The Overnight

Gerald has never worked the overnight shift. He may never again.

Gerald normally worked the day shift but since the big project was in the final stages, his bosses "suggested" he work the overnight shift to see if any bugs appeared.

 

Gerald showed up at the office and not another soul was around. He clicked on the lights and headed to his desk. Fourteen cubicles down turn left, then seven. He had a huge poster of a meteor slamming into Earth with small text saying, "So, you think you're having a bad day... look up." He didn't buy it 'cause of the saying, he just loved the artwork. He sat down and started running the monitoring program that would monitor the new installation and report to him if an error occurred in any of the processing.

"I don't know why I couldn't have run this from home. Damn management and there hands on approach. Just ticks me off." Gerald said aloud. At this point, he didn't care if he wasn't the only person here. Even though he knew he was. His boss was sound asleep.

Gerald decided that he would try working on some other tasks he had not gotten to because of some other management bull-puckey. He collated reports, sorted crap, and shuffled papers, anything to keep his eyes open. He set the program to page him if there were errors so he went off to get a coffee.

Gerald exited and started down the street to Starbucks. He didn't like paying four bucks for coffee but it was the only place open and he had heard that the nightlife around here was "interesting" to say the least. Maybe he would find something else to keep him awake.

Approaching the Starbucks Gerald began to see what they meant. There were hookers, drug dealers and bikers all over the place. This area of town was almost straight laced during the daylight hours. My, how things do change when the sun goes down. He walked into Starbucks and was greeted by a busty Asian hooker trying to convince him of her talents, Gerald refused. Getting to the counter the attendants' back was to him. When he, uhh, she... hell he didn't know. He thought "IT" was probably appropriate.

"Yeah, gimme coffee, black, biggest you got." Gerald said before he got the "tall, Grande, Gimnormous" crap.

"Okay. That'll be $6.50," it said.

"My God, plain ol' coffee? What, you importin' them beans from Mars now?'

"Nope, just supply and demand, man. We are the only place open, ya know."

"I see.", Gerald said while handing it a ten, "Gouge 'em while ya can, huh?" He didn't get an answer but didn't expect one.

Gerald was going to find a way to expense this crap. Just wait and see. He tried to leave but couldn't get past the busty Asian hooker and a biker almost make'n it in the doorway. "IT" told them to knock it off. Gerald decided to sit and take in the sites. Just sitting down and getting comfortable, his pager went off.

"Damn." Looking at it, Gerald saw that the monitoring program had errored out and now he had to leave. He headed towards the door and heard on the TV that he had not even noticed before that there was some sort of emergency. He stopped, as did everyone else. "IT" turned it up.

"... is heading towards Earth. We do not know if it's on a collision course yet. We're waiting on Washington to come out with some sort of announcement. Stay tuned for more on this breaking news." the nightly news reporter stated with as little emotion and he could possibly muster. Now everyone was looking at "IT" expecting "IT" to know more than we did. "IT" just shrugged, "Don't look at me. You heard as much as I did."

There was a geek in the corner. Gerald quick-stepped it over to him and tapped him on the shoulder. He had headphones on and Gerald could tell by the volume coming from the headphones that he had not heard anything. "Hey buddy. You got internet on that thing?"

Popping an earphone off one ear, he said "What?" in a slow sleepy drawl.

"You got internet on that thing"; Gerald was pointing to the laptop.

"Yeah, Starbucks has free WiFi when you buy a coffee. Why?" Gerald knew the geeks name was Derik because he was still wearing his name badge from the dayshift and Gortech.

"Derik, the news guy just said that something was headed towards earth. Find out what, how soon and what they expect. You're a pretty good geek, right?" Derik nodded "Good. Find out the stuff they don't want us to know yet." Derik got to work. Gerald tuned to the gathering crowd. It looked now like he was in charge. 
 
Everyone looked real scared. They needed something to keep them busy. Gerald assigned the busty Asian hooker to watch the TV for further updates. He told "IT" to make coffees for everyone, FREE. Starbucks could afford 15 coffees. The biker dude had taken himself over to Derik and they were talking some Internet lingo even Gerald didn't understand. Seemed like the biker dude was part of some underground group that dug up crap the government was hiding. Good pairing those two would make. We should have info quick.

"Oooo, oooo. Mista, tha news is back on, c'mere." said the Asian hooker, whose name was Josie. That's a strange name for an Asian girl.

"This just in, the comet is heading directly for Earth. Sources say it will hit tonight. They have not pinpointed with enough accuracy to issue any evacuation notices. Stay tuned."

Everyone turned to the corner booth where Derik and the biker dude were still surfing. "Well, whatcha findin' guys. We kinda need to know."

Derik started, " It is going to hit Earth.

The biker dude finished, "As far as the government not knowing, that's bull. They know, but the timeline is too short for a mass evacuation. They just ain't sayin'."

A silence fell over the coffee house. "Well..." Gerald said.

"The "comet", more like a small moon, is being estimated to hit somewhere between Washington and New York City. A "comet" this size will take out both cities and most of the Eastern US and some of Canada. Bad, bad, bad." Derik said. He kept repeating bad, softer and softer. His eyes were a stage between being half asleep and in total shock. Gerald knew why. They were right between Washington and New York City. People had hoped that nothing as tragic as 9-11 would ever happen to New York again. Well this was worse, much worse.

"How much time?" Gerald asked not really wanting to know the answer.

Derik was now in full shock. Biker dude answered "About two and a half hours. Not enough time to even get out of the impact area, this thing is estimated to be one-tenth the size of the moon. The net is jabbering about the after effects. This is bigger than what caused the last ice age. The scientists say that no one will live. Most sites are saying that the world governments are taking shelter. Whatever good that will do."

"What can we do? Do they say that?"

"No time. We just have to ask God to forgive us and wait." Strangely, no one panicked. They all seemed to understand that there was really no point.

They waited and drank free Starbucks coffee. The biker dude was some sort of minister. He led them all in a salvation prayer and even the hookers got saved. They watched the news reports of doom and disaster until the stations went off there air. They waited until minutes before impact, sobbing on each other's shoulders. "IT" had a name. Her name was Grace, figures.
Then they heard it breaking through the atmosphere. It sounded like metal twisting, glass shattering and breaks squealing all at the same time. The end had come. Gerald remembered his poster. It was not so funny now. Ironic though.

They waited for the impact in last final moments. Minutes passed, at least five of them, then ten. What was going on? The TV flickered on. The news was back on the air. It was some station hand who had never been in front of the camera before, no teleprompter, no script. Tears were coming down his face. "It, it, the comet disintegrated in the atmosphere. We, those of us who could not get home in time, filmed it coming in." he was sniveling, who would blame him. They cut to footage of a great ball of fire and black breaking through the atmosphere and just stopping, like some kind of force field had been put in the way. Not one small piece had gotten through. Gerald felt that the whole world had shouted a throng of glee at that very moment. He knew everyone in the Starbucks did.

Grace said she was quitting and going back home to Kansas.

Josie was going home too, to Texas to marry some guy she had left to come here.

Derik had passed out after the minister biker saved his soul. He didn't even know they were safe yet.

The biker was going to open a church.

Gerald went home, to bed.

The next morning Gerald was awakened by a call from his boss. It went like this.

Boss: "The new application is down and has been since 2:30 last night."

Gerald: "So."

Boss: "So. I am holding you responsible for ..."

Gerald: "I quit. My pagers at Starbucks." He hung up and went back to sleep with a smile on his face. He didn't care. Life was too short.

Author's Note

Written during an overnight shift waiting for any users to call in for support.

Reviews

[roarke]

So yer lookin' for a meteor to save yer Venti slurpin' butt. (shakes head)

Lots of character's in a short write is tough, double tough, but you pulled it off. I could see this going a bit longer, with more of the character's lives being revealed in what they did post meteor experience. You could put more twists in the story there.
I think you split the biker character up a little too much, biker, activist against gov., internet surfer, minister that fools around with asian hookers.....
Intro duce "Grace" sooner, don't use IT so much. She has a big part in the story.

This story is character and dialogue driven, it's fast, furious and tight in the turns. I think Keanu Rives should play Gerald in the soon to be movie... just sayin'.
good fiction.

[Buck West]

Nicely done. Keep on writing.