I was humming along quite nice by then. A few Jack and Cokes, a few new friends, band playing too loud. This was the night before my first Saturday off all month, and I was going to make it count.
My new friends worked for some boring-ass logistics company, in town on business. And, as always with outsiders, I was “Jim Houghton, private security manager,” not “Jim Houghton, ace field agent for a secret paranormal organization’s local task force.” It’s unfortunate, really, because the latter story would probably be a lot better at getting me laid.
The important thing about making two new friends is that they pick up two-thirds of the rounds. They were going for light wheat beers all night, which is a sucker move. By the time we headed out of Loosey’s into the crisp early morning air, I was well and truly stumbling.
A quick check of my pockets came up with an item missing from the manifest. “I think I might’ve left m’phone inside.” I gestured back at the door, a little more sweepingly than I would’ve liked. One of the guys, the tall one, offered to go in and grab it.
Mr. Tall One (Craig? Listen, before you judge me, I’m not great with names sober) came back out with my phone. “Man, you want me to call you a cab? We can go splits on it, you shouldn’t be driving.”
I nodded. I was really feeling the whiskey. I guess I didn’t eat enough? He said something about his phone being dead so I entered my passcode to unlock mine for him.
The ride back home was a bit of a blur. I swear, maybe it’d just been too long since I was really the partying type, but I was fucking slammed for only four or five drinks. All I remember is McTall needing to use my phone a couple times to look up his flight out of town. I gave it to him and just told him the passcode, focusing more on stopping the spinning of the world.
As the cab dropped me off, Stretch Tallboy handed me back my phone and wished me a good one. I didn’t even have to pay. I stumbled up the stairs and was out the moment my head hit the pillow.
The light streamed in through the window, thoroughly uninvited. I felt like death, if death had kept spinning on one of those gas station hot dog rollers well past closing time. I rolled over to check my phone — figured I’d see what 20 emails from Kate I’d missed and make sure I didn’t text Trish anything too dumb — and saw no notifications at all. My usual wallpaper was gone, just the default bubbles floating.
Looking through my phone, it was completely empty. And something hit me, even through the thick dumb haze of a hangover. I checked the back. The big scuff mark on the Apple logo wasn’t there. This wasn’t mine.
Tall guy. Shit. So much for a day off. I threw on a hoodie and some jeans, grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and hit the road for Headquarters. This had bad news written all over it, and Kate was going to be pissed.
Kate was pissed. Beyond pissed, actually, she was in the place of hers beyond anxiety where her eyes had no emotion left and her voice went flat. “Where the fuck have you been? I called you twenty times, we’ve got all hands on, it’s full fucking crisis.”
“Lost my phone, stolen I think — crisis?”
“Yes, asshole, crisis.” Kate was pacing around the room. She gestured at her monitor, a map of the Gulf Coast lit up with red. “We’ve got like five breaches in our region alone. Someone came and nabbed the stoplight, 2172, in the middle of the night and we’ve got severe reality fucks in Fort Walton. ESPN source tweeted that Canastota got called up to the majors. We’ve got three people in the hospital in Tallahassee with foot lacerations consistent with 072. That weird animal shit in St. Pete hit the fan.”
“Holy shit. This is a coordinated effort.” I was completely awake.
“Welcome to Saturday morning, Houghton, I’m glad you could fucking join us!” Kate locked up her briefcase. “This is all cover for something big. And I think I know what it is.”
She gestured me outside and we got in her Continental. “What?”
“Site-88 out in Bay Minette, it’s gone completely dark. No morning check in, no staff responding. So I’m flying directly there on SCP Airlines, flight number W-E A-R-E BONED. And congrats, your little adventure this morning means you’re joining me.”
We raced to Gainesville Regional, where a Foundation prop plane was waiting for us, pilot and all.
The Gulf was aflame. This was going to push our little Task Forces to the limit.