Two of Two

Resource One was summoned for a root cause analysis meeting on Monday morning. When he made his way to the meeting room. It was already darkened and Resource Allocator One had begun his drone already. As R1 stepped in RA1 was in mid-sentence, "...Leveraging existing funtionalities". Or maybe it was "functioning existing leverages". Or even "existing leverage functionalities". It didn't matter as nothing ever does. RA1 caustically observed- "So nice of you to have joined us. We were in the middle of A Causal Analysis of Defect Leakage in Post-Production Scenarios. What are your thoughts on this?" R1, blinked once. There was no response from RA1. All 8 eyes in the room fixed on him. Expectant as if their salvation would pass through R1's lips.

R1 blinked again. Slower and steadier, praying that RA1 would take the subtle hint and move on. RA1 acknowledged the hint but allowed R1 to wallow in his own misery before saying the magic words, "Moving on..."
R1 sat down in the farthest point hoping to melt into the darkness the room offered. His lazy eyes settled on R3. She was at her Monday morning best. With Performance Reviews around the corner, R3 was at her best. Dressing sharp, nominating herself for the "Leadership Training Program", "Journeys in attitude", "Cross Cultural Adaptability" and what not. During all these blissful forays, her work was reallocated to R1. R1 wanted to hate her and squeeze her slender neck till she went bug-eyed. But couldn't bring himself to think these thoughts.

R3 was hot.

Somewhere in an unrelated recess of his brain R1 saw the words "HALO EFFECT" scrawled on a black board. R1 blinked and the image was gone. He blinked again. Slowly this time. Now the image was getting clearer. It was not a picture anymore. It was moving. It spoke to him...In Jim Carrey's Ace Ventura voice "It's Ha-Live!!!!" Then the same voice added a cautionary note "Warning - @ssholes in the mirror are closer than they appear"

RA1's shrill voice boomed into the frame, "R1 are you nodding off again?". R1 quickly recovered and said "No I was just contemplating the effect of the code-sync up on the latency issues in Production and what bearing it might have on the current discussion" RA1 paused trying to asses if what he just heard was a reasonable explanation to the question that he had asked. Having got no concrete evidence to the contrary, RA1 let it pass and said in his customary storyteller voice, "Moving on..." R1 took out his glasses and put them on. He knew that with the projector images dancing on them RA1 had no way of knowing whether he was asleep or awake. He went back.

Now the Jim Carrey's voice was replaced by some anonymous voice on a radio which spoke to him, variously distorted by static and gunshots.
"Mission Control to Rambo. Mission Control to Rambo. Do you copy over?"
RA1 replied "Rambo to Mission Control. I Copy. I also Paste if necessary. Over"
"Rambo your mission parameters have been reassessed. Terminate Mark with extreme prejudice. Over"
"I am out of ammo. Requisition immediate backup and supplies. Over"
"Negative. Use all necessary force to complete mission. Radio Mission Control upon achieving Mission Objectives. Over and out"

Rambo squatted in the sewage pit behind the POW camp. It stank. But he had other things to think about. How to kill the POW camp superintendent. This was going to get ugly, he thought grimly as he unsheathed his Green Beret Bayonet and crawled under the booby-trapped barbed wires, carefully keeping the hair triggers on the grenades quiet as he moved. The Camp Superintendent was taking stock of the camp. He only had his orderlies handing him his morning Coffee at exactly 100 degrees Fahrenheit, as he demanded. Quietly and quickly Rambo sprinted across the courtyard and before the superintendent could respond. He seized him by his incongruous neck-tie and strangled him. It was quiet. He pulled the limp body and nailed the neck-tie to the door with his bayonet. As the Superintendent's guard detail arrived, they stared in horror at our shit-encrusted hero as he said "Let this be a warning to you. Let my men go".

Even as RA1 writhed about trying to free his obscenely expensive Van Heusen Tie from the incongruous and atrociously cheap ball-point pen that fixed it to the drawing board above him, RA1 heard himself say, "Let my people go" to an open mouthed R3 and the rest of her coterie. R1 walked out of the conference hall. He could have sworn that he heard the Terminator theme music in the hallways. He began walking to his cubicle in slow motion.