itsjusttheendoftheworld:

“That’ll do it. Not anything major, y’see? Mostly just needed a good smack or two; it’s workin’ just fine now.” The woman across the counter beamed in undisguised delight, and Abigail felt a bristle of pride. Repairing a machine was like bringing someone back to…

One of the blessed things about working with machinery, without a doubt, was the way time seemed to elapse. It progressed without thought, tumbling over itself while she flashed and slid programs and coding across a screen. Without conscious thought, she muttered. Words of reassurance, words of frustration, tumbling over her lips as gloved fingers responded to keys and flags. Engrossed as she was, it was a few minutes past closing that she actually realized the time. A heavy sigh passed over her, and Abigail slid the chair back, stretching her arms out until her spine gave a satisfactory crack, keys jangling discordantly in her hand. 

The change was abrupt. A sudden shift in the air, pulsing through the room like an explosion, a box, large and filled with should-not-be-here-right-now-what-is-that-doing-here, and nothing seemed quite right. This technology, she assessed even in her disoriented state, had not yet been breached. As extensively advanced as some of the world was, it was not quite this advanced. Abigail leaned back against her wide monitor, keys clutched fiercely in her hand, uncharacteristically wild and debating what would serve as the best weapon that was immediately close. Would going for her gun be too obvious? It was there in the drawer, she knew; she kept it there in case of robberies or other such distasteful things, and even though she didn’t know whether or not this was distasteful, she definitely knew she’d feel a hell of a lot better with a gun in her hands.

Which, of course, led to her standing outside the box a few minutes later, still behind her desk, facing the intruding… thing as if it were any other customer, if she stared down her customers with both hands cradling a high caliber ion blaster in their direction. “What are you?” Abigail demanded harshly. “What do you want?”