A Top of the Pile Job

The moment Hao Ren looked up, his jaw dropped. He saw a vision in the sky. If only he could see the look on his face, he would surely feel so retarded.

A huge building was seemingly floating in the sky, upside down!

It was a huge mansion with the shape of a cross, with long annexes on both side, white walls and blue roof tiles. It was a fusion of a Neo-European castle and a manor, exuding a style of elegance and simplicity. Behind the mansion was a streamlined towering structure of complex designs which was in complete contradiction with the style of the main building. Overall, the entire building complex gave him a sense of wonder and seemed to be shrouded in mystery. There were green meadows all around the blossoming garden, with rows of small fountains on both sides of the gardens and a massive fountain at the open area in front of the mansion.

The floating inverted mansion was defying the Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation.

Hao Ren had never seen a mansion as big as this one, much less one with the wrong side up. What if the whole thing fell out of the sky? He trembled slightly at the thought.

Despite of the massive mansion in the sky, strangely, there was no shadow on the ground. He could still feel the sun beating down on him. He was sweating profusely—but not because of the heat from the sun. Everything was beyond his comprehension. While he was in a daze, his phone rang.

"Hello, Hao Ren! Did you see the big mansion in the sky?"

Hao Ren held his phone near to his ear, sighing after a long pause, "Ooooh fuck..."

"Employee Rule No. One: never cuss before your superior does. But since you’re not officially one of us yet, you can get away with it." The woman on the other end sounded casual. "Now, get your hands off the bill and keep your eyes on the square; you don’t want to get flung around."

Hao Ren was in cold sweat upon hearing what she just said, his legs felt as wobbly as jelly. He held on to the telephone pole as if his life depended on it.

He couldn’t run away. All he could do was wait for whatever that might come.

Before he knew it, he felt as if he had been flung a few hundred metres up into the air, he didn’t know where he was; he felt zero gravity and was spatially disorientated. He was spun several times more in all directions, almost throwing up before things started to calm down. He then was surprised to find himself still standing on solid ground, but not where he was a moment earlier. There was a huge fountain before him, he could feel the pleasantly cool mist from the fountain as a breeze blew the droplets on his face. On both side of the fountain were gardens of grassy meadows and flowers. He was standing on a pavement of white stones—he wasn’t sure if it was made of stone, but from the fine texture of the surface he could tell it wasn’t concrete; it was some sort of fusion between plastic and metal which he had never seen before.

Slowly, Hao Ren turned around and he saw the big white mansion.

At that moment, the eventual realization befell him; he realised he had just landed on the inverted estate he was marveling at a while ago.

Hao Ren was thrilled. He looked up expecting to see the place where he originally stood but it wasn’t there. Instead it was a clear blue sky with a beautiful aurora dancing behind the few white clouds. He didn’t see the sun but he could feel a warm light shining across the sky from the horizon. There was nothing surrounding the mansion, only a road going through the gardens straight into a seemingly impenetrable fog—there was fog everywhere. It seemed that the only existence there were the white mansion and him.

It felt like an island in the middle of nowhere—he was terrified, feeling abandoned.

Just then, he heard a squeak behind him. He quickly turned around and saw that the mansion’s door was opened, someone emerged but was shrouded in fog, emanating a soft warm glow.

But that ‘someone’ was actually something Hao Ren had never seen before. He wasn’t sure if it was in fact a human at all. He could neither tell if it was male nor female as he could barely see the face of the creature. It had the figure of a human but the skeleton was formed of plasma.

He noticed that that ‘someone’ wasn’t actually wearing any clothes.

He had so many strange encounters lately, so much so that what’s strange didn’t felt as strange anymore. He kept his composure and maintained a calm facade as the ‘blue foggy figure’ nodded and gestured him to enter.

Hao Ren plucked up the courage and followed it from behind.

He found that the interior of the mansion was just as grand and elegant as the exterior; behind the entrance was a magnificently lit lobby, after which there was a long hallway paved with red carpet.

Hao Ren carefully observed every inch of the hallway as they walked through it. There wasn’t a single light source in the hallway and yet it was as bright as day. There were murals on the walls on both sides; some depicted castles and towers which towered into the clouds, some were artworks of planetary objects and space, while some displayed battleships and tech-advanced armies in battlefields, still some depicted sorcerers—everything was so random, without a central theme and story.

As he reached the end of the hallway, he saw a piece of mural which was the most dumbfounding of all—a childish graffiti of little assholes.

He was then led to a dark brown heavy wooden door. The ‘blue foggy figure’ pointed to the door before vanishing into thin air.

Hao Ren shrugged and held his breath before knocking on the door.

He heard a very pleasant female voice behind the door, it was the woman who had talked to him on the phone earlier. "Come in. The door’s not locked.’

Hao Ren had to push with all he’d got to open the heavy door.

Inside was a semicircle room with a heavy, dark color desk in the center of it. The floor wasn’t layered with carpet as the hallway was but was finished with a welcoming, warm-colored tiles instead. On the curved wall was a semicircle rack stuffed with strange playthings—some looked like models, some were fine crystals which gleamed in the light and also there was a half-eaten fruity pancake left in the cubicle.

Only God knew why would a fruity pancake be there in the first place!

A woman with long silver hair was sitting behind the desk.

She looked very young, probably even younger than Hao Ren. She was gorgeous.

Her brown eyes, silver long hair, prominent nose and thin lips made her look unapproachable and cold at times (of course that might be a biased perception of Hao Ren; after all, she was a doomsday demon to him). Her attire too, was strange; she wore a black gown which looked like a modified wind coat but it suited her perfectly—it accentuated the air of mystery about her.

While Hao Ren was still fascinated by her appearance, the woman smiled. Her smile had helped break the ice somewhat as she made a friendly nod and gestured Hao Ren to be seated next to her. "You can call me Raven 12345. I’m your superior."

Hao Ren wasn’t really listening as he was still lost in utmost admiration and asked knee-jerkingly, "What is this place?"

"Here? Space Administration. "She proclaimed proudly, "Bastard Barrio office, Node EN35 of the Space Administration. Isn’t that cool?"

Hao Ren, "....."