Nightshift 62: Main Hallway, 1-West

[ninelivesonce]

[from here]

Taura took up station midway between the two halls leading back into the dormitories. Alone with her thoughts; the hall was quiet. Too quiet. Dead quiet, a little voice hissed in the back of her mind.

This was no time to be getting superstitious. It was unavoidable, really, in a profession with so much risk involved in daily operations, that those who survived found things to credit. Beyond their own skill, because they'd all seen better men/women/herms when their luck ran out, and skill only improved your odds.

Her luck was holding, tonight. Was Rita and Goku's?

[Rita and Goku]

Comments

[toxicspiderman]

S.T. didn't have a photographic memory. Or a phonographic one. So once I.R.I.S. went from vague poetical allusions to binary, he stopped paying much attention. Why binary, anyway? Most hackers used hexadecimal, because computers were O.K. with ones and zeros, but humans did better with something less mind-numbing. Morse code almost had rhythm.

"It wasn't really about the plague, you know." He whistled a bit of the tune, off-key. Ring around the rosies, pocket full-- "Like rock and roll. Some people can't listen to anything without thinking it means something. Play it backwards and it summons the devil. Plague." He snorted. "Either Landel thinks we're idiots, or he thinks he's a genius."

He started walking as he pieced together tonight's theory du jour. Or whatever night was in French.

[to here]