"Now. Where the fuck do we begin, Boss?"
Thaddeus and Towa stood close to each other as they rambled on with each other about their ideas and plans on how to correct the mess that they were observing.
Towa: "Thaddeus, I've never seen this happen with [The Observer]. It should show exactly what will happen in real time." Towa paused, then spoke.
Towa: "It showed events an hour and thirteen minutes before the present, like I told you yesterday. Someone or thing has worked on disrupting the space-time around our station and hacked us to make complete reassurance that we would not notice, but we did. We noticed, and then what? Clocked out of the job?"
Towa spoke in a calm, mocking tone, sounding like a father telling off their kid for an event that they could obviously predict.
Thaddeus stood and looked at Towa with thoughts of spite and annoyance that Towa could interpret through mere glances. Annoyed was a common word that could somewhat describe the slow boil of anger at his co-worker and boss, Towa Ufushimi.
Thaddeus: "I clocked out at eleven past midnight. You're. Right. Long days and stress lead to carelessness, such as when I took tests on [The Observer] and [The White Echo] yesterday. Pleassseeee. Kick me out of this hard-working job, because I cannot fit the qualifications to be here."
Thaddeus spoke more mockingly and annoyingly at his boss, in an attempt to disrupt his mood and make him snap into taking it out on him, which he is not allowed to do, due to Thaddeus being a proper member and pillar of the [CELESTICA FOUNDATION].
Towa: "YOU. You, Thaddeus, are doing this stupid and rude attitude again? You seemed pretty disturbed earlier as you woke me up. Nothing Sir Stanley did could've made that reaction happen, so tell me right now your thoughts, Mr. Wei."
While speaking more calmly and formally, Towa did his usual mannerisms of big hand signals and head movements to match his words.
Thaddeus: "Well, Mr. Ufushimi. I made a bet with another member, and I lost. That is what made me so annoyed and shocked." Thaddeus's tone rose at the end of his sentence, highlighting his discomfort towards the previous event.
Towa had spotted an opportunity to be a prick and took it.
Towa: "Thaddeus Wei, proud Antharian and human, one of the most creative individuals I know and 'blessed' with luck, lost a bet. What could possibly be the bet?"
Towa teased and pushed his buttons once again, pushing his luck against a luckier individual than himself.
Thaddeus: "Well, Boss. I lost five hundred thousand Rouves — that would be all you need to know."
Thaddeus picked up his thick, dense, black jacket from the coat hangar on the wall a hundred centimetres from himself and started speed walking towards the exit while Towa followed him and laughed like a maniac, poking fun at him and pointing with his right arm and index finger.
Towa: "AAAHHHHAHAHHHAHHHAHAHAHAHHH!!! SHITTY LUCK BLESSES YOU WHENEVER YOU LEAST NEED IT, LIKE YOUR [GRAND CANYON INCIDENT], THADDEUS! AHAHAHHAAHAHA!"
Towa's facial expressions got more humane and colourful with every second Thaddeus tried walking away from him in annoyance to the semi-tall man trailing behind him.
They both walked while Towa was slandering his name until they reached the main exit of the monitor room.
{EXIT ON THE LEFT: RE-SCAN YOUR TOTEM BEFORE LEAVING AS A SIGN OF ATTENDANCE IN THIS ROOM}
Towa: "And you still lost? All that confidence for wh—" Thaddeus put his arm tensely on Towa's shoulder and pointed to the metal sign close to the security check machine. "Stupid old man," Thaddeus whispered this out loud as he walked past his annoyed boss and put his finger inside a hologram square. Opaque lasers and lights were shown briefly, even for Thaddeus's reaction time, and the light above the door shined his name and the date together, and a click was heard behind the door.
Thaddeus: "I am going to head back first, then I'll try to make contact, as it looks like he will run into us later if something is tampering with destiny," Thaddeus said this as Towa stood with his arms crossed, standing in a comfortable position, while he went through the door and soared downwards, mumbling while "Anomaly. Resonant. Over. Final."
{Gosh, I sounded cringe. "Destiny?" I am not a medieval knight. I am a protector and helping hand of many unfortunate. Wait, I made a bet with him for ten Rouves.}
Thaddeus flew back, rough, through the open door into the room while his boss smirked.
"You promised me money if Stanley would be happy on the outskirts of the empire. Didn't seem too happy, did he?"
Thaddeus called this out while regaining his footing from shooting back inside.
Towa: "Yep. Your broke self needs money, so take this before you go back to Sara."
Towa bent down, his shadow coating Thaddeus's, and took out a ten-Rouve note and passive-aggressively put it in his front pocket in his coat. He aggressively patted his back.
"BE BLESSED!" Towa shouted with energy and glee, then helped Thaddeus up to his feet.
Thaddeus: "I appreciate every note and Rouve, mate. This goes a long w—"
He couldn't even finish before Towa pushed him out of the room and flew extremely fast down long distances into the Everlasting Garden of West District Foundation grounds.
{pf ff.}
Towa: "Yeah. He landed safely."
Towa's turn to scan his "Totem" and put his elbow and got the same message and Thaddeus, with the exception of his name.
{Click.}
Towa almost instantaneously zoomed out of the door, closing it behind him after shouting at the machine, "Anomaly, Curse, Zen, Tyrant," and flew out like a flying squirrel, barrelling at 220 km/s.
4:43 PM, CLIFFORD, SOLA FRECHIA
Stanley sits on a crate in the backroom of a bakery, inside a city which he has no knowledge about, on a planet unknown to him, whilst being inside a solar system that he travelled to from a faraway, distant land.
The door opened fast and Ahnel stepped out of the back door to have a conversation.
{Is—is he stressed? Why is he making such a face of annoyance at me? I don't think we have a problem, but did he find something out about me?}
Ahnel: "Now, Stanley, I am going to give you the communication device, and on the other side of this tool is my boss. He wants to have a word with you before you meet later."
Ahnel sat across from Stanley on a cardboard box surrounded by more boxes and crates of food. The bakery backroom was a tight area that only fit food crates mainly containing fresh goods and cleaning supplies, tiled ceramic pastel floors, and two doors. One for exiting back and forth and the kitchen next door. The loud buzzing of the lights made this environment slightly comfortable for Stanley, who liked white noise.
Stanley: "Before that, how much do you know about how I got here?"
Ahnel: "Nothing besides you walked through a door in an abandoned building in far far place awayyyyy."
Ahnel's tone was mocking, like a narrator, and childish.
{Seems like it got drilled into him the way he mocked my comment. It wasn't even mock-worthy.}
The device Stanley received was two earbuds that were deep black and commercial-looking. Then he rolled them around his hands before putting them in each ear. {Anyone at a local Graham's could buy these. Cheap-ass earbuds.}
"Hey. Can you hear me, Mr. Kleitos?"
Stanley: "Uh, yeah?"
"Right. I know how you got here, and that concerns me a bit, but I am by all means not going to hurt you. No worries from anyone here, by the way, because your secret is safe with trusted people."
Stanley's rapid heartbeat dropped back down to a normal rate after getting his main concern out of the way, but his 'second' concern still lingered immensely in the front of his mind.
"Now I will get this done quickly, because I'm coming towards Clifford. I'm not really a talk-over-phone guy, so you'll get a better talk after introductions."
{Introductions? I really am getting kidnapped formally. This shit is bad. Bad. Bad. The way he talks is so calm and smooth, but I know what he is. A trafficker. I am getting trafficked. I am getting trafficked. I am getting trafficked. Am I getting trafficked?}
Stanley's face tensed up with stress and doubt clouding his mind. He avoided eye contact with Ahnel as he was staring with curiousness, waiting for something.
Stanley: "Can I speak?" He bluntly interrupted the mystery man.
Stanley: "Now I know what you want from me, I won't let you have shit, you motherfucker!" Stanley threw out the earbuds and dashed towards the doors to the exiting rooms, but was forcefully stopped. Slammed onto the ground was Stanley's torso and head, roughly coming next.
Ahnel: "You really never fail expectations, buddy." Ahnel looked at the back of his head with annoyance and disgust. What happened was Stanley getting shoved towards the tiled floor with ease. Too easy. Stanley, grabbed by the armpits, was placed back on top of the crate he dashed from, and Ahnel sat down, with his calm face returned with glee.
{Shit. Shit. Shit!! I made a fool of myself. I don't know what to do — run again, or listen and get sent off as a slave. I got myself into this situation. I can't get out.}
A few seconds of silence passed for the two and the other guy. For Stanley, it was unbearable, and he needed to do something, not sit around. Ahnel was intimating Stanley and was now enjoying it.
Ahnel: "Put 'em on. This man gave us good money to get you to a location and information today, and you're gonna receive that 'information' now." Ahnel then put his right calf on top of his thigh, resting it there as a 'comfort' position.
Stanley: "HM." "You will get me out of this safe and sound, right?"
Ahnel: "Your time with my group will be safe. Can't guarantee after that, because you're going to take care of yourself after this."
Stanley: "....." "Not promising, here."
He then put back on the earbuds and took deep breaths to calm himself after getting his adrenaline up.
"Are you ready now? Ready to hear me out?"
Stanley: "Yeah, I suppose."
"Now you obviously knew you encountered an anomaly of space-time and mass and still decided to use it for whatever dumb idea. So I gotta ask questions and talk with you, who accidentally discovered a new means of travel by testing it yourself."
The tone of the man's voice was full of energy and seemed confident with every word, oozing with a 'good vibes' tone and made himself seem less terrifying than the monster of a guy Stanley imagined.