Never As It Seems

The Date

Flames thought a job working at computers would be tedious at best, but he figured there had to be some sort of joy to it. There had to be some reason hundreds worked in the technology full room for six hours a day. It couldn't be that boring, he told himself. 

He was wrong. 

No, computers wasn't as boring as Flames thought it would be. 

Computers was so much worse. 

"Are you checking the database, Flames?" said the tall, light-haired, and very intrusive head of the computers department for what had to be the twenty thousandth time that morning. 

Flames sighed. "I've checked it three times. Nothing's changed. We're all here. Nobody left, nobody came in, no strange men broke in. Nothing."

"And how long has it been since you last checked it?"

Flames glanced at his watch. "Five minutes or so? I'm guessing."

"Check it again."

As he walked off Flames rolled his eyes. 

"Dumb and annoying," he said. 

"You know, you should really listen to what Luke over there says," said the girl sitting at the desk to his right. He turned and looked at her, a bit annoyed.

"Why? What does he know? All he does it boss people around and act like he's the ruler of the universe. Why's he the head of this hell hole, anyway? What is he, 20?"

"He's 22," she said smugly. "And he's qualified for the position. He passed his CATs with 100% correct answers! No one else has ever gotten that high."

"Yes, I'm glad to know he knows more about computer surveillance than the average feline, but it still proves nothing to me -"

"No, no, his Computer Aptitude Tests." She shook her head. "Don't you know that?"

"I'm new."

"I know."

"How?"

"You weren't here yesterday. What’s your name, anyway?”

“Flames Pond,” he said wearily.

“I’m Sara,” she said. “It’s great to have you here.”

He groaned and put his face in his hands. "Holy dead parents of Batman, this is so boring!"

"Sorry?"

He looked up and snarled at her. 

"Okay, okay!" She turned back to her computer and started typing feverishly. 

Flames stared at his own computer with a kind of sad desperation. There was a spreadsheet taking up the entire screen with a list of every agent, Youth Agent, and staff worker at AY5. It gave dates and times of when they arrived and left the building, and if you clicked on a certain name it showed a significant amount of personal information. And for the past two hours that Flames had been scrutinizing it, it had not changed at all. All the hundreds of inhabitants of the building had barely moved at all. 

"How can you stand this?" he said to the girl sitting next to him. 

She looked up quickly, her hair flipping around her head. "Stand what?"

"Working here every day! Man, it's only been a couple of hours and I'm bored to tears. I think I may have died a couple of times, actually. Just... wasted away."

She shrugged. "I like computers. Just in general. I like being around them, really. They've got a sort of presence."

Flames stared at her.