In the Dark

        Gloria had always liked the darkness, it felt safe for her. For most others, the darkness meant terror and the unknown but for her it was cover and protection. When she was a little girl, her sister would wake her in the night, asking to go first down the long dark hallway to turn on the light, and she never minded. She had a secret that few suspected. She could feel the dark if not actually seeing into it. She trusted it, more than she ever had the light.

               She rolled out of bed at 5 in the morning, stretching and luxuriating in the darkness around her. This was her favourite time of day, when everyone else was asleep, dreaming, she was up and about. She made a pot of coffee, and drank a cup standing on her balcony. She watched as already, the sky began to lighten. It was time to get started, she thought and went back to her computer.

               She opened the laptop, found her work site through a link in the side panel and logged in for her shift. It was an easy job, but mind sucking. She sat all morning, listening to and reading reports, filing them away into three categories, easily explained (boring), required a little digging (creative at least) and to investigate (rare, but interesting). The last category she would send to the special email address, once gone she would never get a conclusion which irked her sometimes.

This had begun as just a data entry and customer service job at some low-grade tech company, but when they discovered her knack for ferreting out falsehood, they began to send her little tests. Small packets of planted information meant to fool her, trip her up, but she never fell for it. Instead, she would isolate those reports, send them back covered in red ink to show how and why these were fakes. She never missed a detail and sometimes even found one or two that were not on purpose. This went on for three months before she was called into a meeting.

               “Gloria! We are so proud of the work that you have been doing. I’m sure you have noticed recently that the reports have been peppered with what you might call ‘seeds to germinate’.” An odd turn of phrase she thought, but let it pass. The woman speaking had large features, almost canine in profile. Her eyes sparkled in an alarming way and Gloria was trying hard not to stare. Inside her head she was counting everything, the pens in the cup, the keys on the keyboard, the flowers on the large potted plant in the corner. Counting was how she relaxed, focused. Her go to when she felt anxious and felt that itch in the back of her head that told her something was wrong.

               “Uh thank you?” she replied, unsure of where this was going. She had never received a promotion or even a raise before. She felt suspicious and a little on edge.

               “Not at all my dear,” said the woman with syrupy sweet tones that put Gloria on edge like nothing else. “You deserve all kinds of praise, and opportunity. You see those seeds have taken root and soon the time will come for harvest.” She smiled a large toothy grin and Gloria felt her whole-body tense up. There are 64 ceiling tiles she told herself, before looking back at the woman.

               “Now, I know you are busy, always so much work to do for our busy little bees, so I won’t keep you long. We are going to be sending you a different sort of report from now on. You might find it silly but recently our company has begun work on a project regarding the spotting and identifying of UAP’s.” She paused, looking at Gloria expectantly. For a moment Gloria wondered if this was a joke. UAP, in the world of conspiracy theories, meant Unidentified Aerial Phenomena. In other words, aliens, flying saucers, UFO’s. Gloria waited for the woman to burst out laughing, making this some terrible practical joke but the woman only sat there, looking at her with strangely sparkling eyes.

               “I know,” said the woman waving a hand dismissively, “Its sounds like just a bunch of baloney, but if there is a request our company does its best fulfil that need. You know our motto, ‘information at your fingertips’.”

               Gloria just stared, eyes darting from time to time to count something else in the room. The woman eyed her, made a split decision, and gave a slight nod of the head.

               “Listen,” she said leaning a little closer “I know how it sounds, but the pay is good, and the work is easy. 5 days a week, you will get a group of reports. Just work your magic and tell us which feel right, and which feel wrong. That is it, nothing more complicated than that. Obviously, there is a privacy clause which means you can’t talk about any of the reports, but you are a smart girl. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you the consequences of breaking a clause like that.”

               Gloria smiled and nodded. It did sound easy and the idea of being off the phones was very appealing. She could sense that there was a lot going unsaid in this interview but long ago she had learned that not everything was her business. She accepted the offer, taking the thick envelope with the word Welcome printed across it in bold red ink.

               “Wonderful” said the woman, beaming at Gloria and shaking her hand. The hand felt oddly cold and a little moist and it took a lot of self control for Gloria not to wipe her hands off on her jacket before leaving the office.

               The next morning, an email had arrived at exactly 5 AM, with instructions and a link to the work portal. So, her new life as a human lie detector had begun.

               At eight in the morning, Gloria poured her second cup of coffee, ate a breakfast sandwich, and got back to work. A new report had shown up in her inbox marked URGENT. She clicked on it, curiosity and a slight alarm bringing her heart rate up just a little. She put her coffee cup down and began to read:

               “Middle of the night, this thing just appeared out of nowhere, it hung in the sky over our town, made some kind of funny noise, like a “Poooompa, Poooooompa’ sound. Like nothing I’ve ever heard before. It flashed a bright light and then it was gone, took the whole town with it! Nothing left but a smoldering hole in the ground. I was driving back from the graveyard, I’m the caretaker and some kids had made a mess, I had just finished cleaning the lot when I saw the thing. I guess I was far enough away not to be caught up in it. Damnedest thing I ever saw! My wife, my dog, my house are all gone. You gotta believe me, go look at the hole, it's all gone I tell you!”

               Gloria tapped a pen against her teeth and reread the report again. Her first thought had been, ‘how ridiculous’ but the tell-tale itch at the back of her head wasn’t there. She thought about possible explanations, it could have been an explosion. Something powerful enough to leave a small town in the middle of nowhere as a smoldering hole in the ground. That didn’t feel right though, and she began to research what could possibly be powerful enough to cause that kind of damage. Not a hand grenade surely, and even with a good amount of TNT, something would be left behind. Somethings would have been launched in the air, broken but not obliterated. Not much short of a nuke could cause the kind of damage this man was describing. Even then there would be fall out, and a lot more reports. What could, in such a small town, possibly be powerful enough? The answer was simple. There was nothing. She read the report for the third time, still no feeling of wrongness or falsehood. She shook her head to clear it and clicked the rarely used “to investigate” button before sending the report back.

               Just as she hit submit, a shadow fell over her window casting the day into darkness. She stood up and wandered over to her balcony, above her something large and dark loomed high in the sky blotting out the sun. Surveying the city in a strange fugue state, she saw that a rolling black out had killed the city lights. Sounds of crashing cars and explosions sounded as all traffic halted and everyone stared up. The object began to glow, as tiny panels of light began to open along the visible part of the structure. A sound began, quietly at first. “Poooooompa, Pooooooooooompa, Poooooooooompa, .”

 Gloria gasped, fear like a solid thing in her chest. She tried counting the panels, before the sudden flash of light, and the seemingly infinite darkness that followed.