Intergalactic 911: The Space Opera (Science Fiction, Part 2 of “Performance Review”)
This story is part 2 of Performance Review. To read part 1, click here.
About 70% of missing persons are found within the first three days. Only 3% are missing longer than a week. Beyond that, the chances of finding them alive drop to something near 0%.
Ted had been missing for a month.
Balancing a job in Intergalactic 911 with the emotional nuke of a friend getting kidnapped was rather…difficult. Zed’s supervisor gave him a few days off when the kidnapping first happened, but they were severely understaffed, even more so now that the human-led terrorist attacks doubled the amount of calls. Protocol dictated Zed should have a full two-weeks off paid with optional counseling. Zed took three days and was going stir crazy at home. Plus it didn’t feel right to have so much time off when the call center was being bombarded.
“Intergalatic 911, what system are you in?” Zed had uttered the phrase at least a few thousand times by now, and he was only in his second year of call taking. A voice changer worked on his end so the caller on the other line wouldn’t know he was human. That started to be a problem a few days into the terror attacks, and his supervisors told him to keep using it “just in case.”
“Hi, I uh…I’m in System 4H72, planet K5, city of Shim.”
A 72er. Haven’t had a call from this system in a while. “And your address?”
“2395 Mirror Port Stream, Shim.”
Zed had the caller repeat the address, as was protocol, then asked, “What is your emergency?”
“I don’t really know if this is an emergency, and I apologize if it’s not, but there’s a lot of space cars parked outside this warehouse that still has ‘For Lease’ signs posted outside. I hope I’m not causing trouble, it just seems really odd.”
“Have you seen anyone going in and out of the warehouse?”
“Yeah uh…I hope this doesn’t sound racist, but uh…I’ve seen like a dozen different humans going in and out.”
Zed sighed internally. “OK, are you in a safe location?”
No response.
“Sir, are you in a safe location?”
“Uh, yeah, I work in an office across the stream. I’m five floors up, top floor.”
Zed was already pinging for a response from the local Peace Officers. If they had time, they would check it out. But he couldn’t promise anything until he had more information.
“What is your name, sir?”
“[][][][].”
Zed blinked at his computer screen and rubbed at his eyes. The caller’s name was rendered in a series of square brackets. That wasn’t entirely weird. The computer usually transliterated names into a version of the Latin alphabet, but when that didn’t suffice, it would just use the caller’s native alphabet. This looked more like a glitch. He checked ATTABOY but the translator was STATUS: OK.
“Can you repeat that, sir?”
“[][][][].”
What in the space heck.
“Sorry sir, can you please say that one more time? My translator is having issues.”
Call dropped.
“Shoot shoot, bang bang,” Zed muttered. ATTABOY popped up the reminder to “Follow protocol and call back! Failure to call back can–” Zed pressed the hotkey to close the reminder, then the hotkey to call back.
“Thank you for calling OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Industries.” The O sound was a long, drawn out syllable with an operatic tune ranging through different notes. Common amongst the Warbelians, or as the human slang would have it, the ‘fat ladies.’” “A customer service representative will be with you shortly.”
Zed softly thumped his head on the back of his chair. Protocol insisted he wait to speak with someone and ask about the person who called.
“You are the 1,082nd caller. Estimated wait time is 153 minutes.”
That was not great. Zed couldn’t tie up his line for that long, especially if someone needed aid. He finally got a response form the local Peace Officers who said they could check it out, so he relayed the information about the warehouse and office building and asked them to take a look and see if they could find the caller. They sent a message asking for the name of the caller, so Zed typed [][][][] and sent it back.
Within a minute, they asked for a verbal confirmation of the name.
“Left square bracket right square bracket left square bracket right square bracket left square bracket right square bracket left square bracket right square bracket.”
The Peace Officer didn’t respond, but said he was en route. With that info, Zed was allowed to end the call and free up his line. He took a deep breath and worked his way into a good headspace for the next one, a ritual he needed after difficult calls, and now every call since Ted was kidnapped.
A few more calls came in before lunch. Nothing as weird as bracket man, but nothing serious. Zed set his status to “away” and went to the breakroom for lunch. He hoped there would be some coffee ready. He didn’t usually tank up mid-day, but he needed it. To his welcome surprise, the coffee machine had a baby, and with two machines brewing, there was enough for him to pour a large cup.
Garrney must have put in a request, Zed thought. The Supers like him.
“Whaaaaaaaat number?” Garrney’s voice burbled from the door of the break room. He moved over toward Zed with his humanoid-spaces-navigation-machine. HSNM, for short. Pronounced HOOS-num.
Zed raised his coffee cup slightly in a mock toast. “Five.”
“Shhheeee-oooot Zeddy! That’s three more than your usual.”
“It’s a ‘more than usual’ kind of shift. Thank you for convincing them to get us a second machine.”
“Wasn’t me. I think they saw how popular you made coffee around here.”
“My greatest accomplishments always seem to be unintentional.”
“Hey, any word on your friend?”
Zed shook his head.
“Sorry to hear that. I know I don’t look much like it, but I’ve lost friends too.”
“Ted isn’t lost.”
“Hm? I thought you said he was missing?”
“Yes but the way you used ‘lost’ made it sound like he was dead.”
“Oh. Word concept fallacy I guess. Thanks for setting me straight. Usually when I want to be set straight I have to flip this lever.” Garrney did just that, and the HSNM ratcheted and shifted his blob form into an upright, human shape.
Garrney always made the same jokes, but Zed still chuckled. His coffee-loving blob friend was trying his best, and more importantly, was still talking to him. Never brought up Zed’s race once since the terror attacks started.
“Can you explain something to me?” Garrney asked.
“Probably not.”
Garrney missed the joke. “I’ve been bingeing human movies and looking up what people say about them on the net. One was called a ‘Space Opera.’ But how could you have an opera in space? There’s no sound in space. Was this before humans knew that?”
Zed chuckled again. “No, they knew. But that’s just no fun.
“Ohhhhhh, now I get it.” A green light blinked on Garrney’s HSNM. “Oh, sorry Zeddy, I got to take this call. It’s the missus.”
Zed blinked as he watched Garrney go outside the breakroom. “Garrney’s married? What does that mean for a species like his?”
Zed’s mumbled question went unnoticed by the rest of the room. He sat down and checked his holopad. He had 55 glorious minutes of break left. Plenty of time to slowly savor the coffee and eat after. Breakroom coffee was rarely something that could be “savored” but Garrney was in charge of the supply, and he always got the best stuff.
Before Zed turned the holopad screen off, a text message popped up. The number was BLOCKED.
Only spam can be annoying enough to be blocked and still get through.
Zed’s fingers moved through the automatic motion of deleting the message, but before he got there, he saw the preview of the text and froze.
“[][][][]”
“Uh…what?” He swallowed hard. How…this is my private number.
Another text came in, this time the holopad said “preview unavailable.”
Zed turned off the screen and rested his head in his hands, elbows on the table. The side of his arm brushed up against the coffee mug and was warming slowly to an uncomfortable level, but he hardly noticed.
First I get a call with this strange message. Then it goes to my private phone. Zed looked up to see if anyone else in the breakroom was getting strange messages on their holopads, but the four people using theirs were just playing games.
My Super has my private number, and of course Garrney. But that wouldn’t explain the link to the call from earlier.
Zed booted up his holopad screen again. His muscle memory reached for his coffee as his free hand opened up the strange text.
Here goes. Virus ahoy.
The text body filled the screen. It was a jpg advertisement for 15% off Orc Slayer IPA.
Zed let out a huff of breath, relieved. That’s why the preview was unavailable. It was a photo. The text before was probably a photo and it just didn’t render.
Zed went to delete the spam text, but for the second time, he froze.
That’s Ted’s favorite IPA.
Zed closed the holopad and tried to reason away the improbable connection between the texts and the phone call. But a few minutes passed and he opened the screen to look at the text string again. “[][][][]” followed by the advertisement. He pressed the reply button. “Ted?” Before he hit send, he gave it a second thought. He deleted the text, and instead, typed in the name of Ted’s DnD character from the campaign Zed was running.
“Finn Armtaker?”
Zed closed the holopad screen, but he didn’t have to wait long for a reply.
“Aye.”
Zed’s holopad popped up a warning message. Zed panicked and thought he had received a virus, but when he checked it, it was a standard “your heart rate is rising” message. Working for Intergalatic 911, he got this message usually twenty times a week.
Zed texted back, “Left square bracket, right square bracket?”
“Aye.”
Now his heartrate was going crazy. “How can I help?”
No response.
Zed waited an agonizing five minutes, then abandoned the last half of his coffee and ended his lunch early. He returned to his desk but did not set his status to “ready” just yet. He pulled up the details from the Peace Officers regarding the last call.
“Address does not exist. PO went to the approximate address given by call triangulation. Residential area, no warehouses or office buildings.”
Zed scratched his forehead. Mr. Panadan, the alligator-like alien who now thought theism is about drinking coffee, took over the case while Zed was gone. That wasn’t great. If he punched in the request to take the case back, a Super would be notified. He would have to explain what was going on. And if it wasn’t for the texts to his personal phone, protocol would dictate the case stayed as is until another call came in.
Zed looked back at the call transcript. He pulled up the Full Function Search, or FFS,
and typed in system 4H72, planet K5, city of Shim. He already knew 4H72 didn’t have any CCTV, but there were satellite images. He cross-referenced the call’s triangulation, and the satellite image showed an overhead of an ordinary-looking neighborhood. He checked if there was a stream view, then zoomed into it, swiveling the 360 degree camera images and clicking down the streams.
It’s all homes. Just like the PO reported. Zed decided it was worth one more shot, and typed in the address. “2395 Mirror Port Stream.”
FFS responded. “No results. Did you mean 2395 Port Stream?”
Zed blinked at the message. He clicked on it, and the 360 stream view took him to a main stream flanked by restaurants, shops, and aliens with faces blurred out, frozen mid-step as they walked in and out of buildings. But no warehouses and no 5-story buildings..
What in the space heckin heck.
ATTABOY popped up the warning, “you have been back at your desk for 10 minutes and have not set your status to ready. A Super will be informed in 5 minutes. Remember, a Super coming to your desk can be an income catastrophe!”
Zed hit the hotkey to close the message. Time was up. He had to go back to lunch and forget about it. He got up from his desk, took one step to the break room, and stopped.
Zed whipped back around and pulled up the FFS. It’s a mirror. It’s backwards. He typed, “5932 Port Stream, city of Shim.”
The 360 stream view showed a tall office building on one side of the street, and a warehouse on the other side. There wasn’t a FOR LEASE sign outside, but the image was likely old.
Zed swallowed his nerves, ignoring the buzz from his holopad likely informing him his heartrate was up again. He pressed in the command to take over the case and waited for his Super.
The Gnodin did not keep him waiting.
“Zed Guarde? You are supposed to be on lunch right now.”
Zed turned to the green alien, knowing the Super was probably already reading his emotions, he cut to the chase. “I know, sir. But I got this strange call earlier, and I think someone is in danger and was using a code to tell me their location.”
The Super blinked, sideways eyelids slowly clearing dust from its large, blue eyeballs. “You seem very distressed by this, Mr. Guarde. Is there something you’re not telling me?”
Zed took in a breath. “Tell the truth.” The thought was his, but also felt like it came from someone else. “My friend, Ted, is an IT contractor for Intergalatic 911, and was kidnapped a month ago. I think he is trying to tell me where he is.”
“Then you should share your information with Mr. Panandan and let him finish the case.”
“I know, and you probably think I’m insane and breaking all kinds of protocol right now, because…I am. But I think Ted texted me on my private number after the call, and I think I am the best person equipped to handle this. I know you would probably be putting your job on the line if you said yes and something went wrong. And if…recent events have told you anything about my kind, it’s that sometimes we do crazy things that are dead wrong. But we also do crazy things because they are the right thing to do.”
“Things like putting your job at risk?”
“To save a friend? Yes.”
The Gnodin blinked again. He leaned over Zed’s desk and punched in the Supervisor override, then grabbed a spare office chair from one desk over and sat down. “Proceed.”
Zed sprang into action, dialing up the local POs and explaining everything over the phone, including his suspicions that this was involving a kidnapped Ted and the perpetrators were assumed armed and dangerous. His Super put on a headset and listened, his body perfectly still in a way humans could never achieve.
“Dispatch, we have ten POs on the way.”
“Received,” Zed answered. He wiped his palms on his jeans. If they don’t make me clear out my locker after this, I’m going straight for the spare shirt and deodorant stick in there after this call.
Ten minutes of sweaty silence later, the POs confirmed they arrived at the location.
God, please, protect those POs and Ted too. And if I can keep my job, that would be awesome.
ATTABOY suddenly started beeping like crazy. The Gnodin Super startled. That was rare. The communication screen popped up with three words.
Contact. Shots fired.
“Shit!” Zed mumbled. “I mean, crap!” He typed furiously to make sure the information was getting relayed to other POs in the system, including emergency medics. He wondered if this was going to turn into a hostage negotiation scenario like the call with the crazy guy who had a woman in his basement. The Super had trusted him last time with that one as well. God, please help.
A few more minutes of checking, double checking, and triple checking, then confirming that the appropriate help was informed and on their way. Zed nearly jumped when a call came in from the local POs.
“Status report?” Zed asked.
“Dispatch, Peace Officers returned fire on the warehouse. All Officers reporting OK, three dead and four wounded from the warehouse. A human identified as Theodore Wilkins has been recovered and is receiving medical attention, but is expected to be fine.”
“Thank God,” Zed said, then quickly added, “Received.”
The Gnodin touched his headset mic. “Shim Peace Officers, this is Super Kokinaught. I will be taking things from here.”
Zed wondered if he lost his job after all.
The Gnodin super muted his mic and turned to Zed. “Good work, Mr. Guarde. Please go take your lunch.”
“Yes sir, thank you sir.” Zed stood and steadied himself on the desk as his legs wobbled.
“Do you require medical attention?”
“I will be fine, I just need to sit in the break room and process this. Thank you, sir.”
The Gnodin nodded. Zed started for the break room.
“Mr. Guarde.”
Zed turned around.
“What I am about to say is off record.”
Zed nodded.
“Your kind is an interesting risk. I hope the recent conflicts resolve soon.”
From what Zed knew of Gnodins, that was high praise. “Thank you, sir.”
One week later.
“Natty twenty!!!” Ted roared as he stood, nearly knocking over his beer.
The three other players laughed and cheered.
Zed shook his head and chuckled. “OK, somehow, you manage to stop the three-hundred pound iron gate from crashing down, and keep it open just long enough for your wizard to gather up his robes and run out of the fort with the others.”
Ted pumped his fist in the air. “I drop the gate behind me, then wave my middle finger at the goblins and say, ‘not this time, uglies! No amount of iron can stop Finn Armtaker!’”
Zed nodded. “The goblins screech and pound helplessly at the gate, but you and your companions escape Devil’s Rock in one piece. And with that, we will end the night.”
Ted gave the other players a fist bump, then started packing up the playmat and the miniatures. Zed closed the Dungeon Master’s guide and slid it into his backpack, then grabbed the empty beer glasses and took them to the kitchen. Ted followed with five pizza-stained plates.
“You got sooooooooo lucky,” Zed said as he put the dishes in the dishwasher. “The book had the DC for that at 25.”
“Really?”
“I might have given it to you at 20 or better,” Zed explained. “But the fact that you critted it made it way more awesome.”
“I still would have had to get a 17 at least. Next level up, I’m putting it all into strength to get my mod up to +4.”
“Oh shoot, tell the other guys they can all level up before they go.”
“Sweet,” Ted said before going to relay the message. Cheers sounded from the living room. Zed returned with the empty pizza box and started the process of pizza-box-origami to fit it in the trash can.
“Everything still good at work?” he asked.
“Yeah. No one’s said anything about it, except Garrney. He gave me a pat on the back that nearly knocked me to the ground. His Hoosnum needs to be recalibrated, and I think he knew that.”
“Good. Good good. I…uh…” Ted scratched the back of his head. “I haven’t told you thanks because…honestly, a simple thanks feels like garbage after what you did. But I mean it, Zed. Thanks.”
“Having you back safe is enough for me, man.”
“Did you see the news yesterday? Looks like they rounded up the last of the terrorists.”
Zed put a cleaning packet into the dishwasher and closed the door. The machine beeped and water started flowing. “I try to watch as little news as possible these days, but yeah, I saw that.”
“I have to testify against them sometime next year I think,” Ted said. “They told me if I testify, I won’t get in any trouble for the hospitals they made me hack into.”
Zed crossed his arms. “Imagine being a victim and getting told you need to obey so you don’t get punished.”
Ted chuckled. “Yeah, it’s dumb. But I did do some stuff that might have gotten people killed. And I want to testify. I mean, I actually don’t. I’m super nervous about it and would like to forget as much as I can. But I would still do it even if they didn’t threaten me with jail time.”
Zed grabbed a rag and started wiping off the sink. “I think that’s the right thing to do. Maybe repair some of the damage these guys did. Though, I have to ask…if you don’t mind…”
“What’s up?”
“Why were you so cryptic on the phone? And with texting me?”
“The dudes were running an AI crawler on all communications going out. Anything that had my name, or an exact address, or pretty much anything beyond what I told you–it would get flagged. If that happened, they were probably going to kill me.”
“You told me a lot about the address.”
“I hacked into the AI database to look for the flagged words, but I couldn’t change anything without admin access, which was linked to a thumbprint scanner. I know in the movies they knock the dude out and press his thumb on the thing, or like, cut off the hand and do it. But that was NOT an option. I was under pretty careful watch both by the dudes and the AI, so I had to be quick. The phone call I got to you was actually AI, too. I routed it through a residential area so it wouldn’t ping my location and alert the crawler.”
“That’s pretty savvy.”
“It took me forever. I had to work in quick, short bursts when they weren’t looking. And I’m so glad you didn’t use my real name when you texted back.”
Zed felt a bit pale. “Bro, I almost did. I think God was looking out for you.”
“Speaking of, haven’t you convinced like half the office that drinking coffee is how you communicate with God?”
“That was not intentional. And Garrney already reminds me about it nearly every day, so I don’t need to hear about it from you.”
Ted laughed. “Alright, but promise me you’ll give me the full story sometime.”
“Deal.”
Zed ran hot water over the rag, then wrung it out and set it on the edge of the sink. “You’re pretty lucky, you know that?”
“Uh, yeah. I rolled three natural 20s in a row.”
“No, I mean you came back. Alive. Uninjured. The odds of being missing for a month and being found alive are…” Zed paused.
“More or less than rolling three 20s in a row?”
“Possibly less.”
“Hey, catch!”
Zed turned just in time to stop the Orc Slayer IPA from falling to the ground. He held the cold beer and eyed the pop top. “I’m opening this over the sink now.”
Ted laughed as Zed carefully cracked the beer, sipping up the endless foam that pooled up in the top of the can.
“Oh shoot!” Zed said as he swallowed the last sip of foam. “I forgot to tell you this is the last one, so you should have it.”
“I already know,” Ted said. “It’s yours, my friend.”
Zed paused, then smiled and raised the beer. “A toast, to Finn Armtaker, holder-opener of gates.”
Ted rushed over and filled a glass with water, then raised it. “Cheers!”
Thanks for reading! Interested in more Intergalactic 911? Click here to find out why everyone in the office thinks drinking coffee is communicating with God.
