Original -- Susan Banks and the Anti-Usual
Title: Susan Banks and the Anti-Usual
Rating: G
Word Count: 866
Warnings: ...uh, none?
Prompt: this building at pulped_fictions
Summary: Maybe Susan should have stayed home today. Or maybe not.
Author's Note: This looks suspiciously like the beginning of a novel. And it might be, if I spontaneously stop being lame. Let me know what you think? XD
SUSAN BANKS AND THE ANTI-USUAL
Susan’s heels clacked on the sidewalk, and her briefcase tapped against her knee like a metronome. She wanted to skip up the marble steps, but experience had taught her that her center of balance didn’t favor that plan-better in the long run to go straight up, straightforward, straight through the doors, and thence to her office at the end of the hall. The plain black numbers of the wall clock showed 8:56, though the silver hands on her watch pointed to 8:59, and from there, it was no more or less than the Usual.
For three hours, Susan searched, compared, booked, filed, chugged watery coffee, and repeated steps one through five. It gave her some satisfaction to remember, at unexpected moments, that she was fast becoming one of the top travel agents in the building, despite being twenty-six and borderline socially backwards-armed with her laptop and her Blackberry, she stopped being Susie No-Boozie and became a small hurricane in a slate-gray cardigan.
At 11:56/11:59, Susan signed one last form, tucked her dark hair behind her ears, removed her tortoiseshell glasses to rub her eyes, and sat back in her swivel chair to breathe.
At 11:57/12:00, the air between her desk and the filing cabinet rippled strangely, and a man appeared.
Susan didn’t scream, but she did make a bizarre squeaking noise as she instinctively curled up in her chair and covered her head.
“Susie Banks?” the man said.
Susan peeked through her fingers. He didn’t have a gun, though he did have a handheld… something, a wrench at his belt, and a pair of bronze goggles with green lenses, which he was currently pushing up into the disorderly spikes of his orange hair.
He paused, cleared his throat, and spoke in an exaggerated impression of Arnold Schwarzenegger: “I come from the future.”
Susan stared a little more. He was wearing puffy brown trousers tucked into knee-high leather boots and a grimy shirt that might once have been white.
“Come on,” he took up, disappointedly. “Really? ‘Terminator’ came out-” He peeked at his watch, presuming that the huge conglomeration of buttons and dials strapped to his wrist qualified as a watch at all. “-twenty-five years ago. No?” He scratched his head, ruefully, looking younger than he had before-thirty, maybe? “Right… I’m Tom. I’m not technically from the future; I just thought it’d… well. It’s more like-an alternate now. But different. And its gentlemen are much more dashing, as you’ve probably figured out.” He beamed winningly. There was a smudge of soot on his cheek.
Susan found her voice where it had been cowering under the desk, whimpering, and dragged it out again.
“You’re crazy,” she managed. “I’m crazy. We’re both crazy. What the hell do you want?”
“I want you to come with me,” Tom said cheerfully.
Susan went back to staring, which seemed to be a marginally safer strategy.
“To my version of now,” Tom explained. “Because… it’s complicated, but you need to. Trust me.”
Susan was hoping for an incredulous laugh, but what came out was more like hyperventilation with a bit of a whistle.
“Really,” Tom insisted. “Just-Susie-”
“Susan,” she heard herself correct.
“Your friends call you Susie,” he said, so matter-of-factly that she almost wanted to let it go.
“What’s your point?” she asked instead.
Tom rolled his eyes, which were distinctly olive-green. “Susan,” he amended, “it’s really-it’s for your own good, too. You wanted to fly, didn’t you? Always, when you were a kid. So you decided you were going to be a pilot, right? And the only time you ever got in trouble in school was in the seventh grade when Jason Beacham said girls couldn’t be pilots, and you punched him in the mouth and cracked two of his teeth.”
The scar across Susan’s left-hand knuckles tingled, as if she needed the reminder.
“But that didn’t work out,” Tom went on, fiddling with the unmistakably-a-monkey-wrench at his side, “and now you’re here, putting other people into the air. But you don’t have to be, Susie-Susan. I’ll tell you what.”
Her heart was in her throat, and she didn’t know why; better still, she had lowered her feet to the floor and was slowly scooting her chair closer to the desk, closer to Tom, closer to the coalescing promise in his voice.
Tom saw it and stepped forward. Susan wanted to flinch, but she held her ground, watching him warily as he approached-it was all soot, or something like it; the lines of his hands were gray, and there was a bleeding cut on the back of his right hand.
He set that hand on the edge of her desk and leaned a little closer still.
“I’ve got a flitter,” he said, “and I’m gonna let you drive it, Susan Banks.”
Susan swallowed.
“What’s a flitter?” she asked.
Tom flipped a switch on the box-shaped tool in his left hand and held out his right. His hand was dark and dirty and strong-looking, and it shook a tiny bit.
“I’ll show you,” he said.
Rating: G
Word Count: 866
Warnings: ...uh, none?
Prompt: this building at pulped_fictions
Summary: Maybe Susan should have stayed home today. Or maybe not.
Author's Note: This looks suspiciously like the beginning of a novel. And it might be, if I spontaneously stop being lame. Let me know what you think? XD
SUSAN BANKS AND THE ANTI-USUAL
Susan’s heels clacked on the sidewalk, and her briefcase tapped against her knee like a metronome. She wanted to skip up the marble steps, but experience had taught her that her center of balance didn’t favor that plan-better in the long run to go straight up, straightforward, straight through the doors, and thence to her office at the end of the hall. The plain black numbers of the wall clock showed 8:56, though the silver hands on her watch pointed to 8:59, and from there, it was no more or less than the Usual.
For three hours, Susan searched, compared, booked, filed, chugged watery coffee, and repeated steps one through five. It gave her some satisfaction to remember, at unexpected moments, that she was fast becoming one of the top travel agents in the building, despite being twenty-six and borderline socially backwards-armed with her laptop and her Blackberry, she stopped being Susie No-Boozie and became a small hurricane in a slate-gray cardigan.
At 11:56/11:59, Susan signed one last form, tucked her dark hair behind her ears, removed her tortoiseshell glasses to rub her eyes, and sat back in her swivel chair to breathe.
At 11:57/12:00, the air between her desk and the filing cabinet rippled strangely, and a man appeared.
Susan didn’t scream, but she did make a bizarre squeaking noise as she instinctively curled up in her chair and covered her head.
“Susie Banks?” the man said.
Susan peeked through her fingers. He didn’t have a gun, though he did have a handheld… something, a wrench at his belt, and a pair of bronze goggles with green lenses, which he was currently pushing up into the disorderly spikes of his orange hair.
He paused, cleared his throat, and spoke in an exaggerated impression of Arnold Schwarzenegger: “I come from the future.”
Susan stared a little more. He was wearing puffy brown trousers tucked into knee-high leather boots and a grimy shirt that might once have been white.
“Come on,” he took up, disappointedly. “Really? ‘Terminator’ came out-” He peeked at his watch, presuming that the huge conglomeration of buttons and dials strapped to his wrist qualified as a watch at all. “-twenty-five years ago. No?” He scratched his head, ruefully, looking younger than he had before-thirty, maybe? “Right… I’m Tom. I’m not technically from the future; I just thought it’d… well. It’s more like-an alternate now. But different. And its gentlemen are much more dashing, as you’ve probably figured out.” He beamed winningly. There was a smudge of soot on his cheek.
Susan found her voice where it had been cowering under the desk, whimpering, and dragged it out again.
“You’re crazy,” she managed. “I’m crazy. We’re both crazy. What the hell do you want?”
“I want you to come with me,” Tom said cheerfully.
Susan went back to staring, which seemed to be a marginally safer strategy.
“To my version of now,” Tom explained. “Because… it’s complicated, but you need to. Trust me.”
Susan was hoping for an incredulous laugh, but what came out was more like hyperventilation with a bit of a whistle.
“Really,” Tom insisted. “Just-Susie-”
“Susan,” she heard herself correct.
“Your friends call you Susie,” he said, so matter-of-factly that she almost wanted to let it go.
“What’s your point?” she asked instead.
Tom rolled his eyes, which were distinctly olive-green. “Susan,” he amended, “it’s really-it’s for your own good, too. You wanted to fly, didn’t you? Always, when you were a kid. So you decided you were going to be a pilot, right? And the only time you ever got in trouble in school was in the seventh grade when Jason Beacham said girls couldn’t be pilots, and you punched him in the mouth and cracked two of his teeth.”
The scar across Susan’s left-hand knuckles tingled, as if she needed the reminder.
“But that didn’t work out,” Tom went on, fiddling with the unmistakably-a-monkey-wrench at his side, “and now you’re here, putting other people into the air. But you don’t have to be, Susie-Susan. I’ll tell you what.”
Her heart was in her throat, and she didn’t know why; better still, she had lowered her feet to the floor and was slowly scooting her chair closer to the desk, closer to Tom, closer to the coalescing promise in his voice.
Tom saw it and stepped forward. Susan wanted to flinch, but she held her ground, watching him warily as he approached-it was all soot, or something like it; the lines of his hands were gray, and there was a bleeding cut on the back of his right hand.
He set that hand on the edge of her desk and leaned a little closer still.
“I’ve got a flitter,” he said, “and I’m gonna let you drive it, Susan Banks.”
Susan swallowed.
“What’s a flitter?” she asked.
Tom flipped a switch on the box-shaped tool in his left hand and held out his right. His hand was dark and dirty and strong-looking, and it shook a tiny bit.
“I’ll show you,” he said.