29. Jan, 2022

Download - a Science Fiction Story

There was a cold front crossing the call centre room, one not due to the weather. Natalie stared at her feet, as if wondering what had led them to pass the threshold again, when they must have known what was in store.

“ So – where have you been?”

Silence from Natalie.

“You were on a rota break. It’s on the board up there. Along with everybody else’s.”

Donna pointed an acrylic nailed hand, gleaming with blue polish flecked with gold sparkles. Natalie’s eyes, fascinated, now tracked the hand, but avoided Donna’s accusing look, which was framed by eyelash extensions heavily laden with mascara. Two thickly pencilled brows were unmoving on her porcelain smooth brow. Botox treatment only added to the general sternness of her demeanour. Not that Donna, who had herself regularly maintained, realised it.

“Angelique’s had to take your calls. Isn’t that right, Angelique?”

Angelique nodded smugly, for once on the right side of Donna, a manipulative woman who enjoyed being in charge, or ‘being professional’ as she viewed it. Donna was a bully, but she was adept at creating a three wise monkeys atmosphere. If anyone spoke up, they would invariably not be backed up, nobody having heard or seen anything when it came to it, although the accuser was very likely to have been egged on behind the scenes. Woe betide those who spoke up bravely on behalf of all. They would always find themselves a lone voice, or be suddenly catapulted into having a name for being the trouble maker nobody sided with.

Natalie’s eyes drifted over her colleagues. Some had the veiled look of those scenting blood, others watched on with a complacent air of hard working virtue. The rest pretended not to notice, very busy with their computers and headsets.

“Half an hour, Natalie,” intoned Donna, now tapping the whiteboard with its grid of names and allotted slots for duties, breaks, leave and sickness. Her nail clicked a rat -a -tat -tat with military precision. “You left at the right time, but you have been out for well over half an hour. By my estimate” (she checked her watch for added torture and suspense), “an hour and a half. So where have you been?”

It was a very good question, and one for Natalie as well, because actually, she did not know where she had been. She remembered going out on the stroke of twelve, turning round in the rotating door of the building’s entrance, and she remembered coming back in again. As to what had passed in between, she didn’t know. She carried no sandwich or lunchtime salad pack. Had she been out to eat? A faint memory fragment came to her, of someone impatient calling out,

“There you are! Finally!” as she emerged, but who?

There was only a dreamlike moment of it.

“I’m sorry, Donna,” she pulled herself together to say. “I lost track. It won’t happen again.”

“Lost track!” exclaimed Donna, looking around the other staff with incredulity. “I hope it’s not burn out. You were our top sales calls performer last week. And it certainly will not happen again. We work on first and final warnings here.”

Natalie nodded, trying to look contrite. None of them liked the job or felt any loyalty to the dog eat dog business, a bit of a con anyway, but they had to have it, and there were plenty of other fish in the young employment pool out there to work in it. She sat down and  put on her headset. A call crackled into life.

“What the hell are you doing?” demanded the same impatient voice which she had briefly recalled before. “You’re supposed to be doing a quick in and out after downloading all their contacts on that mobile I just gave you.”

“Sorry?” said Natalie. “Who’s calling?”

“Who’s calling?” demanded a voice furiously. “Who do you think? Me! Get out here with that intel.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Oh, God – they’ve ballsed up transference again. You think you are bloody Natalie, don’t you?”

“What? Of course I’m Natalie – but who the hell are you? Are you gaslighting me?”

“No, I am not gaslighting you. You’ve come back with me to get all the business and customer contacts just before that firm made it globally. We snatch them and it’s us who are the millionaires today. Remember?”

“No, I don’t. Come back. Back from where?”

An uneasy feeling went through her, because something, somewhere rang a dim bell.

“Oh, for heavens sakes, Rhea. You are not Natalie. She’s in you asleep back there and you are in her here. It was only supposed to be a five minute in and out, then off we go! Back to our time. It’s the perfect cyber crime, if we stay one step ahead when we get back that is.”

“This sounds bonkers! Who are you?”

“I know, I know. It’s me, Brogan, your partner in crime. You are not Natalie. You’re only supposed to know enough about her to be her for now.”

“You’re crazy. My manager’s looking daggers. Donna can tell from twenty paces when it’s not a proper work call,” she mumbled urgently into her mouthpiece, a kaleidoscope of half memories tantalizing her.

“The hell with her. Rhea – get the download. Open the app on your mobile marked with the X symbol – then just log into the computer database. The app will do it. Remember?”

So urgent was the tone, that to see what happened, she did it, logging quickly into the computer’s files with her password and then looked at her phone. She had no app marked X, she knew, still thinking this was some mad joke. But – she did have one! She clicked it and an egg timer began to turn quickly.

“Is it doing it?” hissed the voice.

“I think so.”

“So now you know what I’m telling you is real. Let it finish and then just walk out of there.”

“I can’t. I’m already in trouble for taking an hour and a half for lunch instead of thirty minutes. I’ll be sacked.”

“That’s the transference mess up – we’ll sort the time when we get back, Natalie won’t be sacked.”

“Thank you for your custom!” she trilled brightly as Donna sashayed past, gorgon gazed. “Are you outside now?” she asked when the coast was clear again.

“Yes! Hurry up, for God’s sakes.”

Natalie saw the egg timer stop tumbling and thought, well, it’s now or never.

“What the hell,” she said to herself. “I hate this job. A leap into the unknown has to be better. And maybe it isn’t the unknown after all?”

She felt excited and panicky all at once. Looking round, she saw that Donna was involved with somebody else right now. Swiftly ditching the headset, she snatched up the phone and strode purposefully to the door. She wasn’t due a comfort break yet, but would plead that she needed one if spotted.

“Natalie!” called Donna.

“I have to – ladies…” she mouthed, as if in unexpected distress.

Donna tutted but nodded her out. She hurried down to the entrance of faux marble and whizzed round in the rotating door again, practically falling into the arms of the man outside.

“Wow!” she said, for looks wise, he was quite the sight for sore eyes. “Brogan?”

“Of course. Gimme the phone, quick!”

She handed it to him.

“Good girl. Back you go – don’t want to be late, do you?”

“But…what about…being Rhea?”

“Oh, she wasn’t all she was cracked up to be. She was going to rip me off.. I’ve got all the names I need to sell on myself now. Must be off. Chow, Natalie. That’s you now. Quite a turn up but all to the good for me. Oh, and you’ll forget all about this the minute you go back inside there. And I will sort out the time glitch – I promise you that, partner. Natalie doesn’t like working here much, does she? She’ll have much more fun being Rhea along with me. A Rhea with a few doctored memories.”

Apart from the existence of the phone and Brogan himself, this sounded as mad as ever. She stared and then, catching her by surprise, he gave her a little push back through the rotating door. Once more she found herself back in the lobby, some daydream about robbing this firm and getting away for good fading in and out of her mind as she thought worriedly,

“I hope I’m not late back from lunch. Donna will go mental.”