(Continued from the previous episode)

Beau was in the next room oblivious to what she did and how her coworkers felt about it. Brenda was firing away with a blow torch but visibly distracted, continuously glancing over at Beau until she quickly put down the mask and walked over to her hesitantly.

“Hey, Beau? Can I ask you something?” Brenda tapped on her shoulder, coworkers, conversations muffling the background.

“Yeah? What's up?” Beau responds cheerfully but not tearing her eyes away from the screen. 

“Why did you do that? Back there in the meeting, I mean.” She asks, causing the room to grow silent again as if the others wanted to listen in on Beau’s response. 

“Oh right! I wanted to apologize if I spoke out of line, I wasn’t sure if that was my place to step in or not” Beau stopped typing, fingers hovering over the keyboard to turn and give Brenda an apologetic smile. 

“Well, yeah, you’re new, you aren’t supposed to really participate in meetings like that, but I meant how did you not get nervous or scared being that close to him?” Brenda furrowed her eyebrows being reminded of how quickly Beau was ready to take over despite her looking for Beau’s help in the first place. What was her goal? To butter him up so she’d get the promotion instead of Brenda? Beau just started working here, there’s no reason for her to be! That thought alone made Brenda’s blood boil.

“Ah, you guys kept telling me how scary he is and all these rumors about him, I couldn’t really see it?” Beau turns back and continues typing. “I mean yeah he’s a big man with a scary face, but he hasn’t done anything to me or show me that he’s really as bad as the rumors you tell. Isn’t that in the definition of the word rumor? That it could or could not be true?” The tapping on the keyboard and her eyes fixated on the screen making her go quiet for a bit longer than Brenda had liked. She taps Beau on the shoulder again. 

“Huh? Oh sorry, to answer your question, I’m not scared of him because he’s Mr. Hale, I’m more scared to disappoint him since he’s my boss, ya know?” Beau looks up at Brenda who was quietly grinding her teeth behind a fake smile. “Is that all you wanted to know?” Beau tilts her head quizzically, oblivious to Brenda’s irritation. 

“Yes, go ahead and keep working,” Brenda says sweetly before speed walking towards the other coworkers like she's on a mission. “Did you hear that? She doesn’t want to disappoint him, what kind of office drone has that kind of mentality?” She whispers to the others, face red with anger as they nod in agreement, glaring at the back of Beau’s head.

“Maybe she thinks she’s better than us cause she actually likes to work” One of them laughed quietly knowing that's bound to change. 

“Why don’t we give her more than she can handle then?” Brenda and the rest of the crew began to concoct a little punishment for their overly happy worker bee, attempting to knock Beau down a peg so she’s miserable like the rest of them, even if it's just for a bit. Throughout the day everyone kept nit-picking Beau’s work, changing up her tasks constantly not allowing her to move on to the other things she needs to finish today, just overall having her run around like a chicken with its head cut off for the sake of their own enjoyment. At the end of the day, everyone was packing up to go home except for Beau. 

“Here's the list of everything that needs to be finished tonight, remember if it's not done by tomorrow morning, it’ll be on you that we’re behind on schedule” Brenda presented a small piece of paper with a block of text as her tasks. Beau sighs and takes the paper sadly, the thought that she had messed up way more than usual pained her heart, second-guessing if she’ll ever make it to the top at this rate. 

“Brenda, let's go! It's your turn to buy us drinks!” One voice whines impatiently through the door, causing her to rush out without even a goodbye. So there Beau was, sitting in a big office building by herself. The dimmed lights in the hallway sent chills down her spine, every slight explainable noise sent her jumping in her seat. But she knew if she sat there scared instead of working, she’d be there until morning. Hours went by and she began to notice that a lot of the things on the list weren't even for her section of the lab. 

“Did they push their own work onto me?” She muttered in disbelief, “Why would they do that?” She sighs thinking she might as well use this as an opportunity to do things her own way. As she works down the list she sits in the POV Machine’s chair, exhausted out of her mind but pleased that she made improvements all by herself. It looked somewhat like a modern-styled electric chair. The smooth white metal made it very uncomfortable and cold to sit on, though it’s not like it was meant for lounging. The supercomputer hooked up to it hummed and had this green hue tinting its surroundings. The new satellite was working beautifully as well. Before they had it set up to only test on the apes so they haven’t even touched that feature yet. Beau’s gears started turning in her head, giving her thoughts like “What if it works on humans better than apes?” and immediately telling herself that it’s a stupid idea, but then proceeding to convince herself to try it out while no one is here to stop her. Beau runs through the string of passwords and safety protocols and finally, she's on the satellite feature. The blinking dash on the screen showed her its ready to have a name typed in, the only question was, whose private life should she invade by looking through their eyes. The voices of her coworkers rang through her head. The countless stories of how awful Mr. Hale is, made her wonder if she was right about not trusting rumors or if there was some truth behind it. Her imagination going wild wondering if she’d catch him doing something shady or criminal only drove her fingers to type in his name without even thinking about the consequences. The satellite scanned the area for security cameras, switching through several to track down a clear shot of his location. ‘Location acquired’ began blinking on the screen in big bold letters and she knew it was now or never. Beau’s heart started pounding, this had never been tested on humans before and there are several things that could go wrong. Yet she locked herself in, pulled this headset over her face, and slammed a finger on the enter key.

Damien on the other hand was sipping on a whiskey and watching another episode of Trash TV. His home was big, which only amplified his feelings of loneliness. The beautifully polished floors and expensive furniture were just how he liked it. Made him feel important despite no one coming over. 

“What makes you think you can come in here all high and mighty after what you did!” The woman on the screen yelled while she was dressed in this beautiful white wedding gown in front of a very lovely venue with a crowd of people behind her. Mascara was smeared down her face, it was all very dramatic. 

“Because I got something to say to you bitch, not only did I steal your dog but I stole your man too!” the camera pans to another woman who smiles smugly at this messy woman in front of her. “And guess what! They’re both happier with me than they ever were with you!” A loud cackle escapes her lips. The camera cuts to a close-up shot of the bride who looks pissed.

“You bitch! I’ll kill you!” She screams, beginning to run at her full force but then it’s quickly faded out to commercial. Damien throws his head back in frustration. 

“Oh come on! It was just getting good!” He sighs taking a sip from his drink watching the same old commercial that annoyed him to his core. 

“Are you tired of being so fleshy? Do you worry you can’t satisfy your partner in bed anymore? Do you wish you could you were more robot than man?” Stock images of sad men and women flash on the screen. “Well, you should schedule an appointment with me, Dr. Murphy!” A green-screened in older-looking man walks into the scene and begins to talk to the watcher directly. “Do want a cool new look and experience to go with the new age of technology we’re living in? Then call this number and we can replace any part of you with a robotic version!” The doctor shows off a cheesy grin with a thumbs up as several before and after pictures pop up on the screen. A voice-over quickly reads through all the warnings and legal statements quietly in the background. A loud ring coming from across the room caused Damien to jump from his seat, dashing to the phone thankful to have an excuse to run away from that god-awful commercial, though when he reads the caller ID he answers hesitantly. 

“Hey! Why the hell haven’t you been answering our calls?!” A loud gruff voice yelled out, very similar to Damien’s but lower in pitch. 

“What do you want dad?” Damien sighed, plopping back onto the couch as more commercials began to play. 

“What? Can’t an old man want to talk to his big-shot son every now and then? Are you too good for us now or what?” He laughed but it was painfully obvious that he was dancing around the topic. “How are ya? How's the job?” Now more nervous sounding than before, the small talk began getting on Damien’s nerves. 

“I’m fine, I’m still employed, now what do you want?” He takes a long sip from his whiskey waiting for a response. 

“Alright, look, me and your mother, we were scammed out of a lot of money and we can’t afford our house anymore.” The defeated sound in his voice pulled on Damien’s heartstrings. “Can we stay with you until we get back on our feet?” The voice sounded shaky like he was ready to cry but Damien already knew the answer to his question. If they lived with him for a period of time they could stumble upon something they weren’t meant to see, get themselves killed, or even get him killed. 

“Dad, I’m sorry but I don’t think-” Suddenly a sharp, shocking pain shot right into the back of his head. The pain was paralyzing, he sucked in air through his teeth as his vision started to get blurry. The drink and his phone fell to the ground, he tried to reach for the phone and call for help but he lost consciousness and limply rolled off the couch with a loud thud.

“Damien? Damien?! Shit- I’ll call for help!” Damien’s father’s panicked voice faded further and further away from his ears until it was completely quiet, and he felt alone, yet again. 

Beau takes off the helmet after it zaps her head, frustrated it didn't work she sighs. The machine sparks causing the lights around her to flicker. Holding her head, feeling a horrible migraine coming on “Damnit, I’m gonna be in so much trouble if I don't fix this…” She grumbled to herself looking at the mess she’s made. The throbbing pain only got worse by the second, there's no way she could fix it in this state and she knew it. Judging by the slowly increasing pain, if she didn’t leave soon she wouldn’t be able to drive either, so she quickly starts to pack up her things and drive home. By the time she got to her apartment she thought she was going to pass out at the doorstep from the pain. But Beau managed to push herself into bed, all though she knew she fucked up today, she doesn’t realize quite the extent of it yet. They say ignorance is bliss, but who can complain when it helps you sleep without the thoughts of regret pinging throughout your mind like an echo in an empty cave. So as any procrastinator would do, she pushes it to be tomorrow's problem.