I'm Sure It's Fine

“The Great Wildebeest Migration was not just a spectacle for tourists, and it was not just a time-specific, clockwise loop that the herd animals made through Tanzania for the purposes of obtaining water and fresh grazing grounds. These animals made a year-long journey, hitting certain areas during certain months; they cut down on grass that could lead to the spreading of wildfires, and their massive march brought with them seeds that planted new life in various places. Mother Nature was an awesome creator, and she saw to it that the wildebeest, zebras, and gazelles moved throughout the land at precise times to aid the balance of life… that was, until some jackass got his greedy, stubby fingers on the manifest and fucked the planet in its axis.” - Unknown 

A soft click sounded out in the hall. Javier turned to the open door behind him, saw only a faint orange glow behind the doorframe, and returned to his computer screen. He finished typing his email, asking HR if they could explain to him why his pay was inexplicably cut a month ago. He’d labored over the verbiage intensely as his last three requests to learn the same information only saw a reply stating that he wouldn’t get an answer if his “tone” was too aggressive. This email was perfect, so he sent it. 

Another soft click emanated in the hall, slightly louder, and Javier turned around once more. The glow in the hall was brighter, and footsteps thudded along the carpet. One last loud click and a flash of light as Brianna walked underneath the motion sensor lights and turned into Javier’s room.

“Bob is on the whole department, Javi,” Brianna said in a huff. “He said we have to find more ally countries.”

“No one wants to play with us anymore, Brianna.” Javier went back to work while he kept up the conversation.

“Yeah, all those countries are being real assholes.”

“Maybe it’s because we charge them too much. No one wants to trade if you charge exorbitant amounts of money.”

“Bob’s upset about that. He said we’re gonna start charging them more.”

“That’s not gonna help anything!”

Brianna went on and on about how Bob and his other billionaire buddies were intent on the department getting a new prototype, 12-person ship built in the coming months so that they could promote to the country just how fantastic the aerospace division was doing.

“Space tourism is the next big thing,” Brianna said.

“Not if you don’t have enough resources.”

“Hence the need for new allies.”

In the following days, Javier and Brianna were tasked with scouring the globe to find new countries that hadn’t yet been alienated by the U.S. They needed allies with resources, particularly cobalt and nickel, as those would be needed for the aerospace division in constructing this new passenger ship. Government leaders and billionaires planned to hop on board and film their trip, gaining power, respect, and a new base to pay them money.

Javier learned that Tanzania had large resources of cobalt and nickel. Brianna started researching everything she could about the country, and then in a stroke of sheer luck, a news story generated about how Tanzania had high-end criminals stealing from the government and hiding out in the country undetected. They kept stealing during the day, escaping, and hiding out in the night. It was believed the criminals walked among the residents at night, knowing they wouldn’t be identified.

Brianna grabbed their manager, Norton. Norton thought of himself as Bob’s left-hand man, but with all his boot-licking, he was at best his left-foot man. Brianna and Norton devised a plan to get Tanzania as an ally. They were going to root out the criminals for them, and in exchange, ask for hefty amounts of those resources.

“How are we going to catch the criminals that they can’t find?” Javier asked.

“The power of the sun!”

Javier and Brianna were invited into the Surveillance Room to watch with the bigwigs as military troops stormed Tanzania in the night. Norton opened the Night Sun app on his phone, and in classic-Norton-showing-off manner, decided to use the AI Speech Conversation Mode.

“Night Sun, how are you? I am looking to get some constant sun in Tanzania.” Norton was so damn proud of himself.

“That’s great! Where may I provide the constant sun in Tanzania? You can give me coordinates and I’ll alter the mirrors in space to bounce the sun on over to your destination.”

Norton referenced the coordinates on the computer screen and rattled them off to the app. One by one, everyone watched the horrifying miracle of humongous beams of light shining down on the midnight landscape of Tanzania. The soldiers were illuminated like this particular 12:02 Mission was P.M. and not A.M. Javier and Brianna watched the several monitors, observing as the several troops scanned the nation’s areas with an ease they shouldn’t have had. And then… one of the monitors saw tons of activity!

The troops converged on a food stand and began to grapple with some of the customers… the thieves! It didn’t take long before they were all restrained and getting hauled away. The criminal masterminds were locked up, and one confused food vendor was roasting street potatoes under a god damn spotlight.

Bob, the billionaires, the other Rich Dicks, and Norton were still heard partying in the conference room next door. The unmistakable pop of an eighth champagne cork made Javier flinch.

“Eight bottles of champagne,” Javier grumbled. “They’re acting like they were the soldiers. All they did was shine a god damn light.”

“They’re excited for what it means for the company… I guess.” Brianna shrugged.

“OK, so, Brianna, I still can’t turn these damn lights off.”

“Just turn them off.”

“Oh, great managerial skills. I’m trying! It won’t let me!”

Javier had been attempting to get the sunlight from space to switch to ‘Off Mode’ in Tanzania for hours, but no matter what he tried, his commands fell on deaf ears. On AI ears. And then Javier figured it out. When Norton used the AI to make the command, he called it ‘constant sunlight.’ So, the AI system was just obeying his command.

Brianna helped Javier to crack the code, digging through lines and lines of it, both their eyes growing sore from seeing all the tiny-font-symbols roll by at high speeds. At one point, Javier thought to himself, “<n1/_amp&_alt-f(x)-tag_block/3.1>” and then immediately after thought, “What the fuck did that thought even mean?!”

Javier pulled his eyes away from the screen, blinked hard, took a glug of sparkling water, and then returned to the screen. And then he immediately found it. “It’s this command that needs to allow change after the fact.”

“Fix it, then.”

Javier altered the code. He attempted to save it, but it gave him an error. “It won’t let me. It says the rules clearly state it was constant sunlight, and it says rules cannot be broken.”

“Oh.” Brianna considered if she even wanted to say anything else, or just stop talking altogether. “I’m sure it’s fine.”

“You’re sure it’s fine?! We have beams of sunlight flooding several areas of Tanzania and it’s 4 A.M.”

“It’s gonna be light soon. And then they’ll just… go away… probably.”

Brianna didn’t just lack conviction, she lacked even an adjacent definition of conviction. But she was the senior employee, and Javier didn’t give that many shits about the job that cut his pay, so he shrugged. 

Soon enough, it was light in Tanzania, and all seemed fine. That was, until the sun set, and the darkness was polka-dotted with dozens of retina-scorching beams of light. And when the sun rose again, no one could tell the difference, until the sun set again.

Days went on like this, and each work day when Javier was getting paid to “care” he urged Brianna to make an incident ticket for the matter.

“God, no, I don’t want to do that!” Brianna looked around in a panic. “The higher-ups see those. Our whole operation becomes very visible. People ask questions, and I get enough shit from them as it is being that I'm the only... no, I’m sure it will go away. I’m sure it’s fine.”

“Based on what? The fact that it hasn’t done any of that?”

“Javi, cool it. It’s sunlight. It’s good for the Earth.”

Norton was pissed when the full force of the U.N.’s hammer came down on him for having lit up Tanzania for several months. He was even more pissed when they read the transcript back to him of his own AI usage. And he unloaded all of that anger back at the office.

Brianna finally made the incident ticket for the issue. They got the IT employees on top of it in an instant, and as they worked diligently, the dedicated employees that they were, Bob stood watch over it all and kept referring to them as The Spectacles. The three employees in glasses didn’t appreciate the nickname, and they appreciated Bob’s lashing out for them to speed up their work even less.

They got to the bottom of the issue, cracked through the nonsense, and turned the lights off. The lights were only on for 90 or so nights, anyway.

Adamu looked at Eshe and her light brown coat, her elongated face, and those four, powerful limbs. Her hooves dug in the dirt slowly as she stood under the heavy sun in all her glory. What a beauty.

Past her, the herd were grazing slowly and lazily, waiting for the right moment to leave. April and May had passed, and though it had rained like the years past, something was different in the air. The air wasn’t calling for the herd to migrate north like they normally would. The scent of fresh food wasn’t available like it was supposed to be. The rain had come but it had not saturated the grounds as it used to. It had dried up rapidly from the sun. Adamu knew he’d need to inform the herd that they wouldn’t be migrating… not yet.

They’d stay for now.

Norton swung by to tell Javier and Brianna the good news about Tanzania preparing to send massive amounts of cobalt and nickel their way as payment. He went over every single detail, how it should only be months away, and then construction on Bob’s ship could begin.

“We know, Norton, you told us already,”  Javier said.

“No, but it’s soon.”

“You mentioned that.”

“Bob will be so pleased with me.”

Norton pranced away, and he couldn’t have looked more like a Disney princess if he had worn a big, flowy gown.

Wildfires erupted across Tanzania. This was nothing new, but the scale of them grew to enormous sizes. That was new. Long grass lay around as fuel for the fire, inviting the flames to lick higher into the sky. It grew too quickly. People were going to need to act quickly if they wanted to stop it.

Adamu had sensed that more rain had fallen and the herd was ready to migrate, so they had set out on their journey some time ago. Eshe moved awkwardly, the long stay in one place having screwed with her internal rhythms. Other wildebeest felt the same effects, and the herd moved at a slightly slower pace than usual.

But they moved.

They covered much ground.

And then from far away, they heard the words of one of the Tourist Humans yelling out. “That’s not when the wildebeest are supposed to be migrating! They should’ve been here months ago!”

Another one yelled back at him. “Oh, like you know!”

“I do! I read the pamphlet! They should’ve been in this area months ago! This is all wrong!”

Adamu snorted in response to this.

"Silly, Human, thinking he knows best,” Adamu thought. “I’m sure it’s fine.”

“This is not fine!” Adamu thought.

The place where fresh water and vegetation were supposed to be was enveloped in big greedy flames, eating away at all their sustenance! The fire was out of control, destroying huge swaths of the land. Adamu managed to redirect the herd to turn around and head back the way they came from.

What Adamu and Eshe and the others didn’t realize was that their constant marching was carrying seeds with them, germinating the soil, planting new life, and leaving more fuel for this particular fire.

They left the area, and they left kindling behind.

When Norton entered the room, he had transformed from Disney Princess to Disney Villain. He slammed the door into the wall, intent on making a hole. He huffed loudly, either to get the attention of Javier and Brianna, or to allow them to smell on his breath what he had for lunch.

“Potato chips,” Javier detected. “Nothing but potato chips. Who takes care of this man-child?”

“Tanzania isn’t able to get us the cobalt and nickel!” Norton was livid. “The fires there got, like, way big, and it destroyed their mines… their resources… they got none to give us.”

“Thank goodness there weren’t really any casualties,” Javier said. “I mean, sadly, there weren’t zero…”

“Why did this happen to me?!” Norton’s voice cracked. “I was gonna look so good to Bob! Now, it’s all falling apart!”

“That’s what a fire will do,” Brianna said.

For some reason, that statement incurred the wrath of Norton’s death stare. Brianna tensed up. Javier kept at his tasks for the day even with the red-faced Norton looming nearby.

“This isn’t right, Brianna.” Norton glared at her.

“There’s nothing I can do!” Brianna was defensive.

“I wish they could still give us those resources.”

“Well, they don’t have them,” Brianna thought out loud. “They only have… other resources.”

“Do they have resources that we could still give to the aerospace team to make a ship thingy?”

“Lesser materials. Worse quality.”

“But materials not-the-less.”

“Nonetheless,” Javier corrected. 

Norton stared at Javi as if he had two horns popping out of his head.

Javi sighed. “You meant… nonetheless.”

“I don’t want none. I don’t want less. But if I have to go lesser to save face and deliver to the boss man, I will.”

Norton began scheming with Brianna as to how they could construct a “ship thingy” with whatever other materials that Tanzania could supply them with. Javier couldn’t stand to listen to them, so he typed on his keyboard louder as he arranged the birthday calendar for Bob and the billionaires per Bob’s request. An email response from HR finally popped up. They simply stated that they wouldn't be providing him with a reason for his pay cut, and that he should drop the subject.

Javier clacked the keys of his keyboard even louder.

Bob and the billionaires proudly sat inside their new ship. Camera crews were replete at the scene, filming their happy faces through the thick… pretty-durable... glass. The feed was being live broadcast all around the country so that citizens would remember how powerful the nation was based on how great Bob and his rich friends were doing.

And soon, everyone would want to travel to space… or so Norton said. When Norton asked if Javier wanted to get bumped up on the list Javier said, “Fuck that, take me off the list entirely.”

“It’s space!” Norton had argued.

“Exactly, the scariest, most dangerous place ever. Seriously, take my god damn name off that list!”

Norton still had invited Javier and Brianna to the watch party in the Surveillance Room. Dozens of employees huddled around, watching the big screen TV, feeding off of Norton’s nervous excitement. The room was buzzing… and strangely… so was the ship.

“Is it supposed to be buzzing like that?” Javier asked Brianna in a whisper.

“It’s a ship. It makes loud noises,” Brianna responded.

“But it hasn’t even taken off yet.”

Norton came around with bowls of potato chips for everyone, and then yelled out, “Dinner’s on me!” Javier was actually craving a salty potato chip, but that stupidity just turned him off to the snack forever. Seriously, who allowed this man out of the house like this?

The others were crunching on empty calories, but Javier and Brianna stayed in the back, watching quietly. The countdown went slowly, and then at zero, the ship launched into the air. As it rose, the entire ship began to shake noticeably. It looked less like an object made of solid materials and more like refracted light through water. The walls of the ship were wobbling in erratic fashion.

“Should it be shaking like that?” Javier asked. “This doesn’t seem good. Maybe we should make one of those incident tickets.”

“No!” Brianna hissed. “On Bob’s big day? Putting out one of those things will put a damper on everything! Bob will see it, Norton, everyone. No, we don’t want to draw unwanted attention to our team.”

Javier watched the broadcast as the ship continued quaking violently and lifting higher into the air. “It’s shaking a lot. Should it be shaking like that?”

“I’m sure it’s fine.”