Burning the Candle
An original science fiction story
Both wrists ached as though an unseen hammer drove equally invisible nails through each one. Adrian let out a deep sigh and scooted his chair back from the keyboard. He massaged his left wrist with his right hand before switching after a couple of minutes.
“There must be a better way to make a living.”
Adrian spared no effort to find another ghostwriting job that didn’t involve slapping together endless copy for a dentist’s blog in some boring middle America town he’d never find on a map. Resumes sent out to eleven posted job openings last week yielded zero interviews. Not receiving a single follow-up email from a hiring manager stung. Did this mean he’d be condemned to churn out mind-numbing drivel on root canals and gingivitis prevention tips until he expelled his final breath?
Adrian shuddered at the thought.
“I can’t take much more of this.” He cast a rueful glance at a nearby window concealed by shuttered blinds. “I need fresh air.”
A quick stroll through the park across the street would do a world of good. Adrian rose from his office chair in a jerky motion. Stiffness gripped both legs in an invisible vise. Good grief. Just how much time did he spend churning out that last batch of boilerplate blog copy?
Adrian snatched his smart phone up from the desk and swiped the screen.
6:16 pm.
What?
No way did he stay at this shitty office that late. Adrian never let himself lose track of time this bad. Especially on a Friday. He always clocked out no later than 4 pm every Friday without fail.
His eyes fell on an open pizza box atop an adjacent table. Two untouched slices sat inside the box along with a third half-eaten slice. Adrian scrunched his nose and curled his lips into a sour scowl. Dried, wrinkly pepperoni and hardened cheese adorned both slices. It resembled a wax prop adorning the table rather than being a remnant of lunch from a few hours ago.
“Okay.” Adrian’s eyes darted around the room. “This is starting to freak me out.”
Both framed photos had disappeared from their usual corner perch on his desk. Where did they go? What sick bastard would swipe pictures of Mia and the kids? They were his world. His only four reasons for sticking with such a thankless job at Wild Grape Marketing.
Adrian pulled his jacket off the wooden coat rack in the corner and tossed it across his shoulder. He grabbed the doorknob. It refused to budge. Adrian yanked on the knob. The door moved slightly as the knob moved.
His eyes slid down to the doorknob. It was inverted from its normal correct position. The keyhole had been switched and now lay inside the room with him.
Someone had locked Adrian in his office.
“Stone!” Adrian banged his fist on the office door. “Where are you Stoney? This isn’t funny, you dick!”
What an immature dipshit! He obviously didn’t learn his lesson after HR wrote him up for sticking eggs in a bunch of vents last month. Stone acted like a 12-year-old boy forever trapped in a 30-year-old lead content developer’s body. Why did they keep him on staff?
Adrian marched over to his office window and raised the blinds. He gasped. All 23 third-floor cubicles and the carpeting had vanished. A matching blank white wall and floor occupied all visible space on the other side of the door.
Adrian ran his hands through his brown hair and clasped them behind his head. What in God’s name was going on here?
“Simulation L3X-18 is terminated.”
An electronic voice speaking these words echoed throughout the room. The wall directly in front of Adrian faded away like some desert mirage. Two people dressed in strange black uniforms stepped into his office. A skinny woman with tightly cropped blonde hair led the way. A bald man carrying a tablet with an attached stylus followed on her heels.
“This isn’t working.” The woman pushed a pair of wire framed glasses further up her nose. “We need to overhaul the code. Too many glitches are disrupting the simulation.”
She shot a concerned look back at her colleague. He quickly flashed an annoyed frown back at her as he lifted his eyes from the tablet.
“Don’t you think that’s a little drastic?”
She pointed past Adrian’s shoulder at his desk.
“Is it? Photos are there one minute and gone the next. Then the doorknob appears in the wrong direction. We’re talking one flaw after another here.”
“That’s the nature of R&D,” the bald man said. “You’re always ferreting out bugs after the initial design.”
“Well, it’s unacceptable.” Her eyes locked on him again in a firm stare. “We’re running up against a tight deadline here. We can’t move from beta to market if our prototype simulator barely lasts an hour.”
Adrian stared at them wide-eyed, numb with shock and fear. Both of his legs were rooted to the floor. Simulation? Nothing seemed out of the ordinary until a few minutes ago. He drove to the office like he did every morning, kissing Mia on the lips before racing out the door to beat rush hour traffic. The third floor brimmed with all the usual chatter when he first entered the office.
Did he doze off at his laptop while writing? This wouldn’t be the first time he did something so dumb.
“This is all some sort of crazy dream, isn’t it?” Adrian said. “I fell asleep at work and cooked up some oddball fantasy in my head.”
A crease formed in the brow of the blond woman wearing glasses. Her eyes trailed over Adrian and a suspicious scowl sprouted on her lips.
“Power down the simulator.” She raised her voice while refusing to turn away from him. “The termination sequence has a serious glitch.”
“What are you talking about?” Adrian threw out his hands. “Simulator? Glitch? Nothing you’re saying makes any sense.”
Strength laced back through his legs again. Adrian started forward. The blond woman recoiled and raised her hands in a defensive posture.
“Don’t come any closer.” A distinct tremor rippled through her command. “Stay right where you are.”
Adrian licked his lips and swallowed hard. His heart kept beating faster as seconds ticked toward minutes.
“Look, all I want to do is leave and go home,” he said. “Mia will be in my ear if I show up late for dinner again and my kids –”
“Mia?” The bald man carrying the tablet cut him off. “Who in the hell is Mia?”
“My wife.” Adrian’s eyes slid over to him. “I promise I won’t tell either of my supervisors about whatever you’re doing here.”
“Can he leave?”
His eyes shifted back to the blond woman, her index finger sticking out at him. Terror swam through her eyes now. Both were wide as plates.
Their body language and behavior made zero sense.
“We better seal the simulator until we figure this out,” the bald man said. “Better safe than sorry.”
“Need to fix this quick,” she said, turning away. “This shouldn’t be happening. He isn’t a real person.”
Not a real person?
Adrian stood motionless again, his breath drawn away from his lungs like a fresh ocean wave had slapped his face. Both strange visitors fled from his office and the exit vanished behind them only a few seconds later.
He stared at the blank formless wall. Who were these people to tell him he wasn’t real? Mia and their children were real. This job was real. His SUV littered with toys and stray stale French fries was real. That painfully modest paycheck he received each month was real.
Adrian vowed to prove them wrong. Once he left the office, he planned to track down the people clad in the black uniforms and set them straight.
They were going to see irrefutable proof of his reality.
Did you enjoy this thrilling sci-fi tale? Browse through other stories available in the Strange New Worlds archives and check out my Alien People Chronicles series.
This was really interesting. I cannot wait to find out what happens next.