hundreds, maybe thousands of nodes in the case. "And, why don't you know that yet?" she asked. Ryan's only answer was a shrug. He always did his best to keep a low profile; maybe he did it too well. She placed the node on the counter and slid it to him.
"You should've gotten one after your first week. This one is yours now," she said. Ryan looked at the node, then at the open case.
"Isn't that part of the delivery?" As much as he wanted to avoid asking questions, he also liked his job. The pay was more than he'd find anywhere else and so far it'd been quite easy. If this was some sort of test, he did not want to fail it. The teen nodded.
"These are for the employees of this branch; so, you're going to get one anyway. My name is Monday, in case anyone asks you where you got it."
"Monday?" He couldn't help but ask the question reflexively. It seemed like a silly name; but, he'd heard stranger ones in the past month. The previous week he met a man who insisted his name was 'Laughtrack'. And, he knew a high-level employee named Perseus. She nodded at him.
"Thank you Monday," he said. He took the node and slid it into his pocket to study later.
"Don't you want to know what it does?" Monday asked.
"I'll look at it later," he replied. But, Monday shook her head.
"I'm going to tell you anyway." Monday reached into her pocket and pulled her own node out. She tapped the screen and showed it to Ryan with the current time. 12:37 a.m.
"First, it's like a smartphone. You can call and text with it. But, you can also call and text people in other universes."
"Other universes?" Ryan asked with a decent amount of disbelief.
"Yeah," Monday nodded. She narrowed her eyes at him. "How long have you worked here?"
"It was a month on Wednesday."
"A MONTH!?" Monday's voice echoed around the empty lobby. "You've worked here a month and you don't know what we do?" Ryan shrugged. It wasn't the first time he'd heard that question; just the first time with this job.
"I know what I do," he said. "I do my work and go home." Monday burst out in a fit of laughter. Ryan noticed her eyes focus on his nametag as she chortled.
"I like you, Ryan. Your talents are being wasted here." While Ryan wondered what she meant, Monday shouted again.
"HELIOS!" she said.
"Yeah?" a voice made Ryan jump in his seat. A faceless man in a suit appeared in one of the monitors in black and white. Monday leaned over and looked down at it.
"Watch the place, please?"
"That's why we have security guards....," the man said.
"This one just got promoted. It'll take some time for a replacement to get here."
"Fine... but you owe me...," the man whined.
"You bet," Monday replied. She slammed the red briefcase closed, then moved it to Ryan's side of the desk behind the monitors. Then, she looked at him.
"C'mon," she said. She tilted her head to the side and Ryan noticed a tall black portal that wasn't there a moment ago. He stood; but, he paused for a moment.
"Where?" he asked. Monday looked at him.
"Your life just got better," she said. "You're not going to start asking questions now, are you?" Ryan looked at the briefcase filled with nodes. He looked down at his monitors. Helios was somehow walking back and forth between the screens despite all the cameras being in different spots. Finally, he focused on the portal and the smiling teen. He didn't know what was going on; but, he was curious. Curious in a way that couldn't be satisfied with questions. He had to find out, he had to experience it himself. He walked around the desk towards the portal.
"No Ma'am," he said.