Another Shift by Rob Garbin
 (1 rating)
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SUMMARY: This is for the September Flash Fiction Contest "Superpowers"Jeremy opened the door to the locker room as a big yawn stretched his scruffy face. Far down the aisle of lockers one of the lights flickered making the room even more depressing than usual while he walked numbly to his allotted compartment. One good thump and the door sprung open on his dirty work coveralls and muddy boots. Taking his jean jacket off, he placed it on another hanger then reached down to pull the boots out.
Going to be another long shift, he thought. All the crews were maxed out this week with the alien invasion reaching further down the coast in the past few weeks. Last weeks news covered nothing but the devastation in Boston. Burned out buildings, charred craters, and blackened earth for miles around patrolled by giant mechanized aliens with vivid violet laser eyes. No, the news was not good. The military was outclassed and they knew it. After the mess they made of Boston, the President finally called in Captain Order and his team to kick the snot out of the four-legged freaks and send them back to whatever star they came from.
Jeremy sat down on the bench between the lockers to pull his cowboy boots off. Tossing them in the cabinet, he sighed before he reached for his coveralls. He climbed into his work outfit, stained with months of grease and torn in a few places, before he placed his lunch on the shelf above his jacket. His wife had made brownies for him last night; maybe today would not be so bad, he mused.
He shut the locker and grimaced when he saw another scratched image with female curves. Jeremy moved down the aisle toward the break room; he was going to need a cup of coffee to face this shift. Exiting the break room with a steaming cup in his hands, he moved toward the end of the lockers where open space gaped before the back wall. To his right he could see the message board. Hanging in the bottom left corner, reserved for his messages, was a hand written note. He walked over and pulled out the red thumbtack. The note was in Sonja's handwriting.
Jeremy,
Frank ran into some problems last night and did not have time to clean up. Can you please clean up the mess in NEQ-32? I am sorry for the short notice. Thanks.
OXOX S
That was just like Frank. He was always leaving messes and then going home complaining about how tired he was. The rest of the team had to constantly pickup his slack while he claimed all the credit. Jeremy had only been on the job for a month when he learned that frustrating truth; last week, he had almost called Frank at home before Sonja had calmed him down. Shaking his head in irritation, Jeremy moved along the wall to where his safety green hung on a hook next to his broom and dustpan.
He pressed the red button by the hooks as he finished belting on his tool belt. The lighting grew much brighter as a refreshing breeze filtered into the locker room. Jeremy crouched down then sprung upwards in a mighty leap that shot him through the secret exit to the Palace of Order before the heavy metallic doors swung closed beneath the camouflage field. At a thousand feet above the Appalachian Mountains, he stopped and hovered. His florescent green construction cape billowed out behind him. He looked to the east using his enhanced vision. Jeremy could see the long scar that cut across the northeast sector of Manhattan, office buildings split in two with sporadic fires still filling the sky with smoke and vehicles strewn everywhere.
"Jeez, Frank must have really been showboating last night" Jeremy muttered to himself! "This really sucks. Tonight is my anniversary and there is no way I'm cleaning that up before midnight." He seriously thought about calling off.
"Captain Order my asteroids" he growled, "I really hate being the new guy!"
With an angry jerk of his body, Private Clean Sweep streaked off toward New York City.
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