Ragwir Industries

He stared at the paper in his hands, bemused, befuddled...more synonyms for confused.

It was a letter, a very formal looking thing, with a custom, non-printed signature at the bottom, and a fancy, uselessly intricate logo on the top left corner. The weird thing, though, is that he didn’t remember applying to this particular company, couldn’t even for the life of him think what type of company it was; the fancy name spelled out Ragwir Industries, on top of what looked to be a coat of arms that was completely out of time, complete with knight and what seemed to be some kind of canine.

Thinking hard to himself, he tried to think if he had seen this company somewhere around the city, or maybe in a newspaper, or online, but he couldn’t think of anything that might fit the odd letter he was grasping in his hands; it’s true, he’d been trying for jobs all over town, trying everything without a care to what was actually going to be needed, hell, he’d even lied on more than a few applications. It was wrong, sure, but he wasn’t the first to do this, and he wouldn’t be the last, not in a long shot.

But Ragwir? No, not ringing any type of bell.

“Maybe try reading the paper first? Or, maybe even do a google search. If they’re legit, then there’s bound to be some trace of them”

“Anyone can make up a website, it’s easy” he tried to reason with himself, even as he went over to his old, barely-functioning laptop and sat down, laying the paper down to his left far softer than what was probably needed, “But...making it look official, that’s gonna take a bit more attention to detail.”

The letter was simple, only a few lines long, with a hearty congratulations at the start, and a hopeful ‘see you soon’ at the bottom. All very fine looking, and he wasn’t getting any weird feelings from it either, but he still rapidly punched the tricky keys on his keyboard, bringing up a search of the company.

They looked pretty legit, given that he didn’t only find one, main website, but several others that used their services and for some different departments, he even recognised a few websites as stores and other companies, and not only ones he’d seen around. Hell, his best friend worked for one of these companies too, and he knew how the website looked, she was crap at electronics, and he was called in more than once to help her before he had moved.

So, he went to their main website and was surprised to find out that Ragwir was not only a major company that extended to several other, smaller ones around the world, but that they even had dealings with his own government.

‘That’s never a good sign’ he found himself thinking before he could help it, snarling as he read a bit on their information page, ‘Mainly machinery parts, it seems, but they also do weaponry parts, military-grade weapons in the hands of a civilian company.’

“Suspicious” he nodded, it was.

He looked back at the letter again, reading the middle part, that listed the time and date for his official, face-to-face interview, the location being their main building, the 15th floor. The date was tomorrow, which was short notice for anyone, but given that he didn’t have any job or connections in this new city yet, it wouldn’t be a problem to be there at 8AM tomorrow morning.

He knew he had to go, he couldn’t be picky, after all, given how many applications he had sent off recently, now one was actually reaching out to him.

“You’d be stupid to miss this chance, it could be your big break. Working for a company like that could open a lot of doors, hell, you’d probably even get transferred anywhere you could want to go”

There’s always that.

With his mind made up, he made sure that he knew exactly where the building was located before he went about getting his clothes cleaned and ready for tomorrow morning; it was already well past midnight and he was a night owl by nature, but he could easily manage on a handful of hours of sleep before a busy day. And, if he wanted to land this job, he knew that he would have to be at his best.

The rest of the night was spent around his small apartment, as he busied himself, going out only briefly to get some takeout, but he quickly returned afterwards, a bad neighbourhood was no place to walk around in in the middle of the night; then he went on a deeper research mission to find out as much about Ragwir as he could and, when he looked at the clock on his screen again, it was just after 6AM and he hadn’t learned much more than his initial search had showed him.

Getting dressed and ready, he paused at the front door and considered calling his friend, but didn’t want to disturb her, he knew how tired her medication made her and the new batch seemed to be making it worse, even though it did seem to be helping.

So he grabbed his phone and the apartment keys before leaving, the door locking automatically behind him; Ragwir was quite the distance away, especially given the fact that he had no means of transport and he couldn’t afford a lift, forcing him to walk the way, in the heat and he purposely ignored the loiterers that shouted to get his attention, looking straight ahead. If he would look at the walkway beneath his feet, rather, then he would seem weak, and that would draw even more attention, which he really didn’t want or need.

He hadn’t even made it halfway before he was already breathing heavily, sweat on the back of his neck and he cursed the distant sun, and the planet’s pollution that made it even worse. Pushing on, he walked past a street vendor, arguing in a foreign tongue with a man who had tried to steal a porn magazine, so occupied that the man didn’t even notice a deft hand swiping a bottle of water.

Finally, he looked up and saw what he assumed to be Ragwir, a tall, thin building that seemed to blend in with the others around it, if he hadn’t been looking for it, he swore it could have melded into the buildings around it. There was no company name anywhere, not towards the top, or even at the front doors, just simple, dark windows that made sure no one could see on the inside.

“Even more suspicious”

He walked up to the front door and pulled on it, involuntarily letting out a sigh of relief as he walked into the cold room beyond, and not A- cold, either, but like the cold immediately reminded him of a morgue.

A thought that sent a shiver through him as he looked around the moden(barren) entrance room, noting the flat colours and sparse plants, all-around little colours and another, single person.

It was a woman, the obvious receptionist, sitting and typing away at a document, lidded eyes focused on the screen until he came within touching distance of her desk; the dark orbs flickered up for only a fraction of a second before looking down again.

“Go straight through the door behind me, elevator’s on your left. They’re waiting for you on the 15th floor” she said and her attention slid completely back to whatever she had not paused in typing.

He frowned; rude, but not the worst person he’d ever met, so he walked around her, glancing back once, but her eyes never moved from the screen, nor did her fingers stop their rapid movements.

The elevator was where she had said it would be, and he quickly jammed his finger into the ‘UP’ button, looking around at the continuous blandness around him.

He had no funny feelings, nothing like a warning, telling him to get out or beware, so, when the elevator docked a minute later, he stepped in and pressed the required floor, watching as the door slid shut silently, emphasis on the silent part, as the small cube lacked even the usual, grating elevator music. He was just standing there, staring at the foggy-like steel door in front of him, the elevator lacking even mirrors.

When the doors slid open again, he frowned, sticking his head out and looking to the left and right first: it looked identical to the floor he was just on. Taking a tentative step out, he looked around again; to his left was three doors and then a dead-end and to his right, a single, large glass door before the hallway took a sharp turn.

“Huh” he muttered, rubbing his hand through his hair.

“Glass door”

Shrugging, he headed towards that door, stepping up to it and raising a hand to knock, stopping just beforehand.

“Please come in, Mr.Creighton” the voice called from inside and he frowned, slowly pushing the door open, the door moving effortlessly on the inside, was a boardroom, holding a single man, in his late 40’s and greying around the temples, “My name is Aoric Ragwir, I was the one to send you the letter, inviting you to join our company. Please, have a seat.”

The door closed behind him, still as silent as the entire building, as he walked in and he sat down on the only other chair at the large table, settled as far from this Mr.Aoric Ragwir as possible. What kind of name was that? And he thought he was weird.

“Thank you, Mr.Ragwir, but...I don’t remember ever applying to this company, and I never had a first, informal interview either…” he started, trailing off when Mr.Ragwir raised a hand, his dark lips quirked into a small smile, barely visible, but there.

“You didn’t, that is correct, but we wanted to contact you ourselves. We heard about you from a...mutual friend of ours. Mrs.Eva Dehlin?”

The name sent a chill through him, like his spine had been replaced with a solid slab of ice, he wanted to get up, he wanted to get out...but still, no vibes? How did that even work?

He narrowed his eyes as he stared at Mr.Ragwir, saying in a tone similar to the ice in his spine, “She is no friend of mine.”

Now the man’s grin spread wide, revealing white teeth that stood out like lightning in the dark night of his skin, “I’m very glad to hear that, Mr.Creighton, she is not of my stock either. You came up while we were having dinner the other night, she claimed that, if anything were to happen to her, to get into contact with you, not that you would appear if she was mentioned in any way.”

“She was right, if this is just about her, then I’m leaving” he went to stand up, but Mr.Ragwir continued to speak.

“Eva is dead, Mr.Creighton” the words struck him and, he knew that he should be happy, he was definitely relieved by those words, but also disappointed that he hadn’t, at the very least, witnessed it; he looked back at Mr.Ragwir as he continued, “Our dinner ended rather abruptly, as you can maybe imagine. There is nothing to think about her anymore, for she has been forgotten.”

“The bitch is dead, finally, maybe now we can proceed to the next step”

“Cataclysm…” he whispered and Mr.Ragwir’s smile stretched even farther across his narrow face, nearing unnatural.

“Exactly, we know, Mr.Creighton, and we have been very busy in our little dome here, making sure that everything is going according to plan, so much so that we made sure you yourself had no idea what was going on. Eva was the final step.”

“He’s right. There’s no more noise, no more whisperings. The chanting has been silenced, the chains are breaking!”

The voice was louder now than ever before and he reached up and knotted his hands in his hair, pulling so hard that he felt several strands rip from the root.

“Mr.Creighton, you of all people should know how important this is; we also know that you are not happy with this situation, but it is unavoidable. That’s why we stepped in to assist, we did everything up until this point, but you have to take the final step, you have to help us the rest of the way.”

He snarled again and finally stood up in such a rush, the fancy, soft chair he was on went flying out behind him, shattering against the wall as he hissed, “I’ve been hunted for nearly all of my life, constantly on the run and, when I finally decided to try and settle down, I was forced to watch them get killed, I can barely have any friends!”

“Exactly, Mr.Creighton, that is motivation, and this is the perfect opportunity to get back at the surviving heirs; your family betrayed you and you deserve that revenge” Mr.Ragwir stood up and moved to the window not far from him, motioning closer to the window, which he reluctantly neared, looking out over the city, “This is all their doing, done in such a way that you are hated, no matter where you go, for as long as you exist. You deserve more than their hate, Mr.Creighton, you deserve their fear--”

“I don’t want their fear, I want to be left alone.”

“Fear is a weak emotion in the grand scheme of things. If you truly want to be left alone, fear is not needed, but reverence, gratitude, worship. Slaves that ignore the fact they are slaves, in order to try and live out a shackled existence, for there is no life anymore, that is what the world has come too. When they are freed, they will be thankful to the one who freed them, they will take your word for that fact alone, that it came from you”

He raised a hand and pressed a single finger against the glass, barely a touch and watched as it spiderwebbed outwards, creating elaborate patterns and distorting their images.

They were both right, he knew that, no matter if he had spent the past centuries running and trying to hide from the fact that his own blood had caused this rundown world, they had bled the planet, not only from its resources, but had even used its inhabitants in their own methods, cursed ways to extend their lives, to appease those that they served. Those that they contacted within the first few decades of birth, those who became their patrons and lent them powers to do with as they pleased, for the only sake to have a connection, or even to feast on the essence of those they willingly torment for power and eternity.

The very creature on the other side of the glass, her own finger raised and pressed against the glass and he felt cold against him, wrapping around him like a blizzard, as the inhuman creature’s face moved in what it thought was a smile.

“It’s a heritage, a job, one that you never wanted, but it’s one that you know is needed”

He snarled again and looked at Mr.Ragwir next to him, the man still smiling towards the skylines in front of them.

“What are your thoughts then?” he demanded and the man’s grin extended even more, the tips extending back towards his ears and revealing something within his maw.

“I say, we start small, can’t go after the head right off the bat, the head likes to bite.”

He gave a single nod and placed his hand flat against the glass, watching as it shattered and collapsed silently before zipping off, a deadly rain aimed at not a single person.

In the end, even in the hierarchy there are different levels, the same with slaves, nothing is black and white, one side is not wholly good and the other wholly bad; there needs to be a balance, if their civilization wants to continue, to not end up like the humans who had created them, the humans who had fallen to their own perverted ambitions And, his patron was correct, he didn’t want this job, but it’s one that needs to be done.