I wasn’t running Monkey Keys, I was merely escaping. A stylish vamoose that was completely warranted given the situation. Petre agreed completely.
“You cowered,” he gasped at length as we approached the edge of the Forest of Fungus. “We could have had them in two swings.”
“And what were you planning on swinging at them Petre? Your head?”
“Nah, I was going to tear your arm off and beat you with it until you died. Then, using a crude lathe, I would fashion you into a finely honed blade and make manager-kabobs of the both of them.”
“Actually… that may have worked. What was stopping you?”
“Didn’t get to have my Amp today, so I was tired.”
“Well,” I said peering into the morning sun of the fields beyond the forest, “I suppose it’s for the best. You’ll need me if you’re still determined to find the lost silver badge.” We continued into the fields for nearly an hour before the Remorseless Labyrinth came into full view.
The labyrinth was a terrifying place. Legend said it was built by the Dark Lord Livy himself. When he ran out of real places to discover, he began to round up all the green badges he could find. He stole their homes and all their possessions to throw together into one jumbled mess of twists and turns. Once all their items were gone, he used their very souls to paint the blacked walls. Now, the place was supposedly infested with management trolls, OP goblins and worse.
As we approached the decaying mass, I caught a glimpse of a secretary spider scurrying beneath a cube. Wind blew through the otherwise empty corridors making a horrible shriek. We proceeded with extreme caution through a dilapidated archway. We weren’t even in a minute before we reached the first fork.
“Where do we go now Petre?” I asked listening intently for approaching spiders. The amount of cubes alone told me there were more beasts about than I had first thought.
“Right I think…” Petre said with a sheepish glance to the left. I smacked myself in the head as I realized how doomed we were.
“You don’t know the way?”
“Well… I mean I’ve studied this place before, but nobody has an accurate representation of what to find.”
“Shhhhhhhhhsssssssssssssssss,” came the hiss of a spider overhead. “Ted hasssss meetingssssss.” The creature had crawled from its lair and now clung to the ceiling with papers in each leg. I grabbed the hilt of Narglos and backed down the right hallway with Petre. The Spider’s eyes and mine remained locked as we rounded the bend. It slowly crept back to its cube as we backed out of sight.
“We’d best keep a low profile back here Petre,” I whispered as we quickly continued down the hall. “I have a feeling we could stir the lot of these things up rather quickly if not careful.” We passed fork after fork and seemed to accomplish little more than to get extremely lost. Every bend looked exactly the same as the last. For 12 hours we meandered until we had to stop out of exhaustion.
“This is ridiculous,” Petre said as he pushed a desk into the opening behind us to make a small shelter. “This maze was clearly intended to drain every last bit of will from these beast’s souls. We haven’t seen the light of day since we got here! How do we even know if it is still day?” He cut a piece from the desk hoping to find some wood. It was all plastic.
“Looks like we won’t be having a fire,” he said sheathing his axe and collapsing against the wall. “Guess we won’t be cooking anything…”
“No need,” I smiled as I produced a box of doughnuts from my pack.
“Where did you find those? I’ve only seen red badges with free food.”
“I stole it from a cube farm a few miles back. Figured they wouldn’t miss it.”
“You WHAT!?” Hardly had Petre expressed disdain for my recent hunger motivated theft when the sound of a million tiny feet drifted from down the hall.
“Sssssttttttteeeealllllllllsssss,” came multiple off cue hisses. Around the bend we could barely make out a hundred pairs of eyes as the skittering approached.
“You must have awaken every secretary back here!” Petre gasped as he whirled his axe around.
“They love their pastries… suggesting we run.”
“Yeah, but where?” Without hardly enough thought, I started running down the far left corridor. Petre was right behind me, and behind him were 100 skittering secretaries.
“Sssteaaaaaallllss,” they continued to hiss. One began throwing papers at us, but luckily they lacked the aerodynamics to be much of a threat.
“Feanor, give them the stupid doughnuts!” Petre yelled while smacking at a spider running along the wall to his right.
“No way! There’s white frosted ones!” I panted jumping over another stack of thrown papers. “And those twisty things! Those are so good!”
“We’ll be dead you imbecile!” Petre did a quick 360 with his axe out sending a spider tumbling back. “They won’t taste nearly as good when you’re dead!”
“Well how much worse are we talking?”
“Tongue rotted out of your mouth worse!” I didn’t have time to figure out all the ramifications of keeping the doughnuts, because one of the secretaries had slid along the ceiling and dropped in my face. I screamed out grabbing for Narglos, but only managed to throw the doughnuts into the air. Petre and I tumbled forward rolling on the ground as the spiders began screeching wildly. They grabbed for every doughnut they could as the box was torn apart. I pulled some printer cover sheets that were webbed to my face off, and started running again.
After a while, the shrieking spiders died off in the distance. Petre and I came to a rest in a small clearing. Antiquated offices with boards covering the windows were to our left. At our right sat more secretary hives, and in the middle, an enormous web. Stuck right to its center was the silver badge.
“My silver safety badge!” Screamed Petre as he approached the web.
“Spiders seem gone,” I said glancing around. “Grab that thing before they get back from their break.” Petre raised his axe to cut out the badge when shattering glass came raining from behind us. I spun around in time to get hit in the face by a gigantic metal hand. The wall behind me broke my fall. I looked up to see the horrifying figure of the gold badge approaching Petre. He was cornered between the web and the beast. Its thunderous approach knocked Petre off balance, and he fell into the web.
“Petre, grab that thing! We can’t beat a gold badge without it!” I ran forward and sliced the beast in it’s leg. Narglos slid off its armor without leaving so much as a scratch.
“THAT BLADE IS NOT SAFE!” The gold badge creaked as it hammered me in the chest with another crushing blow. The force sent me through the air and into the office it had just emerged from.
Petre was struggling against the webbing as the gold badge returned its gaze to him. “WEBBING IS NOT SAFE. PLEASE CLEAN THIS MESS,” It slowly approached leaving holes in the tile behind it.
“Hey gold badge! Look at this!” Petre yelled as he tore his arm free and threw his axe toward a coffee pot that had been placed on the edge of a cube. The pot shattered sending broken glass and coffee all over the floor.
“NOT SAFE, NOT SAFE, NOT SAFE!” The gold badge turned to the pot and raised its right arm. A ball of fire engulfed the limb, and proceeded to shoot off into the caffeinated glassy mess. The whole area erupted in flames. “MESS CLEAN,” The beast croaked as it turned again to Petre. “SECOND MESS, NOT SAFE!” It again raised its right arm, this time toward Petre.
“The badge Petre! Grab it!” I yelled jumping on the gold badge’s back.
“HORSEPLAY, NOT SAFE!” The gold badge began mimicking an enraged bull. With my left hand I clung tightly to its helmet. With my right, I swung futilely with Narglos at anything I could see.
“I can’t move Feanor!” Petre cried as I felt my grip leaving me. “Throw Narglos!” Just as my grip failed entirely, I managed an over the shoulder toss of my blade. It found its mark, and the webbing came loose. I saw Petre reach up and grab the silver badge as I flew from the gold badge’s back and tumbled into a copy machine.
“Alright you useless office suck-up…” Petre said bringing the silver badge up before him. “Lets see how you handle someone almost as safe as yourself!”
“SILVER… NOT… SILVER… NOT…” The monster stammered as it brought its right arm up in preparation for another flame strike.
“Safe?” Petre scoffed kicking Narglos into his open hand. In one swing, he sliced the gold badge from around the monster’s neck.”
“I’M… NOT… NOT… SAFE!” the artist formerly known as gold stuttered. It looked at Petre, then raised its arm to its head. Fire engulfed its palm, and a tremendous roar erupted around us. The beast exploded sending plate armor in all directions, then it was silent.
I slowly crawled from the CopyCentre’s innards to see Petre standing above the newly liberated gold safety badge. It shined so brightly, it seemed Petre was standing in the middle of a star.
“Petre…” I said cautiously approaching. “You must destroy the badge. A gold badge is too much for any one person to possess…” Petre stared wide-eyed at the golden circle before him.
“The power…” he whispered bending to pick it up. “With this badge… VPs and Managers shall fear me. I shall be more powerful than Livy himself!”
“Petre! You have to throw it in the paper shredder!” I yelled as he held the gold badge in his hands.
“No,” he said with a blank stare to me. “That wouldn’t be… safe…” I watched in horror as Petre lifted the badge and placed it around his neck.
“Yous thinkin’ dems be the saferin badge without Steven?” Steven came scampering around the corner and stared Petre in the eye. “Dem badgery-do? Those bein’ da Stevens! Bein’ da MINE!” Steven jumped onto Petre’s back and began clawing at the badge. “Golding on me necker-do ‘fo dem Petre’s neck! Golding on mine for dem safery. Safery safery safery!” The two tumbled about the ruined battlefield. Petre swung blindly at Steven calling out in rage. He didn’t see the crater left from the gold monster’s feet. As the two fell forward, Steven grabbed the badge from Petre.
“It bein’ dem MINE!” He cackled with an ear to ear grin. “I am safery! I am da badgery-do! All them powers, them goodsies, all to be them Steven’s!” Petre and I looked on in horror as Steven placed the badge around his neck. I grabbed Narglos and pulled Petre to his feat.
“What are we going to do!?” Petre cried out. Spiders began crawling from the vacant offices when they heard all the commotion. Trolls walked in from down the hall too. Suddenly, new hire zombies and intern peons crawled their way from the vents. The air around us was alive with howls as all the beasts rallied behind Steven. It was then I saw the red badge clipped to Steven’s leg. I unclipped my own green badge and stared at it. As the beasts continued to intensify their wailing, I ran toward Steven. In two clicks, I was wearing his red badge.
“Hey! What’s that green badge doing with a golden safety award?” I scoffed. All the creatures around us stopped and turned to stare at Steven.
“Whats? Steven being dem red badge!” Steven tried to protest as the things around him began creeping closer. Their hissing and moaning began sounding very sour. “Noes! I’m bein’ dem red badge! Red badgery-dooooooooooooo!” I grabbed Petre and the two of us ran down the hall. We could hear the screams of Steven for some time. Then, we heard him no more.
“Feanor…” Petre said at length. “Thanks. You’re right, the silver badge is enough.”
“Don’t mention it,” I said with a smile. Petre clipped the silver badge over the top of his green, and we basked in its glow.
“I don’t suppose we’ll ever find our way out of here…” Petre said after a few moments. We were so far into the labyrinth, neither of us had the slightest idea of how to get back to Techerton.
“If we have to die out here, we’ll do it with honor, I said sliding Narglos into its sheath.
“Are you boys lost?” The voice of a secretary startled me. I turned to see her smiling at us from behind her desk.
“You can talk?” I asked puzzled.
“Well of course I can Steven,” she giggled. It was then I followed her gaze to the red badge still clipped to my leg.
“Ahh, well yes we are lost. We have no clue how to get back to Techerton. We’ve been wandering in the wilderness for days…”
“Well you two are silly aren’t you? It’s not like you’re those pestilent green badges! Why didn’t you take the ice cream trolley?” I turned to Petre in disbelief.
“The… trolley, well we just forgot I guess,” Petre said.
“Well it’s just about to leave, just turn right and get on. They’re serving rocky road today, and you have your choice of fudge and whipped cream. Well, or both for that matter. Oh, and before you go, take these extra red badge dinner jackets and your daily thousand dollar lunch money envelope.” The secretary gave us the gifts and giggled again. “Take care you two sillies.” Three minutes later, we were back in Techerton with a cooler of ice-cream. We got both the fudge and whipped cream.
“Hey, you were gone a while,” Tom said as I got back to my desk. “I thought you just needed to get a silver badge. Don’t they mail those to you?”
“Not always,” I said as I turned on my Fisher-Price laptopo. “Sometimes, you have to push a bit.” I looked at the clock. It was only 1:47 pm.
