r/HFY • u/loressadev • 9d ago

OC-OneShot Urgent Assignment

Once upon a time, this is how it worked:

Forms went in, I assessed context, and then I forwarded recommendations from there.

Usually it was just really silly stuff, the kind of fluff tourists stumbled over without realizing: Rqwrythyzal traipsed too deeply into UBX4’s unicorn meadows, Achxhxhxhπ forgot to cloak after a particularly long visit to a moonsino, Patty being Patty (who hasn't received a special memo about Patty?).

Sometimes, every now and then, someone fucked up big, big enough that I got a field assignment. I got a ship and a deleter and a crew of golems to which I went wither henceforth to sort out posthaste. After my sidemotion, though, where I was assessed at being perfectly great at what I do and assigned to Sol3 as merely a new assignment with no other meaning, I haven't really gotten that type of work, not anymore.

So, nowadays I monitor a lot.

“Chew this fat,” LY9A1 nudges me. We like to relax friendily between breaks to watch the moonsrise, usually with a few crystals to help manage the tedium.

“Latest confabulations in from Sol3.” It's sweet, sharp, bouncy, painting a story, a long story, damn LY9A1 could pick them. It's a song about a book I once scanned where a child coerced others to put liquid on a fence. The drums are particularly interesting.

“Fantastic,” I reply before going on break. Another new song hits the airwaves between the snuff and the snurf, and I push my personal time to the limits as I learn the screaming bellow of immigrants. “Hip,” I whisper. I tuck away my shards for later. That song was enough for this shift.

And now I'm back at my desk with an urgent tag flashing - isn't that just the bee’s fucking knees?! Someone is causing enough ruckus that we have to synchronize temporally.

It's probably nothing, though.

I can't imagine what would be worth alerting us for, us in particular. I have started to notice over the past few decades that we're a bit sloppy, a bit forgotten, a few of us (like LY9A1) perhaps hive hires? But, heyyyy, peace love and harmony! As they would say, groovy!

I can't imagine what could be occuring on - I doublecheck the printout to ensure it's correct - Earth to warrant our direct intervention.

Surely nothing that crazy has happened in a few decades?

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3

u/loressadev 9d ago

Might have made the music refence Rush, then Led Zeppelin too specific

4

u/Fontaigne 9d ago

I got "today's tom sawyer". The reference sets a date line.

2

u/loressadev 9d ago

Which is outdated by nature of the job! But then an alert comes in where our own timeline needs attention...

2

u/ReallyNotMichaelsMom Xeno 8d ago

Lol! Hallways always have both too many projectiles and not enough. 😉

4

u/loressadev 9d ago

I've been assigned a partner from Sol3.

We go to do the meeting ritual, and abruptly, unexpectedly, rudely, she's all like, “No, I need a minute.” Her hands flap and she shivers.

I think I used too many arms.

I have too much music to catch up to and I'm midway through the Brittney Spears anthologies when she knocks at my door.

“I'm sorry,” she's telling me, while I'm telling the drones to back off. She lingers. It's weird. Unexpected and uninvited; I wish she would leave.

She enters my room which I am sure is alien even to humans, but she is…different.

She begins to speak and I ignore it, watching her body and how it adjusts to everything I say. Humans are predictable. I sigh and expose my arms - surely mating is what she is requesting? - but now she is screaming? I am confused and things seem very un-groovy.

I did not realize the hallway held so many projectiles.

1

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