Welcome to the Occupation

So my boss calls me into his office today. There was another round of budget cuts last week, so I think I'm going to be fired. Instead, he tells me that he's kicking me upstairs. I'm going to become a full-fledged agent. Of sorts.

He proceeds to tell me this crazy story about the physical embodiments of primal fears or something. Basically, he says that evil monsters exist and that there is a special subagency that tracks them. They don't fight them -- because, basically, they are unkillable and the only thing we can do is track and try to contain the damage. And then he tells me that they are just one of many such agencies.

Why? I ask. He tells me that the government -- for which we both work -- has tried to keep these things secret for so long, that eventually the agencies themselves become secret and then someone creates a new one even though the old one still exists and suddenly there is a clusterfuck of massive proportions. Which is why there are, like, three agencies which track these things.

I think he's pulling my leg. He's obviously joking.

Except not. He gives me a new badge that has the letters SMSC on it and tells me to report to the fourth floor. I decide to play along and go to the fourth floor.

I get on the elevator. Also on this elevator? A cute guy. He's holding some papers and I think he's an intern maybe, because he looks kind of nerdy, but still cute. He smiles at me and I smile back.

I get off on the fourth floor and so does he. I walked to the front desk and he's right behind me. I introduce myself to the receptionist -- who rolls her eyes at me and calls her superior, someone named "Liza Jane." Then she looks behind me and her eyes go wide. I turn, but the only person behind me is the cute guy.

An alarm goes off suddenly and I realize the receptionist has hit the panic button. Red lights flash and sirens blare and the cute guy just grins at me. I suddenly notice that he has scars all along his arms and neck. He opens his mouth and a bird flies out.

I'm paralyzed now. I can't fucking move. I don't know what the fuck I'm doing or what the fuck is going on. More birds are coming out of the guy's mouth. Big birds. Birds that couldn't possibly fit in there. My mind briefly considers the notion that this is a magic trick of some sort before me and the guy are surrounded by agents with guns.

Another bird flies out of the guy's mouth and then he closes it and speaks. "This is just a warning," he says. "No more coming into our territory. Or else." He smiles and my bowels churn.

I don't know why the agents aren't firing at him. Am I in the way? And then this woman comes forward, straight black hair, looking pretty grim. She says, "We understand. You know the way out."

And then the birds fly backwards and there's this...ripping sound. But it's not like a sound at all, but like it's coming from everywhere. And there's a space behind the guy that's just...gone. It's gone and it's been replaced with a rip. A tear. And beyond the tear I can see the ocean and lightning and a storm. He smiles at me again and then walks backward into the tear. And then it closes.

And my knees buckle and I fall to the ground. This is no fucking practical joke.

The woman who spoke helps me up. She says her name is Special Agent Liza Jane. I introduce myself and she says my new name is Special Agent Lady Grinning Soul. I ask why and she shrugs and says it's just tradition. A new name for a new job.

I ask what just happened and she fills me in. The guy was a "Nest" who went back to the "Bleak Shore." He came here because the SMSC had been encroaching on "Convocation" territory.

She brings me to her office and gives me a cup of water. I ask her why I'm here. "You have exceptional organizational skills," she says. "And, basically, we're a mess. It takes all our time just to keep track of these things and, as you can see, they aren't particularly happy about it sometimes. But we do need to keep track. So we need someone who can organize and file and make sure all our I's are dotted and T's are crossed. Because even though we track these things, we are still an extremely underfunded government agency. So we need you."

I think about that guy in the elevator, how he smiled at me, and it still makes me nauseous. But then I look at Agent Liza Jane and see someone who has sat where I am sitting now and made it through. And I am good at sorting and filing and organizing things. So I say yes.

"Good," she says. "Welcome to the SMSC."