Jared was bored, and no matter what he tried to do, it was just not exciting. He went out with his friends, and he blogged about it. He played games with his girlfriend Allison, and he blogged about that. He went to work, but thankfully he never blogged about it.

In an effort to spice things up, he decided to go sky diving. Allison refused to go, so he went alone. His instructor was a cute girl, and he rather enjoyed his first tandem jump with her. He had a blast and went home to blog about it. He even gave Allison some extra attention that night.

Jared became bored again the next day. Nothing in the house could hold his interest for more than ten minutes, if that long. He decided to go sky diving again, but this time they made him jump alone. Even if he had jumped tandem, the instructor was a big, burly man with a ZZ Top Beard. He did not get the same thrill from it, but it alleviated his boredom for a while again. He blogged about it, and Allison certainly enjoyed the new found attention.

The next day, Jared was once again bored. He decided to try bungee jumping, and again, Allison wouldn’t go with him. He found lots of cute girls there and enjoyed the trip far more than the sky diving. He blogged about it more, and he was more attentive to Allison than ever.

When he came down from the bungee jumping, Jared went out again to cure his boredom. This time, Allison secretly followed him to see what was making him so happy. She found him flirting and carrying on with half a dozen girls then did his jump. The girls all swooned over him.

Allison was furious, but she reined in her anger and went home to wait for Jared. That night, she told Jared she wanted to try sky diving with him. He naturally agreed, as that would help cure his boredom for the next day.

The next day, they went out for the sky diving lesson. When it came to time to jump, Allison got scared and refused to jump. Jared did not jump because she would not. The instructor jumped with the other students, leaving the couple in the plane.

On the way back to the airport, Jared and Allison discussed the events surrounding Jared’s boredom. They discovered that the cure for Jared’s boredom was not death defying acts and the attention of girls. He just wanted to go out and do things with Allison.

Mercury had done some checking on their Johnson shortly after they had accepted the mission and discovered quite a bit about her. She was currently a presiding member of a local Witch coven. Before that, she had been a shadowrunner, and before even that, she had been a “professional, personal entertainer,” as Mercury had phrased it. The look on his face had told Rachael more than the words: Mister Johnson had slept her way into the shadows. Rachael was not quite sure how that worked out, but she was glad she had not done that.

As the crew drove into Seattle, the early lights of dawn were creeping in between the cracks of the skyscraping spires. Rachael was comforted by the familiar sight, but she was also eager to be rid of the loot and be done with this mission. She had no particular qualms about going into space, but she did not like stealing a shuttle to do it. She feared that that might come back to her, especially since she suspected the amulet was magical and linked to someone. And that someone would be a very powerful someone to have a focus in space!

Jackson pulled his van into a parking garage a couple of blocks from the meeting place. They then walked the rest of the way to the location: a still-busy strip club with a name that Rachael could not read. After a moment, Jackson told her via text message that it meant “Chaos” in Sperethiel, the Elven language. Rachael might have blushed heading in if she had not been to the establishment before on business, but she was careful to keep her eyes averted from the scantly clad Elven women on the poles. She and her companions wound their way past the floor to the back rooms where they could get into a private booth with Mister Johnson.

Lumi, AKA Mister Johnson, was a Satyr, and she sat rather regally in the booth waiting for them. As they entered, their employer made it a point to smile, which showed perfectly white teeth even in the dim light. Jackson and Mercury seated themselves while Rachael handed over the bag containing the amulet. With a soft sigh of relief, Rachael sat down as well.

Lumi closed her eyes for several heart beats, then opened them with unfocused pupils before looking into the bag to verify its contents. With a satisfied nod and a couple of blinks to refocus her eyes, she said, “Thank you very much. You have done well.” The woman raised a tanned hand to tuck a loose strand of auburn hair behind the six-centimeter-long horn protruding from her forehead.

A text message from Jackson appeared on Rachael’s HUD, “Damn she’s hot. Shame she’s a J now.” Rachael blinked a couple of times, then another text message came up, “Oops, sorry. Meant that for just Mercury. Hahaha.” Rachael turned her attention back to the satyr and analyzed the figure a little more. Try as she might, Rachael could not grasp the woman being pretty, but she wrote it off as unnecessary. She would not have done anything with the satyr even if she were pretty.

“As we discussed,” Lumi said and pulled out a set of three credsticks. After laying them on the small table in front of each of the team, she said, “Your payment in full.”

The team picked up the credsticks, and they were about to leave when the satyr said, “How would you like a followup job?” The team gave her the benefit of the doubt and stayed to listen. Rachael gave a long glance at the door before deciding to stay. She had a feeling in her gut that she would regret that decision.

Lumi said, “Now that we have the amulet, I need to make sure that it makes it to the appropriate contact. Obviously, I cannot do this transportation myself. There’s another two grand each waiting for a password to unlock it on those sticks.” A lightning-fast conversation took place in text messages between the team, and they agreed. Rachael did so reluctantly, but despite years of trusting her instincts, she told them to hush. She needed the extra cash, despite the big pay-off from the shuttle run.

“It’s Santa!” Timmy said loud enough to get the attention of the others. Santa was no longer alive, but he was there in the drainage ditch when the others got close enough to see. The flocking children drew the attention of the day care employees, and one called the authorities.

The local authorities were confounded by the Santa for several reasons. First, it was the last day of July. Second, no record of the man existed in their computer systems, no DNA, no dental, no fingerprints, no matching facial patterns. Third, the body was unmarked by any form of trauma, even after an autopsy.

New papers flocked to the story, covering the death of Santa Clause as if people actually believed he existed. They lined up interviews with the children and the day care staff to see if they could piece together the events of Santa’s demise. In the end, he received the following obituary in the Tulsa World:

“Santa Clause (Unknown-July 31, 2009) passed away today, and the devastating loss has left the community numb. Many of the Tulsa residents did not believe in Santa until today, and now many are wishing that they had believed in him more. Children are being especially affected by his passing. The post office has received thousands of letters and cards for Santa Clause, but they will be unable to deliver any of them.”

The blogging community was all over Santa’s death. Michael Jackson’s passing was less noticed than the passing of a mythical icon like Santa Clause. Most of the people mourning Santa’s passing left questions unanswered, whether it was an unconscious act or not. The police had no leads to find a killer if there was one. The doctors and scientists could not find a cause of death. The news papers finally declared that Santa had died because people in the world no longer held the same Christmas spirit as before.

Later that year, Christmas sales began in August and carried solidly through to January. Carols began at the beginning of October and finished in February. Valentine’s Day became Santa’s Day in 2010 in honor of his passing. Retail profits sky rocketed. Six months of Christmas became eight, then covered the whole calendar.

June 12th, 2012

The darkened meeting room held the twelve members of the board, clouded by gentle puffs of smoke from fine Cuban cigars. The head of the board drew a breath around the butt of the cigar, causing the other end to flare bright red and illuminate his face in a fiendish fasion. He smiled and said, “Gentlemen, Project Christmas has been a success.” The other men chuckled politely and basked in the profits of their scheme. And it had only cost one random person their life.

Re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere proved to be much easier than escaping the gravitational pull, at least according to Rachael’s stomach. The shuttle shook considerably more, but she could take that in stride by imagining herself on a windy, curvy road while riding her hog. Her thoughts of her bike calmed her more than comfort food.

“Ok,” Jackson said through Rachael’s comm. “Folks, it’s ’bout time to bail outta this clunker. Once I’s got it leveled out a bit, jump, rip, and watch the fireworks.” A count-down appeared on her HUD, indicating 30 seconds to level then 20 seconds to vacate the shuttle before it nose dived into Mount Saint Helens. Rachael smirked at using a volcano to cover up evidence.

Rachael and one of the two other passengers exchanged a look while waiting. She had analyzed the ork on many occasions, but she always found he was difficult to read. Mercury was some kind of magic user she was told, but not the fireball-throwing, cloak-wearing, Merlin-wannabe kind. The best she could figure was that he was some kind of ninja kung-fu master, but his role in this mission had been to bypass the electronic security. She thought it odd that a mojo-monk to be so in touch with technology, but she kept that thought to herself. She had looked up info on his name and found that Mercury was the Roman name for the Greek god Hermes, who was also the god of thieves.

Jackson was the driver, and he stirred from his techno-trance as the shuttle became as level and steady as if it were on the ground. Elves had a reputation for being pretty-boy celebrities, but Jackson was a wiz with machines, especially driving and piloting. Rachael could not recall a time she had thought him attractive, but she could also not recall an image of him that lacked oil on some part of his body either. She also knew that he did his craft with only his mind. She found it unsettling, but as long as he was on her side, she was fine with it.

Jackson grumbled for a moment, struggling with the safety harness then said loudly, “Let’s get off this scrap heap!” Rachael moved swiftly to get a parachute. The other two had been wearing theirs since they took off. Rachael had needed some mobility. The twenty-second window was just enough time for the ork and elf to leap from the shuttle door, and the shuttle lurched just as Rachael’s first foot cleared the threshold. Instincts and reflexes aided her as she pushed up and away from the shuttle, watching it turn downward sharply.

She could see her companions below, and she fell with them for about twenty-more seconds. The shuttle grew smaller as it sped away from them, and they finally pulled their rip cords to float gently toward the ground a good distance from Seattle near Interstate 5. Shortly after landing and bundling up the parachutes, Jackson did some more of his techno-juju to call in the trio of ATVs that he had stashed off the highway for just this purpose. They drove the ATVs to a garage that Jackson had rented from the local gangers to keep it safe, and they loaded up the ATVs and settled in for the ride back to Seattle.

Along the way, Mercury did some work electronic legwork to notify their boss that the job was done. Mister Johnson was pleased to hear it, and for the third or fourth time, Rachael rolled her eyes at the idea of calling their employer Mister Johnson, when their boss was clearly female.

Prompt: Yesterday, your character called in sick on their birthday because they knew their co-workers had a surprise party planned. Write what happens today.

Julie groaned and smacked the snooze button on her alarm clock one more time. Instead of sleeping, she used the time to rehearse her story again. Yesterday, she had called in sick to work. Yesterday was also her birthday. The office had planned a surprise party for her that she was privy to via an accidental inclusion on an email. She knew she would be in trouble, but every other month of the year, she was forbidden to take off any time on the first or last few days. Such was the curse of the accountant: great pay, good benefits, horrible vacation planning.

Her story was simple, and she repeated it over and over in her mind, hoping it would be enough: She had laid in bed all day. Her husband Steve had taken care of her all day, up to and including chicken noodle soup in bed.

In actuality, Steve had made her breakfast in bed, and then stayed in bed with her for longer than she could remember. She had thoroughly enjoyed that, but it was only the beginning. Steve gave her several gifts, including a new gold necklace, and he cooked her lunch. He then demanded that they go see a movie. The new Harry Potter was out after all, and who could resist that? After the movie was over, he took her to dinner at a very fancy restaurant. He had made reservations six-months ago. Finally, they ended the night dancing at a very exclusive club, coupled with a little bit of drinking.

She smiled then sighed, and her alarm went off again. “It is Friday, at least,” she told herself. With that last bit of encouragement, she crawled out of bed and got ready for work. It was now the first, so she would have plenty of work to do today.

Julie ducked into a side door to avoid most of the people on her way to her cubicle desk. Shortly after eight, her phone rang. It was George from Human Resources. She winced, trying to keep the sound of fear out of her voice. He asked her to come to his office to have a little chat. She told him that she would be there shortly.

She took as long as she dared going to George’s office, expecting to get written up for calling out yesterday. When she finally knocked on his door, he gruffly told her to come in and have a seat.

Once she was seated, he leveled a glare at her that she suspected his kids feared more than monsters in the closet or under the bed. She kept herself composed enough to not shy away from it, barely.

“Mrs. Wilkes,” he said with gravity that was far too heavy for a greeting. “You are aware of the attendance policies of this company, are you not?” When she nodded, he continued, “Then you are aware that we take calling out fraudulently very seriously. You are also aware that we have a clause about any employee discovered to be lying about illness to get out of work is grounds for immediate termination.”

A shiver tickled its way up Julie’s spine, and she nodded again. She tried to keep her gaze level with his eyes, but she could not help a downward glance when he said, “I have been informed of at least two locations you were yesterday during what would have been your shift. I am afraid I will have to ask for your badge. I will escort you to your desk to gather your things. Your employment here is hereby terminated.”

The words hammered in her ears, and she bit the inside of her cheek to keep from crying. She nodded, stood, handed over her badge, and was led back to her desk.

Where everyone in the office was waiting, smiling, and surrounding a cake with candles and the words “Happy Birthday Julie” on it. She blinked repeatedly and turned to look at George who was smirking impishly. Steve stepped out from behind the crowd and filled her in before someone got hurt. Steve had requested her birthday off when he made the reservations. Through George, Steve had made an elaborate plan to make Julie not want to be at work that day. He had played her like a fiddle, and she finally worked up the courage to laugh at the practical joke already thinking of ways to get even with him later.

The results for the Editor Unleashed Flash Fiction 40 contest can be found here.  I’ll leave the reaction part up to E.D. when he gets a chance to post again.

Most people dreaded the beginning of work and were elated by the end of it; Jim was the opposite. He loathed the end of the day so much that he constantly asked for extra assignments or practically begged for overtime. In a struggling economy, overtime was rarely an option, but Jim’s supervisors took advantage of his enthusiasm in an attempt to boost morale. Unfortunately, no one else shared Jim’s enthusiasm for working in a call center to that degree. In fact, they grew to hate being compared to Jim.

Sally decided one day to find out what made Jim want to be at work so much. She thought and pondered and postulated a multitude of reasons for why someone would want to work and not go home.

“He must have a terrible home life,” she told a co-worker Mike.

Mike did not think that that was it, as Mike had met Jim’s wife and at least one of his kids.

“He must have hellions for children then,” Sally said.

Tom had joined the conversation by then and said that his children went to school with some of Jim’s kids and that Jim’s progeny were practically saints in class.

“Well then, maybe he is practically broke and needs the money?” Sally asked.

Jim’s supervisor George had been listening the whole time and decided it was time to break up the conversation by sending everyone back to work and directly telling Sally that Jim was not broke.

Sally was deflated but no less determined to get to the bottom of the office mystery, so she followed him home from work one day, careful to avoid being seen doing so. Jim pulled into the garage of a large house with three children playing in the acre front yard. Through the living room window between curtains, Sally was able to see the wife greet Jim with a warm hug.

Sally was completely baffled. The house was lovely. The children were well-behaved. The wife obviously cared for him. She knew she would get no straight answers staring at the house. She parked and got out of her car. She walked past the playing children and gave them a smile. They smiled and waved back at her. She walked up to the door and knocked.

Jim answered with a curious look on his face, and Sally asked, “How can you want to spend so much time at work away from this gorgeous house, these wonderful children, and your loving wife?”

Jim blinked at his co-worker, unsure of how to answer her. Sally pushed past him and found the wife standing a short distance away. Sally asked the confused woman, “What makes Jim stay at work so much?”

The woman said, “I do not really think that is any of your business. Now, please, leave before I call the police.”

Sally turned back to Jim who shrugged and held open the door. Sally huffed and asked one last time, “Why, Jim? Why must you make us all look bad by constantly showing us up? Why do you want to be away from these children and your wife?”

Jim frowned and said, “The wife you refer to is dead. The young woman behind you is my daughter. Those are her children, my grandchildren in the yard. Her husband died in Iraq. I am here because I lost my house when my wife passed. I work so much because I do not want to be a burden. Now get out of her house.”

The world around her came to a crawl as the cybernetically enhanced reflexes came online. An alert came up on her HUD, indicating that air pressurization in the station was to be disabled in three seconds. First second: she engaged the light magnetic soles of her space suit’s boots, solidifying her stance with a soft, metallic click. Next second: she started toward the end of the corridor that the guards would be coming down any second. Third second: she drew her silenced pistol and leaped forward, flattening like a board in the air with her hands forward.

Gravity disappeared, and her momentum carried her through the air. The first guard came around the corner. The connection between her gun, her HUD, and her implants quickly calculated trajectory, distance, and movement, and a mental command fired the first round into the guard’s face mask. The next round hit a nanosecond later in the same spot and shattered through mask and face alike.

She kicked out to the wall on her right, let the magnetic field of her boot connect with the metal, then spun around to continue her run across the ceiling. The second guard peeked out from the corner then ducked back out of sight. She knew he was screaming into his comm about an intruder with hostile intent. She continued her path to the opposite wall and expended the mental effort to issue the reboot command on Alfred’s program.

She stayed on the left wall and reached down to her belt with her free hand. She threw a small square grenade past the corner and dimmed her HUD. She kick flipped to the opposite wall to keep them guessing even as she knew the flash pack would blind them.

Her flare compensation engaged as the flashes of light began. She pushed off the wall, took to the ceiling, and found both guards staggering away from the pack. Two shots per guard put them out of commission. A green arrow appeared to guide her, and Alfred said, “Well done, Miss Rachael. Please pardon my brief absence.” She smiled and nodded, but she knew there was more trouble between her and her target.

Rachael closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and jumped. She thought of missing the station and shivered, but she focused on her mission. She opened her eyes to look at her HUD which revealed a multitude of read-outs about her destination.

She issued mental commands to her implanted commlink, and Alfred said, “Good evening, Miss Rachael. Would you like for me to knock for you?” Alfred’s voice mimicked that of a butler from an old movie, complete with snooty British accent. She had always wanted a butler, but this was all she would get.

She gave Alfred mental acceptance of the offer. She was no hacker, but she knew her programs were now engaged in electronic warfare.

She got close enough to the air lock door that she could grab a convenient lip, then halted her movement with her feet against the door. She waited patiently for Alfred to finish his job, and after thirty-seconds of eternity looking out at the vast blackness, she heard a doorbell chimed in her ears. The air lock door slid open.

She flipped sideways into the air lock, and Alfred closed the door for her. A light above the door leading further into the station blinked from red to green, and the door opened.

Three seconds later, Alfred said, “I am sorry, Miss Rachael, but they have discovered my intrusion and. . . .” As his voice cut off, she heard people coming down the corridor. It was time to dance.

(By way of explanation, I wanted to make a really short story like one of the Chapter Openings in the new ShadowRun books. They have less than a page, which I figure is less than 250 words. This is 245. It was based off of the #FictionFriday Write Anything Prompt of “(Character) closed his/her eyes, took a deep breath, and jumped.” I hope you like it!)

Dyrtan was once again in his hovering chair at the immaculately tidy crystalline desk before the huge VDG. He had been watching battles like this off and on over the course of the last week. A couple of Terran Free Colonists wanted to punish the Titan colony for the attack on their brothers. Dyrtan rolled his eyes and shot back a snarky text response using only his left hand as usual. The translation of the message read, “Your brethren attacked me. I attacked back. It is a simple concept. It is give-and-take. For every one of my people potentially harmed, I intend to inflict pain and death on a hundred. Leave me be, and you will receive none of this treatment. In fact, if you would hold your lasers and bite your tongues, I might even invite you to the colony to take part of our culture. The blood begins and ends with you. Do not force my hand, and I do not need to strike you.” He pressed send before waiting for the translation to be complete. His translator rarely got everything perfectly, and he did not care enough to nit pick.

He had several more important matters that required his attention. A Xen interloper had been discovered in a nearby star system. While the planet was currently no real threat to him, he knew better than to let the Xen gain a foothold. He did not get to do as many video conference calls with his officers these days. He had more to handle than allowed for that personal contact, but he did make it a point to monitor battles. It did not matter how busy he was; those battles were in some ways the life of his entire colony. If the battles did not occur, his people would die. Or more appropriately, more of his people would die than would be strictly necessary.

During the upcoming battle, a strike force of five scouts had been sent test the waters of the Xen planet. He smirked at the novelty of actually using scouts to scout his target, but the smirk was short lived. The Xen colony put up resistance. The battle was barely started, but Dyrtan saw that the numbers were evenly matched. In the exchange that followed, even the life pods were not enough to save any Titan lives. Ten ships met, and ten lives lost.

Dyrtan frowned and was about to begin sending condolences to the families that had lost family from those ships, but he was interrupted by a High Priority Message from the High Council of Pax Titanica. He dared not delay in reading such an important message. Even more lives could be at stake if he delayed, and his left hand moved before fully processing that thought.

He read the message, quirked an eyebrow, and deleted it. He was being promoted and reassigned. Unfortunately, that meant even more work, and that his condolences would have to wait. His left hand launched a frenzy of movement across the holo-keyboard. He had to completely destroy his construction plans and begin them anew with a new set of guidelines and parameters. Buildings that he had been neglecting for their limited strategic value were now of incredible importance. He could hear the protests of the construction crews already, but he knew they would do as he commanded. They always did.

Even the captain of the recycler a couple weeks ago was listening to him more, since he had bailed her bacon out of enemy fire. She had spoken well of his protection to her friends, and now there were half a dozen recycler captains dumping loads of plentiful resources on Ilanthia. He was certainly in need of this extra material now. Without her and her friends’ help, he would be floundering under the new mission objectives. Instead, it was simply a reallocation of resources into the proper locations.

Once that was done, he contacted the necessary personnel: other commanders that would be assisting him on the mission. They were eager and ready to jump on this chance to show the rest of Pax Titanica what they could do. He had only to ask, and they signed up faster than he could snap the fingers of his left hand. Construction would take a week, and then another flurry of activity between all parties involved. Dyrtan received congratulations from many people. He accepted them with a smile and firm left-handed shake. He even laughed a little at the party in his honor.

But as soon as the party was done, Dyrtan was in a hover jet, making the rounds, delivering personal condolences to each of the families that had lost a loved one in his scouting mission. He received no congratulations from them on his promotion, and at least one family slammed their door in his face. They would understand later the need for what had been done, and he did not fault them. Such was the job he was assigned, to receive both praise and blame, to be both loved and hated, to instill both fear and hope. And he did a good enough job of that to be trusted with his latest mission, possibly the most important mission he would ever undertake.