'The STRAFT'

by Meredith Anderson

The heat of summer and bitter tang of freshly mown grass hits Taylor's senses the moment she steps outside STRAFT Headquarters. Despite it being the last week of the season, the weather suggests it is only the beginning. She takes in a deep breath to steady herself and releases it slowly. She pauses for a moment to survey the rest of the non-essential personnel huddled together a good hundred metres away from the building before continuing on her way towards them. The mix of white gravel and leaf litter along the path crunches underfoot but none of it is as loud as the pounding in her head. Taylor squeezes her eyes shut briefly. Her feet skip awkwardly over the now unseen terrain for the moment it takes to open them once more. She swallows.

This is it. This is what she's supposed to spend her life doing.

Taylor stops again and turns back to stare at the building she just helped evacuate. STRAFT Headquarters looks much like any other government funded building. It has sleek walls and shiny, glass windows and a huge foreboding sign reading “Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted” by the entrance. Above that reads “STRAFT HQ”. No one on the outside would be able to guess its true purpose just by looking at it or that the gathering of staff outside is not due to a fire drill but rather for a reason much more outlandish. She herself has not been fully informed about what's going on.

Two security guards exit the building behind Taylor and position themselves at the door. In their arms are guns, loaded and ready to shoot anything that tries to escape.

A shaky smile reaches her face as it fully hits her. This job, this position, is now hers. This crazy job is what she was made to do. She reaches the gathering of personnel and stands by Anthony Cooper, a man in his mid 30s with light brown hair and brilliant green eyes. He's one of few people there that she has been properly introduced to. “Tell me again why it's called the 'STRAFT'?,” Taylor requests. She smiles softly, hoping that the nervousness she is feeling doesn't show. She focuses on Anthony. She's had one conversation with the man and she feels like she could talk to him about anything. His energy and enthusiasm seem without boundaries.

Anthony smirks back. “STRAFT is one of my greater works,” he explains. “The 'RAFT' part refers to the fact that the interplanetary space station the expedition team will be taking out is basically a raft.”

She nods. Her anxiety lessens with every word he speaks. “Go on.”

“And the 'ST' part before the 'RAFT' – or really, the whole 'STR' part – is because I've always loved the way it rolls off your tongue. See? STR. STRAFT. Nice, hmm?”

“Very,” Taylor says, stifling a laugh.

“Yep, I thought so.”

They stand in contemplative silence for a minute or so before they are joined by a small framed woman with glasses perched on the end of her nose and weedy blonde hair. The woman looks from her to Anthony and then back again. Her bottom lip quivers and her teeth clash together excitedly. “Ain't they so adorable?” the woman babbles.

Taylor glances at Anthony, who shrugs. “Aren't what so adorable?”

The woman stares at her as if she's from another planet. “The aliens, of course!”

“Aliens?”

“That's why we're all out here. Didn't they tell you?”

“I...uh...” Taylor's nerves flare up again.

Anthony winces. He offers her sympathetic smile and placing a hand on the woman's arm, leads her away. “Carrie. What did I tell you about scaring the new employees? You know this is her first day.”

Carrie giggles. “These aliens aren't scary, Anth! Now if some of the spoorns had escaped, that'd be a whole different box of chocolates. And not the nice kind! It'd be a box of chocolates with the hard bits inside. Nuts. You know. I don't like nuts.”

“In any case,” Anthony goes on, smiling back at Taylor over his shoulder, “please keep that sort of talk to a minimum until Taylor over there has settled in properly.”

“The alien's didn't keep themselves to a minimum!” Carrie pointed out. “Alex'll tell you that!”

“The alien's were not aware that this is Taylor's first day.”

Taylor watches as Anthony and Carrie disappear into the mosaic of unknown faces and then aims a worried glance at the rest of the staff. Her search for Alex Cameron, who she'll be working alongside in days to come, turns up nothing. Her facial features contort and she looks back toward STRAFT Headquarters. Heart beating madly, she sucks her bottom lip into her mouth and sucks on it. “Alex is still in there,” she says to empty air.

Anthony instructs her to wait after she's informed him of Alex's predicament. “He knows what he's doing.”

For the next five minutes Taylor obeys him. She moves her weight from one foot to the other and tries not to give in to her instinct to run inside and drag Alex out by the thick blue tie he'd been wearing earlier. Her throat is dry. She gives Anthony a look of absolute longing and when he responds with an equally pained expression, she makes up her mind.

“You couldn't stop me,” she tells him.

Anthony doesn't say anything, but watches her solemnly and turns his back to her. Satisfied he'll stay quiet, Taylor heads back towards STRAFT Headquarters and breaks into a jog. Slowing down and pretending she needs to talk to the security guards posted there, she speeds up when they angle their weapons away from her and pushes past them and into the confines of the complex. Shouts follow her inside but no one tries to stop her.

The walk down the now familiar hallway feels significantly more sinister than the last time. Various possibilities of what will happen to her cross through her mind. Taylor imagines little green men – only they aren't so green and they're most definitely not little. Blood. A crystal clear picture follows that, of a monster that looks like it could be the offspring of some kind of seaweed creature. She doesn't allow herself to think about it anymore after that.

She reaches the end of the hall and peers around the corner.

Clear.

She trails the wall down another hall and follows it where it bends.

Clear.

Stop.

Something feels off.

Taylor spins around only to find herself face to face with Alex. A sigh of relief escapes her lips, followed by a string of cuss words in Chinese that she has watching reruns of Firefly to thank for. “You,” she says.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

Her brow furrows in annoyance. Here she is to rescue his sorry arse and he's asking what she's doing? What about him? What's he doing?

“Taylor?” Alex says again. He's on alert, she notices, too busy scanning the halls to look at her.

“Yeah, it's me,” Taylor confirms. “Which you'd know if you just looked up for a second!”

“Why are you here?” His eyes are icy when they snap to hers.

“I'm saving you!” She doesn't expect the snort of laughter he gives or the shake of his head and the patronising look he offers with it. He'd been a bit of a jerk earlier on; she had translated it as his need to express his manliness and his position of power to her. “I'm thinking now I should have just left you.”

Alex tosses his head back. “Leave me, then.”

Taylor doesn't move.

“I see.”

“Well, I'm not leaving you now that I've come all this way!” Taylor retorts. She nods down the silent hall. “What's our status?”

“Done,” Alex says simply.

“Done?” Her brow furrows in confusion.

“Do you think I'd let you talk to me like that if it'd put our lives at risk? Or that you'd really be able to make it past the guards out front without a weapon?”

She stares at him. What?

“It's over, Tay. Rick got the last of the escaped aliens back in their boxes.”

Taylor opens her mouth to protest but is quick to realise that whatever she says, Alex will respond with a wittier comment. She fakes a yawn instead. “Let's get out of here.” She begins walking and Alex falls in step beside her. She makes sure, despite Alex's teasing, that they keep an eye out for trouble on the way back. They break out into the daylight a few minutes later to the worried faces of Anthony and Carrie. The security guards have melded into the crowd.

“Well?” Anthony asks.

Alex rolls his shoulders back and glances casually over at Taylor. He smiles. “She passed.”