The alarms had been blaring for two minutes and thirty eight seconds when he called the security line.
‘Oh Christ, what’s going on?’
‘Please hold while we connect you to an operator.’
He frowned. Why did he need to be connected through the internal system? Surely there’s just a guard stationed somewhere nearby in the facility.
A man appears on the screen in the wall, sitting himself down in a living room with a mug of something in his hands. ‘Morning.’
‘Oh thank God, something’s going on.’
‘Hm,’ the man says between the uncomfortable audio blips of pressing a trackpad too hard. ‘Extradimensional leak on floor eighty two.’
‘Oh God, that’s bad isn’t it?’ He paused to frown. ‘Hold on, I think I’ve been put through to the wrong line. I need to speak to security.’
‘I am security,’ said the man, slurping from his mug.
‘But you’re- you don’t look like you’re in the facility.’
‘We’re all work-from-home now.’
He gawped. ‘I- then how are you going to contain all this? How are you going to get me out of here?’
‘I’m not,’ said the security man. ‘You are. Now listen carefully.’
Paddy Dobson
19th December 2023