Aubree (Andrew) Rozek WoB Short Story Contest Submission “He Sees You While You’re Sleeping” 12/10/2021
He Sees You When You’re Sleeping “Has Kitsune been deployed yet?” I turned to Nick, who sat on the other side of our small office. “Yes, they’ve been deployed, almost all of the Wisconsin forces are already out and getting the job done,” he turned around to make eye contact with me. “Can’t believe they didn’t even put me on Wendigo and I just have to sit here with you and be boring all Christmas.” “I don’t get why you and all of the other guys here in the office are so desperate to be on active duty, it’s a dangerous job, and frankly, it still feels wrong,” I turned back to my computer, a satellite image of a small town in northern Wisconsin displayed on the screen with bunches of tiny red dots scattered across the city. It was my job to keep tabs on the members of Centaur and make sure they hit every single house and got their job done. “You’re always so focused on the morality of this job, Katrina,” Nick continued, despite me turning away from him. “You had the choice to leave as soon as they told you the details of the job, so long as you swore secrecy and accepted the fact that if you told anyone, you’d be assassinated immediately. You chose to stay. So stop worrying about the morality of it, and think about how much fun it would be to dash down the city streets in the night with a skeleton key to every single door you come across.”
“That’s not what I came here to do, you know,” I rolled my eyes, still not bothering to face him as I spoke. “I love this job, I really do. I love helping people, and that’s what we normally do. But Christmas is completely different. We turn into monsters.” Speaking of being a monster, of course, a notification came up on my screen from May, telling me her location and that she had shot some parents with an amnesia dart. Great. I send the same old copy paste message telling her to cue amnesia protocol. Extra surveillance equipment can be placed around the house, and while they’re out cold, microchip them as well. They’ll never remember what happened, and never notice that they’re now the government’s plaything. “Think about it, though. The reason we do all this is to help people. This is how we catch criminals, we have cameras everywhere that we update annually, and anybody who falls victim to the amnesia darts gets microchipped too. This is how we keep the country so safe nowadays. And hey, it’s not all that bad. We leave presents too, under the guise of Santa, for the kids. Sure, then we have to drug the parents into thinking they were the ones to buy that present, but we have the money and the people; why not do it?” Nick continues getting on my nerves. I spin around in my office chair to give him a cold stare. “Nick, giving stupid presents to kids doesn’t change the fact that we’re intruding on all 330 million people in this country! Doesn’t it disturb you to know that every Christmas, people were sneaking into your house and putting cameras everywhere, possibly even microchipping you!?” I snapped at him. Because truly, when I took this job and first heard that this is what the government does to its people, my privacy felt incredibly violated. Sure, yes, most of the footage that we record from people’s homes doesn’t ever get glanced at, but still. I know I’m being watched at all times, and I know exactly where the cameras are too. And as much as I go home some nights and just want to smash them on the ground, I’d face huge punishment if I ever did. “Yeah, but this is my third year working here,” Nick said. I sometimes forget how new he actually is. “I’ve already accepted that that’s the reality of life, that every single movement of ours is being watched. It’s to keep us safe, remember? Come on, you’ve been working here for…isn’t this your eighth year? Shouldn’t you have accepted that reality by now too?” I brought my eyes down to the black boots covering my feet. “You don’t get it, Nick. You really don’t.” “Okay, sorry, I didn’t mean to strike a heart string. But I’m just saying. Yeah, it makes my skin crawl sometimes too, but this is our world, Katrina. Now that we have all this crazy technology, this is the best way of keeping our world safe. I know you went into this job with that intent. Just to help. Try and focus on the positive of the sometimes seemingly immoral things we do.” I didn’t reply, turning around to get back to the computer. There’s really no use in getting caught up in an argument now, we’ve still got a long night to go. It’s only one in the morning; we’re on duty until eight. Centaur is still moving smoothly, thank goodness. Only one more amnesia protocol was called while Nick and I were arguing, along with a child protocol. Children were the easiest ones to trick, unfortunately; it’s why we dress in red and white. Amnesia darts can’t be used on anyone younger than twelve, so we trick kids into thinking it’s just Santa and they need to go back to sleep so he can finish his job. Of course, this really isn’t a surefire solution, but it gets by. Obviously, we have the kids who already don’t believe in Santa
anymore, so they run to get their parents, their sibling, there’s far too many things that can potentially go awry. I don’t really want to talk about what happens when those things do go awry, but I’ll just say it gets messy and is one of the biggest reasons why I absolutely refuse to go on active Christmas duty; I couldn’t bring myself to carry out emergency protocol. It’s rare, yes, I normally only get one, maybe two at most called in each year for whatever group I’m chosen to be the head of, but…it still makes me sick to even think about. Not only is it sickening, it’s annoying, too. We have to dispatch a cleanup crew to the location and everything. Nobody is a fan of emergency protocol. But that’s the way it is. We may give presents to the kids on Christmas night, but for every thousand or so kids that gets a gift, a family has to die. “As much as you say you want to be on active duty, do you ever think about emergency protocol, Nick?” at this point I’m just looking to get a reaction out of him, but I can’t help it. “I do,” he kept his response short, eyes still trained on his computer screen as he copy pasted the amnesia protocol message. “And?” I kept pushing. “Nobody wants to do it, but sometimes it has to happen. Until we can figure out how to make our amnesia darts viable for younger children, that’s the reality. If you’re worried about their progress on that, you can head down to Eric’s lab once January hits and see what’s going on,” Nick rambled, speaking quickly. “Is that why you don’t want to be on active duty?” “Primarily, yes, to be honest,” I sighed. I didn’t say anything more. Nor did he. It’s not like I blame him for wanting to be on active duty; I can see where the excitement could potentially come from. But still, it’s a dealbreaker for me. I pick up my coffee mug, taking a swig from the bitter concoction, almost all of which is espresso. Coffee was never my favorite, I really could care less about the taste, but the caffeine is sometimes all that gets me through the day. Call it my legal addiction, and I guarantee, if you ask anybody else in the office, they’d say the same. I look back up at the computer, setting the mug back down. And turns out, there’s my least favorite thing about this job displayed as nicely as possible in a neat little notification on my screen. Emergency protocol has been called by Tyler at a small house containing a family of four. My hand quickly travels to the phone, and I dial in the number to take me to the cleanup crew. We don’t normally get them called this early, jeez, it’s closer to the end of the night where they get called because everyone gets a little sloppy due to fatigue. Nonetheless, the cleanup crew had arrived on the other end of the telephone wire, and I’d already got the address up. “Location, Miss Harvey?” Good ol’ Kenny picks up, and despite our good relationship, he answers in the monotone voice that’s custom for our line operators. It’s chilling, almost, considering the circumstance as to why I’m calling, but oh well. As Nick likes to say, that’s just the reality. We can’t just break down crying every shift, can we?
I give him the address and tell him how many people were there, doing my best to leave my voice and tone strictly professional. You’d think it gets easier over time to hide the wobble in your voice, but even after so many years of doing this, it still remains a hard task. “Thank you. The crew is on their way and you have been permitted access to view their current location. We will send a notification when the job is done,” and he hangs up. I put my hands over my eyes, the blackness comforting. “I’m sorry,” Nick quietly said. “It’s fine.” Moving my hands from my face and back to the keyboard and mouse, a new red dot now showed up on my monitor, one that moved significantly faster than all the other dots. I didn’t need to key in to know that this was the cleanup crew van. As Tyler’s dot slowly traveled further and further away from the house, the cleanup crew got closer and stopped for a while. Soon enough, the dot disappeared off of my map, and a notification came up. Thank you for notifying the cleanup crew. The job is now done and you may resume regular supervision. Not even two in the morning and I’ve already had emergency protocol called. “It’s gonna be a long night, Nick,” I muttered, not even sure if he heard me. “Yeah, it will be. But we’ll make it through. Trust me.” *
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I fish my house key out of my pocket as my sunglasses do nothing to help stop the sickening morning sun from blinding me. The keys are cold as I cycle through them, trying to find the right one to break the lock. Maybe I should ask for one of those Christmas skeleton keys just so I don’t have to bother with this inconvenience every time I get home. The house is silent as I take off my winter coat and shut the door behind me. But even in the silence, I can feel lifeless eyes watching me from every corner. I immediately head to my bed, pulling off my work clothes and changing into something more comfortable before falling into the monotone sheets. My eyes instinctively travel to just behind the TV hung on the wall. Sure enough, the camera has been replaced. I shiver, pulling the blanket over my head and squeezing my eyes shut. I wanna quit this stupid job. I wish I never took it in the first place. But it’s not like quitting would change anything anyway. Even if I quit working for them, the government’s eyes will always be watching me. And they’ll always be watching you, too.