There was a time when bad things would always happen to anyone else, but never to you. Nowadays, being touched by violence of some sort is assumed, and there’s something strange about hearing of someone who came out of life unscathed. I was petrified when a gunman came into our school cafeteria, and took us all hostage. I was actually more surprised that he seemed to want something other than to hurt people. He didn’t look frazzled or pissed off at the world. It was more like a job to him. We did what he said, crouching under the tables, facing inwards, heads curled in, like it was a pointless a Cuban Missile Crisis drill. I wondered why he didn’t confiscate our cell phones, but when I saw several students fail to find a signal, I guessed that he was using some kind of jammer. That felt like overkill—pardon the insensitive pun—but again, he never told us what he wanted. He kept us there for two hours, asking nothing of us but to be quiet, and stay put. Eventually fear subsided, and kids started playing offline games. We could hear other students walking around the hallways, but no stomps of Federal agents, or cries of shock. When he was done with us, he removed the chains from the doors, and let us go. I stayed behind out of morbid curiosity, waiting to see him kidnap one of my classmates, or plant a bomb, but he just sat down at one of the tables, and started watching security feeds on his laptop. We slowly moved towards class, wondering if we had just experienced some mass hallucination. Our teacher marked us as tardy when we finally arrived, and had no idea what we were talking about. One girl I knew for a fact was there with us also acted unaware. I couldn’t tell if she was covering her ass, or had legitimately lost her memories. Our persistent claims that we were just in a hostage situation only made our teacher madder, and we were given detention. When the bell rang, I went back to the cafeteria. The hostage-taker was still there, not at all concerned that he would get in trouble. I snuck up behind him, and listened to his conversation on the phone. “Yessir, the field test worked perfectly. The artificial spatio-temporal dimension will allow us to operate surveillance facilities completely undetected. The rest of the school was totally oblivious to what was happening, and the hostages ultimately forgot as well...except for one. I agree, he would be a perfect candidate for running this region’s program.” He twisted around, and gave me a wink.
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The Advancement of Mateo Matic
Now that the lineup has been irreversibly established, and their reliance upon the direction of any external force removed from the equation, Team Matic must decide for themselves what missions to take. As they approach the year that changes everything, they may find themselves on a long detour.
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My name is Nick Fisherman III. It's not my real name, but that's not because I'm trying to hide from my former agency, or something. I named myself after someone I've known for most of my life, and he chose it in honor of his late best friend. I took up writing when I found myself failing 8th grade science, and realized I might never reach my dream of becoming a biochemist, a meteorologist, and a quantum physicist. I started developing my canon after a scouting trip to an island inspired what I thought would be my first novel. I founded this website upon the advice of many people, who told me I needed to get my work out there, and not wait for an agent to accept my manuscript. You can expect one new story every day. Weekdays are for microstories, which are one or two paragraphs long. They're usually only thematically linked, so you won't have to read one to understand another, but they do sometimes tell a combined story. Sundays are for my continuous longer story, The Advancement of Mateo Matic, which I started in the beginning, and won't end until 2066. Saturdays are for long series, most of which take place in the same universe as Mateo, and add to the larger mythology.
Thursday, June 14, 2018
Microstory 864: Hostage to Fortune
Labels:
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dimensions
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eating
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games
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girl
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memories
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memory
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microfiction
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phone
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school
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