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Bureaucratic Hell (11-30-2017)

Summonning a supernatural entity and then running before it manifests becomes the new teenager craze. All the cool kids are ding-dong ditching demons. [Link to post.]

“Boss wants to see you,” Elaine said. Her cheerful voice came through the intercom. Rudy sighed, but did not bother replying. He rolled his chair back and stood from his desk. He grabbed his jet black coat on the way out the door.


“Thanks Elaine. Go ahead and take the rest of the day off,” Rudy waved to his secretary as he stepped out into the long corridor. After an hour of walking he reached the boss’ office. He walked in and nodded at Debbie, the chief’s secretary. She smiled.


“No rest for the wicked, eh Rudy?” She said. Rudy shrugged in return.


“Not when it’s my job,” he said. Debbie waved him in to see the big man. He heard his boss’ deep booming voice as soon as he stepped into the office.


“Red! Glad you’re here.” He showed his ivory teeth, and walked over to shake Rudy’s hand.


“You promised me vacation time after I sorted out Chuck’s mess,” Rudy said. He left his hand limp, refusing to return the handshake. The boss let go of Rudy’s hand, then walked back to his desk. He sat down in a leather and metal high backed chair behind his desk. The desk was carved out of a giant, pitch black stalagmite. Rudy sat in the much less impressive chair across from the large red man.


“You let Chuck get away,” Satan said while eyeing Rudy. Rudy shook his head.


“Not my problem. You wanted me to fix the timelines, and I did.” Rudy knew it was dangerous to talk to Satan that way, but he was a hard worker and damn good at his job. Over the years he’d curried a fair amount of leeway. Satan nodded.


“You did, and you’ll get your vacation. This is actually a pretty trivial problem. It won’t take you hardly anything to get done, then you’re on vacation,” Satan said. He pulled out a manilla folder and opened it.


“If it’s so easy why not get someone else to do it?” Rudy asked while his boss organized the paperwork. He stopped and looked up at Rudy.


“It’s trivial for *you*. Anyone else is likely to make things worse. Trust me, 10-15 minute job. 20 minutes tops.” Rudy knew he had no choice, but he appreciated Satan disguising the order as a request.


“What’s the problem?” Rudy asked, eager to get things over with. Satan was a lot of things, but he’d always been transparent when it came to work. If he said 20 minutes, then the job wouldn’t take longer than 20 minutes. Satan handed him a sheet from the file.


“You can blame Chuck for this too. The caseworker that sent him down here, Sam, decided to live topside for a while. Long story short, he made a lot of human friends, and taught them how to summon us.” Satan let out a heavy sigh.


“It’s not a big deal, but it turns out humans are assholes. I’ve gotten dozens of reports, just over the past month about Demon Ditching. The final straw was when they started posting videos to YouTube. They’re wasting manpower and embarrassing my employees,” Satan said. He brought up a video on his computer. The video showed a disappointed and annoyed demon grumbling to himself in an empty room. It had over 100,000 likes.


“Okay. How do you want me to fix it?” Rudy asked. The paper was a dossier on Sam the demon.


“Easy. Hop back a bit and tell Sam to keep his mouth shut. He currently has permission to be living up there, but that can be revoked if he doesn’t keep a low profile. Debbie’ll tell you which T.A.P. you can use on the way out,” Satan said. He dismissed Rudy with a handwave.


“And my vacation?” Rudy asked as he stood up from the chair.


“When you finish this job, you can choose. Two year vacation anywhere you want, or a four year working vacation,” Satan said. Rudy paused at the door and turned to ask.


“Working vacation? That’s a new one.”


“We’ve got a lead on that woman that Chuck ran off with, Ballisea. She sounds interesting.”

“I’ll give it some thought,” Rudy said on his way out the door.  

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