The Great Game

If you’re new to the Great Game, please have a quick look at the blurb to your left, where you’ll find a short catch-up introduction.

I came out into what looked like a smallish ER ward. There were several other private rooms behind me, and half a dozen beds in the ward itself. They were all occupied, but everything seemed reasonably peaceful, and the attendents at the nursing station were chatting quietly. I walked over to them, feeling slightly woozy, and scraped up a smile from somewhere.

“Hi there,” I said. “Can you point me towards the cafeteria? Or the mess, I guess.”

One of the attendents, a blond girl, smiled at me pleasantly. The other one, a brunette, stared at me expressionlessly.

“Of course, Sir,” said the blond, her smile professionally fixed in place. “Through the doors, turn left, and follow the corridor round.”

“Thanks,” I said.

The other one kept staring. Not hostile, not vacant, not interested, just still. Very still. I was starting to wish she’d blink.

“You’ll find a pleasant selection of snacks, beverages and more substantial meals available to you Sir,” said the blond. Her smile was starting to resemble a rictus. “Including assorted fruit, yoghurts, cakes and pastries, pancakes, sandwiches, bacon, sausages, casseroles, hot entrails, and blood.”

I goggled at her. “What?”

The brunette was still staring, motionless. Waxy.

“You can’t miss it, Sir.” That horrible smile.

“No, what… I…” I closed my eyes, and pinched the bridge of my nose. Hard. Things were catching up with me, that had to be it. “Thank you,” I said, and turned away. Then I opened my eyes and made a bee-line for the door, trying to persuade myself that I couldn’t feel those staring eyes boring into the back of my neck.

When I closed the doors behind me, the feeling finally abated. I sighed, turned left and followed the corridor around for a couple of hundred yards. Eventually, a sign pointed me into the cafeteria.

Inside, there were a couple of counters with a selection of hot food, a chilled cabinet, assorted baskets of stuff, and seating for about sixty. Only a couple of other people were around. I collected a chunk of spit-roast chicken, some breadrolls, and a few other bits and pieces, swiped my new ID for it all, and sat down by the windows. It looked like a drab morning out there, grey and damp. The neighbourhood was unfamiliar, but a lot of the city looked fairly similar. I turned my attention to my food. It was surprisingly tasty.

When I’d finished and cleared up, I asked one of the cafeteria people for directions. The guy seemed perfectly normal, which was both a surprise and a relief. I thanked him and made my way towards Travis’ centre of operations.

The ops room was two floors up and took more than five minutes to get to. It was a large building, and obviously all part of the same organisation. Whoever they — we — were, they had impressive resources. A couple of armed guards stood outside the ops room door. They made no move to challenge me though. I let the door scanner get a good look at me, and swiped my card, and was rewarded by a quiet click as the lock opened.

I went through the door into a dazzling hi-tech wonderland. The lights were down low, but the various screens and displays more than made up for it. There was a large globe of light-screens in the middle of the room, with people clustered around it, both inside and out. There were at least three different work-stations, each one a nest of all sorts of gadgets and consoles. It looked like one of them even had a fully-functional air traffic control rig. From what I could tell, there was a whole bank of analysis devices at the back of the room. There had to be at least thirty people at work, and a steady mechanical grinding noise cut through the general chatter.

I stood there gawping for several long moments, before I noticed Travis bearing down on me from the direction of the light-globe. I nodded to him respectfully, and went to meet him.

“Archons,” Travis said. “Hello, Taylor.” He looked at me for a moment. “Are you alright?”

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Today’s photo is Cafeteria At Work by CaptQuirk