Must Read: HERO (A Violence, Mind Control And sex Story) - Season 2 - Episode 35

7 years ago

Must Read: HERO (A Violence, Mind Control And sex Story) - Season 2 - Episode 35

The place is hopping, the orders flowing generally smoothly, and there is a thirty-five minute wait just to be seated. I think Mikel should be ecstatic about this.
“I don’t need you to fight my battles for me,”
Stephanie informs me as she turns away to go back to the front. “Thanks, though,” I barely hear her add, before she’s through the doors separating the kitchen from the dining area.

I feel a bit warmer inside after that, though she still refuses to talk to me.

I’m so distracted by worrying about Stephanie, the
ßokoharms, and dealing with Tina, that I actually DO
screw up an order, cooking a steak medium-well, when the customer ordered for it to be made barely.
“Where is your head, tonight, Nick?” Mikel
nearly screams at me after Stephanie brings the plate back. “That’s twice now, you’ve screwed up. I can’t believe how incompetent you are
tonight. What did you spend your vacation
doing? Giving yourself brain damage, by running into walls? Or were you smoking
someone’s pole, instead? Someone’s going to have to cover the cost of that steak, and since I know it’s not me that screwed up. . .” He is nearly spitting in my face, he’s so angry.
For some reason everything comes to a head, and just seems to be too much:
Stephanie testing me and then ignoring me tonight, Mikel chewing me out, the world likely ending soon, and aliens expecting me to somehow save it. Don’t they all understand that the weight of the human race is on my shoulders? Well, Mikel
doesn’t, but Stephanie does. Maybe Oladim is right, but I’m just so sick and tired of listening to my bald boss rant and rave. I almost blow up. I just wish he’d quit yelling.

For one second, one split moment in time; I consider walking away, and leaving them all to their fate. Who knows. . .? Maybe the world can take care of itself. I mean, even with the ongoing Brexit, still the human race has
made it this far, without my help, or even my interference. Why should I be the only one to defend it? I’m just a geek, after all. Not some military strategist or even a skillful negotiator.

What chance do I really stand against the technologically advanced and violently alien
ßokoharms?
The moment passes, however, and I see Mikel still staring at me, waiting for an answer. Looking
around, I see that everyone is staring at us. A part of my mind wonders at that; I mean, Mikel is almost always yelling at someone. Why should
they stop and stare now?

Then I realize that the big man isn’t just staring at me. His mouth is moving, and so are his arms, but no sound escapes his lips. Everyone stares in shock as the man tries to yell and scream, but no volume comes out. It’s not that he’s choking; I can easily see and even hear him breathing heavily.

Then I feel the switch I’d inadvertently
created in him, shutting him up. I have, in effect,
switched off his vocal cords.
I can’t help but laugh. The whole thing just seems too comical. Here is a man I’ve feared ever since I
started working here.

Wider in the shoulders than me, even with the extra muscle I’ve gained, he
stands taller, and with his shaved head, he has this intimidating demeanor that usually puts me in my place. But as he tries to talk, his arms waiving, face going red, and occasionally pawing
at his neck, he no longer scares me. Somehow the loss of his voice seems to remove any sense of a threat from him. Like Randal’ Thor, I’ve
remembered how to laugh.

“I quit,” I tell Mikel calmly, getting my laughter under control. “I’m sick of dealing with your
attitude. You run around here, yelling at
everybody, chewing them out for perceived issues, and I’m done with it. Take that steak out of my paycheck too, but I’m through.” His eyes
bulge in shock as I add the next line. “Better yet, shove that steak up your Amoebic arse, along
with my last paycheck. I’m done.”

I calmly untie my apron, and throw it at his feet.

Stephanie steps up next to me, unties the apron that she keeps her tips and orders in, and throws it at his feet, right next to my apron; after removing
her tips, of course.
“I quit, too,” she tells him breathlessly. “I only put up with your bullshit for one reason, and now I
don’t have to. You can eat my paycheck, for all I care.”
Suddenly everyone around us is quitting as well, throwing in their aprons, tired of the way the big man has bullied us, and only now that he can’t
speak, do they lose their fear of him.
Stephanie grabs my hand, and pulls me out of the kitchen, as the aprons pile up at Mikel’s feet.
Only as I’m walking out the front door, do I think to turn his vocal cords back on, and smile slightly as I hear his roar from the kitchens.
The restaurant has been more than busy tonight, and now he has no one to do the work. I feel sorry for the customers, but that guilt doesn’t
make up for the torment Mikel has caused.