"Oh, for the love of-, JEFF!" a white-eyed drone shouted at his fellow Worker.
"IT WAS BROKEN WHEN I GOT HERE!!" Jeff screamed as he awoke and looked around wildly for several seconds before remembering where he was. "Oh. Hi, Nick!" he greeted with a friendly wave.
"Where's Mark? I thought he was supposed to work second shift tonight."
"He was, but I volunteered to cover for him."
"Then why were you asleep at the door?"
"Gimme a break, Nick; you know I'm a narcoleptic!" Jeff protested.
Nick squeezed his eyes shut and took a deep, calming breath.
"Then why did you volunteer for second shift?"
"I...Um...Huh," Jeff rubbed his chin, brow furrowed in thought, "why did I volunteer? Oh well! If I don't remember, then it wasn't important!"
"Riiiight," Nick drawled, already feeling a headache coming on. "I'm here to relieve you."
"Great!" Jeff grinned. "My shift was all-quiet, so yours should be easy-peasy!"
"...How much of your shift did you sleep through?"
"Most of it!" Jeff answered without hesitation. "But, I'm a pretty light sleeper and nothing woke me up!"
Having had enough "Jeff Logic" for one night, Nick merely waved him off and sat down at the card table that had seen so much use it was literally bolted to the floor.
However, since the Murder Drones had seemingly departed for whatever reason, there was no reason to have six drones or more on-duty at once. So door duty went from a guys' night out kind of thing, occasionally punctuated by scraping claws, gunshots and explosions from outside, to an incredibly boring affair that saw a person alone with their own thoughts for eight hours. This was especially true for third shift, seeing as how no drone in their right mind would go outside at night even if they thought the MDs were gone.
Well, there was one drone who did just that on a regular basis, but her being in her right mind was up for debate.
'To be fair, she's come back every time, and she finds some really cool stuff,' Nick thought. 'And whatever luck she has is rubbing off on the scavenging parties as well.'
Though it wasn't all luck; the little lady was armed to the teeth and it was all homemade. As weird and concerning as that was, Nick and quite a few others had to admit they'd feel a lot better about the more risky jobs if they were packing something more than stun batons.
"I mean, we don't even know if these work on Murder Drones," Nick grumbled as he poked the collapsed baton sitting on the table.
Suddenly the console next to the door beeped, indicating someone outside asking to be let in.
"What the hell?" Nick shot up out of his chair and grabbed the baton before cautiously approaching the device. He quickly hit the button to activate the outside camera and almost breathed a sigh of relief when a familiar face popped up on the screen. "Dammit, Dan!"
"Hey, Jeff, I got the thing!"
"Not Jeff," Nick replied through the intercom.
"Nick? Ah crap, shift change."
"I assume it was your idea for him to cover for Mark?"
"Not my best idea, but I knew he wouldn't ask questions."
"I doubt anyone would care enough to ask anyway, Dan."
"Can't take that chance, Nick. And can we have this conversation on THAT side of the door?"
