Ghosts

Chapter 1

*beep beep beep* I awoke with a start as my alarm clock blared through my apartment. I opened my eyes and rubbed the crud out of them as I started looking for my alarm clock. I jumped up catching it in mid-air and shutting it down for the day. After setting my alarm clock down on my night table and checking for missed calls I decided to get up. As I walked out of my bedroom and into the living room and kitchen I could hear the bustling of rush hour and the chaos that comes along with it. I walked over to my kitchen and inputted the order for dark coffee and went to sit on the nearby Lazy Boy couch.

The couch absorbed me as I sat down in it and it started massaging me. As the couch soothed my aching back I started thinking about the mysterious message my coordinator Sax sent me. The message was a short brisk message sent a priority message. Sax was somebody who usually kept things brisk and to the point with little excess information so that part of the message didn't bother me. The thing that made me worry about it was the contents. The only thing the message said was that there was a meeting at meeting at 11:00 am. Sax usually gave all his agents at least a week advance on meetings and never once notified us a day before. My mind started to drift off into possibilities of what this would be about when suddenly a beeping from the kitchen brought me back to the real world. I sighed and hauled my reluctant body off the couch and over to the screen.

Underneath the screen was a trap door that opened revealing my coffee still steaming and fresh. I grabbed the coffee and put the kitchen into sleep mode. I took a quick sip of my coffee and then proceeded to put it down on a nearby table. I walked the short distance back into my bedroom where I woke the wardrobe. I imputed what activities and work I would be doing today as the machine went to work. After a couple of seconds, a tailored suit that was completely blacked out popped out of the wardrobe. I grabbed the clothes as the machine retracted and put itself into sleep mode until I needed it again. As I changed I thought back to my childhood when we had to pick what was best suited for that day ourselves. When the company implemented it people were ecstatic. It was invented for the same purpose as self-driving cars and the tubes. "To make our lives easier, and more carefree" was the slogan used by many of the companies out there. Over the course of my childhood, it started to ring true. There were little to no bugs with anything and it meant that people could relax and enjoy life more.

After I was done getting dressed I emerged from my room looking like a new man. I checked the time and noticed it was already ten o'clock and I grabbed my coffee on the way out the door. It hit me then that it would take me longer than expected to get to work because I left my car at the HQ because I was too tired to drive home. "Ugh" I moaned looking at my watch and deciding I would have to call a cab. Once I was down on the main floor I tapped my earpiece and said "cab." This innovation was much more recent where you could make voice commands to your earpiece and it would do things for you. I walked out the front doors of my building and towards the main gates where the cab would pick me up. I flashed my id quickly as I passed through the body scanner and out onto the sidewalk.

"Forgot your car at work again last night," One of the on-duty security guards said from his post?

"Yeah too tired. You know how it is" I replied walking over to him and leaning against the door.

"Too tired or too drunk," the security guard asked with a laugh?

"Maybe a bit of both" I joked as we were birth aware we had to have zero alcohol level in our systems. "Alright well good laughing with you, looks like my cab is here and I have an urgent meeting to go to," I said waving goodbye and heading over to the waiting cab. I could hear him say bye back to me as I hopped into the cab. It was a dinky little one seater maybe the size of a classic smart car. The ride to work didn't take long and I arrived at HQ a couple of minutes before the scheduled meeting. I tapped my earpiece as I got out of the cab and made my way towards the entrance. The building was moderately sized but looked huge. It had black, one-way, bulletproof glass all the way along the front. It looked like a big phone screen on the side of the road.