Acting Up by Sky Dion

Author:Sky, Dion
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aethon Books
Published: 2023-12-26T00:00:00+00:00

9 Take Your Daughter to Doomsday

“Increase troop mobilisation to national borders, with the reservists ready on standby. I want a draft emergency budget redistribution favouring trade and imports, and get me the Swiss President on the line. This may be more than our infrastructure can handle. Will someone please update me on Pope Grace.”

- Prime Minister to the Council of Ministers, Italy

According to reports on my latest new phone, the world had supposedly descended into chaos in the time it had taken me to bang my head against spreadsheets. I was inclined to think it had gotten the better deal.

Once out of reality slice range and Odin’s memorial to himself, I began to slide back into a better mood. Admittedly, it wasn’t looking great out there. The world economy was still in shambles after the sun incident as organisations the world over rushed to reconfigure their working hours. Earthquakes were in the process of ravaging Japan with no one arriving in time to stop them. A plane had run into a mysterious giant wall in the middle of a Bolivian salt flat – well, these were other people’s problems. Other people meaning Vishnu and, to a lesser extent, Tez.

My phone rang, and I tore my eyes away from the smoke still hanging over Rome casting a dull orange haze over the rooftops across the new night sky. “Odin,” I answered, though I looked absolutely nothing like him at the moment. Rather, I was passing myself off as a nun, weathered and kindly, with three crucifixes for extra piousness.

Shops were still open, or at least some were. The Italian government hadn’t yet reached a consensus on which new restrictions they were going to apply to national opening hours, and the country was experiencing unprecedented 24-hour activity as a result. In fairness, some of that activity could be put down to people panic-buying supplies, but there were equally as many people out enjoying a meal as I was.

Enki’s voice groaned down the other end of the phone. “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t absolutely necessary.”

“Do go on,” I said pleasantly, taking a sip from my cup of espresso.

“I need to transfer two hundred of your Helpdesk staff into Operations. I know how it looks, but we need to adapt. It doesn’t matter who they are –”

“Sure,” I interrupted. “Go ahead.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line. I could hear the wheels turning. “About what happened earlier,” he began.

“Oh, I know you hate me,” I said through another sip. “I just don’t care. If it makes you feel better, you’re welcome to remove your signature from Vishnu’s warrant in return for my general lack of opposition to you carving up my portfolio. I’m sure those two hundred employees will be very happy with their promotions.”

Silence.

“No?” I sighed. “Well, if you have nothing else to add, let me get back to my job of saving us all from the next internal disaster. I’m very busy.”

I punctuated the end of the sentence with a bite of carpaccio.

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