Dreams of the Quill

Sam’s an Enigma^[1].

“‘Extreme,’” chuckled Joe. “What’s new?”

He knew that the footage in question was the footage dorito had told him about. He agreed with the sentiment that an American invasion on the grounds described was a bit much. But still he was surprised. He had joined his brethren “cyber hacker terrorists” on numerous occasions to wave signs and distribute pamphlets in front of fake churches, but that was on an entirely different scale.

Killing false gods while eating cake and exchanging internet jokes with the Anonymous collective was fun and profitable.

Opposing the Establishment was death.

Joe shook his head and closed his web browser. He wasn’t going to delve further into this.

When he brought his inbox back to the foreground, however, he found that ‘this’ wasn’t exactly going to leave him alone. Fifteen copies of the Anonymous e-mail had filled the first page of his e-mail list and the application was checking for more.

Right before his eyes, his inbox was inundated with wave after wave of protest-related spam.

“I didn’t sign up for this crap,” Joe muttered, and Dan rolled over, humming some anime song about family in his sleep. And this isn’t a tactic of the Anonymous I know. Must be a bug in some script somewhere… Well, I can’t work like this. Might as well skip out early. Get some sleep while it’s still light out.

“Dan, Dan,” he whispered, poking the redhead’s arm.

“MMmmmfghnr?” snorted Dan, pawing at Joe’s hand.

“May I go home?”

“… the four dango on a skewer…” murmured Dan, and Joe took that as a yes. He turned his computer off and stepped out of his cubicle. He felt a little guilty for leaving early, but the party had thrown off his work rhythm anyway, and he was not in the mood to deal with the spam. Maybe tomorrow. As he hurriedly quit the office, he passed Sam’s cubicle. He glanced in briefly.

Somehow the overhead lighting of the office didn’t penetrate the Sam’s workspace. A figure in a black hoodie sat hunched over a laptop in the darkness, motionless. The only light in the room came from the laptop’s screen and its user’s glasses The sound of keys clacking occasionally reached Joe’s ears despite the absence of any typing motions.

Joe got the chills watching his supervisor. He felt like he might get sucked into a black hole if he looked on for too long. Pulling himself away, he made good his escape from work.

1. DOTA references? In my Night Switch? More likely than you think. [↩]