it is only a job

Allergies? Sure, I have a lot of them. I am not able to use soap. I am not able to use Era or Tide on my clothing. I can not stand dust. Smells at times make my nose wiggle so badly that I start to cough and sneeze. I live in the shadows these days because of my latest problem with the sun. Light? Not electric light. No. The sun’s light? Yes.

That is how I came to my profession, I suppose. I lurk in the shadow worlds these days. Not many people even realize I exist. I have been in hiding in the shadows for years now. My work? I do at night. I’m what some people call a lurker. However, professionally I do that which snoops and other private dicks are hired to do. To find out the truth in the shadows.

I was a night auditor. I was professional cleaner. No, not with soap. With a gun? No. That is not my way. For a time I lived in a library. I guess I could tell you that story without much problem.

I had just gotten through being fired from NASA. That story is written elsewhere. Having gone through a special school training for security. I had been employed by a wealthy man. Whose book collection was extensive enough. That he hired a profession security team to protect it.

Now I read. Let’s be honest not having seen real light of day since. Let’s say a few decades or more my entertainment was reading. Not watching television. Reading. To be hired to protect books was wild to me.

The person whose name shall not be known collected a variety of rare books. Let us say books could make or break realities. That governments, the Vatican and other religions might find of interest. Or its knowledge to be useful from time to time.

In thinking of this story. I suppose I should back up a way to tell how I had ended up there to begin with. I checked my phone, which I had turned off. The first 49 messages were about a problem and that I should cut my vacation short and get back there fast. The 50th was when NASA fired me. Unexpected. I was their night auditor. And had just finished a vacation where I had learned several new skills specifically for security.

That day, to some relief, was close to my last day of school. But there was something new. Mr. Lee training school was holding a job fair. Being without a job, I went. Now this was different. There was a white, gray, and black line. Choose one and be happy. Looking down the path of each, I noticed my old company’s logo on the white path, so I decided not to go that way. I could see nothing on the gray path and well, black was more like my mood, anyway.

Going black I did not realize because the sign covered that significance, but that would change my life forever.

I put my resume in with a short term contract to guard a library of historical villain books. The owner showed for whatever purpose that he owned the books and was afraid of people coming in to steal them. Loving books, I asked during the interview if I could read some of them and the interviewee just stared like I was the first person to ask that of him. Anyway my first bad guy job was to guard a library of books.

I got there at the appointed time and was assigned to walk a catwalk with shelves upon shelves of ancient looking books. The titles were in French, Italian, German, and a few in English, which were rather scientific about the life and death of such-and-such. How to turn ore into metal, etc.

They centered the vast collection on the shelves in a reading room which I got to pass every 30 minutes. There was a table with an enormous book. Guarded by what? I was told not to touch booby traps, etc. I watched night after night and saw that the whole booby trap was a plate sensor which was rigged to a blow gun.

I got to speak with the owner of the book a few times more than the other three guards. I asked if I could borrow one of his books titled how to build a spacecraft by Nicola Tesla. The owner whose name shall remain anonymous agreed upon the condition that I write a summary of the book. Since he was allowing me the use of the book, I agreed. The book is wonderful, full of explanations and ideas that would have been useful at my old job, but now I had the leisure to read while staying up. My memory courses were useful. In that I even remembered some of the math and chemistry described once when written about later in greater detail.

Working nights and reading days I just got a flat with Jill and Pink which I used as a storage place. When I had time off, Jill and Pink used me as a sleep pillow. The owner of the library allowed me to check out books after working there for four months and providing him with summary reports.

One night at home I found a third lady had groped me and was hugging me. She introduced herself and started talking about my employer as if he was bad. I took a picture of her and went to work. At work I showed the owner her picture. He knew her and called the other two guards together. They had seen her, too. Because of their lack of communication, they reassigned. I later learned the owner let go those two because of this discovery.

Anyway I kept on reading. And summarizing and got involved with a plot to hide the real book. To show a false book. Which if followed would cost whoever stole the book more money? Because of a chemistry of O2, a single O misplaced in the formula, making the whole formula unstable and deadly.

The night of the attack took place. The entire night was normal until the attack. One moment paying attention to the shadows and doing a tiger exercise in which I hit the intruder without realizing she was there. My tiger claw sent her sprawling. She somersaulted correctly. But then the training Mr. Lee's class had provided.

She was a professional, for two knives flashed towards me. One stuck me in the chest, a bulletproof vest took the impact while the other knife I blocked with my elbow guard. She was up and moving towards the book. Not sure if the trap had fixed. Or not and trying to do less damage to the books on the shelves. I tried to stun her with a throwing ball which I had been practicing with at Mr. Lee training center.

I threw the impact was a deadlier than I expected, shattering her face. She went down for the count. By this time, the owner had shown up with a few more backups. Seeing her, he examined her. Looking at me, he said she was dead.

This was my first time killing anything. All my life I had read and been nice now to become a killer over a book.

I called the authorities; the police took my statement, and the owner provided a video recording of the whole action fight. My hitting her by accident made me look like I could see through the dark. For she was not seeable and upon examination I discovered her outfit to be fitted with cameras mirroring her surroundings. Luck was with me. Getting done with the police and work shift, I went home. Luck is a fickle friend.

Anyway, after that I was never to see the light of day again. Meaning? I got hired for specific night jobs and sunlight never bothered me or my conscience again.