#robofwar

When I stepped through the bay of front doors and entered the lobby, a woman who had to be nearing her first centennial sat behind a desk adjacent to a row of security turnstiles. She was barely visible behind the desktop and the computers on either side of her central position, but behind the thick glasses she had kind eyes that belied her bored expression. I told her I was here for the job interview, and she pointed, with a lazy smile, to a non-secure door in the wall opposite her. “Through there,” the elderly receptionist croaked. I turned to see a handwritten sign that read “Applicants Here” taped above the door knob. I didn’t bother to turn back around as I headed toward the door. My cheeks were already turning red from embarrassment for failing to notice the sign before asking, something I would have mentally mocked a guest at the hotel for doing. Instead, I simply waved, stammering over my shoulder, “Er, thanks!” Encountering a barely lit stairwell behind the door, I shook my head in disgust at my own social ineptitudes. Believing the interview I was there for had to go better than that brief, awkward exchange, I proceeded down the stairs and toward my destiny. Or, at least my destination. When I reached the end of the stairs, I opened another door to a quiet waiting room as dimly lit as the staircase. I took a seat in the last remaining chair, which I was thankful was in the corner nearest the door. Feeling embarrassed for a whole new reason, I tried to make myself invisible to my fellow applicants also seated around the room. I was dressed somewhat casually, only wearing black trousers, a gray button-down shirt, a relatively loose black tie, and a brand new pair of Converse sneakers (also black). This relatively haphazard look served to differentiate me from the other fifteen or so uber-professional types, who were also hoping to a score a job in the not-so-lucrative field of corporate blogging. Everyone else in the small, drab waiting room wore black or charcoal suits, both the men and the women, and all looked freshly groomed by the experts at some high-end salon they probably couldn’t really afford. I, on the other hand, had not been to ProCuts in months and had rushed out the door without shaving or ironing my shirt, due to waking up hung over an hour after my alarm was set. This gave me an altogether charmingly crumpled look. At least, I hoped it was charming. The man who intermittently entered our small, drab waiting room to procure the next applicant wore a simple pink Polo shirt, brown khakis and matching moccasins. When he first appeared (30 minutes after all of our pre-scheduled interview times), he looked at each of us in the manner that a fat man sizes up the crustacean he’s going to order fresh from the tank at Red Lobster. And only once he had drunk all of us in did he finally call out the first name. It wasn’t mine. I wasn’t called until the very end, and I told myself that the reason for this was because Pink Polo saw something in me that he related to and connected with, unlike the other obviously uptight upstarts. Obviously, he was just saving the best for last, right? After what felt like a half-dozen summer solstices in a row, he entered the room and checked the list on his clipboard a few more times before acknowledging that, yes, I was absolutely the only person left in the room. “Rob Payne!” He called out my name and looked around the waiting area as if we weren’t utterly alone. “Rob Payne,” Pink Polo shouted again, finally locking eyes with mine. He waited expectantly as I stared nearly cross-eyed into the middle distance that was his increasingly loud shirt. “Yep, here,” I finally blurted out, waving my hand as I stood up. I walked from the opposite end of the room to meet the man at a doorway none of my fellow applicants or I had initially used to enter. My right hand extended to shake his, “Sorry,” I mostly mumbled, “kind of distracted, zoned out there.” “Oh,” he said, and an eyebrow cocked as he seemed to instantly regret shaking my outstretched hand. “Well, my name is David. I’ll be conducting your interview today.” “Awesome,” I said, perhaps a bit too enthusiastically as an attempt to make up for my previous faux pas. Which was a lie, of course. As much as I wanted to climb out of the abyss of my current lack-of-career, I almost never find it “awesome” (or any other surfer dude adjectives) to meet anyone. Rather than return that lie and say the feeling was mutual, David simply nodded, flashed a quick smile, and proceeded to lead me through the basement that lay beyond the waiting room. There wasn’t much to see, mostly because there were no lights to illuminate our path. Just darkness and the hum of generators and electronics that powered the building and its standard office equipment above us. David used a light on his pen to lead us around the metallic encasements that housed the unseen equipment until we reached another door. I wasn’t sure exactly where in relation to the waiting room, as we took enough twists and turns that, for all I could tell, may have taken us to precisely where we had started. But that wasn’t the case. When the door opened we were bathed in a glow that shone like the sun, only it wasn’t blinding at all. Merely the stark light reflecting off the white surfaces of an immaculate hallway that seemed to stretch for miles before disappearing beyond an impossible horizon. I blinked a few times to let it all sink in. How could a hallway in the basement of a regular, old office building stretch on endlessly below the ground? How could anybody keep anything so clean without 24/7 custodial service? Why would you even bother? Did we just miss stumbling into the janitors around each corner? But before I could settle on any answers, David was already leading me deeper into the hallway, and what I assumed was deeper into the basement. I scrambled behind him to keep up. It wasn’t long before we reached yet another door. As white as the rest of the hall with only the thinnest possible crack in the jam to even indicate the presence of an opening. To my rapidly increasing surprise, David pressed his face against the white wall for a few seconds, then stepped back. He left no grease or residue on the flawless doorframe and a moment later it automatically swung open with a slight hiss, and the tell-tale suction of air one hears in science fiction movies upon embarking an adrift, possibly oxygen-less spaceship. David turned to me, a faint smirk hiding behind his mouth and eyes, no doubt noting the confusion on my face. He motioned for me to enter the just-as-immaculate white room on the other side. “After you,” he said. The stillness of his voice was both calming and not at all. “Umm,” I hesitated, wanting to acquiesce but not entirely sure I wanted to go forward with any of this now. (I’ve never been one for adventure or excitement, as Jedi crave not these things.) “You took everyone else here,” I asked. “Everyone you called before me?” “Yes,” David said more-or-less patiently, and I wasn’t sure if he was hiding more emotions or if he just didn’t have any. I also wasn’t sure if his answer was the one I’d hoped for. So, I pondered my options for a moment. I could just tell Pink Polo David that I changed my mind and ask to be taken back to the waiting room where I could escape and return to my previous non-mysterious, completely arbitrary life. Or I could continue with whatever this was -- charade or mirage or bizarre truth – and step into the light. I settled on not being rude. “Well, all right,” I said, eventually, with a shrug and entered the room. There was another hiss behind me as I proceeded to the center of the room, which contained merely two chairs as white as everything else in this part of the building. And then the telltale suction of air as the door closed after David. The room itself seemed incredibly too large for such simple decoration and minor usage as a person-to-person interview. Despite there only being white walls, a white floor, and a white ceiling visible, I couldn’t help but feel as though I was being watched. That was mostly true because David seemed to be studying my every move and gesture, like a scientist carefully observing a rat in a maze. But it was more than that, as though David and I weren’t really alone. Like I was the least famous mark on the worst episode of Punk’d ever, which was really saying something. “Please take a seat,” my Pink Polo’d interviewer said as he approached, offering the chair nearest me. He took the one opposite, crossing his legs and placing the clipboard on his lap. I acquiesced again, and mimicked his position but replacing his clipboard with my empty, clammy hands. Before I could get too comfortable, which was likely impossible anyway, David began the interview. “If you don’t mind my asking,” he started, attempting to sound friendly and familiar, “what exactly distracted you in the waiting room?” I was still uneasy about the whole set-up, and hadn’t yet turned on my Job Interview Persona, so I answered simply and honestly (which, on reflection, may have been a mistake): “Oh, I just hate pink, is all. The color, not the singer. Though, I don’t really care much for her, either.” “Uh huh,” David responded simply without acknowledging his shirt or making eye contact, writing something – possibly my answer, possibly something worse – on the sheet of paper in front of him. “And what do you think about aliens, Mr. Payne?” This time I paused before answering, but only because I needed clarification. “What type of aliens,” I asked. “Space or illegal?” “Space,” David said, continuing his writing unabated. “Well, I definitely think that with, in human terms anyway, the infiniteness of the universe, it’s entirely possible, actually, no, it’s entirely probable that other intelligent beings exist outside of our solar system. Most definitely outside of our galaxy.” “What about alien abductions?” “No, definitely not.” “Why not?” “It’s like God. Prove it to me. Until then, bad dreams aren’t going to convince anyone who doesn’t already have a stake in being convinced.” “And ancient astronaut theory?” “You mean the guy on the History Channel with all the hair, and the beard, and the crazy eyes?” “Sure,” David said unmoving, though I thought I caught a minor shuffle in his seat at my none-too-positive description of that fucking guy. “Complete and utter bullshit,” I answered with complete and utter confidence. “So it’s possible that aliens exist, but impossible that they have interacted with us,” he seemed to ask without admonishment, just clarification. “It’s not impossible but I find it highly unlikely,” I began, having already given the topic too much thought long before meeting this stranger in a strange land. “Could rednecks be abducted left and right? Sure. Could a master race of highly advanced species have found Earth millions of years ago and used the burgeoning human animal as slave labor? Sure. But the former is, to put it kindly, suspect, and the latter is plain racist without any proof.” “I see.” David began writing furiously on his clipboard, flipping to a new page and nearly to another when I interrupted in a slight panic. “Er, is that wrong? Did I give the wrong answer?” “There’s no right or wrong, Mr. Payne, we just want to know your thoughts on the subject. Why do you think abductions are unlikely?” “For starters, none of the stories match up outside of the broad strokes that have been in movies and TV since the 40s and 50s. Feeling paralyzed. White lights. Cuts and bruises with unknown origins. But the details are always different, always diverge. If you believe, ‘abductees,’” I nearly choked on the word as I performed the universal symbol for ironic air-quotes before continuing, “then mankind has been visited by hundreds, if not thousands, of different alien races.” “And that’s not possible?” “Oh, it is. I just don’t think all those aliens are that interested in shoving things up our butts.” “And the ancient astronaut theory is racist because...?” “Well, if you pay even the smallest amount of attention, all the proponents of that nonsense claim that these prehistoric cultures could not have possibly achieved the heights they did on their own. These cultures are always those that were ‘discovered’ by Europeans, and the advocates of this – who are all white, by the way – make no claims about the Greeks or the Romans, or the Euros who came later. No, it’s always the Egyptians, or the Nazca, or Easter Islanders. Insisting that primitive, meaning non-white, cultures couldn’t do the things they clearly did just reeks of asshole, you know?” “What about Stone Henge?” “Huh,” I muttered under my breath. David’s last question stumped me good, like being slapped by a woman you barely remember at a bar you frequent regularly and having no time to ask what the hell that was about before she’s disappeared into the sea of your gyrating fellow patrons. Stone Henge? Well, there were people who claimed alien involvement in that, too, weren’t there? “Huh,” I said again, coming out of my reverie. “Damn. Okay. Good point. Maybe that’s the exception that proves the rule? Or maybe they aren’t racist, but they clearly don’t think much of the human race. Either way, they’re assholes.” “I see,” David grunted as he read over his own hastily written notes. It seemed like he went back more than a couple pages, as though crosschecking my responses with those that came before. I watched him, waiting to see if he would comment (or visibly acknowledge in any way) both of my inopportune references to the human rectum. But he didn’t. Rather, he turned the clipboard over on his lap and slid the pen into the hole between said clip and the aforementioned board. He may have been finished writing, but he wasn’t finished interviewing me. “So,” David began, drawing out the vowel as his eyes locked onto mine, which only succeeded in making me look in every other possible direction. “Would it be fair to say you’ve come to the same conclusions about other paranormal and/or supernatural beings? Werewolves, vampires, chupacrabrae, mummies, wizards and witches, sentient telepathic tires, avenging angels, ghosts, goblins, gremlins, the personification of death, super science accidents, atomic or genetic mutants, and the like? Would it be fair to conclude you don’t believe these creatures exist, much less that they need to exist, but you wouldn’t be all that surprised to learn they exist?” I didn’t answer right away. Instead, I do what I always do when I’m stumped: I stared blankly, mouth almost agape, and head cocked slightly to the right. I became fixated on the little man and the to-scale horse on Pink Polo David’s screaming shirt. Here I thought I was interviewing for the ultimate ass-kissing position of touting Corporation X’s wares to its own employees. But that no longer seemed to be the case. I was being asked, nay demanded, to espouse my strongest opinions on the only topics I’d ever thought about with any seriousness. What I considered the “real world” was barely worth paying attention to, unless I wanted to get angry. And most people don’t like anyone when they’re angry. But the reality of myths, folklore, and legend had always caught my mind’s eye. I never imagined these thoughts would matter, other than as material for really bitchin’ dreams. It was the interview I’d always wished I could give. And that just made me paranoid. And paranoia tends to make my fight response override the default setting of flight. “What’s this about,” I finally said in response to David’s inquiry. “What do space aliens and the Universal monster movies have to do with your company’s blog?” I was as indignant as I could manage, but it probably wasn’t as believable as I’d hope. David just smirked. The curled edges of his lips held the same amount of condescension as when we first met, but now seemed to hold me in a somewhat affectionate regard. Or my memories have merely adapted to what happened next. “I would say that depends on the company you’re blogging for,” David answered, finally. “Fair enough,” I said nodding in spite of myself. “And would you also say it’s fair to extrapolate your beliefs based on your answer to the questions I posed to you today?” “Seeing is believing,” I sighed. “Excellent,” David shouted, clapping his hands together in what seemed to be a genuine burst of enthusiasm. He stood, placing the clipboard under one arm and reaching out to shake mine with the other. “Mr. Payne, we would like to offer you the position of Company X’s official corporate blogger.” “Que,” I asked without mocking the Spanish language, but rather those pretentious jerks that do so unthinkingly by inserting random words and phrases into their standard English language communications on a regular basis. Though, in retrospect, that may not have been obvious to David, but he took it in stride. “Just like that,” I asked in my native tongue. “What about the other applicants?” David stood over me as I remained seated, and placed both hands on his hips and said with a wry smile, like an assassin getting away with murder, “Don’t worry about them, they won’t be saying anything to anyone.” “Oh,” I said, pondering how unlikely fifteen or so missing persons wouldn’t make the local news, “kay…” “And regardless,” David continued, “we want you!” “We?” “Corporation X. Our superiors who have been listening in this whole time.” “I knew it,” I yelled as bolted out of my chair, clapping my hands. “I mean, I had a feeling, anyway.” “Indeed. That’s why we want you.” “Me?” “Yes, you. Rob Payne.” “For what now?” “I’m glad you asked,” David said and smiled, still with affectionate condescension, as he yet again reached his hand out to mine. Only this time it didn’t seem like he wanted to shake on anything. “Please take my hand, if you want to live.” Being a sucker for the Terminator series, I gulped and belched out, “All right,” as I awkwardly took his hand, hoping he didn’t judge those of us who suffered from the nearly debilitating disease of nervous sweaty palms. He held our hands low between us, at our sides. More like a mother leading her small child across the street at a busy intersection and much less like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Carl Weathers locking arms in Predator. Then David cocked his head toward the Polo logo on his neon colored shirt and spoke in a clear, commanding voice, “Spotty, two to beam up!” I tried to chuckle and say, Good one, but before I could muster anything, my tongue (and then the rest of my body) felt like it was being pulled out of itself and then being sucked inside of a hole that vomited me out on the other end of a thousand mile journey that took less than a second to travel. The ground momentarily seemed to move beneath my feet, and the whiplash that followed was disproportionate to such an apparently minute shift in space. Needless to say, the vomit was ultimately mine, and it seemed to gush out of my stomach at faster-than-light speeds. Thankfully, there was a gleaming silver wastebasket waiting for me expectantly, and most of the sick found its way into that. The rest found its way onto my shirt and tie, ruining them forever. Or until I could give them a decent scrub and a twice-over with the Febreeze. Maybe a thrice-over. Wiping my mouth with the tail of my tie – because why not? – I got back to my feet. David was already standing next to me, gazing out at something in front of us, but I was still too queasy to make sense of anything. The churning and swirling of piping hot magma behind the glass walls around us wasn’t helping. “W-what,” I started to ask, swallowing some rebellious bile. “What is this place? Some sort… some sort of Danger Room?” “No,” David answered, crossing his arms and smiling proudly. “This the real deal. The Earth’s core. The very heart of your planet.” “The core,” I muttered in disbelief, “But you said ‘beam me up, Scotty!’ I heard you!” “Just a figure of speech, I’m afraid, Mr. Payne. Captain Kirk never said ‘beam me down.’ And, for the record, Spotty is more similar to Barf the Mog from Spaceballs than he is an unfortunately bigoted Scottish stereotype.” David then nodded to someone on our right, a slightly rotund man who did look very much like John Candy from the Mel Brooks comedy classic, but with black coat and white spots rather than the characters’ blonder coloring. Spotty the Mog was a few feet away, manning what I assumed were the teleportation controls that transported David and I away from the super secret basement to the observation deck upon which we stood. He gave me an enthusiastic thumbs up, and I swallowed down another upchuck. “You’re saying we teleported to the planet’s core,” I asked, simultaneously questioning my own sanity. “Yes,” David said simply. “Why,” I demanded, incredulously. “You said so yourself, Seeing is Believing. You’re right that ancient astronaut theory completely misreads human history, and the whole abduction conspiracy is just our way of protecting the Truth by making it more fringe than ‘Fringe.’” “So what’s the Truth, then?” “We weren’t here at the beginning, but we’re here now. We watch you. We observe. We learn, because we’re curious. South Park wasn’t too far off, and Star Trek has produced some stories about superior beings playing Galactic Jane Goodalls that hit pretty close to home. You’re a clever species, and one day you may just find yourselves in our place. But, until then, you have to fend for yourselves.”  “Uatu the Watcher was pretty benevolent,” I said, accepting the news of the Truth better than even I’d anticipated. Maybe every authority I’ve ever known was wrong when they said collecting comic books was a waste of time? “I can think of a few scarier scenarios, I guess.” “Quite so,” David said, nodding in agreement. “If we were akin to Thanos or Darkseid, you’re planet would be dead by now.” “You really know your pop culture, huh?” “As I said, we observe. And you’re a clever species.” “Okay, but what about me and this job?” “We can’t be everywhere. In particular, the more esoteric aspects of your world elude us as much as they do humanity. But we have reasons to believe that if we exist, and your kind has believed in celestial creatures far longer than Ancient Aliens, then your myths, legends, and folktales may be equally tangible.” “What reasons are those?” “As a for instance, we know for a fact that Elvis Presley is still very much alive.” And before I could even scoff and ask for proof, David waved his hand and the glass window showcasing and protecting us from the grueling planet core suddenly displayed high definition video footage of Elvis Aaron Presley, age 76, grilling burgers in a Florida nudist colony, wearing naught but a sequined bathrobe. “If this is possible,” David articulated, “despite all logic and evidence to the contrary, then anything is. But we need to stop being random in our search and focus our endeavor. That’s where you come in.” “I don’t see how that works,” I said, almost absent-mindedly before quickly clarifying. “I’m an avowed agnostic, that doesn’t really jive with a concrete plan or direction.” “Precisely,” David said, prolonging the first vowel. “Yet in your position as a lowly hotel night auditor, you often found yourself in the slightly elevated role of hotel gumshoe, and security for damsels in distress, didn’t you?” “Well, sure, but that‘s a whole other story--” “And by being here, and seeing all this,” David preached, spreading his arms to include the glass, the televisual screens, Spotty, and the highly advanced observation deck, “you have now been introduced to the experiences of the truly mind blowing. Surely, you’ll be open to experiencing more of the same.” “What if I don’t want to?” The question was to satisfy my curiosity, not a threat, but David looked at me and any of the previous affection was replaced by a genital shriveling conviction. As though he were waging a mental war over whether he made the right pick, with his natural condescension fighting a losing battle to override that choice. He thought about his response and must have decided he could no longer stand to look at me, turning back to the throbbing core. “Besides the adventure of a lifetime,” he began to answer, “even a hate-filled creature such as you can appreciate a five-figure-salary with a health plan including vision and dental.” “You aren’t wrong,” I admitted, because he wasn’t wrong. “What do I have to do?” “Convinced you already, eh,” he asked smugly. “Maybe I was just ready to be convinced,” I said, shrugging, trying to act far more nonchalant than I’d ever actually been. “Bahdumching,” David chirped, air-drumming motions to imply a comedic rimshot. Apparently there are numerous universal symbols. “But, seriously, all you have to do is blog about whatever abnormal experiences you have after this meeting.” “Word,” I asked, legitimately surprised, if not totally convinced, it would be that easy. “No matter how mundane it might seem at first,” he added. “If you think there’s something more-than-meets-the-eye happening, you write it up and we’ll do the rest.” “The rest?” “You know how Buffy didn’t have to worry about vampire corpses stinking up Sunnydale because they turned into dust as soon as they were killed?” “Of course.” “Just like that, but literally.” “Well,” I said finally feeling like David’s offer was something I could handle, maybe even excel at, “if all I have to do is write about me then I can probably manage that.” I extended my hand to shake on it, forgetting the silver wastebasket before me, and David seized upon the opportunity. His eyes and teeth lit up with something like glee. “Deal,” he said, grasping my hand and shaking it firmly. Immediately, the ground shifted ever-so-slightly beneath my feet and I was back outside the non-descript building where all of this started. This time, unfortunately, there was no silver wastebasket awaiting my arrival. Oh, well, I needed new shoes, anyway. And now I could afford them.

-Rob of War

A little about me: I’ve been telling stories for as long as I can remember, and writing them down for almost as long. I was fortunate enough to attend a high school that had three writing course electives  -- Intro to Creative Writing, Advanced Creative Writing, and Science Fiction Writing -- and through those found a way to attend summer writing camps at Southwestern Texas State University (now, simply Texas State University) before graduating. In college, I studied RTVF (Radio, Television, and Film), but ultimately majored in Creative Writing and received a minor in History, because I apparently hate money and success. While attending the University of North Texas, I was published in and edited their literary journal The North Texas Review (not in the same year, duh-doy), and had a short-lived column about the making-of a student film in the school paper, The North Texas Daily, called “Riding Shotgun at 24-Frames per Second.” I’ve written and published independent comics (print and web) since 2008, and have been writing for the movie/TV/culture blog Pajiba.com since 2011. Outside of Myspace or Facebook I’ve never had my own blog or even personal website. I’ll be 30 in August, so this has felt long overdue. What you’ll find on The Of War Journal are various musings from short stories to essays/lists on pop culture to the occasional review and hopefully more-than-sporadic updates about my comics work at Gradient Comics, most especially The Unstoppable Force. I also plan to have an ongoing feature called Misanthropic Mythadventures: The Blog from Corporation X, which is all lies, but entertaining ones, that will try to incorporate as much of those things listed above; probably in their most esoteric forms. Because I write for the Pajiba, every once in a while I’ll run a series creatively titled The Best of Pajiba that will feature my favorite, and hopefully still relevant, articles from that site. New Pajiba posts will pop up here a day later than they do there – like the one right below this! – so keep your eyeballs peeled like that scene in Clockwork Orange, or that scene in "The Simpsons" with Bart, or that mysterious room in that one episode of "LOST" that one time. I hope you’re even a quarter as excited to be here as I am, because if you are, then you’re pretty damn excited. Also, scared. Let’s do our best not screw this up, shall we? Good night, and good luck, Rob (Of War) Payne

photo courtesy of Kyle Conrad