5 5. The Rush

Saroma walked into the office. He was immediately stopped by Moritie. No one else was in the office. She had snake eyes and an insatiable hunger deep within her. Saroma was afraid. Any other circumstance of a man and a woman, alone, would have been... scandalous. But Saroma felt like he was being hunted in a sick and horrible way.

Saroma asked, "You need something from me?" Moritie only kept staring at him.

A scream erupted from her like ash from a volcano. Coffee spewed out of her mouth and the deafening scream turned to the sound of a prolonged car crash. The metal on metal voice guided him nowhere but Moritie pointed down the row of cubicles.

From all the way on the other side, he saw Query bound to a chair by papers and codes. His entire mouth was full of cigarettes and both of his eyes were blackened.

Saroma yelled, "This isn't real! This is just a nightmare! I can just wake up! Wake up!" Moritie changed to a smile as she pushed him into a chair. Papers and papers of codes all over them were flying everywhere and Moritie began stapling them to his body.

She hissed an evil sound, "This is real! Oh, this is very real!" She stapled another paper to his chest and he screamed.

Saroma jolted awake. He had never had to force himself to wake up before and he was so shaken that he didn't think that he could go back to sleep. However, it was barely 3am, and sleep wasn't a choice.

He didn't dream again, but he woke up late for work. Since he was already late, he decided to take his time getting ready. He wasn't looking forward to seeing anyone at work with or without having the nightmare. The only good thing he could think of was that it was finally Friday.

Saroma walked through those security doors once more and commented, "Lucky you. You missed all the fun." Saroma didn't stop to ask since he expected a smart ass reply.

As soon as he entered, everyone looked up at him and Moritie poked her head out of her office to see who it was. She yelled his name loudly, "Saroma! Come see me!" Embarrassed, he stepped inside. She didn't look up from writing, "Sit down."

"Is this because I'm late? I didn't mean to be..." Saroma zoned out in what she was writing. It was identical to Koiz's handwriting, cursive and upside down.

She put her pen down and wrapped her fingers around her mug. She said quickly, "Company policy says that I must inform you of Query's death." Saroma felt a hole inside him.

Saroma couldn't believe his ears! He had assaulted him just last night! "What? He died?" He tried to keep his composure.

Moritie explained more with a cold voice, "He was informed of his security violation, and he committed suicide shortly after. VertMed does not and will not provide emotional support services since relations between coworkers are not allowed beyond cohorts. Do you have any any additional questions?" She studied him.

Saroma just stared at the coffee mug and shook his head, "Not really."

"How much did you know him?" She said while simultaneously suspecting him to have violated the rules. The very, very strange rules.

Saroma told her the truth, though, "I don't even remember what he looked like. I had only heard his name 3 days ago. Never got to meet the guy." Unfortunately, a lot of that was the truth. But he was worried if the surveillance in the parking garage would have caught their little scuffle, proof of his lie.

Moritie had enough of the conversation and she concluded, "You may get back to work." Saroma didn't waste anytime getting back to his desk. The good thing about being separated from everyone else was that he didn't feel the social pressure. He also could probably get away with a short nap.

But it wasn't time for sleeping. Since he got to work late, he was behind. The numbers increased from 8-digit numbers to 9 digit numbers. And the difference was so significant, that he had to annotate that.

As he was going through the papers one by one, he ran into a paper with yet another coded message.

"What the...?!" Saroma quietly mumbled out loud. He put his hand on the paper and wondered if this was -in a sense- kind of like Query's last words.

As much as Saroma wanted to know what it said, he had work to do. His work only slowed to a normal pace until after lunch at 1pm. He felt as if he didn't have anything else left to do. He felt an unquenchable urge to find out what the message said. It was considerably longer than the one before it:

43.52626391.814232.743223733281.63.93638273.62826122327374.72327481436362.91422181.936382.3163.223291217332.6333814232.73827442.

It took a while before Saroma could transcribe the numbers into letters since he wasn't using his phone. He used his office phone, a pen and a sticky note to figure out the meaning.

When he finished. He read the message altogether after ironing out the kinks, "I know the secret of your numbers. Question what you do. Beware of the rush." Saroma was puzzled, but he knew that he wasn't going to understand it right away. Again, he wasn't even sure if Query wrote it or not. Saroma pushes the thought out of his head. Had he really beaten Query for nothing? What if it was actually someone else?

Saroma tried to let it go. The more he thought about it, the more upset he got. And the more upset he became, the more likely he'd be expected of violating the rules.

Saroma felt like he was trapped in a weird version of George Orwell's 1984. He couldn't measure up to the expectations and he knew it. The only thing he could do was push aside his feelings and work like a robot. But he listened to the secret message.

He questioned his role in the company. Sure, there were hideously structured businesses out there and they still functioned, but what was he even contributing to? What was his purpose?