Mild Thoughts In My Mind

"Good morning, Tom!" crack "Supposed to be a real boot baker out there today! Sixty fohore!"

Tom glanced over until he caught sight of the mint green scrubs. He focused instead on his polished shoes and their dizzying trek across the hotel carpet.

What was the man doing? It had looked like cracking coconuts between his legs and making a pile of the shells on his left. Isn't that kind of the opposite of what a cleaning crew should do? And where would one get a cannonball pyramid of coconuts in Colorado in September?

"Excuse me, sir," Tom almost ran into the stylish older women. "Could you direct me to the pool?" she asked.

"Third floor," Tom offered reflexively, stepping around her.

"What, no that can't be right," she scoffed. "How does that work?"

"I am sorry, ma'am," Tom said, warming up his customer service smile for the long day ahead. "I've never been there myself. All I know is I'm told to direct all questions regarding pools, jacuzzis, spas and saunas-"

"If it's stirred, we'll see you on third!" The cleaning crew man offered. The lady looked over and grimaced with a baffled expression.

"Why is that man doing that?" she asked. "Are those calipers?"

Tom didn't take the bait. "The receptionists are forbidden from directing our eyes upon the cleaning crew. It's a matter of abundance of caution towards guest privacy."

"Oh," she said, "well, thank you."

It was no such thing, but he couldn't exactly tell her he had no clue why. It was the number one mistake that got receptionists fired, right after asking guests why they stayed so long.

The woman wandered towards the elevator. He was happy for her. They always seemed happier after their first trip to floor three and she has been sad the last few weeks. She seemed like the type of lady to own a little yappy dog, probably missed it. Would he ask her about it? Hell no.

This job was weird and hard, juggling all the nonsense protocols. But the weirdest thing was the paycheck. He was pulling more money than his sister's husband, the lawyer. He was good at this job, too. He'd been at it for months longer than anyone else had lasted. He was not fucking this up.

"Shit," Tom said, looking at the empty reception desk. The polite line of guests curled back into the other hallway. The night shift receptionist must have slipped up, gotten fired, and now Tom will have to pick up the slack.

"I need a cactus for room 203, a real eclectic one, Ray Bradbury kinda stuff." The man at the front of the line started in a rush before Tom even got situated. "Is that possible?"

"I can make no guarantees, sir." Tom said, pulling one of the blank pages from the pad. "All I can do is make a requisition and send it on to the kitchen." He circled cactus from the list of items, he found Ray Bradbury to circle in the modifier list but not eclectic, scribbling it in on the 'other' section.

"They should call your room and let you know either way." Tom said with a cheery smile.

"Next person please," Tom said. The young lady seemed hesitant to follow his order. Tom followed her eyes to see a man in a fine suit was standing next to a new receptionist, yellow blazer still crispy with factory starch.

You blew it, Tom thought.

"Mr. Middleditch," the suit man offered politely. "I secured a replacement for your shift. I need you to follow me."

"It was the coconuts, wasn't it? I just looked for a fraction of a second." Tom asked, standing without further complaint.

The man nodded at the new receptionist, who begin helping customers, sorry, guests.

"I assure you," the man said with a smirk as he walked through a corridor. "I have no earthly idea what you're talking about."

"I get it, I'm not trying to bust your balls. You're just here for the exit interview."

"Close, I'm here to give you the results from your interview." He handed Tom a business card:

Three Letter Organization

-Mr. Haq-

-acquisition-

"I don't understand." Tom said. "You're not firing me?"

"The receptionist job was a bowl of green M&Ms on the ryder. Everything you've done so far has been the interview, to see how well you could deal with the bizarre, to see how well you can follow orders. The nature of the work requires a degree of obfuscation. I apologize for any confusion. We will begin resolving today."

"Welcome to the TLO, Agent Middleditch."

He pressed the button for the third floor and stepped into the elevator, beckoning Tom to join him.

"So, this isn't a hotel, then…" Tom asked, eyes tracing over the wide glass wall, hopefully as sturdy as it looked, because it seemed to be holding up against the ocean floor on the other side. A whale was sleeping, completely vertically, just at the end of the lights reach.

"An astute observation, young agent," Mr. Haq said, stepping further into floor three, tapping the bottom of a sign that read:

-There is no pool at the Cero Fuentes Hotel and Resort-

"and phrased with just the right amount of awe, to boot. The BONC can be touchy if it detects hints of disrespect at it's efforts." He gestured for Tom to do the same.

"The BONC, it's efforts?" Tom asked as he tapped the sign, sending it swinging again. "Sorry, what are we talking about?"

"No need to apologize," Mr. Haq said. "I myself and many others have been in your exact set of shoes, literally, we reuse the shoes." He pulled off a piece of paper from a pad not unlike the kitchen requisition forms. He pulled off another sheet, straightened them and handed both to Tom.

The substance was unbending, like paper made from Stone rather than wood pulp. Haq put a finger to his lips and gestured for him to read.

-My First Prop sheet- was written at the top in crayon, several letters backwards. The text under it, fortunately, was typed:

No information on any prop sheet may ever be spoken verbally, nor articulated via hand gesture or body language, nor reproduced, copied, digitized, annotated, duplicated, mimeographed, Xeroxed, transcribed, used for inspiration, used in desperation, used to fabricate a paper airplane or any other folded handicraft making use of aerodynamics, ditto'd, imprinted, inprinted, offprinted, or faxed.

The second page was neatly printed with type that should have been too small to read but Tom had no trouble with.

-Pattern:- -The Building of No Consequence, BONC, is a multi dimensional construct of unknown origin, typically representing forms of public leisure buildings. -

The rest of the section was there but blurry, as if Tom's eyes failed to function selectively on those words. He could just make out (TIER E required).

-Rest:- The consciousness controlling BONC, or perhaps BONC itself, is neutrally aligned and able to alter size, style, substance, number ,function, orientation, location, temperature, atmospheric composition, and radioactivity of its rooms.

It's mentality upon conversation is comparable to that of a roughly 7 year old human raised in Western culture. It is disgusted by the prospect of being known and understood. It is motivated almost exclusively by passive aggressive defiance of any label or description placed upon it. This can be utilized by agents using the most elementary of reverse psychology to stabilize rooms as they wish.

Rooms which need to be locked into a certain orientation display signs stating the opposite of their intended purpose. Each agent is expected to acknowledge each of these signs as they pass them to ensure the defiance of BONC is continued.-

The rest was blurred out. Tom had made it less than a tenth through the document. He handed the papers back to Mr. Haq, who without delay ate the first page in one violent shovelling.

"Better than Mama's biscuits and gravy," he offered.

"No thanks," Tom said. "My parents were British, that sounds disgusting."

"That so?" Mr. Haq said, an expression almost of pity, shovelling down the second page as well. American culinary patriotism, Tom supposed.

He followed his boss, he guessed, into another room, looking a bit like a bar, but each side looked like a cozy corner with two chairs. There was no actual bar. The sign above this one said.

-Paisible Bar and Grill is a terrible place to contemplate existential dread-

Mr. Haq tapped the sign, gave the jukebox the Fonzie treatment, then sat in one of the plush leather recliners.

Tom tapped the sign and joined him.

Rather than music, the jukebox played the sound of a distant lawn mower and children laughing. Tom could smell the grass, maybe even some burgers cooking over charcoal. He looked at the jukebox screen which read, -summer 1994-

"I like this room, got another paper for me?"

"No," he said with a chuckle. "Believe me, before too long, you'll have read so many of those, you'll be sick of the taste of them. This is a room for a conversation. What is your name, Tom?"

"Thomas Middleditch," he said cheerfully, not letting the incredible comfy chair sap away his attentiveness.

"So, you're the celebrity from that TV show?" Mr. Haq ask conversationally.

"Yeah…"

"I ask myself why a famous, presumably rich, celebrity would take a job as a hotel receptionist."

"I guess I just wanted some time out of the limelight."

"You guess? You're not sure?"

"What is this about? I didn't lie on my application if this is some kind of vetting thing."

"It's much worse than that, Tom, but it's our lie, not yours. When a new agent is hired, their ego is removed, every memory of yourself, your history, your childhood, your personality, your family, your baggage, is locked up in a neat little box, waiting for you.

"In the early days, we just rolled with that, let the agents build a fresh new personality from nothing, but this led to a slew of problems most of which were solved by the implementation of the Uniform and it's 25 pieces of flare."

"The uniform…"

"On your entrance exam, you were asked your favorite celebrity. A summary copy of his ego has been placed inside you and will form the basis for your uniform, the mentality and personality that you will carry with you throughout your career as an agent. Were you to have been fired during the interview process, your old ego would have been returned to you. It still will be, at the end of your tenure here as an agent.

"So, say I work here for 20 years, I'm just going to wake up one day being 20 years older, not knowing what happened, whoever the real me is?"

"Close, you will be revitalized to your level of health matching the day of your interview. From your point of view, you will have jumped forward in the future 20 years, holding the slip to a winning lottery ticket equivalent to a sizable 401k."

"What about my family, won't they miss me?" Tom couldn't help feeling relaxed, the clink of glasses being arranged and beer being poured was coming from somewhere, the non-existent bar of Paisible Bar and Grill.

"We specifically select for potential agents who won't have anyone looking for them, let's just say."

"Ouch, okay. And if I refuse the job, demand to leave?"

Mr. Haq smiled, "Of course, we would let you go, but the beauty of the process, Agent Middleditch, is if you wanted to leave, you would have done so already. Now, are you ready to meet her?"

"Meet who?"

"Your first assignment."

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The Son of Wealth comes with his first piece of work. I hope you enjoy it.👍🏾