Unwilling Eldritch Horror of Fortune

The buzzing and ringing of alarms woke Ed up from his intoxication. He could feel the uncomfortable dampness from all the spilled booze, sweat, and various other bodily fluids from the prior night’s activities stick to his body, and he was not happy. Ed tried to get up but his head felt like a particularly rotund individual had just auditioned for a tapdancing routine on his skull, and he was pissed off to be brought out of his slumber in such a migraine-inducing way.

“Someone get that!” he half muttered, still trying to flush out the last of last night’s indulgences out of his system, “Where’s my damn staff? Margret? Where are you?”

Ed shoved the still-naked, unconscious men and women aside, sickened that these cheap hired toys could still enjoy the sweet oblivion of the dreaming world.

“Fucking hell!” he screamed this time, “Someone shut that damn alarm off!”

Yet nothing happened. No menial came in to help Ed dress, no one came with his morning bottle of liquor, and certainly no one bothered to shut off that fucking alarm. He was the damned head of Site 1100! Sure the Aspirants he was in charge of were considered the bottom-of-the-barrel goods, but he knew that things would change soon. He was someone important! How dare someone disturb his precious rest in such a stupid way? And where was his staff?

Forcing himself up to his feet, Ed stole one of the discarded robes off the floor and dressed himself. He had to take actions into his own hands, as loathsome as that would be. Someone was going to pay for making him do such worthless tasks, but he had to get that damned alarm shut down!

He walked into the hallway and saw that his usual Site was abuzz with activity. Staff were rushing to and fro, some with stacks of paper and other supplies in hand, others busy with long-distance communications, yet one thing was the same; not a single individual paid the Site Admin any attention. Worse yet, he didn’t even recognize most of the individuals rushing past.

Ed was furious. Why were these random lowlifes allowed into the inner sanctum of the Site? Normally only a select few would be allowed in, but clearly, that wasn’t the case today. How dare they trample on the sanctity of his refuge!

“You!” he grabbed one of the bustling workers by the shoulders, forcing him to stop, “What the hell do you think you’re doing? And why is my site in chaos?”

“I’m busy, please get out of my way!” was the only response that Ed got from the man.

Was this idiot blind? Sure Ed didn’t show himself around his Site too often these days, and he was currently dressed in nothing more than a stained bathrobe, but this person should still recognize their boss! It had only been a few cycles at most since he made that rousing speech at his inauguration ceremony... Or was that a few dozen cycles ago at this point? Ed wasn’t too sure, the various vices that he ingested on the daily had done more damage to his mind than he cared to admit.

But either way, Ed slammed the man onto the ground and shouted, “I’m the fucking Site Admin you fool! You do not command me!”

The worker looked at Ed as if he was insane, but any further confrontation was avoided when his assistant came and explained the situation.

“Margret!” he shouted, “What the hell is going on with my damn facility? I want this man fired, and get someone to turn that fucking sound off!”

All eyes were on the diminutive woman who came scampering into the scene. She had a mousy look, with her Restus suit having short scales and a rounded tail. She didn’t project the look of authority, at the current moment, but no one here dared to underestimate the woman, for the rumors of her conduct when she was away from the prying eyes were horrifying. The bustling people quickly left the scene when it was confirmed that the bathrobed man actually was who he said he was.

“I apologize, sir!” Margret answered quickly, “I will ensure that the appropriate punishments are enforced.”

“I don’t care about that!” Ed groaned, “Someone turn off the damn alarms!”

“Unfortunately that’s not possible, sir.”

Ed slapped the woman across the snout, “This is my Site! How dare you tell me what can and can’t be done!”

Margret bowed low, but anyone near her could hell the seething rage that boiled just under the surface of that ill-fitting guise. The fact that Ed was completely oblivious to this was concerning to the extreme, but everyone working at Site 1100 knew that they were employed at a dead-end Training Facility. No one knew why Margret chose to stay in such an abusive environment when she had so many other options available to her.

“I apologize again, sir,” she repeated, “But the alarms cannot be stopped by anyone other than the Site Administrator. That is you, sir.”

“Fuck!” he shouted again, “You should have said that first! Take me to the damn thing so I can get back to sleep!”

“Right away, sir.”

Ed shoved his way through the rushing crowd of people, completely oblivious to their movement, or even contemplating why there was so much activity in the first place. His only thought was to get the blazing siren turned off so he could go back to his warm chambers and into the embrace of his various lovers.

The two arrived at the control center of Site 1100 soon after. Like the rest of the site, it was equally crowded with panicking individuals trying to get various problems dealt with as quickly as possible. Some of the staff who recognized Ed nodded to him quickly, but most were so swamped with tasks that his presence was a mere afterthought.

No one dared to ignore Margret, however.

“Alright, where’s the damn thing to turn off the alarms?” Ed said as he forced his way into the center of the command room.

Margret nodded and typed something into the terminal in front of Ed - the one in charge of Site 1100’s main controls and the Site's only access to Central’s Origin Matrix.

The woman typed quickly and efficiently, as if she had done so a million times before even though this terminal should only ever be accessed by one individual, and presented the Admin a password prompt, “You just have to put in your credentials there, sir, and it will override the system.”

Ed didn’t even bother reading what was on the screen before jamming his stubby little claws into the reader. It took him a few tires to get the information right, his trembling digits didn’t make inputting precise keys easy, but eventually, the screen changed and to his blessed relief, the sirens stopped. He sighed, enjoying the beautiful silence.

“Would you like a status report of the situation, sir?” Margret asked, although she already knew the answer from similar interactions with the man.

“I’m too important for such base tasks,” Ed spat, “If there’s something wrong with the damned Site, just send in the Overseer’s extra help and take care of it! I have the leader of the Central Collective backing me up, I don’t need to deal with this shit!”

Margret bowed, “Of course, sir. I take it you will be returning to your chambers?”

“Yes,” he shouted and stumbled his way back towards his room, “And get me more stims, the really good shit from last time. The yellow ones.”

“Sorry, sir, but we don’t have any more-”

Ed stopped in his tracks and slapped his assistant again, “Well then get more! Do I have to spill everything out to you? Fuck, you are all so damned incompetent! Get me more by tonight or I will report you all to the Overseer and have you gutted! Now get the fuck out of my sight!”

Ed mumbled more curses under his breath as he drunkenly scampered back into his den of debauchery. Everyone let out a sigh of relief having seen the “Site Admin” gone and out of their hair. The once demure assistant’s entire person changed once Ed was well out of the room. Her back straightened, her posture commanding, and the unmistakable air of someone who was not to be messed with replaced her old aura of passivity.

“Give me a damned report on the situation,” Margret commanded, “And spike that fucking piece of shit’s drugs with something harder this time. I want him out of the picture until this is dealt with.”

Someone nodded and immediately left to take care of the worthless Site Admin, while another man came up to give his report.

Margret’s second in command, a stout individual with flaking scales, came up to her and saluted, “Ma’am!”

Margret nodded for him to continue.

“The rebelling Restus have overwhelmed the initial forces sent to deal with them and are now bee-lining it to our position. All attempts to monitor their activities have failed and we have to rely on personal reports about the situation.”

Margret cursed under her breath. She knew that relying on outdated tech would bite them in the tail one of these days, and it just had to be the one time that the damned Overseer of the Central Collective decided to take an interest in this particular set of Aspirants. She cursed her luck; this would derail her plans for at least half a cycle. Unless…

“Say,” Margret began, “Just double checking, but did the Overseer know about our plans for this Site?”

Her second thought for a moment before shaking his head, “There has been no indication of such. I wasn’t present at the meeting between Ed and the Overseer, but our spies probed the idiot for information. As far as the information we have goes, the Overseer barely spent more than a minute with Ed, and only to left him with our current instructions for the Restus.”

Margret nodded slowly, “I see, so it would be a safe bet that the Overseer is uninformed about our activities here.”

“I can’t see why he would bother with such a low-ranking Training Site like ours,” the man continued, “Even if he showed some interest in the Restus.”

“Hm, good,” Margret continued, “But I want to be sure that’s the case. Send a team to review all the information we have about Ed’s meeting with the Overseer, and make sure that the information you just gave me was correct. If what you say is true and the Overseer truly doesn’t know, or more accurately, doesn’t care about our operations here, then I think I can speed up my little coup faster than originally anticipated.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

“And ensure that any future investigations into the operations here all point to the failings of the Site Admin, although I don’t think that will be too difficult of a task,” she added, “Also ensure that you wipe out our activities thoroughly. Leave no traces of anything that can be traced back to us behind.”

The man chuckled, “Given the equipment that we’re using, most of the work’s already done for us. Will the Origin Matrix prove a threat to our operations though? I cannot make changes to that.”

Margret thought for a moment but ultimately shook her head, “Our access to the Matrix is already tenuous as is; I don’t think too much of its resources are allocated to our operations here. Perhaps more has been done since the Overseer’s visit, but we’ve been careful to hide our tracks since then. We are fine in that department. Plus, it’s not like we are exaggerating the Admin’s behaviors.”

Margret’s second in command saluted, “Understood, ma’am. I will ensure that your commands are met.”

“Good,” Margret smiled, “Get on it then. I just received unlimited access to the Emergency Protocols of this Site, and I believe that I best get to using it to the fullest extent while I still can. A situation like this doesn’t come up all that often, after all. You’re dismissed.”

The second in command saluted one last time before rushing out the door to perform his various tasks.

Margret scanned through the plethora of new commands at her disposal now that the Site was officially undergoing a crisis situation, and the smile on her face turned into a wicked grin. Well, if the Overseer was so keen on ensuring that the Restus of this specific quadrant was kept alive, then what would he do if he found out that one incompetent individual screwed it all up?

And better yet, if the man in charge of everything really was oblivious to the inner workings of Site 1100, but was forced to investigate Ed’s past, then maybe that slight anger will turn into total outrage. The key was to just stay away from the destruction that was sure to hit the Site and come back once the dust had settled. Someone else needed to run the Site, after all, and who better to take that position than Margret? She had long ago already ensured that she was the only one capable of filling that position.

Margret typed away at the terminal, humming a happy tune as she plotted the demise of these little insignificant lizards. Things will be interesting in the coming days.

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