the giant glass windows that worked as the outside wall of the largest office in the floor. it was situated in a corner, allowing hi's boss to have a 180 degree view of the 5th ave of NYC. 15 floors down heavy traffic congested the streets and even though he could not hear the commotion of the street he already knew how it would sound down there. after living in the city for close to 5 years he had grown tired of the noise, the stinking streets, rats that jumped out of the trash bags that accumulated on the streets at the end of the day, the beggars in ever corner of the major streets and not a single tree could be seen, even central park had an ironic name to it. "park" he thought as he laughed to himself. Its just a bunch of grass with trees separated at a distance of at least 30 feet. And lets not talk about the subway. "best city in the world" my ass. its the biggest metropolis in the American continent and it has the worst public transportation system he had seen so far. and he had traveled since childhood.
if it was not clear by this point. He hated the city. each day his hatred grew stronger, like every New Yorker that lived here for long enough he had the feeling that he had to get out of here. problem is, you are to busy to even move away. Ironies of life.
his drooling got interrupted by the "owner" more like the Wife of the owner. she married some magnate 30 years older than her and managed to get this position "Head manager". life is so simple when you look like supermodel Peter though as he turned around to see what she wanted
"Those shelves will hold right?" she pointed at the shelving he just installed. using multiple studs and 4 inch screws. he was positive that he could even hang from them and they would not fall out, so he did, hanging from the outside edge his feet did not touched the ground as he stayed there for good 10 seconds, he could hear her gasp for a second when he did that, and wished he could see her face but she was behind him.
He was not a small man by any means, 6'3" 240 pounds, he was not a gym nut, but you could clearly see that all his years in construction had lead to him having a great amount of muscles.
"i think they will hold what ever you will put on them" Said Peter with a tired tone.
after cleaning after himself from all the dust and wood splinters on the floor he excused himself and left the "big boss's" office as he liked to call it, returning to finish what ever other work they had in list for him that day.
The entire building used to be a newspaper's printing factory, the ceilings where high, almost 16 feet, that is why it was bough by the company he worked for. they did Movie and TV show sets, he was called a "Production assistant" basically a glorified carpenter, from making fake walls to applying wall paper to even fixing electrical issues, his job had no limits, a "do it all" man.
Today they had to paint this box that would work as a set for some Juvenile Swim sketch, his supervisor tried to explain to him what it was about but words came in through one ear and exited through the other, he did not cared, the only thing that mattered to him was that it was three 24 by 12 feet walls and it would take him all evening to apply the two coats of paint needed, he cursed his luck silently in his mind.
as he covered the parquet floor with some drop cloths and took out the paint he saw the "big boss" strolling towards him in an angry manner. he sighted loudly, only thinking "what now?"
"Hey peter, after you installed the shelves i noticed that the cable does not work any more, the land line ether, did you fuck up some cable with drilling those holes?" she asked him in a condescending way, she was pissed, he could tell.
"that would be impossible, those walls don't have cables or pipes in them. the cables go through the fake ceiling we got" he said in a tired manner again, not believing how stupid she was. but who was he to judge, she had the looks, why did she needed to have common sense?.
She stood there for a few seconds staring at him as to waiting for a response
"well?... what are you doing here? go take a look at what is going on, i have a big video conference in one hour!" she reinforced the last two words as in to trying to make him hurry up. without success.
"you should talk this with the IT guy, he is in the server room" he pointed vaguely with his thumb behind him to a far away door that had a metal plate with the words "server room" written on it.
"you do it, i don't like that guy" Said the Big Boss as she stormed towards her office. Peter had guessed that it was because of the man's questionable hygiene. but was just a guess.
Slowly but surely he made his way to the giant office again, now carrying with him his tool bag, the big boss was standing in the middle of the room, arms crossed and with an annoyed look on her face, he ignored her and immediately started working, it was better this way. After checking the land line he confirmed that it should be working, at least the little lights flickered, yet the phone did not work. after bringing in a new cable and phone he realize that nether of those where the problem, he looked to the gigantic plasma and found no issues with the cable. after fetching a ladder and inspecting the fake ceiling with a flashlight, no chew marks from rats could be found. he had no clue, and that would piss her off.
He grabbed his work tablet, the one that was provided to him by the company and tried to search for a solution in Muggle, "oh saint Muggle, please help me" he thought as he hit search
Muggle Mercury search engine showed him a pixel art of a fox that informed him that he had no connection to the internet, he sighted loudly as he checked if he was connected to the WIFI, he indeed was, but the little yellow icon indicated that he had no connection to the internet.
"so?" the young woman asked in a sassy manner
"i need a second, be right back" Peter said as he left the office and headed towards the Server Room, after knocking lightly a few times he heard the man inside
"come in" sitting on an office chair sat Mark, a fresh graduate from Stanford who was a total nerd, instead of picking better jobs as an IT professional he chose to work for this company because they made his favorite Super Hero movies, funny enough today he wore a T-shirt that had the U logo of Ultraman a very popular comic hero, his hair was brown thick and curly, tied in a pony tail behind his head, a bit chubby, but you could only notice it if he sat down, standing his belly stretched and he just looked average.
He was not a bad kid. well for Peter to call him kid would be kind of a stretch since he only was 3 years older, but mentally speaking he was still like a teenager, all full of wonder and excitement. Peter liked the kid, from all the corporate assholes and actors with an ego the size of the empire state building he mostly interacted with him, for obvious reason. they where not close, but they did not hated each other's guts ether. Mark even got Peter to start playing Wizards the Gathering with him on Wednesday nights at the not so far away comic store(literally 3 blocks up the street), Peter was still a novice, but he would lie if he said he did not enjoyed it, it was like he was retaking back his teenage years. he started to work full time since he was 17, almost 10 years ago.
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For some reason Mark seemed nervous, which was weird in him, always relaxed and talkative.
"sup mark, I cant get to the internet, and the land line and cable in the big office is also gone" Said Peter as he leaned slightly against the door frame, never really entering the server room, the reason why? it was chaos personified, if you thought your room growing up was a mess you would be shocked at seeing the state it was in. it was not dirty, but everything was all over the place. Peter remembered something Mark said once {in all chaos there is always an order} or something like that, and to be honest, when he asked Mark for something he needed, he would find it in less than 30 seconds, the man had the memory of an elephant.
"yes about that..." Mark turned around and started typing down quickly, he alt tabbed to different screens and before continuing "its been like this for the past 40 minutes, i tried everything, reset the servers three times. diagnostics come all messed up and i cant even start to imagine what is going on right now. it might be an issue with the city even, since i don't have cell coverage ether" he said while raising his phone.
Peter took out his phone and also found out he had no reception.
"you think it might have been some terrorist attack and they have shut down all the networks?" asked Mark while turning around, his eyes went wide for a second before he coughed loudly
"what are you two talking about?" Asked the Big boss ass she had creeped up on them without Peter noticing.
"the whole system is down, not even cellphones work. i don't think there is nothing wrong with your office... in terms of hardware" said peter while turning slightly towards her as he spoke
"NOTHING WRONG?!" she screamed "I GOTTA TALK WITH WONDER STUDIOS ABOUT THE NEW [Z MEN] MOVIE!" she keep going at it, venting at Peter and then at Mark, making wild threats about us getting fired and reiterating on how useless we both where. This was all normal, both men ignored her and just looked at her while she was ranting, after a while she just left while still talking to herself
"Holy shit that was a long one" said Mark as he waived a magazine to cool himself down "good thing its not shooting day, if we where filming, and this happened i doubt she would have let us walk this quickly, today is only the 3 of us right?" asked Mark while frowning slightly
"Anastasia is in the prop department, she has to get some stuff ready for tomorrow, so its 4. I should head back before she returns and shits on my head for idling" as he turned around and before Peter had time to leave Mark spoke
"hey!, Tomorrow night, Wizards The Gathering?" Mark asked with an excited smile on his face
"sure, not like i got anything better to do on a Wednesday night, lets meet after work" After saying that Peter left the server room and closed the door behind him.
The next few hours went as expected, two of the the walls he was supposed to paint where drying and the third one was almost done, Peter took small break to drink some water and check if he had left any lines on the walls that where drying, without much surprise, he did a good job and the wall was painted perfectly, he checked his phone, 7:33pm. he calculated that he would probably finish by 10 with the second coat.
As he was about to get back to work the lights went off.
"what the fuck?" Peter muttered as he took out his flashlight from one of the pockets in his cargo pants, making his way to the breaker box, on his way he saw Mark who had his head leaning outside his server room asking what was going on
"i don't know, let me check" peter answered. after opening the breaker box he found that everything was in place, shortly after the backup generators that the building had turned on, only a small number of lights where working now, still enough to see your way around so Peter put his flashlight away.
"dude this is weird" said Mark while he was looking outside through a window.
All the lights where off, a few buildings with backup generators showed dim lights inside, others where completely black. as they looked down, the congested street was impossible to see, only a few cars had their lights on, but you could tell that the street was full of cars just most of them not working.
on the distance and through the thick glass there cold be heard the echo of a strange sound, it was like if your neighbor was throwing firecrackers on his back yard.
"are? are those gunshots?" asked mark as he pointed down the street. in between all the darkness you could see muzzle flashes
Peter wanted to say something but was interrupted by a scream from the other side of the filming set. where the prop department was.
"fuck!" Peter cursed as he rushed to see what else could be waiting for him on this legendary bad day.
to his surprise it was nothing good. Anastasia, the woman that worked for the Props department was running while screaming hysterically, chasing behind her there was a creature not taller than a child that looked like what rats would have become if they evolved to be bipedal beings, it had a crude loincloth and a knife in its hands, it was gaining on the woman, cutting her slightly and then backing up again, toying with her while licking his whiskers anticipating the meal.
Peter did not understood what was happening but he did not cared, that THING was trying to kill her coworker and therefore he even had a legal precedent to end the threat.
Anastasia and petter crossed paths, she did not stop for him. shortly after peter clashed with the RatMan. Much lighter in weight and size the beast was knocked back with Peter's momentum, it was stunned for a second, laying on the floor, it shook it's head to try to clear it, but before it had time, Peter grabbed one of It's legs and ragdoll pounded him against the wall.
the RatMan now with his fur all covered in fresh pink paint was very hurt, it tried to crawl away but peter just stomped on its head, as it was about to die, it screeched, so hard that peter almost had to cover his ears, he ignored the sharp pain in his head and kept stomping the head of the RatMan with his steel toe boots until it died.
The floor was a mess, black blood was starting to spill from all around the body of the Creature.
Before Peter could have a moment to rest, fellow screeches could be heard from down the hallway.
"Jesus fucking Christ" cursed Peter as he saw another 3 RatMan appear on the distance, from his tool's belt he took out his carpenter's hammer, after taking his shirt off and wrapping it around his arm as some sort of padded armor he got ready for the fight that was to come.