The Science of Sleep

Chapter 3

Sitting alone in the Better Living Industries canteen, Frank can't help but sigh. His earlier relief at the monotony of his job very quickly turned to sheer disappointment; only in Frank's life could he find himself living in a parallel universe and still have the same crap job. Typical.

If only he had someone he could talk to about what's happened, to find out exactly what's happened here...

He needs a Gerard. He needs a Gerard-like person who immediately accepts weirdness and doesn't question it if he's said the wrong thing or doesn't quite know something he's supposed to. He thinks back to yesterday; him and Gerard had talked for almost three hours over coffee about art and possible ideas for Frank's 'novel.' Gerard was convinced that Better Living Industries is 'your standard stereotypical evil corporation' but Frank disagreed. For one thing, aside from being incredibly creepy, there's nothing to suggest that.

"They've got their logo on everything," Gerard said, like that proved it.

"Yeah, but so does Apple and they're not evil!"

Gerard grinned. "Oh please. Apple are taking over the world."

"Like Starbucks," Frank said, raising his coffee cup.

"Exactly. Like Starbucks." Gerard grinned and took a large sip of his own Starbucks-brewed coffee. "And they're evil too. They make good coffee but they're slowly taking over the world. Face it Frankie, it's a staple of Science Fiction; if there's a big corporation that controls everything, they're evil."

"Yeah, but in real life, corporations aren't all evil!" Frank said, thinking back to the office he works in. It's one of those companies that prides itself on being the kind of company to 'celebrate the underdog and favour the little man.' On his first day, he was impressed by this statement and felt genuinely hopeful that this office would be a fun place to work with amazingly interesting people. Once the glamour had worn off and Frank started to settle down in his role though, he quickly realised this was a lie to make people the people feel like the work they were doing actually had some meaning. Disillusioning, yes but not necessarily evil.

Ray sits down opposite Frank, bringing him out of his thoughts.

"Hey man!" Ray says. There's something off about him today, barely restrained excitement showing all over his face. "So, did you hear?"

Frank is resigned to the fact that he will never know anything that's going on in this world in advance.

"Apparently there was a Killjoy raid last night, just outside of Zone 1," Ray says, leaning in, talking in a hushed tone.

"What, to do with Party Poison?" The only Killjoy names Frank knows are Fun Ghoul and Party Poison, and seeing as Fun Ghoul's dead, he's going with what he knows.

"Nah, Kobra Kid," Ray says. (The name vaguely rings a bell to Frank, he suspects he's seen it on a report somewhere.) "But here's the thing; nothing happened. The Dracs got there and the place was completely cleared out."

"So? Maybe they had a look out stationed?"

Ray shakes his head. "This raid was apparently planned for months in advance and it was on one of the refugee camps. There's no way they could have gotten that many people out in such short notice, not without a firefight. Rumour has it –" Ray pauses, looks around to make sure no one's listening and lower his voice. "Rumour has it that there's a mole in the company who tipped them off."

Now Frank's interested.

"A mole?"

"Yeah. I would have thought you'd have heard all about this, seeing as it's Scarecrow's area and all..."