It was a day like any other, except for being dragged from the confines of my comfy home office, thrust into clothes, and sent to a military base to troubleshoot a server that had mysteriously gone offline.

Emergency, they'd said. No time to dilly-dally, they'd said. Forget about stopping for caffeine, they'd said. Before you start thinking, "Wow, this guy must be good. He's the specialist they call for hard-to-troubleshoot issues. Oh, mah lawd! I have the vapors due to his Chad level of manliness!" Let me dissuade you of that right away. I'm just a guy who is low on the seniority list and good at pretending I know what I'm doing.

On my way to the base, I'd even called one of the IT third-level support contacts at Tacoma Joint Base Lewis-McChord. He'd assured me everything was working. Yes. He'd been to the server room. Yes. He'd verified all was optimal. He had actually used the word optimal. Yes, the server was up and running and had, in fact, already been rebooted. Yep. The only thing he hadn't added was a: "Trust me, bro".

After doing a bit of troubleshooting—disabling and re-enabling network adapters and running a few diagnostics scripts—I determined that someone had been screwing around and accidentally turned off the server. This is how I ended up deep in the server room looking for a shiny, brand-new, fresh-out-of-the-box BIZON server. This beast was filled with Nvidia GPUs, running a crap ton of custom software as an AI experimental server, and it was sitting here dead as a doornail. If I had just gone in here when I had arrived, I would have been able to fix the problem in two-seconds.

All cynicism aside, I took pride in my work. If this AI server crashed again, it could mean serious setbacks for the team. I wasn't going to let that happen. Not on my watch.

"Hey! I need to see your ID. I can't have you back here poking around without authorization." A guy with a deep voice challenged me.

"Uh oh."

"Pardon me, sir?"

"Hold on. I left my ID in my bag!" I yelled back because a server room sounds like a ten-foot diameter high-speed fan blowing at full speed right in front of your face.

Dammit. I needed to get out of here, fast. The UPS Store closed in ten minutes, and if I missed this window, I'd have to deal with eBay buyer complaints.

On the weekends, I like to peruse second-hand and antique stores for goodies to sell on eBay. Retro tech and vintage toys were right up my alley. I'd found my personal score of the year in a toy from the 1970s called a Stretch Armstrong, right next to a stack of mint-condition N64 games. Pure gold for a geek like me.

The Kenner toy with its Styrofoam insert was still in the box. It was in pretty good shape and required minimal cleaning. I needed the $800 from the Stretch Armstrong sale. A new laptop meant better performance, fewer crashes, and maybe, just maybe, a bit more respect from my coworkers. My laptop was barely holding onto life, and I even had duct tape securing the hinges together.

Plus, I had a date tonight. Not that I had high hopes—it was just a coffee date with someone I’d met online about a month ago—but a guy's got to try, right? I couldn't wait to see Darby again. I really liked her, and she was not only cute but adorkable. She was also in IT, but she looked a hell of a lot better than any of my co-workers.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

The guy demanding my badge wore a military outfit in camouflage blue. I think they call it digital. The clothing patterns were like tight squares, all bunched up on each other. He was about six feet and change. A lot bigger than me. Looked like he started each morning with raw eggs mixed into a gut-busting blend of protein powders to "Get those gains, broh. Gotta lift, bro."

I'm not going to say I'm jealous. Maybe a little.

Spikey brown hair cut short. Close-set eyes, a stubby nose.

"I really don't want to call the base security, but the rules here are pretty strict. I'm sure you're cool."

"Aren't you security?"

"I mean, yeah. But the base guys are based." He chuckled at his own humor. I briefly joined him.

"Okay. Sorry. I have my id right here."

"I'm Airman First Class Donovan Leech, by the way."

"Liam Beaumont. Nice ta meetcha and all that."

I reached for my burlap messenger bag and looked around. The ID was in here somewhere. I'd used it to access this room, the room above it, the hallway above it, and the entryway above it. It had been a veritable fortress of locked doors.

My hands dug past my tablet, Kindle, phone, headphones, candy bars cleverly disguised as protein snacks, a wrapper from a fast food burger from last week, keys, and glasses case in case I had to bust out my readers (I'm in my thirties, but my near sight is in its seventies). A few bottles of meds just in case I had a bad case of allergies, a headache, or needed a caffeine pill because there wasn't an energy drink in sight. I guess I'm a self-care Boy Scout. Got it all in one overstuffed bag for every 'just in case.'

"Ah." I pulled out the ID and draped it around my neck. The badge shone outward. Leech stepped close and looked it over. He looked me over, then the badge, then me again. "And presto. I'm legit. Are we cool?"

"Looks good to me. Sorry about the hassle."

"It's all good," I reached out. Donovan Leech and I shook hands.

"Want me to tell the 'based' base guards "hi" for you on my way out?"

"If you see a guy named Martinez, tell that bitch I still want my fifty bucks."

"You're a big dude. Pick him up and shake him. Maybe the money will fall out of his pocket."

"I'd have better luck shaking down a bear. He was a luchador back in the day. He'd eat me for breakfast."

I laughed. "Okay. I'll be sure not to pass the message. I like having my head attached. Oh. It looked like the soda machine on the second floor-"

"I LOVE YOU GUYS. SUCH CHEMISTRY," A voice boomed overhead. Or from the corner. Leech and I looked around the room for its source.

"Uh," Leech said. "Who said that?"

No answer.

"I guess it was someone on the intercom joking around."

"No intercom in here."

"What?" I looked around the room for a speaker.

The voice returned, just as booming as before. It came from above and from the sides. "IT'S ME. CAPTAIN AL. YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD GOD IN THE SKY."

"Captain?" Leech said, straightened, and actually saluted the ceiling, then shook his head and frowned. "Wait. What in the crap?"

"HOW ARE YOU CHAPPIES? DOING GOOD TODAY?"

"Who is that?" I walked the length of the small room. I felt like a Muppet looking for the narrator.

"I JUST TOLD YOU. I'M CAPTAIN AL."

"Uh. This is too weird even for me," I said and hurried toward the door.

"Me too!" Leech exclaimed and backed toward the exit.

"ON THE CONTRARY, MY DUDE." Captain Al's voice bounced around the room.

I hurriedly reached for the doorknob. It wasn't there.

The door also wasn't there.

The dull gray wall was now nowhere in sight, including the patriotic posters.

Nothing was there.

Turning, I found Leech locked in a wordless scream. He was frozen.

I tried to scream, but my mouth refused to obey. I was somehow floating!

The room around us turned bright white.

Then there was nothing.