Some Bad News

Mark reached into his pocket for his wallet and handed his card to Carly.

“Hey Carly, you notice anything weird happening around here lately?”

“Weird how? Like Supernatural or something?” She asked. her curiosity was getting the better of her.

“No, well, maybe. I don’t know. Maybe weird people staring into a computer all day looking like they’re up to no good” was all Mark Could muster.

Carly looked him up and down, then at his laptop, smiled and walked back toward the counter, having made her point clear.

“Dammit”, Mark muttered, “I am NOT weird”.

She came back and handed him his card and he signed and left a general tip as usual.

“Same time tomorrow?” Mark asked.

“Ummm…I actually won’t be here, sorry” she almost whispered.

“What? You always work Tuesdays. Are you feeling ok?”

“Yeah, umm I actually think today is going to be my last day. I haven’t decided yet but my parents want me to come back home and I don’t really have a good reason to stay.”

“You’re the only reason I come to this dump of a coffee spot every day though! Are you just going to abandon me?” Mark intended this as a joke, though there was some real betrayal there.

“Stop it! I already feel bad that I haven’t told my coworkers yet!” Carly looked on the verge of tears.

“Well the answer is simple then”, Mark continued, “you should stay here.”

“I can’t stay here just because I need to tell my coworkers and one of my customers thinks I should.” She smiled, “But I think it’s sweet you care.”

“Don’t go.” Mark said plainly.

“OK! See you tomorrow!” Carly’s attitude completely changed as she bounced off to her next customer.

Mark was stunned. What in the hell just happened? One second she’s sad and ready to leave the next she’s acting like nothing happened. It couldn’t have been something I said, could it? Was she serious? The only way to find out would be to come back tomorrow. He felt his phone vibrate but ignored it and packed his things to head home.

When he got home it didn’t take him long to settle into his usual groove. He turned on his TV and Playstation on his way to the kitchen and turned the oven to preheat. He set his work gear down in the living room and booted up Call of Duty for a few rounds while he waited. He had just lost his third game in a brown when the oven sounded that the preheating was done.

“Dammit! What the hell is wrong with me today?! I rarely lose one and I just go and lose three in a row. Where the hell is my head at?”

He threw a frozen pizza in the oven and decided to wait until it was done before getting back on the game. As he was waiting he started thinking about the day, the weird texts, Carly and how her attitude changed. He was determined to figure out who was messing with him with this whole “chain link” shit. He remembered his phone had gone off earlier at the restaurant and pulled it out and checked the messages. Sure enough, it was the same number. He tapped it open.

There has been an update to your chain links.

Mark shut his phone off and tossed it to the couch. The oven went off and he got his pizza and pulled out his laptop. He didn’t believe this for a minute but curiosity was starting to eat at him so he started with a simple Google search again; “Portal system chain links”.

“2,567,852 matches, great.” Mark grumbled as he clicked on the first link.

“Chain link mod added to popular indy game Portal allowing multiplayer fun!”

((back, second link))

“Portal finally has multiplayer thanks to chai…”

((back, third link))

“IndyDev’s Portal with new…”

((back))

“What the hell? This is all just shit about this game.”

Still he kept looking. Right around 3am and on page 209 of Google, Mark was just about to click out and head to bed when he saw a link.

“Oh holy shit, you’ve gotta be kidding me” Mark mumbled to himself half asleep

He clicked the link and his eyes got wide.