Thanks for the entry!
Anonymous wrote:
Words:
Alcoholic property for sleep barbarian shake. Undersea, bulldozer delicious military felon.
In the undersea laboratory, Rod Bercham toiled on the
infernal wiring of the mass spectrometer.
The machine was lovingly known as ‘the barbarian’ to the white coats,
because of its uncanny ability to scrape the hands of the analysis crew when
depositing and removing samples of methane hydrate, leaving a gash one’s gloves
that made the newbies wonder if the apparent yet small safety hazard was placed
there on purpose as a gag. Rod cursed at his own big fingers as they fumbled
through the wiring. If he could just
shake loose the connection on the far end of the cabinet under the main
housing, he’d be done in 15 minutes. He
drove his fist through the wiring like a tiny bulldozer made of fist, twisting
and lurching toward his goal. Since the
mass spectrometer was property of the U.S. Navy, Rod made sure to ease back before
he did any more damage by trying to fix it. But time was short, for there was
still a sample in the chamber, and a small cadre of lab nerds hovering over the
lower portion of his body trying to peek into the cabinet where the rest of Rod
was.
“Have you got it yet?” chirped Dale the intern. He didn’t deserve a last name yet.
Rod’s response slightly echoed out from the cabinet opening “When
I get it you’ll know. You’ll know because I’ll be done.”
“Well we need to get that hydrate out of the chamber before
it starts to sublime.” Dale countered.
“I know. I’m the one
in here, remember? Go file something Dale and get me Dr. Carson.” Rod dismissed
Dales attempt to preach to the choir but he knew the kid was right. That a solid that really wants to turn into
gas at room temperature was now stuck in a sealed chamber and warming up with
every second meant the clock was ticking to get that damn wire. Rod knew that the small amount of methane gas
produced wouldn’t do much damage overall, but if the chamber ruptured it could
present them with a small explosion; like blowing up a ladyfinger under a solo
cup, but the cup in this case is underwater and represents the portholes of the
underwater facility. He couldn’t risk it. He had lucked into this job because
someone didn’t notice or failed to do a thorough enough background check to
find that Rod was an active alcoholic. And today he was sweating out the bourbon
under the cabinet. He drank just enough
to get his ass in trouble if the things went south today. Pressure was building in the chamber by the
second, and Rod felt that pressure in his chest. Fix the machine and get the hell to the break
room, or it blows possibly compromising the pressure systems in the facility
that were keeping an ocean’s worth of water outside. Or it could just slightly
explode and unrepairable. In which case
it would trigger the company to file an accident report, and subsequent
urinalysis; in which the results may as well say ‘felon’. It didn’t matter whose fault it was that the
barbarian went down, the drunk is always negligent, and therefore perpetually
under the bus. The sweat on his brow
slid down his nose as he finally reached his goal. He popped the wire out of
its housing.
