Wednesday August 26, 2020

It wasn't as bad as I had thought. The house was nice. I moved into a house on the corner that was in a neighboring burrow. It has a great big backyard that Angelica enjoys romping about in.

I decorated my ill gotten home in a style that was familiar to me. My roots were still in the north. It snows here, but snow is a fact up north. I have heavy blankets on the wall, as my grandmother taught my mother, who taught me. It is to keep the cold out. It was a Russian tradition that just passed on. I have the large carpets that I was familiar with as well. I went with the more simple furniture that Kaylin favored. She liked simple, but she also favored bright chairs and tables. Yellows and oranges were something she really was obsessed with.

It probably wasn’t the best thing to do, purchasing furniture that reminded me of her, but it still feels comforting for the moment. It was helping me deal with the fact that I am stuck here in this primeval pit of doom.

I have not heard from home yet. The university is still paying me, they are still covering all of my needs, and I am still able to submit work, but there is still radio silence.

This should be a very happy moment for me. I have collected a little nest for myself. I am feeling more and more at home. I am purchasing things that make me happy that reminded me of back home. Even with all that it doesn’t seem like I can make this place feel like home.

There are some things that I agree with when it comes to the influence of a person like me, a person from another dimension that has an understanding of life and the events possible can shift things from one social direction or another. Sure. We can. Honestly, here, I could show the people as much proof as I can, but they would likely just deny it.

Because of such theoretical influence, I’m not supposed to be on social media. I could supposedly shift society here, and maybe that’s true. Maybe. I don’t think that the university really understood where they were sending me. Sure. In theory they did. However, this was no longer theoretical, this is fact.

The fact is, these are people that have allowed corporate greed to dominate their society so directly, they are born into debt, denial, and an obsession for stuff.

I hear Angelica outside, spinning the fence topper rolling bars that keep her within the yard. She desperately wants to get out of her confines to explore the neighborhood. Back home? Sure thing. Here? Nope. One of these damn plague monkeys might let their runny nosed brat pet her while she’s on a walkabout.

I open the sliding glass door and look out over the yard. I have planters set up and I plan to pick up soil when the weather gets better. I have a lot planned for the garden. I enjoy putting my hands in the soil, something I wasn’t really able to do here before. They planned to keep me in that wretched apartment to the day my contract ended. I wasn’t too upset with that when I could visit home from time to time. Kaylin and I had a nice garden back there.

I choke up a little when I gaze upon the backyard in my mindseye and imagine the plants that she and I would have plotted for each area. She would have had strawberries, blueberries, and several pineapples cut from the tops of the fruit and set to grow a cloned plant in the mossy soil that she would tend until the plant was established.

I agree with a lot of the rules the university requires us to live by. There are, however, some codes and agreements that I think are outright asinine. The one that I have been shuffling my thumbs over was a code that I normally would agree with, but right now, if I’m marooned? Is it really so bad if I look up Kaylin here?

I have made myself a flurry of social media profiles to search out tertiary friends, classmates, coworkers, and such. I even looked up a few exes before I started to question whether or not I should look them up.

I take my smartphone from my pocket and unlock the screen. I have 56 friend requests, and they are all pretty girls that claim to know me from school. I delete all of them. I click the search bar and begin the debate again.

My notifications pop up again with a chat permission request. This almost always ends up being some troll account that is attempting to gain access to my profile or convince me to send them money. I bring up the profile and they have no friends, no pictures, and a name of John Smith.

I open the chat and read the message.

“Frederick Alginon, you are in breach of your contracted limitations on social media for all extra dimensional research staff,”

I was gobstopped. These assholes can ignore all my emails, all my requests for direct contact and not send me a reply, but they have the time to slap my hand in chat?! NO!

“Are you with NAU?” I fire back.

“I am with NAU. You are in violation of your signed contract that specifically forbids the use of facebook, myspace, and all dating applications,” John replies.

“Why have I not been given a single reply to all my inquiries? Why have I not received a single email from home? Why has no one contacted me about my lockdown here?”

“Frederick. Get off of the red flagged social media applications, delete the accounts, remove the apps from your phone and I will send you an email that will give you an update to our current situation. There are no Alginons here boy. Did you honestly think we weren’t going to check here from time to time? I will send you an email in an hour,”

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I was clenching my jaw. It feels like this jerk is talking down to me, but if I were managing teams of people and one of them went this off-book, I could understand. This is just bad management.

“I’ll close them up. I expect your email within the hour.” I reply and begin my work closing each of the accounts that this John Smith obviously knows about. I can’t believe I used Alginon. Man, that is some basic as shit and I fell for it. This place must be messing with my head.

***

I waited for the chime. It had been over 50 minutes by this point. I check my watch and see that my heart rate was in the 120s. Super.

“Come on, come on. You’ve got mail. You’ve got mail,” I say out loud.

My speculation begins going wild. I can be sent home as punishment. Screw it. That sounds great at this point. I haven’t done anything to merit criminal charges, I think.

I head to the kitchen and grab a strawberry fizzy water to help me with my nerves. It doesn’t mean that I am in major trouble, does it? What’s the worst they can do, hit me with a fine? This place is turning into hell, getting out of hell would be worth a year in prison if it came down to it.

“You’ve Got Mail.” The chime rang.

I took out my phone and checked the inbox to see who it was.

“NAU Researcher F. Alginon Violation of Terms of Agreement”

NAU Audit Manager <[email protected]> to me:

Fredrick,

You have multiple violations of your agreed terms of extra dimensional travel. At this moment, I am not going to report this back to the university, because it is a stressful time and there are a lot of mitigating factors that are on your side.

Fred. I’m the beancounter who gave you enough money to buy that pretty house on Beaver Dr. I am currently the benefactor of your monthly payment to the mortgage. In short Fred, I am your friend. That boost for the hotel? That was me buddy. So, now that you know you owe me, I am going to give the rest of this as straight up as I can.

There was an issue with the connection, I am sure you noticed the last month or two that we haven’t been getting mail or reports, etc. I am unsure of the reasons for that beyond that they were discussing an evacuation from 16-J and that the order never came through the network.

You are not alone here. Stop behaving like you are. I am sorry I didn’t message you all sooner, but I was just as in the dark as you are.

Right now, funds are still coming in and we aren’t in danger of getting tossed out in the street. Per protocol, we are not supposed to have had this conversation. Your reports are still going somewhere, I assume, so continue your reporting. Sooner or later the connection will be reestablished and when that happens there is going to be an audit of everything that happened, my justification for intervention and expanding fund withdraws. I am going to have to explain everything that we are going through.

You have reports to write, so do I. You aren’t alone, but you can’t communicate with the other research staff members, yet. I can tell you there are more than a few around and they are likely having similar issues to you. I am emailing each today, seeing as it seems I put it off for too long by now.

Keep yourself busy. I am sure there is a backlog of emails that are waiting to be delivered on the other end.

I read the email a few times before I decided it was good news. What the hell is this dude’s name? Audit Agent 023? That’s not a damn name. No. It’s good news. I am not alone. That’s the big win here. Hell, he even thinks the house is a good idea or something.

Angelica scratched at the back door. I head over and let her in while reading the email a third time.

How many more researchers are here? I hit reply. I start a rambling draft of basic nonsense and accusation. Then I peppered in a bit of anger at the lack of communication, I even insulted the man's genitalia a few times.

I discard the first draft and start a reply with a nice neutral statement of facts.

Re: NAU Researcher F. Alginon Violation of Terms of Agreement

NAU Audit Manager,

Well I suppose that is all nice, well, and good. Thank you for the house. I have a guest room if you are in the area and you need a place to sleep. My cat is a mean cuddler. I suppose business as usual can happen, but you have to admit it is hard to be just cut away and be left to fend for myself.

I disagree that the no contact declaration which was required while we could get home, should be respected. We may be marooned here. It might be nice to talk to someone that isn’t a barbarian. I hope you come to see as I do and you may actually come and visit. It has been very lonely since the doors slammed shut back home.

I look forward to your reply, NAU Audit Manager. I appreciate the warning and communication.

I hit send and hoped for the best. Kaylin has moved on sure. I can accept that. This isn’t me trying to return home to chase after her, this is me missing my family, my friends, my life back home. This is me missing home. This is me wanting to go home, take Angelica with me, my time here is over and there isn’t anything more I can witness, but this planet's destruction and frankly I don’t want to witness that first hand.

“Business as usual. Okay. I can do that.” I say aloud. The cat is meowing at the door.

“I just let you in!” I shout.

Okay. This is stressing me out. I look for my medication. My field of vision gets fuzzy and I see stars. I try to calm down with my breathing exercises. They’re not working. I feel dizzy. I feel myself falling. I think I hit the ground, though I’m not sure. I feel euphoria washing over me. Angelica is licking my nose. I think that’s her. My eyes won’t focus.

When I sit up it’s past dark, that or there’s a storm.

What time is it?

I look at the stove clock. It’s now eight. I take out my phone and check for any new emails. I have more than a few, including a reply from NAU Audit Manager. My head went wonky again.

Oh this isn’t good at all.