The kaleidoscopic plains began to fade as the apparition dispersed, leaving me woozy and queasy inside the Inspeculator pod. As the lid began to rise, shining light on the interior, I raised myself from the machine and slowly staggered down the steps - every fibre of my being trying to keep me from expelling my breakfast into a bucket. Gripping the railing of the metal stairwell as I slowly descended, my cheeks bloated with sickly air, I tried to wrest control of my inner impulses. Approaching the young gnomish girl, I stuck my hand out, rasping a single word.
"Bucket..." I said.
She handed it over, feigned concern masking her true pleasure at the situation. As I bent over the bucket, an urge to heave took over me, but luckily - what little breakfast I had did not manage to make it back out of my stomach. I dry-heaved over the bucket, and though I could feel the bile burning at the back of my throat, it seems it didn't quite make it to leaving my mouth. It seemed today, at least, I wouldn't need to get a set of fresh clothes after using the machine. That was always a bonus. I looked over at the young attendant, standing there, barely containing the feeling of twisted schadenfreude written across her face as I leaned over the bucket.
"You're horrid, you know that?" I said. "Setting me up in that machine, what were you even thinking?"
"I'm sorry, this was the only machine available," she lied transparently, with a barely concealed smile. "Besides, you did say that you wanted to give me more gossip to talk about... didn't you?"
"I guess I did..." I replied, before being interrupted by another involuntary lurch. Standing over the bucket, as I retched up empty air, I could feel that bubbling acid trying desperately to escape the pits of my stomach, the corrosive liquid swishing around as it attempted to clamber out from the depths. I held it down as it burned the base of my throat.
As the fit of dry-heaving finally began to subside, I lifted my head from the bucket, luckily keeping the contents of my stomach where they belonged. I slowly staggered to my feet, grabbing the empty bucket and laggardly tossing it in her general direction. The gnomish girl barely managed to catch the bucket in time, dropping her clipboard to the floor as she fumbled with it. The board and the paperwork clattered to the floor. I could see the Inspeculator schedule as it landed, and from what I saw, most of the machines were empty until eleven in the morning. It was confirmation of what I already knew. She'd set me up in this machine deliberately, just to get a rise out of me.
"I'm leaving," I said. "Have fun with your gossip."
"Hey, don't forget to bring down that ID pass!" The girl exclaimed.
"Yeah, yeah, will do," I replied.
I snatched Derrick's folder from beside the machine as I left, gripping the manilla folio between my fingers - holding a man's identity within my hands as I walked across the floor. The sound of my footsteps, colliding with the linoleum floor, reverberated throughout this place - the echoes travelling far through the sparse confines of the building. That empty sound seemed to be the only interruption to the limitless silence of this place. As I wandered away from the gnomish girl, I sighed with annoyance.
"Great," I said to myself, murmuring under my breath as I left.
I guess I still had to get that damn pass from upstairs. I wasn't particularly tempted to help her, but I knew that if vomit rumours from yesterday had gotten around with my name attached to them, then the gnomish girl at least knew who I was. If I didn't get her that ID, she'd probably be more than happy to send her bosses my way, deflecting the attention away from her - even if she'd approved that unauthorised Inspeculator session.
I knew what hid behind that deceitful guise of hers. I'd be going straight down with her if I hung her out to dry, and from what I could tell about her personality, she seemed like the kind of person who'd probably be more than elated to take another down because of even the slightest misstep. I didn't like her. Then again, I didn't really like many people in this place.
She was merely one among the myriad.
Passing by the rows of unattended Inspeculator machines, I weaved my way between the ivory devices as I returned to the elevator, pressing the call button. Waiting amid that stifling silence, I stood there for a few minutes, before the doors to the chamber opened - greeting me with that familiarly austere interior and those familiarly lifeless faces of the other employees.
Stepping inside, I pressed the button to ascend to the apartments, and as the door slowly sauntered closed - I rose toward the heights. I probably could've been helping people right now, trying to accomplish something besides making others miserable, and yet instead I had to jump the hurdles of this draconian bureaucracy. I would never know why those hurdles existed, perhaps nobody would.
They were made, designed by someone, for a purpose which none were privy to know. If you asked, and tried to root out the source of that directive, all you'd get was an infinite network of people - all pointing in different directions, all saying that that was just what they'd been told to do. That was the unfortunate nature of this place. Reason and logic didn't matter - the only thing that mattered were vague orders and instructions, descending down a chain of command that stretched into the abyss, unintelligible in their needless specificity.
My musings were interrupted as the elevator door opened. I stepped onto the apartment floor, wandering down the halls as I went to perform the capricious demands of some administrative system that I didn't understand - that nobody could ever truly understand.
