Nephilim.exe

The lobby of Wavecomm didn't feel like the future to Nessie. It distinctly reeked of the past. How many cigarettes had been smoked here to make the walls that teeth stain color? How many hundreds of heavy footsteps had it taken to wear the carpet down to a shiny streak? She saw the souls of countless employees trudge through the interior door where a guard sat doing crosswords.

Nessie unfolded the newspaper job listing she had cut out. Half of a smiling woman’s face was accompanied by the words “SEE, SMELL, TASTE, HEAR, FEEL,” in a neat column and then finally “THE FUTURE” in larger letters. “Wavecomm, Riding the Wave of the Future.” was printed at the bottom along with their logo. Nessie had interviewed for the position of “operator” listed in the ad and now a few weeks after the fateful acceptance phone call, here she was for her first day. She still wasn’t sure exactly what she would be doing, but she knew she was getting paid handsomely for it. The surgery seemed like a drastic step. But again, she thought of the zeroes that would be on her bi-weekly paychecks.

Her head itched like she had lice, but she couldn’t scratch any of the spots. The surgeon had told her even the slightest nudge could do some serious damage before the ports healed properly.

A woman looking like she had crawled out of a perfume commercial poked her head out from the door by the security guard. He smiled at her. She didn't look at him. "Vanessa?" she asked the room with lips the color of a kitchen knife nick. Her hair was a cloud of hairspray sticky curls.

"Here!" Nessie shouted, standing. "That's me, I mean." She adjusted her skirt and concentrated on not letting her ankles roll in her heels. "Vanessa Miles," she said, attempting to be confident, extending a hand to the woman.

"What are you doing with hair?" the woman asked instead of introducing herself. There was a badge around the woman's neck that labeled her as Tiffany.

"It's just a wig," Nessie said, trying to laugh, touching the ends.

"The doc should've told you not to wear wigs or hats. If one of those wig hairs- you know what, nevermind." Nessie stood, frozen to the spot. "Well take it off," Tiffany said impatiently, her acrylics clicking together. Nessie obliged, exposing her buzzed scalp to the cold air of the office. She could feel the dried blood around the metal rings dotting her head and wanted desperately to scratch it off.

"What should I-" Nessie began, but Tiffany told her to leave it with the security guard. He looked as embarrassed as she felt handing it over to him. Tiffany held the door open for Nessie. She dug a cigarette out of her shiny clutch and cursed, rooting around inside the small space. Nessie opened her bag and produced a lighter.

"Oh thank God," Tiffany said, taking it from her. She lit her cigarette and handed the lighter back to Nessie. "This is technically my break, so I gotta smoke and walk and talk," Tiffany said, clamping the cigarette in the corner of her mouth. Their heels clicked down the hallway out of sync as Nessie struggled to keep up. "You'll be in Switchboard F. Once you've been here a while, you can probably move up to client work."

"Is that what you did?" Nessie asked.

"Hell no," Tiffany said with a smoke-laced grimace. "No way I'd get-" she said, motioning to her head, looking with naked disgust at Nessie. They reached a door with a large red F on it that conjured memories of high school. "Good luck!" Tiffany said with a fake squeal. “I’m legally required to mention the documents that you signed waiving any liability from Wavecomm in the incident of accident or injury.” She said this quickly like the announcer at the end of radio ads. Tiffany stared at Nessie expectantly and seethed a cloud of gray chimney smoke.

“I remember-” Nessie said. She did remember the stack of sticky-note riddled paperwork she had spent an hour scribbling on. The HR rep had said the most important was the NDA agreement, so Nessie wasn’t sure what she should acknowledge.

“Okay great!” Tiffany said and let the smile fade from her face. There was a ringing from her purse. She produced what looked like the dial of a rotary phone. The three colored curl of the Wavecomm logo was in its center. Tiffany flicked a switch on the side. "What?" she barked at it. A tiny voice mumbled back at her. "Oh for Christ's sake!" she yelled, then turned on her heel. Her voice echoed around the halls as she disappeared around a corner.

Nessie stood in the corridor, shivering. She wanted to feel the prickly hairs that had already started to grow, thought the sensation might be a comfort. Instead, she pulled on the door marked F and stepped inside.

It was hot, dark, and noisy. There was a persistent clacking that filled the air like the plumes of smoke drifting up from all over the room. Cubicles seemed to stretch to the horizon, each with a ghastly green glow. Nessie felt she should be quiet, and so she tiptoed along the aisles and rows. Peeking into the little coves, she saw people with their eyes closed, cables leading out of their heads. Their hands twitched and jerked along keyboards attached to what looked like televisions.

Nessie crept closer to a man whose jaw hung slack. The TV had words crawling from left to right as he typed. A bit of drool ran down the corner of his mouth. Standing still and trying to hold her breath, she heard voices. She leaned in. She almost had her ear pressed to the man's lips. The sound of his tongue pressing up against his teeth almost drowned out the words he was forming. If she wasn't mistaken, he was saying, "help."

"Hey," someone said behind Nessie which made her jump and the cactus needle hairs on her neck stood up straight. The man in the chair's eyes fluttered and he leaned forward. He fixed an offended gaze on Nessie. "Take a chill pill, Clark" the voice said to the man and a hand touched Nessie lightly on her shoulder, which made her jump again. "Sorry! Here," the voice said and flicked on a lamp in a nearby cubicle. In the yellow lamplight stood a mohawked woman with a knowing grin. She introduced herself as Sandy. A thick black cable trailed from Sandy’s head, down her back, and along the ground. It snaked around the corner into another cubicle. Nessie could clearly see where the end of the cable disappeared into Sandy’s skull. This made Nessie’s hands clench reflexively as her stomach squeezed itself. "Let me guess, Tiffany did your onboarding?" Sandy asked.

"If that's what you call walking me to the door," Nessie said, holding her arm, trying to chuckle. Sandy said that sounded about right. She told Nessie to take a seat and she did so.

The cubicle had a few photos pinned to the walls. They were department store shots. A mom, a dad, and a daughter all in their department store clothes. The dad wore big glasses with thin frames and had a bristly red mustache. "Are you sure I'm not taking anyone's spot?" Nessie asked. Sandy eyed the pictures and clearly knew at least one of their occupants. She started to say something then shook her head.

"Don't worry about it," Sandy said and fiddled with the TV. “Turnover is really high around here,” she said as a kind of explanation that didn’t make Nessie feel better. "You ever seen a computer before?" she asked, and Nessie was relieved to find out small talk still existed. Nessie said she hadn't aside from on TV or in magazines, but that she had been to typing school for electric typewriters. "Kinda close," she said. “Arcades?” Sandy asked. Nessie gave her a noncommittal shake of her hand, thrown off by the question. She had been in arcades, sure. But she wasn’t getting high scores or anything. “In any case, you're about to be intimately acquainted," Sandy said, unspooling cables that ended in metallic jacks.

"What is it I'm supposed to do?" Nessie asked.

"Right now, just hold still," Sandy said. Sandy circled to Nessie's back and instructed her to tilt her head down. Sandy trailed a finger up to the port at the top of Nessie's spinal column, sending shivers down Nessie's neck and shoulders.

“Are you sure?” Nessie asked, groping behind her until she felt Sandy’s wrist. “I don’t think they’re healed.”

Sandy leaned forward to whisper in Nessie’s ear. “Don’t be scared. Trust me.” Nessie let go and lowered her hand back down to the chair’s armrest. “You're going to feel something like hitting your funny bone. But all over your body." There was a sharp click as Sandy slid the jack into Nessie's neck. Her whole body erupted in aching tingles and she had the urge to giggle at the shock of pain.

"Well that was freaky," Nessie said, shaking her arms to try and get the pins and needles out. Each of the ports hummed inside her head, like bells all rung in unison.

"Kinda like spiders all over you, huh?" Sandy asked, grinning. Nessie reluctantly agreed. Sandy went about plugging in the rest of the cables, each with their own strange sensations. Rusty tastes and high pitched ringing. Sandy leaned back against the desk, admiring her handiwork. Or maybe just Nessie in general. The thought caused Nessie’s cheeks to flush. "You're all set," Sandy said with a thumbs up and Nessie did her best to return the gesture, but found it hard to make her fingers cooperate. “How are you feeling?”

“Strange,” Nessie managed to say, but as she thought of more words to say they unraveled and trailed away. “Is this the future?” Nessie found herself asking.

“It sure is,” Sandy said. “One day, one of these set ups will be in every home in America. Maybe the world. For now, we’ve got Uncle Sam and the CIA to thank for these puppies,” she slapped the top of the screen. She explained the buttons on the computer, how to run programs. Her fingers cascaded along the keys until the screen showed Nessie’s face, blurred by the scanlines until her features had started to bleed together. She thought of the old tintype photos that came out just a little wrong. The smear of light as a face was turned too quickly. Or was it a ghost?

“That’s me,” Nessie said quietly, seeing her name and personal information laid out like a sheet in a file folder.

“Looks like they’ve got you on connection-observation. Basically, you’ll be connecting calls and listening in for anything worth noting. Wavecomm defines that as anything even remotely Commie. But in reality, they don’t want to burn through all these tapes,” here she flipped out a tray with a cassette inside and then clicked it back closed. “So if you hear any of them talking about setting off a bomb, you press this record button. Otherwise, just connect the caller to the right person in the database and that’s that.” Nessie felt her face express confusion in every way it could, brows pushing together and a sideways frown on her lips.

“Is that legal?” Nessie asked. “I mean listening in other people’s conversations?” Sandy studied Nessie’s face to see if she was joking.

Sandy laughed anyway. “You’re cute,” Sandy said with a wink, then turned back to the computer. Sandy pressed a few more keys and the screen flickered between different lists. Along the top it now read “***CONN-OBS***” “When you’re ready, hit the enter key. The computer and your brain will take care of the rest.”

“I’m not sure-” Nessie said haltingly.

“If you weren’t smart you wouldn’t have gotten the job,” Sandy said and patted Nessie on the shoulder. “Just take it easy, you’ll get the hang of it.” Sandy slipped a hand into her shirt and produced a flat square of plastic. “And once you do, you can take a crack at this.” The word “Nephilim” was scrawled on a label in black marker. Sandy laid it beside the keyboard.

“What’s that?” Nessie asked. She tried to sound out the word in her head, having never seen it before.

“The future,” Sandy said with a wry smile. “Strictly underground. We’re not supposed to have it, so if Tiffany or anyone else from upstairs asks about a ‘disk’, you don’t have a clue.” Nessie nodded and said that wouldn’t be hard, since she really didn’t have a clue. Sandy turned the lamp off and the cubicle was draped in shadow again, aside from the monitor’s glow. Sandy flowed away in the darkness, leaving Nessie alone with the computer, the holes in her head getting hot and uncomfortable.

Nessie leaned forward and pressed the enter key. Her breath caught in her chest as her body fell back against the chair. Her eyes rolled back in her head and her arms fell away on either side of her. Everything went black. Squares of colored light began as pinpricks in the darkness and came together to form lines and shapes. The sound of a ringing phone came from where her right hand should be. Nessie looked down and saw a face with a name and some numbers. The phone continued to ring.

“Pick it up, already!” Clark said beside her. Or she was pretty sure that’s who it was. The lines and spots that hung in the void resembled him, anyway. He gestured to the pictures in front of her. Nessie touched the picture on the right and heard the chaos of a busy street.

“Hello? Operator?” the picture said. “I paid too damn much-”

“Yes! How…can I help you?” Nessie asked.

“Connect me to AL-VA-REZ, JOR-DAN,” the picture yelled, trying to be distinct. “ID, oh shit, um.” the crinkling of paper came across. “ID 4320, Extension 23. Got that?” they asked.

“Yes? Uh, one moment please,” Nessie said, trying to adopt the voice she had used at the perfume counter in what felt like an entirely different life. Near her left hand another picture appeared, the name “Alvarez, Jordan” beneath it, along with the numbers the caller had provided. She touched that picture and the line rang again. A green line like a neon sign appeared between the two pictures as the ringing stopped.

“Yeah?” the picture on her left asked.

“Jordan? It’s Petey-” the voice on her right said. Nessie sat quietly and listened. While it didn’t feel right, it did feel fun. The two of them discussed plans for a party of some kind.

After a few minutes, the thrill started to wear off. By the end of the conversation, she felt herself getting restless. When they said goodbye, the green line turned red then broke in half.

Nessie waited for another call to come, anxious to get it right, do it faster this time. But time stretched on. She looked around and saw the other operators dutifully pushing the pictures in front of them. It occurred to Nessie that Sandy hadn’t told her how to get out. Her heart rate picked up. “Um, sorry, excuse me,” she said to Clark. He didn’t respond. Nobody did. The infinite black space sprawled out around her and she felt tiny, insignificant. “Hello?!” she called out.

There were shadows out there in the darkness. They weren’t like the rest of this other world. They were fluid and sloshed along the corridors, climbing up into tall figures that looked down on her.

Her eyes rolled down and she found herself in the cubicle again. She snatched at her purse and rifled through its contents. She shakily brought a cigarette to her mouth and struggled to keep the lighter’s flame lit long enough. Finally she was able to take a deep drag off of it and let out a cloud of relief. Would it always be like that? she wondered. No, she decided, she was letting her mind get carried away. If you stare into a lightless space for long enough, you’ll find something there.

As she calmed down, she realized she was in both places at once. It felt like a migraine. But if she quietened her thoughts, she was herself sitting in the cubicle and herself standing in the other space. Simultaneous but independent. She reached out an arm in the real world to ash her cigarette and the other Nessie remained still. Some of the ash fell onto the square Sandy had left in her cubicle. Nessie brushed it away and inspected the label, turning it around in between her fingers, letting it brush the filter of her cigarette.

Nessie looked at the computer and found a slot beside the cassette deck that looked like it might take the square. She tried it one way and it wouldn’t go all the way in, so she flipped it and turned it until finally it slipped inside the machine and disappeared behind a tiny door. The computer buzzed and clicked. Nessie was afraid she’d done something wrong, that she’d broken her computer on the first day.

A third self joined the other two and for a brief moment Nessie thought her head might split in two. She fell back against her chair and focused on this newest addition as it demanded her attention. This version was standing beneath towering orange letters that spelled out the word “NEPHILIM”. There was a door nestled between the H and the I that was made to look old, weathered, with a ring for a handle. Nessie looked down to find her right hand held a sword and her body was now coated in a knight’s dull gray armor. She took a few steps forward and found the door was cracked slightly. The door groaned as she leaned against it. Nessie felt like she had stepped into one of the games from the arcade, Gauntlet or Dragon’s Lair.

The swinging door revealed a path of stone, lined by brick walls that held burning torches. The squares making up the flames shifted and broke apart, drifting up and dying. The corridor continued on.

A chittering sound came from the shadows and Nessie felt the weight of fear on her stomach. As she stepped backward, red eyes blinked into existence. She wondered what button she was supposed to press, then remembered there weren’t any buttons.

Chunks of the darkness broke free. Stepping into the torchlight, they revealed themselves to be rats, each roughly the size of a dog. Nessie turned back to the door and found it was no longer there. A blank wall of brick greeted her instead.

The rats scurried towards Nessie, their ears laying back against their heads as they became streaks of speed. Nessie shouted and tried to wake herself up again. She could clearly feel herself in the chair, softly snoring. She heard the ringing of the telephone again and tried to focus on it, to pull herself back to the black space and its bright lights. Instead, she saw the operator version of herself instinctively reach out and connect the two pictures, then return to idly standing still, facing forward. Though she could see them, feel them, the brick wall kept her hemmed in.

Nessie heard the rats squeaking to one another. They had formed a semicircle around her, watching her with beady eyes. Their fur was matted with filth, especially around their mouths. One leapt at her, then the others. They were on her in an instant, clawing her face, trying to gnaw through the metal of her armor. Nessie grabbed one, throwing it onto the ground. Without thinking, she drove the sword into its head, feeling the blade slice and crush its way through flesh and bone, finally striking the stone floor on the other side.

The other rats panicked, leaping off of her. She stomped on one of their tails to keep it from getting away, then swung the sword across, lopping off its head. The third scampered off and disappeared. She waited for points to appear or a voice to tell her where to go. If she had known this was going to be a scary game she wouldn’t have played it.

Nessie felt something warm on her face. She brought a metal hand to her cheek. Her fingers came away coated with blood.

She blinked hard and realized what she was seeing was no longer made of squares. The red that dripped down to the ground was real. The hallway now reeked of it, from her and the rats. It was enough to make her gag.

After attempting to break through the wall and crying out for help, Nessie accepted that it was futile. The only way out was through, it seemed. Getting a torch from the wall, she held it high as she continued on. This could all be an elaborate dream, she thought. Would that be stranger than having cables plugged into her brain?

Nessie was in a maze of some kind. The torch seemed to keep the rats at bay for the most part, but there were so many she continually checked behind her. In trying to be alert as possible, she noticed the countless spiders skittering up and along the walls. Their bodies were like black porcelain, reflecting the light of her torch in shining spots along their bulbous bodies. Their webs were dense in places and Nessie was careful to keep the swollen things away from her. She could never be entirely certain they weren’t on her, as she continually felt their long needle legs dancing along her neck.

All the walls looked the same. However hard she looked, she couldn’t find any distinctive signs that might lead her to the center, or more hopefully, to an exit. She began smudging a trail along her left with the soot from the torch.

It felt like several hours had passed by the time she realized she had circled back to where she had started making marks. Nessie yelled in frustration and threw the torch down a nearby hallway. Her other selves hadn’t changed. Eventually the day would be over, right? Someone would come to check on her and realize something was wrong. Yes, of course. She only had to hold out. Struggling to maintain focus, she realized her operator self was still listening to the same phone call. With all her might she was able to force her real eyes open just enough to see that the cigarette was still smoldering between her fingers.

When she came back, Nessie’s body had moved within the maze. She turned around and found an enormous set of double doors that stretched up and out of the torchlight. There were symbols Nessie didn’t recognize etched into the stone. A lone figure lay in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the door, their armored hand reaching up. The metal of their armor screeched against the stone, which set Nessie’s teeth on edge. Their fingers had formed little grooves from countless repetitions.

“Hello?” Nessie called out. The hand stopped as it slapped against the door. The figure flipped around and let out a shriek of glee. Although his face had slightly changed, like the sagging of melting wax, Nessie recognized the man from the photos in her cubicle. His smile was missing several teeth and only one lens of his glasses was intact. The bushy mustache had spread into a curling crimson beard. He stumbled towards her, arms outstretched. He had taken off most of his armor and piled it beside the door. His hands and legs were covered. The rest of him was bare, save for a tattered cloth around his waist, which held the handle of a sword pressed against his shriveled skin.

“Oh, thank God. Thank God. Please say you’re real,” he said, getting close.

“Yes, I am,” Nessie said, instinctively stepping away from him, putting her hands up.

“Don’t be afraid!” he said, smiling. “I’m just so happy to see someone else. Please. Please come close.” Nessie turned slightly, keeping him at a distance. They spun around in the dust until her back was to the door.

“Listen, mister,” Nessie said. “I have no idea what’s going on. But maybe we can get out of here.”

“Of course!” the man said. “That’s all I want. To see my wife and little girl again.” Tears cut trails through the dirt on his cheeks. Nessie couldn’t tell if he was laughing or crying.

“And we’re going to do that,” Nessie said, tears of her own forming. The rats and the spiders had not scared her as much as this man with his desperate eyes. “I just need you to calm down so we can think.”

The man rushed forward and Nessie shuffled until her back slammed against the door. “I don’t want to hurt you!” she said.

The man pulled the jagged edge of a broken sword from his waist and jabbed it at Nessie’s face. She batted it away with her own. Despite his frail frame, he grabbed the collar of her armor and tossed her to the ground in a burst of strength. Nessie clumsily tumbled, the weight of the armor dragging her down. Her sword slipped from her hand. “Just hold still,” the man said, throwing spit over her as his mouth watered. “It’ll be over in just a second.” He grabbed Nessie’s sword from the ground and held it in both hands. Throwing a leg over the angled chest piece of her armor, he sat down on her belly. Nessie squirmed as he pointed the blade down at her head and brought it up high.

“Get the fuck off me!” she shouted and was able to roll to the side, flipping him onto his back in the dirt. Nessie brought her hands together on the man’s throat. She leaned down with all her might. He feebly swung the sword against her side, but it wasn’t able to penetrate her armor. A rush of adrenaline ran up Nessie’s spine and seemed to flow out of the holes in her skull. The man stopped thrashing and grabbed onto her arms, trying to pry them free.

“Please,” the man groaned. But Nessie didn’t budge. Her hands ached with how hard she tried to close them completely around his neck. His eyes grew red along with his face, which deepened into a violet blue.

Eventually he was completely still and his eyes became unfocused. She didn’t relent.

The scraping sound of stone on stone filled the chamber as one of the doors swung inward, revealing more darkness. Exhausted, Nessie finally let go of the man and struggled to her feet. All she had to do was get through the door. She’d do her job. Get paid. Spend it on whatever she felt like. Right now the thought of a buffet was enough to make her want to weep. She would most definitely report Sandy and this deranged game.

Stepping over the threshold, Nessie no longer felt her other selves. The door shut behind her, leaving her alone in the dark.

Or so she thought.

An orange flame sprang to life in the distance, throwing its light against a white wall. Nessie dragged herself towards it. As she got closer, the flame went higher, leaving the ground and floating up and up along the white wall that fell away in curves, filled with strange shadows.

When Nessie reached where the flame had been, it burned brighter, growing larger. Nessie tripped and fell onto her back as she saw what it was illuminating. A gigantic skull smiled down at her with teeth like concrete slabs. Red rust ran down from a broken crown across its brows, bleeding down into its hollow eyes. The flame flickered as a voice spoke from around and within Nessie.

“Heed my father’s words,” the voice said. “‘Be not afraid. You are worthy.’”

“Please just send me home,” Nessie cried out. She clambored to her feet, unable to comprehend what she was looking at. The shadows receded, dripping and sliding away to reveal a full skeleton, seated and leaning back against something Nessie couldn’t see. A metal collar hung down against its clavicles. It shifted, sending down a rain of dust and debris.

Nessie ran, but its hand reached out and closed around her body. It lifted her up into the air. Nessie cried out and slammed her fists against the bleached white fingers. A metal manacle about the thing’s wrist clanged against its chain like a dozen car crashes echoing off into the nothingness. She squirmed and tried to break free.

Nessie came face to face with the thing.

She felt its empty eyes looking through her, through her memories. Through her soul. It learned everything that made her who she was. It was committing her to memory.

The flame came forward and she felt its heat on her skin. The hand tightened around her and along with the air in her lungs, a small flame came pouring from her mouth. It mingled with the first, coiling and burning brighter. The conjoined flames warmed the armor she was wearing to red hot. She combusted. The flames grew so large they swallowed Nessie entirely. She couldn’t scream for the fire’s greedy guttering. She smelled burning meat.

Nessie jumped to her feet, her fingers on fire. The cigarette had burned down through the filter and bit her skin. She still felt the thing in her mind, telling her not to fear. Her operator self connected another call.

“You okay?” Sandy asked, peeking over the cubicle wall.

“You!” Nessie said, full of fury. Nessie whipped herself around so fast the cables caught on her chair. She was ready to give Sandy a mouthful when the plugs shifted and the cords yanked free of the ports in her head. It sent a sickening wave of pain down through Nessie’s body. She fell face first into the wall and slid to the ground. Her limbs locked in place, but she could see Sandy stepping into her cubicle, standing over her. Nessie tried to speak but her mouth clamped shut. She saw her blood rushing away from her, out into the ash-strewn carpet

Sandy pressed a button and retrieved the Nephilim disk from Nessie’s computer. She sucked her teeth in disappointment, looking down on Nessie with something that approached pity.

“So close,” Sandy said, waving the disk. “I really thought we had it that time.” Clark stood up and craned his neck to see Nessie.

“Damn. Better luck next time,” he said. “You sure it isn’t getting pissed off?”

“It’s just happy to have contact with the real world again. It will get here when it gets here,” Sandy said. Sandy crouched down and ran her hand along Nessie’s stubbly scalp, shushing her softly. Nessie clung to consciousness as Sandy stood up and started to shout. “Oh my God! Someone help!”

The lights came on as Nessie drifted down into darkness.

“Man! Not again,” someone said, exasperated. “How’s anybody supposed to get any work done around here?”

“These rookies just can’t handle the stress.”