sozettaslow (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sozettaslow) wrote2013-08-23 11:23 pm
sozettaslow) wrote2013-08-23 11:23 pm
(no subject)
Title: Welcome to Tech Support
Series: Welcome to Nightvale
Rating: PG-13 for... Nightvale, I guess. No swearing though!
Summary: A normal day at Nightvale Tech Support
Notes: I'm not sorry.
The alarm bell rang, and Louis pulled himself grouchily out of bed, rubbing his eyes as he reached to shut it off. Roughy thirty minutes later, he had brushed his teeth, washed his face, combed out his hair and had a nice cup of coffee. The morning sun beat down on him as he made sure he had everything he needed for the day in his briefcase before throwing a jacket over his shoulder and sliding into his car. He could probably walk to work, sure, but the desert air was a bit hard to get through.
It was a short drive, even with traffic, so soon he was getting out of his car and heading into the building. He waved to the receptionist, went to drop off a borrow municipally approved book with his coworker, before he settled at his desk, pulling the headset over his head as he accepted his first call of the day.
“You’ve reached Nightvale Tech Support; this is Louis speaking. How may I help you?”
---
“Hey there. So, I’m pretty sure my computer is possessed.” The voice on the other end of the line sounded vaguely put out, Louis nodding sympathetically.
“I see, ma’am. Can you tell me the nature of the possession?”
“Well, it varies. First it just starting shaking, and then some sparks flew, and now a jaw opened up in the monitor demanding sacrifice.”
“Thank you, ma’am. Sounds like you have a minor demon inhabiting your computer, and if you’ll just follow my instructions I can help you out with that right now! Do you have a bloodstone handy? This should just be a quick exorcism.”
“Hang on a second.” The woman’s voice drifted off for a moment, only the rummaging of papers and screams of a demon inhabited desktop making their way to Louis’s ear. “Yeah, I’ve got one right here.”
“Alright. Have you ever done an exorcism before? If you have one in mind, go ahead and try it. Everyone has their own preferences, after all, so we’ll try my way if it doesn’t work.”
Louis waited patiently while the woman started her exorcism (though, really, what was she thinking? Who would ever site the power of-- well, to each their own, he supposed), the screams dying down a little but not fading away completely as she came back on the line. “It got most of it, I think,” she said, “but it’s not completely out.”
“Ok. Do you have any holy water in the house? If you do, sprinkle a little on it while chanting something fearful at it. Just be sure to not hit any of the actual electronics- normal water does some bad things to that, I can’t imagine what holy water would.”
“I’m pretty sure we’ve got some, but I’ll have to ask my husband where it is. I’ll fix it when he gets home. Thanks.”
---
“Hi. Sooooo it kind of looks like the programs on my computer are rebelling? First I tried to open Chrome, and then Firefox kept pulling it out of the way, and I think they had a fight before dragging all my other programs over into a corner. I tried to open Word, but it just sent the paperclip to inform me they were plotting my demise... or trying to unionize, I think they were arguing over that. Anyway, what should I do?”
“Have you tried negotiating with the programs?” Louis asked, “If you can get them to go for the unionizing group, that’s certainly a better alternative. And the worse that can happen is you have to use programs you never use more and the programs you use a lot less. Unfortunately, the only other solution I can offer is to unplug it, and I don’t think they’d be very happy with that at all.
---
“Hey. My Xbox got this red ring around the power button. What do I do?”
“Oh, that’s nothing to worry about. It’s just informing you that you have been chosen for a mandatory program that will install a camera into your Xbox to monitor you 24/7. Once they’ve done that you can resume use of the system.”
---
“Can you tell me why my keyboard has turned into a cat??” Louis sighed. Really, people get upset over the most trivial of problems.
“I’m sorry, sir, but we’ve been getting a lot of calls about this today. We’ve found petting the cat, feeding it tuna, and singing ‘Hey Jude’ will calm it down.”
“Well, how am I supposed to type? I have very important emails to send!”
“I’m sorry, sir. There is a possibility their is a keyboard on the cat’s back, but if you can’t find it you’re going to need a new keyboard.”
---
“Hi Louis!”
Oh, Louis knew that voice. “Hey, Cecil. Something broke at the station?”
“Yeah. My microphone turned into a rabbit, I think? Not really sure how that happened, but I noticed it growing fur and managed to turn on the weather before it was completely gone. Do you think you could get this fixed before my show comes back?”
“I can try,” Louis replied, typing a few things into his computer, “What did the rabbit look like?”
“Well,” Cecil started, pausing as he presumably tried to relocate the critter, “It’s a little smaller than my head, and it’s black with these little white spots and adorable floppy ears. ...Oh, and I think it has fangs. Is that important?”
“Not particularly,” Louis replied, finishing his search, “Ok, I’ve located the problem. Give me a few moments and I’ll reset it.”
“Thanks, Louis. Oh, look at that, my microphone’s back. Now I just need to get intern Michael to get in back in... bye!”
---
“My wireless is running super slow. Is there an outage or something?”
“No, it’s probably just the faceless old woman who lives in your home. You can leave her a message in a mirror asking her to cut down on her Youtube viewing.”
---
“MY KEYBOARD ATE MY MOUSE!”
Louis leaned back from the computer as though that would allow him to escape the noise, wincing. “Sir?”
“My keyboard turned into a cat,” the man explained, entirely too upset for what the situation called for, “and then my mouse turned into an actual mouse, and then the cat ate it.”
Louis sighed. “Sir, I’m not sure what you expect me to do about that.”
“I DEMAND A REFUND!” the man yelled, “I didn’t pay for my keyboard to eat my mouse! How am I going to use my computer now?”
“I’m sorry, sir, I’m afraid this isn’t my department. I’ll transfer you to my supervisor.”
Louis sent the transfer through, quietly sorting through a few papers as he heard the sound of sharp claws picking up the phone a few doors over, some yelling, then cries of horror and fear, before absolute silence.
---
“My computer shut down, and I’m having trouble restarting it. It comes up to this black screen and I told it to ignore safe mode, so now the screen is blue.”
Louis froze in his chair, face pale. He could feel a wave of cold sweep through his body, in the grip of a terror that could only be caused by one thing. “Ma’am, get out of there now!” he urged into his headset, “Please, just get out!”
“But I--” The woman’s voice was cut off, a low, rattling sound emanating from the background. The noise began to swell, pulsing, louder and louder and it was all Louis could do to keep from throwing the headset off.
“Evacuate the building now!” he yelled into the microphone, but it was too late. Oh, it had been too late when she called. He heard her blood curdling scream as the noise transformed into something eldritch in origin, a horrible, disgusting noise that swallowed the scream before the line went dead.
Louis leaned back in his chair, sweat on his brow and tears in his eyes. Lucy from the next cubicle over looked in on him, eyes full of understanding.
“Was it...?” she asked. Louis gulped, and nodded.
“The blue screen of death,” he whispered.
---
Louis pulled on his coat and grabbed his suitcase, heading out to the car. The desert air was cooler at night, so he rolled down the windows as he headed back home, humming a little under his breath. Just another normal day at tech support.
Just another normal day in Nightvale.
Series: Welcome to Nightvale
Rating: PG-13 for... Nightvale, I guess. No swearing though!
Summary: A normal day at Nightvale Tech Support
Notes: I'm not sorry.
The alarm bell rang, and Louis pulled himself grouchily out of bed, rubbing his eyes as he reached to shut it off. Roughy thirty minutes later, he had brushed his teeth, washed his face, combed out his hair and had a nice cup of coffee. The morning sun beat down on him as he made sure he had everything he needed for the day in his briefcase before throwing a jacket over his shoulder and sliding into his car. He could probably walk to work, sure, but the desert air was a bit hard to get through.
It was a short drive, even with traffic, so soon he was getting out of his car and heading into the building. He waved to the receptionist, went to drop off a borrow municipally approved book with his coworker, before he settled at his desk, pulling the headset over his head as he accepted his first call of the day.
“You’ve reached Nightvale Tech Support; this is Louis speaking. How may I help you?”
---
“Hey there. So, I’m pretty sure my computer is possessed.” The voice on the other end of the line sounded vaguely put out, Louis nodding sympathetically.
“I see, ma’am. Can you tell me the nature of the possession?”
“Well, it varies. First it just starting shaking, and then some sparks flew, and now a jaw opened up in the monitor demanding sacrifice.”
“Thank you, ma’am. Sounds like you have a minor demon inhabiting your computer, and if you’ll just follow my instructions I can help you out with that right now! Do you have a bloodstone handy? This should just be a quick exorcism.”
“Hang on a second.” The woman’s voice drifted off for a moment, only the rummaging of papers and screams of a demon inhabited desktop making their way to Louis’s ear. “Yeah, I’ve got one right here.”
“Alright. Have you ever done an exorcism before? If you have one in mind, go ahead and try it. Everyone has their own preferences, after all, so we’ll try my way if it doesn’t work.”
Louis waited patiently while the woman started her exorcism (though, really, what was she thinking? Who would ever site the power of-- well, to each their own, he supposed), the screams dying down a little but not fading away completely as she came back on the line. “It got most of it, I think,” she said, “but it’s not completely out.”
“Ok. Do you have any holy water in the house? If you do, sprinkle a little on it while chanting something fearful at it. Just be sure to not hit any of the actual electronics- normal water does some bad things to that, I can’t imagine what holy water would.”
“I’m pretty sure we’ve got some, but I’ll have to ask my husband where it is. I’ll fix it when he gets home. Thanks.”
---
“Hi. Sooooo it kind of looks like the programs on my computer are rebelling? First I tried to open Chrome, and then Firefox kept pulling it out of the way, and I think they had a fight before dragging all my other programs over into a corner. I tried to open Word, but it just sent the paperclip to inform me they were plotting my demise... or trying to unionize, I think they were arguing over that. Anyway, what should I do?”
“Have you tried negotiating with the programs?” Louis asked, “If you can get them to go for the unionizing group, that’s certainly a better alternative. And the worse that can happen is you have to use programs you never use more and the programs you use a lot less. Unfortunately, the only other solution I can offer is to unplug it, and I don’t think they’d be very happy with that at all.
---
“Hey. My Xbox got this red ring around the power button. What do I do?”
“Oh, that’s nothing to worry about. It’s just informing you that you have been chosen for a mandatory program that will install a camera into your Xbox to monitor you 24/7. Once they’ve done that you can resume use of the system.”
---
“Can you tell me why my keyboard has turned into a cat??” Louis sighed. Really, people get upset over the most trivial of problems.
“I’m sorry, sir, but we’ve been getting a lot of calls about this today. We’ve found petting the cat, feeding it tuna, and singing ‘Hey Jude’ will calm it down.”
“Well, how am I supposed to type? I have very important emails to send!”
“I’m sorry, sir. There is a possibility their is a keyboard on the cat’s back, but if you can’t find it you’re going to need a new keyboard.”
---
“Hi Louis!”
Oh, Louis knew that voice. “Hey, Cecil. Something broke at the station?”
“Yeah. My microphone turned into a rabbit, I think? Not really sure how that happened, but I noticed it growing fur and managed to turn on the weather before it was completely gone. Do you think you could get this fixed before my show comes back?”
“I can try,” Louis replied, typing a few things into his computer, “What did the rabbit look like?”
“Well,” Cecil started, pausing as he presumably tried to relocate the critter, “It’s a little smaller than my head, and it’s black with these little white spots and adorable floppy ears. ...Oh, and I think it has fangs. Is that important?”
“Not particularly,” Louis replied, finishing his search, “Ok, I’ve located the problem. Give me a few moments and I’ll reset it.”
“Thanks, Louis. Oh, look at that, my microphone’s back. Now I just need to get intern Michael to get in back in... bye!”
---
“My wireless is running super slow. Is there an outage or something?”
“No, it’s probably just the faceless old woman who lives in your home. You can leave her a message in a mirror asking her to cut down on her Youtube viewing.”
---
“MY KEYBOARD ATE MY MOUSE!”
Louis leaned back from the computer as though that would allow him to escape the noise, wincing. “Sir?”
“My keyboard turned into a cat,” the man explained, entirely too upset for what the situation called for, “and then my mouse turned into an actual mouse, and then the cat ate it.”
Louis sighed. “Sir, I’m not sure what you expect me to do about that.”
“I DEMAND A REFUND!” the man yelled, “I didn’t pay for my keyboard to eat my mouse! How am I going to use my computer now?”
“I’m sorry, sir, I’m afraid this isn’t my department. I’ll transfer you to my supervisor.”
Louis sent the transfer through, quietly sorting through a few papers as he heard the sound of sharp claws picking up the phone a few doors over, some yelling, then cries of horror and fear, before absolute silence.
---
“My computer shut down, and I’m having trouble restarting it. It comes up to this black screen and I told it to ignore safe mode, so now the screen is blue.”
Louis froze in his chair, face pale. He could feel a wave of cold sweep through his body, in the grip of a terror that could only be caused by one thing. “Ma’am, get out of there now!” he urged into his headset, “Please, just get out!”
“But I--” The woman’s voice was cut off, a low, rattling sound emanating from the background. The noise began to swell, pulsing, louder and louder and it was all Louis could do to keep from throwing the headset off.
“Evacuate the building now!” he yelled into the microphone, but it was too late. Oh, it had been too late when she called. He heard her blood curdling scream as the noise transformed into something eldritch in origin, a horrible, disgusting noise that swallowed the scream before the line went dead.
Louis leaned back in his chair, sweat on his brow and tears in his eyes. Lucy from the next cubicle over looked in on him, eyes full of understanding.
“Was it...?” she asked. Louis gulped, and nodded.
“The blue screen of death,” he whispered.
---
Louis pulled on his coat and grabbed his suitcase, heading out to the car. The desert air was cooler at night, so he rolled down the windows as he headed back home, humming a little under his breath. Just another normal day at tech support.
Just another normal day in Nightvale.