When 45-year-old Theodore Narrator gets fired from his job as Employee 528 at a large company, he is at a loss for words. His life is already going down the gutter, and this feels like it will be the straw to break the camel's back. But one fateful...
The rest of the night went smoothly, although it was occasionally interrupted by Lovebug's obnoxious sleep-talking. Theo stood up, cautiously retying his tie. Lovebug walked out of his room, yawning and stretching.
"So, how did you all sleep?", he asked, still half-asleep himself.
"Perfectly," lied Theo. "Just wonderfully."
"I didn't," said Cura in all seriousness, stirring her cup of earl grey tea that she had presumably gotten from the cafe, since lovebug didn't keep tea in his apartment. In fact, he poured himself a mug of coffee from the coffee maker right at that moment. Of course, neither Theo nor Cura drank coffee, it just wasn't a match for the sheer flavor of a cup of tea.
"I suppose we have to go to work now," remarked Theo. "Or, I guess, stay to work."
"Ha, ha," said Cura blandly, completely unamused. "Very funny. I'm late." She packed up her things and, with one final look around the room, opened the door and left. Theo and Lovebug just stood there.
"That was abrupt," Lovebug stated the obvious. "Well, I probably can't go to work in pajamas. I'll meet you in your office at 11:30, and, uhhhh, we can discuss... everything." He tried to sound serious, but a hint of excitement came in towards the end.
"Okay then, see you there." Theo packed up his things and exited the room.
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Theo pushed through the large glass doors of the building he worked in. He was slightly late, so he walked briskly towards the elevator. He was standing there, waiting for it to close, until--
"HOLD THE DOOR!", cried a voice from in front of him. He stuck his hand out, and the doors stopped closing. a figure ran into the elevator. Actually, two figures.
To say the first one resembled Theo was a huge overstatement. He stood at a slightly slumped posture in an office worker's white-collar uniform. But, curiously enough, he had a paper bag over his head, concealing his face, that had a smiley face and glasses scribbled on it. Even more unnerving were his hands, which were a deep purplish-black and appeared to absorb all light around them. They almost appeared fluid.
Standing on that one's shoulder was a very short, and I mean very short person, in a navy-blue suit with a red tie. he had a tiny digital watch around his wrist that glowed yellow. He appeared to be about the same age as Theo, but the height difference was STAGGERING. He was no taller than a pencil, if that.
"Thank you so much for that," sighed the tiny one. "Human wasn't feeling his best this morning, and, yes, I do have this transporter, but it's still so short range. Wait... do I even know you?"
"I don't think you do..." pointed out Theo, still confused.
"Ah, well, I'm Ant. It's a pleasure." He stuck out his bead-sized hand. "Oh, that's right." he pulled it back in again. "And this charming fellow is Human."
"That name's a bit... vague."
"I bet the CEO and his goons had a laugh over that one," said Ant, a bit angrily. "Oh! why don't we name the creepy monster one Human? That'd be so damn ironic! Yeah. It's funny for maybe a bit, and then you realize you're stuck with it."
"Hey, at least it's not Office Drone. I considered quitting.", laughed Theo.
"Ooh! That one... Oh, the CEO's sense of humor is so degrading!" Ant chuckled. "Human's a man of few words, so he doesn't even get to joke about his name. I'm sure he'd have a bit of fun with it if he could."
"Oh, this is my floor," remarked Theo. "Hopefully I run into you two again sometime."
"Eleventh floor, office 3 if you need anything!" Ant yelled after him. Human waved.
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At eleven thirty that morning, lovebug strolled into Theo's office, closed the door quietly, and squealed like an 8-year-old girl seeing a kitten.
"Ahhhh! I'm sorry! It's just...." he did jazz hands to convey his excitement. "Okay. Magic. My best friend has-- oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god" it was subtle, but a familiar accent edged its way into his voice. Theo stood up and punched him in the shoulder. Realizing what was going on, Lovebug took a deep breath and tried to calm himself down.
"Bug. Don't get too excited," Theo sighed. "For your information, i have no clue what's going on."
"But I miiiight!" sang Lovebug. "I have a few theories." He took a red whiteboard marker out of his pocket and started drawing on the window. Theo groaned, knowing he'd have to clean this up. "SO. you have superpowers. There are three ways this could have happened."
"Backstory one: (and yes, i am doing the narrative voice,) Theodore James Narrator was an innocent office worker at some, I don't know, publishing company," bellowed Lovebug dramatically, as he drew Theo sitting behind a desk. He was actually quite good at drawing, as it turns out. "He published all morning, published all afternoon, and would not stop publishing until he had to go home. At which point he would go to bed."
"That's not how publishing companies--"
"Whatever. This was a special publishing company. So, anyways, Theo was on his daily rounds, publishing, publishing, and publishing again, when he tripped and fell into..." Lovebug paused to think and then hunched over his drawing so Theo couldn't see it. After scribbling for a while, he stepped back. "a vat of printer ink. weird printer ink. that glowed. and was obviously radioactive. and so he was now a mutant."
"What." Theo said, deadpan. Lovebug erased the window, but there were still some red ink smears on it.
"Backstory two: Theo James Narrator was a very very very very very normal office worker. Just kidding. He's an alien. But he doesn't know it until he and his trusty best friend end up running into some shenanigans." lovebug stepped back from the window, revealing of a drawing of Theo with an arrow pointing to it, captioned 'secretly an alien'.
That theory was slightly more believable. Theo actually took a moment to consider it, until he shook his head.
"Okay! The final option! You knew about this all along and you've just been lying to me and Cura and the rest of the world about it for the past three months." he yelled. "but just so you know, I totally get it if that's the case, because you didn't want the government, or worse, the CEO, or god forbid, Cura running tests on you," he added quietly.
That one wasn't true. Theo sighed. This was going nowhere. And he was just assigned some more work to do.
"Alright. We'd better get back to work. Thank you, Lovebug, all of this was very helpful," he lied. "and i'm guessing you have things to do as well."
"You're welcome, Drone. Just call me if you need anything!", said lovebug, before leaving the office.
