August 28
She wasn't what I expected, in that I wasn't expecting a "she" at all. When Don retired, I knew that I'd have a new partner for my shift; union rules and--more importantly to PanOpti Consolidated--insurance underwriting required it. I knew my new partner was named Fred, but that was about it.
"Fred" turned out to be short for Winnifred. She was twenty-two and much shorter than me; I expect she just barely passed the minimum height requirements for the job. The uniform didn't fit her very well, but even with that, I could tell she was not exactly a small girl; not big, but just a bit the other side of average. A little chubby, but it only made her eager, uncertain face cuter. A service cap fought to contain her frizzy orange hair, and she smiled nervously as she extended her hand.
"Tom." I shook it, and she smiled broadly. Her youthful energy made me feel old. I knew that was silly; I was only nine years older than her, but I had wanted to be so much further along in my life than this. Night security isn't a bad job, especially a gig as cushy as this one, but it's not exactly a stepping stone to a better career, either.
I had hoped the Marines would be that for me, but it turned out to not be the case. I liked the discipline and regimentation, the feeling of being part of something bigger than myself. But then a training accident came awfully close to killing me for no reason other than that some REMF didn't plan shit out correctly.
If that had been all, I probably would have stuck with it, but a couple of days later, I found out my fiancée had been fucking one of my so-called brothers in arms for months. "Always faithful," my ass. My reenlistment was coming up the next month, and I chose not to sign back on.
"Nice to meet you, sir." I cringed inwardly. 'Sir' provoked a number of reactions in me. The first had been beaten into my head for most of a decade, the 'I work for a living!' one. Inappropriate, under the circumstances. A couple more were inappropriate for other reasons.
I finally settled on, "Tom is fine. I hope I'm not old enough to be 'sir' yet."
Fred blushed in a thoroughly adorable manner. "Sorry. I didn't mean-- ah- that is, I just wanted to-- it's my first day." I had to stifle a laugh at the poor, flustered kid's consternation.
"It's cool. Come on, let me show you around."
She fell into step beside me. I slowed my walk to let her more easily keep up with my longer stride. We had all night. Not much ever happened; that's one of the things that made the job so great. I talked as we walked.
"So, good news for you: you've found what is hands down the easiest job you'll ever have. I don't know if you know someone or you just have some kind of preternatural luck, but you have to fuck up-- ah, I mean mess up in a really massive way to get fired from this one."
She chuckled. "I don't mind profanity. I've even been known to use some from time to time."
With a grin, I continued. "Okay, then. The long and the short of it is this: we're guarding a big warehouse with almost nothing in it."
"Why?"
"Because they pay us to. For you and me, that's the important answer. Don, the guy you're replacing, said that it had something to do with the company that owns it not being able to find anyone to buy, but they also don't need to store as much inventory as they used to. And it's a big enough company that it's kind of fallen through the cracks; 'a line item of a line item' is how he described it. Could be talking out his ass, though. Don was like that."
"And we just... watch it?"
I shrugged. "Yeah, pretty much. Keep squatters out. Occasionally, tweakers will try to steal copper; that's part of why there's two of us. Oh, and, uh..." Now it was my turn to blush. "There's a, um, a tradition at the nearby college. Graduating seniors will sometimes try to sneak onto the premises to film... um..."
Fred laughed. "Yeah, I go there. I know about it. Nice vantage point of the clock tower for a photo op. The good ol' 'Fuck U'."
Taking the opportunity to change the subject, I asked, "What're you studying?" We started walking up the stairs to the 'command center.'
"English. Creative writing."
The door opened, revealing a big empty office space overlooking the rest of the building. Inside was a conference table, a bank of monitors, some office chairs, and a ratty couch that had been scavenged from the warehouse we were supposed to guard. No one had ever checked on anything here in the three years that I'd been here; I doubted anyone ever would.
"Cool. You should find this is a great job for getting coursework done; it has been for me." I motioned to one of the chairs in front of the monitors and we sat. "So here's how a typical day goes: we sit here and keep an eye on the monitors, one or the other of us does a foot patrol every hour or so to hit the blind spots and check the doors, we fill out a log affirming we've done it and... that's about it."
Fred looked dubious. "Really? That's all?"
"That and try to overcome boredom. Hell, we don't even have to take too close a look at the monitors; there are motion sensors on the perimeter. All part of the PanOpti Premium package. No, I don't know why the client is paying for the premium package." I stretched and started to unpack my backpack onto the conference table. "No one ever checks up on us, and we want to keep it that way. We do a good job, nothing bad happens, and we get to study, watch Netflix, and nap on the couch pretty much as we want."
"Jesus. I feel like I'm robbing them instead of watching the place." She looked at the books coming out of my pack. "Comp sci?"
Shaking my head, I started shuffling through my notes. "Nah, IT security. Not good enough at math for comp sci. Got another year to go. You?"
Fred shrugged. "Same, probably. Might try to go for my master's, but I dunno. I don't really want to teach, and I don't want the extra debt, but I also like academia. We'll see." She tentatively slipped a book out of her pack, watching me with a sidelong glance to make sure I wasn't just fucking with the new girl.
"I'm not."
"Huh?"
"Messing with you. I have neither the interest nor inclination in hazing anyone." I'd put up with plenty of that shit over the years, and I had no intention of being on the giving end. And since there was plenty of time for me to study, I decided to try to make her more at ease. "What kind of stuff do you write?"
Her cute round face brightened. "Oh, all sorts of stuff! Drama, romance, fantasy, sci-fi. I don't see a reason to segregate literary and genre fiction; I like the whole smorgasbord."
"Nice. I'm a big Tolkien fan."
"Yeah? Me too!"
We chatted affably off and on for the rest of our shift, comparing favorite books, talking about the job some more, and generally shooting the shit. I mentioned offhand that I'd written a bit, too. Nothing as serious as her, but I found it a relaxing and cheap way to pass the time. She brightened at that and opened up even more.
I liked her. We didn't share anything too personal, but the more we shared, the more I wanted to. I think she felt the same. But the easy rapport that tipped ever-so-slightly towards intimacy presented me with two problems.
The first was that she was so much younger than me. She didn't seem naïve or inexperienced for her age, but that was the key: for her age. We were separated by nearly a ten year age gap, and she hadn't ever been out in the real world. I had spent a decade in the military and gone back to college, which gave me a very different view of things.
The military has its own weird culture of arrested development. It's very different from the college experience, but still a kindred spirit. You had a bunch of teenagers kids that couldn't afford to go into college or didn't have the grades to. Then, there was a tier of guys just above them that remembered what they were like at that age but had never been out into the civilian world, either.
But all of these kids were being given training that could run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars on equipment that went well into the million and even billion dollar range and given the keys to things that could literally destroy city blocks. It blended into a bizarre mix of deadly serious business and Peter Pan Lost Boys hijinks, which sometimes turned tragic.
A world of difference separated our lived experiences. That could have been fine by itself, but once we mixed in that ten year gap, I couldn't justify approaching her as anything more than a friend. It didn't mean I wasn't attracted to her; I love curvy, short girls, and Fred's charming, unaffected sweetness made it hard to not look at her that way. Very hard, honestly.
But the second problem convinced me to keep things between us solely within the bounds of friendship. My dad used to say, "Don't get your meat where you get your bread." I didn't love my job as a career, but it was about the best damned job I'd ever have for where I was in my life. One more year, and I'd have my degree and be on my way, and my life plan didn't involve me getting fired over a workplace romance gone bad. I didn't need to screw this gig up, and it seemed to me that she didn't need that, either.
So, reluctantly, I rebuffed any probing by her towards more than what we had: the fine start of a work friendship. Our discussions of college and literature made for a helluva lot better time than listening to Don rattle off conspiracy theories about mind control nanobots and cursed magical objects that lurked waiting for the wrong person to find them. Don was... yeah. I definitely preferred Fred's company.
As the shift came to an end, I asked, "So, any chance I can read some of your stuff?"
She bashfully toed the carpet. "I dunno. None of it's very good."
"I doubt that!" Fred still seemed uncertain. "Look, how about I let you read some of mine first? If you'd like? Then you'll see I have absolutely no room to criticize."
That cute little nose crinkled as she laughed. "Yeah, okay. I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours." Then she turned crimson in about the cutest way I'd ever seen as I tried not to laugh.
November 24
Fred groaned on the couch, thoroughly gorged on chorizo-stuffed turkey, black beans, rice, flan, and more. "Oh my Goooood, I think I'm going to die."
I struggled against my own food coma. We had both gotten all kinds of fucked up on tryptophan. "Told you Mexican Thanksgiving is the best."
"And so many leftovers! Your mom sent me home with, like, a duffel bag of stuff!"
"She likes you." Thank God Fred didn't speak Spanish; my whole family loved her, and I got to hear many and varied responses to her presence, from 'c'mon, you two are dating, don't hide it,' to 'why aren't you two dating,' to 'she's a little young, isn't she,' to 'hey, cousin, if you aren't going to, can I--?' That last one got shut down by glares from myself and half the woman in earshot; Hector was a dog, and we all knew it.
