Foston Slacks - Time's Flies

36

It was humanoid. That Clara was certain of. Or, at least, humanoid shaped, if a little fuzzy around the edges. And glowing. And without any discernible features that would mark it out to be humanoid, such as eyes, a nose, a mouth. Even ears would have been a good start. Instead, it glowed a bright yellowy/orangey colour with vague things that could be called arms and legs, a head and a body. If a little diffuse. And see through.

It wasn't really humanoid, if she admitted to herself. It was a glowing thing that sat as if on a chair that was not there. Its glowing appendages that could, with a squint and a turn of the head, be described as hands, flipping through pages of a report upon the desk in front of it, making the occasional 'Aha!' sound, accompanied by several 'Hmmm's' and one or two irritated 'tsk's'.

Foston and Clara had been led through the labyrinth of corridors, walkways, doorways, lifts, bus rides and pre-orbital shuttlecraft to this office by an equally vaguely humanoid glowing creature that had not spoken a single word after telling them to follow it.

By now, Clara was becoming in a very real, very obvious sense, irritated by the whole thing. Rolling her eyes, picking at the edges of the chair arms, sighing and, occasionally, grumbling. All were ignored by the glowing figure behind the desk.

Foston sat there with a tepid smile upon his face and hadn't moved for hours. Not even to fiddle with his watch. Clara looked at her own version of the watch and the time still stubbornly read 'Pending'. That annoyed her, too.

"Look, is this going to take much longer?" She leaned forward, trying to get a look at the report the figure read, but it was all in some strange language she didn't understand. The lettering cringing away as she tried to read it. "It's not that I have anything better to do, it's just that, whatever else has happened since meeting Foston, it's never been boring. I hate boring. It serves no purpose."

The glowing figure appeared to pause, look up from its thick report and eyed her. It had no eyes to speak of, but Clara knew it glared at her with undisguised disinterest.

"Clara O'Fortuna Bridger." It said, its head dipping back to the report.

"That's me. Mother is a bit of an opera fan." Annoyingly, the figure didn't acknowledge her and lapsed once again into irritating silence. Seeing as that gambit hadn't worked, she tried a different tack. "Are you an angel, or something? Are we dead? Is this Heaven or is it Hell. I'm thinking the latter. Heaven would never be this dull."

"An angel?" That had an affect and Clara sat forward, anticipating more. "No, madam, I am not. I'm the head of ER."

"ER? Emergency room?" She looked around. It didn't look like a hospital. She didn't feel ill, or injured.

"No. No. ER. Entity Resources. Middle management." Foston leaned in and whispered.

"That's worse than I thought!" She sat back, disappointed. She hated middle managers. Tin-pot dictators of their own little universe. There wasn't a special place in Hell for middle managers. Hell had standards. "Middle management for where?"

"This ..." Foston swept his arm taking in everything with a general sweep. "Is the Nexus. The place I've been trying to get us to all along. Well, all along after I realised the Breaches weren't working properly. Brilliant, isn't it."

"No. It's awful. It's grey and dull and boring." She made her own sweep of her arm, taking in the dull grey walls, the dull grey carpet, the dull grey doors and the other dull grey things that were too dull and grey to bother naming. "There aren't even any motivational posters. No cats holding onto branches by the claws saying 'Hang in there!'. Nothing. Human Resources, where hope goes to die and the people there take turns in making everybody's lives as miserable as possible."