Just Your Average Time Traveller

Never Resting

"Sir," the weedy Surveyor turned his spindly, kitted-out office chair, swivelling it away from the glass screen, a duplicate of the hundreds lining the Beehive. The sheeny, slick, off-white walls of an indestructible material created the skyscraper-like building. It stood out against the bleak countryside of a classified and apparently non-existent city. Wide, slit-like windows at the top of this vast pine cone of a structure allowed little daylight to sweep across the first platform. The floors here were always too clean, the air too sharp.

The Relayor sat in his own open air office on the first platform, sipping coffee quietly. It wasn't a demanding job, and most of the time, he was bored out of his mind. Despite this, he ignored the call stubbornly. He thought himself above everyone but the president himself. And he was pretty much correct.

Worried, the forty-fifth platform Surveyor glanced back at his computer screen. It was a picture nobody but he could understand. Displayed on the transparent monitor hovering above him was something that resembled deep space. Dots of light we scattered here and there, millions in fact. Ominous patches of grey, something like mist, permeated some of the areas on the screen. A few of the dots were green, too, and it was his job to monitor them.

Amid all this colour and confusion, a lone red patch hovered over a vaguely boot shaped country. The matter seemed to disappear and reappear every so often. And that could only mean one thing. The thing that the Beehive feared the most.

As pleasantries weren't likely to work, the Surveyor took a risky and almost blasphemous tack. "Sir, there has been Norak activity detected in sector I035."

The five hundred surveyors turned inwards at the same time. They all stared up at the forty-fifth level Surveyor, a position that meant you were nothing. Every platform was a ring that jutted out from the circumference of the Beehive. Every one, above and below him, had their eyes on him. The Relayor calmly removed his slit visor, placing the glasses on the sleek black desk, before addressing the lowly worker.

"I'm offended that you've used that layman's term for our Stream Officers, Mister...?" The forty year old adjusted his suit and gestured with his left hand to the Surveyor.

"Jon Harke," the man replied, feeling suddenly angry that this man hadn't understood what he was trying to say. Of course he wasn't talking about the Beehive's time traveling lackeys. But that wasn't why the highest member of the Beehive was presuming so. The Relayor simply didn't want to face the truth.

"But, sir, that's not what I was referring to," Jon began bravely. "I was talking about natural purebred Noraks. Only this one's a half; a strong half."

There was a moment's terrifying silence before the Relayor suddenly burst out laughing. Nobody followed. The harsh, forced laughter echoed off the all-concealing Beehive walls.

Nobody followed suit.

After several seconds, the laughing stopped abruptly and the Relayor scowled strangely. "Are you suggesting," he began menacingly, "that there is a fully fledged Norak on the loose in I035? Italy?" The man on the first platform ran botox-treated fingers through transplanted hair, a mental battle evidently raging in his head.

"Come with me, Mr.Harke."

"Yes Sir."

Jon pressed a button on the side of his hovering screen and it dropped unceremoniously into his shaking pale hands. He stuffed the device into his satchel and descended the automatically appearing stairs that led down to the first platform, following the Relayor outisde the Beehive.

Here was a moving corridor filled with identification devices that scanned you as you ascended and recorded your every feeling, emotion and thought as you descended, as the pair were doing now. Inconspicuously, the Relayor took out a dart with a viciously long tip, and swiftly stabbed it into Jon's arm. He was dead before he hit the ground.

The Relayor quickly dialled a number on his watch, and spoke into it sedately. "Sir, assemble the Stream Officers in I035. We have a fledgeling Norak on the loose."

***

SO! None of that made sense. I congratulate you if you managed to understand a word of that, because I was pretty much making up the names as I went along. This was very much a 'meanwhile' scene. And, if you hadn't guessed already, it's in the future! Yay! I like being futuristic! I hope you enjoyed. Everything will be revealed later. Thank you so much for all the reads guys!