Data Processing

Ever so often, a notification will pop up on my computer. New transmission is all it said. The notification was just as unassuming as the messages they carried. On exciting days maybe a picture or audio file, and if I was really lucky, it'd be a video. But usually it was just a block of text. It was my job to make sense of all of that information. I didn't care to think about what it all meant. Even on those exciting days, the videos were just a break from the monotony of translating the encoded files with all of its codes, keys, callsigns, whatever you wanted to call them, all by hand. And so that's how my days went, file after file after file. Every ten minutes, a new one arrived. I knew the data stood for something important, and at one point, I was honored to be one of the few dedicated to the task of deciphering what many considered to be one of history's greatest mysteries or whatever the next History Channel ad would call whatever documentary would inevitability come out of this. But that wasn't a point of honor anymore. I wouldn't even be in the credits for providing the research.

I thought that perhaps it was some sort of robot. It cycled through the same few actions usually, and that maybe I was only told that I was monitoring an actual person so that maybe I'd care about it a little more. I'll admit, that made me a little happy, because if they really were a person, it'd be easier for them to drop dead and then I could get a better job. Deep down, I knew that wasn't a lie. The transmissions told me that they ate and slept and breathed and had a beating heart, but I tried to ignore those. Those were the most common types of transmissions though.

I didn't know who it was on the other side of the screen besides a code that identified them; In fact I knew that there was a lot I didn't know. Whatever this project was, I only got the details I needed to know, and no, before you ask if this title grants me secret access to Area 51,  it does not, but I do know that Code 13015 has low blood sugar until the early afternoon, because they don't eat breakfast and doesn't get out of bed until 2 pm on weekends if they don't have anything to do.

Code 13015  wakes up at 7 am but sometimes falls back asleep until 8. After 9, the messages came in. The images, videos, descriptions. I never knew what those messages contained, it wasn't my job to read them, but I did see the lush forest that contrasted against the renovated but still unsightly base with it's rusty metallic halls that they were stationed at. These photos were rare of course, but they were a nice change of pace from the snippets of hastily taken photos of confidential documents, with their fine print that had been slightly blurred in the brisk moment it had been captured. I wondered if they ever read them, or if they just ignored it, like I did to them. There were pictures of everything, from the documents to the hallways, to the birds and the food. Most of them, save for the ones that the system told me were promptly deleted, perhaps because they were not of suitable quality were beautifully crisp photos as if the freshly cooked steak pictured was actually my own meal sitting in front of me, with a side of tender potatoes and green beans with just a sprinkling of salt and pepper that made me long for a home cooked meal. I couldn't think of a reason why some of those photos were so artfully constructed besides maybe they got bored of deciphering documents. I didn't blame them. 

Sometimes I made up stories about who this person could be. They seemed like a very laid back person, kind of lazy, really. I'd imagine that in the mornings they'd spend their mornings reading before starting their day. They got along with their coworkers well, but the records never indicated they went out of their way to talk to them. Whether that was because they were trying to lay low or if they were just shy, I wasn't really sure, but on the rare occasions that I heard their disembodied monotone voice, I imagined the type of person who thought deeply about the things they planned to say, never a word out of place as if a slip of the tongue would betray a thunderous, swirling cloud of long held secrets never meant to escape the vast darkness that they were created from. They wore dark glasses that protected the world from peering into those Medusa-like thoughts. They were perfectly content in their life of relative solitude. I wished they'd cheer the fuck up. No one wants to deal with their creepy, emo attitude all the time. Of course, I never actually knew if I was correct or not. Somedays they were the aloof and indifferent one, other days polite and and gentle. Maybe they weren't even the same person.

There is a certain type of isolation that comes from this job. There's one guy who transcribes the text-based messages. Another who studies the images and videos. I'm sure we all knew things about them that the rest of us didn't know, but we were all trapped within Pandora's box, unable to speak of the potential horrors we knew, suffocating any mention of them in the same way I imagined they hid the darkness of their eyes. I knew that if one of us spoke, we all would. Even if I were allowed to, I wouldn't want to tell my friends or family that I stalked some weird guy I didn't even know for a living. So Code 13015's existence became my little secret. When the transmissions slowed for the night, so did I, even thought that meant that I was nocturnal to the rest of the world.  I didn't think I knew what they knew, yet we both locked ourselves away in our isolated thoughts. I suppose I know more than I think I do.

Perhaps my ideas about this stoic figure had been wrong, as they began to falter; their heartbeat, shallow breathing, sweat, and shaky form betraying the previous notions I had held about their supposed fortitude. For days at a time this anxiety rose in both both of us. It would falter occasionally, but those few hours provided only a sense of false security as I imagined the horrors that infiltrated, creeping within their psyche, that I could not see. The trembling would cease, only to begin a few hours later. The images poured in, matching the pace of their heartbeat. I could not describe them, but I did learn what horrors Code 13015 foreshadowed.

More frightening than the dread and the cruel images was the void of transmissions that followed. For the first time in two years, a transmission did not come in for ten... twenty... thirty... forty minutes, which became agonizing days. Despite the dead screen, I sat vigilant for a sign that they would return. In fact, no one had left. We had stopped casual chatter long before the transmissions stopped, and the silence held an oppressing grief much heavier than the self-contained tone before it. When Code 13015 left, they took everything with them. They only left the numbness that they previously carried.

Soon even the office was devoid of life. After all, there was no job for me here when there were no transmissions. There was nothing to tell my family. So all I could do was move on, wordlessly to another nameless job, doing nameless tasks. 

I worried that someday I would go missing from someone's life without a trace, never knowing enough about me to know who I ever was, but knowing more than anyone else ever did.