As Lance walked away, Terrance took one last look over the code and noticed a short, useless statement at the bottom:
world = death;
Where did those variables even come from? He thought about deleting the line, but decided the safest thing was to just leave it.
“Here, take your glasses off. They make you look like a dork.” Lance pulled Terrance’s glasses off his face and put them in his front pocket.
“They’re perfectly fine glasses.” Not stylish or anything, but unobtrusive.
“Hey, I work in marketing for a company that does inventory management,” Lance said. “It’s my job to make boring things look interesting.”
Terrance had checked himself in the mirror at the restroom at work before heading over. His hair had been a little messy, and he’d done what he could with water and his hand. It wasn’t like Lance’s perfect hair. It seemed like Lance used some sort of product in it and maybe had highlights or something. Terrance was just happy when he remembered to get a haircut before things got too disorderly.
They went inside Landing. For a moment, Terrance thought there was a power outage and the place was using emergency lighting. “I really prefer the bar near our apartments. I can barely see in here.”
“That will work to your advantage,” Lance said. “You’ll have a chance to charm her with your personality before your face scares her off.”
“Oh. Ha. I guess your advantage would be a noisy bar where—”
“Finish that quip later.” Lance strode toward a female figure that Terrance soon made out to be Karen. The bar was large and was filled with a few dozen people. Terrance was curious about who he was going to be set up with, and scanned the crowd for hopeful prospects—but again had trouble seeing much.
Then he thought he saw something move on the ceiling.
“Hey, space cadet,” Karen said. “I’d like you to meet Shannon.”
Out of the darkness of the bar stepped an ominous figure. It had full armor of black steel, a black sword at its hip, and a helmet that looked like the head of a demon. But behind the helmet’s wide-open mouth was a really cute face. “Hey, you must be Terrance,” Shannon said.
Terrance gripped the offered gauntlet and shook her hand. He was a little intimidated by the sight of her, but tried to keep his focus on the sweet, smiling face. “Nice…um…getup you have going there.”
She blushed a little. “I didn’t have time to change out of my work clothes.”
“Neither did I.” He pointed to his white dress shirt and blue tie.
“You could probably take the tie off now.”
“Yeah”—he loosened the tie and pulled it over his head—“and you could probably take the helmet off.”
“Fair enough, but you keep a watch out and make sure no one sneaks up behind me and bonks me on the head.” She pulled off the helmet and then undid her ponytail, shaking loose her blonde hair. Getting a really good look at her face, Terrance felt the need to eventually thank Lance.
“So here we are holding our tie and helmet. We feel better?” he asked.
“No, it’s kind of inconvenient.”
Terrance glanced around and realized he was standing alone with Shannon. “So they just left us?”
“I guess so. Um…so what do we do now? I’ve never been set up before. I guess we kind of talk and see if we’re”—she motioned her hands together—“compatible.”
“It’s my understanding that’s how it works. Want to go sit at the bar?” He held up his tie. “We can set our stuff down there.”
“Good idea. We’ll get some of that social lubricant.” She made a drinking motion.
They went over to the bar and took two stools. Shannon put her demon helmet on the countertop and whispered to herself, “Don’t forget it. Don’t forget it.”
“So…um…what is it that you do?”
“Oh, I’m a Sister of Torment. We’re a group of women who serve the Darkness. That’s sort of a…well, it’s tough to explain.”
“So you like the job?”
“Yeah, it’s pretty neat. I’m like a…police officer slash soldier slash executioner.”
Terrance managed a smile, though he was a bit uneasy. “So you go around lopping off the heads of bad people?”
“Well, I don’t know if they’re bad; I don’t like to judge. But, you know, we keep an order to things. It’s an important job—hard work but fulfilling. And it’s a fun group I work with.”
“Good…good. It’s good to like the people you work with. Anything about the job you don’t like?”
She thought for a moment. “Well, being fully dedicated to the Darkness, we have to remain virgins.”
Terrance shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Oh…that’s…”
Shannon burst out laughing. “I’m just kidding. Sorry, I joke when I’m nervous.”
“I’m making you nervous?”
“Oh no…no…you’re fine. So what do you do, Ter? People call you ‘Ter’?”
“Yeah, sometimes.”
“How about ‘Ance’? Can I call you ‘Ance’?”
“I won’t physically stop you. Anyway, I’m a computer programmer. I work on web applications—sort of the logic in web pages so that they…do stuff.”
“So like when I buy something on a website, you make sure it properly handles the credit card and all that?”
“Yeah, that’s basically it. I do some of the web pages, but I also work on the back-end stuff.”
“That sounds dirty.”
Terrance blushed. “I just mean the logic away from the web pages—back on servers somewhere.”
“So you’re pretty smart.”
“Oh yeah, a genius. If it weren’t for Einsteins like me, you’d click buttons on web pages and nothing would happen.”
“So what kind of web applications do you do?”
Terrance couldn’t tell if she was being polite or was actually interested. “Oh…nothing too interesting. It’s for inventory management. Still, my company demands that we dedicate ourselves to the job and remain virgins as well.”
“Doesn’t that just happen naturally from being a computer nerd?”
“Ouch.”
She laughed again. “Burn! I got you! You don’t mind if I kid you, Ance?”
“No. That was a good one.” She had an infectious laugh, and he loved her smile. His eyes moved briefly from her face, though, to notice a red stain on her arm. “You got a little something there.”
She looked at the armor. “Oh. Whoops. Well, this thing cleans easy. So, do you like your job?”
“Yeah. I like tracking down problems to fix them. Debugging is a bit like being a detective.”
“Like Batman.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, exactly. Just like Batman. In fact, that’s probably an easier way to describe my job in the future: ‘I’m basically Batman.’”
“And you work with Karen?”
“She’s in human resources, so I don’t really work directly with her.”
Shannon leaned in close to Terrance. Her hair smelled of sour apple. She whispered, “Good. She’s kind of a bitch.”
“Then you should lop her head off,” Terrance whispered back.
Shannon laughed. “If I started cutting off people’s heads for that, I’d wear out my axe.”
Terrance chuckled, and then his smile slowly faded. “You…have an axe for that?”
“What can I get you?” the bartender interrupted.
Terrance turned to Shannon. “What would you like, milady?”
“I will have a cosmopolitan.”
“And I will have a Guinness,” Terrance said.
“Ooh, manly drink,” Shannon said as the bartender went to get their order.
Terrance nodded. “I usually wait until a few dates in and I’m more comfortable with a woman before I drink appletinis in front of her.”
“I can pay for my own drinks, by the way. I’m a liberated woman.”
Terrance nodded. “I can see
that, but it’s still my treat.”
“Well, sexism is never going to end as long as it equals free booze.”
They laughed and sat silently staring at each other for a few moments. “I think we need to ask each other more questions,” Shannon said. “Again, I’m not really familiar with how this works.”
“Well…uh…” Terrance thought for a second, but only one thing popped into his head. “Do you watch Girls?”
“No, I don’t have much time for TV and don’t watch much of the current stuff. Lately, though, I’ve been watching Farscape on Netflix.”
“Really?”
“You’ve heard of it?”
Terrance nodded. “Yeah, I watched it on the SciFi channel back when they still spelled ‘sci-fi’ correctly. It’s an underappreciated show.”
“Well, don’t spoil it. I’m only in the second season. With all the Jim Henson muppet aliens, I keep hoping the Pigs in Space make a cameo.”
“They’re actually part of a big arc in the fourth season.”
Shannon went wide-eyed. “Really?”
Terrance laughed. “No.”
“Oh! Now you’re teasing me.” She hit him seemingly lightly on the chest, but it almost knocked him off his stool. “Dangerous thing.”
“Yeah, I’ll be careful.” He resisted the urge to rub where she’d hit him. He tried to think of another question to ask, and he kept thinking of more queries about her job…though they seemed to have moved past that topic.
The bartender delivered their drinks, and Terrance quickly took a swig of his. Shannon sipped her cocktail demurely. “So what do you do for fun, Ance?”
“Well…” He tried to think of something more interesting to say than “video games,” but was at the moment failing.
“Uh-oh. You’re a serial killer, and you’re trying to think of a cover story!”
“And you’d think I’d have a few other interests than that, but serial killing uses up pretty much all of my free time. No, I play video games; I was just trying to think of a better answer than that.”
Shannon glared at him. “A male in his twenties who plays video games?!” She turned to look around, shouting weakly, “Help! I’m with a freak!”
“So you play any video games, Nin, or do you just spend your time working on your stand-up?”
“‘Nin’? Oh, I see what you did there. Well, I once tried some Call of Duty online, but I got sick of twelve-year-olds calling me a fag.”
“And they’re just so good at that game. You can’t beat the homophobic twelve-year-olds. So, what do you do for fun? Also a serial killer?”
“No, that would be too much like my day job. I…well, I don’t know if it counts as doing something, but I have a cat. Her name is Amidala.”
“You named her from the Star Wars prequels?”
Her eyes brightened. “Yeah! I loved those! And that Jar Jar Binks was hilarious. I really don’t know why they didn’t use him more in episodes two and three.”
Terrance sat up from his stool. “Oh, geez, look at the time. I have to get going.”
Shannon laughed. “I’m not fooling you anymore, am I? You’re onto me. I just liked the sound of the name; those movies were a travesty.”
He sat back down. “I can put up with so much from a pretty woman, but not hating Jar Jar Binks is a bridge too far.”
“Oh, you think I’m pretty.” She batted her eyes.
“You really pull off that dark armor.”
“Thanks. I feel a little self-conscious hanging around in it.” No one seemed to be paying attention to her, though; it was only Terrance who felt it was a bit odd. Which seemed a good enough reason not to worry about it.
They chatted for hours about movies and old TV shows and other light topics. Terrance could tell he was a bit smitten with her; she wasn’t only gorgeous, she was also witty and sweet. It was just that she apparently had a job where…
He shook the thought from his head. He figured he was making a big deal out of nothing, and he didn’t want to ruin this.
Shannon looked around. “So Karen and Lance totally ditched us.”
“It appears that way.”
“I bet they’re somewhere right now doing naked things.”
“If they are, Lance will tell me in the morning.”
“That reminds me.” Shannon pulled out her cellphone from a leather pouch on her armor and checked the time. “Oh, I need to get going. I have to get up early tomorrow for the ole jobby job.”
“Oh…well…it was really nice talking to you. Would you like to do this again? I haven’t run out of all my opinions on popular science fiction.”
She smiled. “Sure.”
Score! “How about this weekend?”
“I’m busy all this weekend. My job is awful; I’m sorry. Um…I have time tomorrow night, if that wouldn’t be too much of me too soon.”
“Yeah, we can get dinner somewhere and maybe figure things out from there.”
“Ooh. Adventurous. I like it. Just give me time to change.” She motioned to her armor.
“Yeah, it will be nice to get you out of that.” He blushed. “That came off a little too forward.”
Shannon giggled. “I know what all the guys think: Does she actually fill that breastplate?” She thumped her metal chest. “Hey, if it’s okay, I’m going to tell Karen you took me to your place and ravaged me.”
Terrance nodded. “It’s a believable story.”
She stood up. “It was really nice meeting you. I was a little nervous about this—I just assumed Karen would set me up with a real douche.”
“Glad to defy expectations, then.” He took one last long look at her face. She was gorgeous; he could hardly believe his luck.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something move. He looked up at the ceiling, and there was something there staring back at him. He couldn’t make it out except for the yellow eyes locked onto him.
“What is it?” Shannon turned and looked behind her.
“There’s something on the ceiling staring at me,” Terrance said, not breaking eye contact with it.
Shannon glanced at the creature. “Yeah, those things will do that.” She looked back at him. “I have to get going. I have your phone number, so we’ll meet up tomorrow.”
He broke eye contact with the creature. “Yeah, looking forward to it.”
Terrance watched as the armored figure of Shannon walked off, then he looked again at the dark creature on the ceiling. None of it was unusual, so why was he so bothered by it?
Chapter 3
Terrance couldn’t believe his luck. Shannon was so beautiful and fun, and he actually had seemed to hit it off with her. So why was something in the back of his brain nagging at him?
He grabbed some Taco Bell on the way back to his apartment, and settled on his couch. He was about to turn on the TV to check what he had on his DVR when he saw the sword leaning against a wall near his small kitchen. He walked over and picked it up by the sheath. Things had been weird ever since he’d been given the sword that morning. Or they weren’t weird so much as he was just agitated by things. Things that had never bothered him before.
For instance, he had been aware of the Sisters of Torment and had seen that type of people around, and what they did had never been an issue for him. But now he thought about it and something about them seemed…evil?
He saw movement by the window. Startled, he dropped the sword. It hit the fake hardwood floor with a loud clatter. As always with such a noise, it was answered by a couple of thumps from below. He was in a ground-floor apartment, so he never did know exactly what it was below him that didn’t like noise. It was another odd thing that Terrance had been used to, but that was now suddenly disturbing him.
There was something at the window staring back at him. A small thing. He picked up the sword and crept closer until he had a good view of it. It had beady, black soulless eyes that seemed to conceal unfathomable secrets. And a fluffy tail.
A squirrel.
>
“Are you the squirrel I nearly ran over this morning?” Terrance asked. “You tricked me into going into that place, and now something is wrong with me. What’s going on here?”
The squirrel watched him a few moments longer, and then jumped down from the window and scurried off.
“We’re enemies, you and I! Next time I’ll run you down!” Terrance shouted, causing the thing below him to make more thumps through the floor. He stared out the window at the darkness for a few moments. There was the light of the 7-Eleven nearby, but further in the distance was the glow of a volcano that was constantly spewing lava. He had always seen large things flying near it. This had never been of any interest to him, but now the thought came to mind that it was a place of great foreboding.
He shook the ideas from his head and placed the sword in the coat closet. He wanted to eat his Taco Bell before it got cold, because reheating it in the microwave always made the sour cream taste funny.
The next morning, Terrance was running too far behind schedule to even glance at the path leading into the wooded area on his way to work. He got to the office, rode the elevator to the tenth floor, settled into his cubicle, and prepared for a normal day…except, of course, for his date that night.
Lance soon appeared. “So how did things go with you and Shannon?”
Terrance smiled. “I’ll be seeing her again tonight.”
Lance hit him in the shoulder. “Good job! I knew she’d be a fit for you, because I had heard Karen describe her as ‘kind of a dork.’”
“Yeah…it’s great you’d hear that and think immediately of me.”
“By the way, sorry to ditch you, but I decided Karen and I had other business we needed to attend to…if you know what I mean.”
“You went for ice cream?”
“Whipped cream was involved.”
Terrance looked back to his computer. “I’m going to exit the conversation now. But thanks for setting me up with Shannon. She’s…great.” The little thought at the back of his head started needling him again. “What do you know about her job, though?”
“Nothing. You’re doing something wrong if you’re tangling with those people.”
Sidequest: In Realms Ungoogled Page 2