They Told Me Not To Take This Job. I've Seen Strange Things.

Hello and welcome back to another episode by Sleepy Pasta. Before you doze off tonight, don't forget to leave a five star review and a comment where you are watching from. Let's begin. I've been working for Meridian Tech for eight months when Sophia Myers called me at 6:00 in the morning on November 3rd.

8 months of sitting in my Capitol Hill apartment, going through security camera footage and writing reports about employees who forgot their badges or tailgated through doors. Not exactly what you'd call thrilling work. My apartment's pretty basic. One bedroom, decent kitchen, a desk I bought from IKEA that wobbles if you lean on it wrong.

The building's from the 70s, so the heating's loud and the windows don't quite seal right, but the rent's reasonable for DC, and it's got good Internet for streaming the footage Meridian sends me every week. The job was perfect, actually. That's what bugged me about it sometimes. Perfect in the way that boring things are perfect when you're trying to avoid complicated things.

I'd wake up around 7:00, make coffee in my Mr. Coffee machine that probably should have been replaced two years ago, and start reviewing whatever footage Sophia had uploaded to the secure portal. Employees walking through lobbies. Employees forgetting to scan their badges at turnstiles. Employees holding doors open for people who probably worked there but maybe didn't.

I'd watch for maybe six hours, take notes on anything that looked off, then write up a report in the company template at 1437. Subject A held the main entrance door for Subject B without verifying Subject BS credentials, that kind of thing. I'm not great at writing those corporate reports, but I figured out the format pretty quick.

Sophia never complained about my work. The money was good, too, better than I'd expected. When Sophia first contacted me, she'd found me through some kind of veteran placement network, called me up last March and asked if I wanted to do security consulting, Remote work, she said. Flexible hours, good benefits. I'd been working construction at the time, which paid OK, but wasn't exactly using my skill set.

My skill set. That's how Sophia put it during our first phone interview. Your skill set would be valuable for this position, she said. Like my 10 years as an Army Ranger was just another line on a resume. 3 deployments to Afghanistan to to Iraq, specialized training in reconnaissance and direct action, small unit tactics, combat medicine, languages.

All of that compressed down to skill set. But Sophia was different from most people who wanted to hire veterans. She'd been NSA before Meridian, did intelligence analysis for 12 years before going private. She understood operational security. She understood that some people need work that doesn't involve making split second decisions that get people killed.

This job will be boring compared to what you're used to, she told me during that first call. I want you to know that up front, you'll be reviewing security footage and writing reports. No field work, no weapons, no situations where you need to think fast or people die and just watching cameras and taking notes.

I told her boring sounded pretty good. She was right about it being boring, but boring in a good way. Most of the time. I'd gotten used to the routine. Coffee footage, notes, reports.

Maybe a walk around Capitol Hill in the afternoon if the weather was decent. Dinner from the Thai place down the street or the diner on Pennsylvania that only plays 80's Rock. Early bedtime, no nightmares about IEDs or watching team mates get hit by sniper fire. Sophia checked in with me maybe once a week, usually just quick calls to confirm I'd received the new footage or to clarify something in one of my reports.

She was professional, but not cold, direct, efficient. She never asked about my service record or tried to thank me for my service or any of that. That stuff civilians sometimes do when they don't know what else to say. The work was mostly straightforward. Meridian Tech had three office buildings in DC and a couple satellite facilities.

I reviewed footage from all of them, but most of the interesting stuff happened at the main downtown building. That's where they kept the executives and the government contracts and whatever else Meridian did besides hire veterans to watch security cameras. I never really figured out what Meridian's main business was. Their website talked about integrated technology solutions and cybersecurity consulting, which could mean pretty much anything.

Sophia never volunteered details, and I didn't ask. The checks cleared, the work was legal. That was enough. Sometimes I'd spot the same employees in different footage clips and start recognizing faces. There was a guy in accounting who always wore the same blue tie.

A woman in HR who brought her lunch in a bright red cooler bag, a security guard who worked nights and had a habit of checking his phone every 15 minutes. You watch people long enough, you start noticing patterns. But I never saw Sophia in any of the footage. She worked from a different location she'd mentioned during one of our calls.

Somewhere more secure. I figured she was talking about some kind of skiff or classified facility, given her background. That's why the call on November 3rd was weird. Sophia never called before 8:00 in the morning. She was professional about boundaries, kept regular business hours even though my schedule was flexible, and she'd never called me with that tone in her voice.

My phone rang at exactly 6. AMI was already awake, had been for maybe 20 minutes, lying in bed trying to decide if I wanted to get up or try to sleep for another hour. The caller ID said. Sophia Myers, Meridian Tech. Ethan, she said when I picked up.

No hello, no good morning, just my name, and I could hear something in her voice I'd never heard before. Tension, maybe. Urgency. What's going on? I said.

I need you downtown. Not the usual location. I need you at the server facility, 3 levels underground. Do you know where the loading dock entrance is? I didn't.

I'd never been to any Meridian facility in person. All my work was remote. I can find it. I said 20 minutes. Sophia said meet me at the loading dock entrance in 20 minutes.

This isn't routine, Ethan. Something's happened. That was it. She hung up. I sat there, holding my phone for maybe 30 seconds, trying to process what I just heard.

Sophia Myers, who'd hired me specifically for boring work that didn't involve emergencies, calling at 6:00 in the morning with something urgent enough that she couldn't wait for regular business hours. Something's happened. The tension in her voice wasn't the kind you get from a typical security incident, someone forgetting their badge or a false alarm on a motion detector.

This was something else, something that made a former NSA analyst call her remote contractor at dawn and ask him to meet her at a location I'd never been to before. 3 levels underground server facility. Not exactly the kind of place you'd normally meet someone for a casual conversation. I could hear that tension that suggested this wasn't a routine call.

I got to the Meridian building at 7:30, figured I'd be early, but Sophia was already there, waiting by a black SUV in the loading dock area. Not the main entrance where employees usually went. The loading dock. That had told me everything I needed to know about how official this wasn't supposed to be.

She wasn't alone, either. Two guys in black tactical gear stood next to her, both looking like they'd stepped out of some private military catalog. The kind of contractors you call when regular security won't cut it, Ethan, Sophia said when I walked up. These are Casey Ross and Felix Wood. They work for a company that handles specialized extractions.

Casey was the older one, maybe 40 something, stocky build, graying hair, had this weathered look like he'd seen too much of whatever specialized extractions involved. Felix was taller, blonde, younger, quiet type who kept checking his gear. Gentlemen, this is Ethan Parker. He'll be observing the operation. Observing, right?

That's what we were calling it. Casey nodded at me, didn't offer to shake hands. You've been briefed some of it. I said. You'll get the rest on the way down.

Sophia said. She gestured toward the freight elevator, the big industrial one they used to move server equipment. We need to move quickly. The four of us crowded into the elevator. Sophia hit the button for sub Level 3.

I'd never been that deep in the building before, didn't even know we had three sub levels. As we descended, Sophia started talking. At 4:17 this morning, our AI security system flagged an anomaly. Someone accessed restricted files using my credentials. I looked at her.

Your credentials while I was provably asleep at home, she said. My phone's GPS, building security cameras, even my home alarm system confirm I never left my apartment last night. The elevator kept dropping. Felix was checking some kind of tablet, probably building schematics or something. The system immediately locked down the affected server room.

Sophia continued. Emergency protocols engaged. Blast doors sealed, air circulation stopped, electromagnetic shielding activated. Standard procedure for a security breach, but I could hear the butt coming. Motion sensors indicate someone still inside.

Casey made a sound like he'd heard this story before. Not a good sound. How's that possible? I asked. If the room was locked down that fast.

That's what we're here to find out, Sophia said. The elevator stopped sub Level 3. The doors opened to reveal a corridor I've never seen before. White walls, industrial lighting, that sterile government facility look. Sophia LED us down the hall to a security checkpoint.

She badged us through. The room in question is designed for a maximum of four technicians, she said as we walked. Thermal imaging is showing something different. How different? I asked.

Casey answered instead of Sophia. 17 distinct heat signatures. I stopped walking for a second. 17 That's what the scanner say. Felix spoke up, his voice was quiet, professional, been consistent for the last three hours.

We reached another checkpoint, this one had monitors showing the thermal feed Sophia had mentioned. Casey gestured for me to look. The screen showed a top down view of the server room layout. Server stacks arranged in neat rows, emergency exits marked in green and moving through it all 17 bright spots that definitely looked like human body heat.

But they weren't moving randomly. They were following a pattern, circular around and around the server stacks, like they were walking a specific route, rotating in formation. Jesus, I said. How long have they been doing that since the lockdown engaged? Sophia said.

Same pattern, same speed, same formation. They haven't stopped once. I watched the thermal signatures move. It looked almost ritualistic, like they were performing some kind of ceremony around the servers. That thought bugged me more than I wanted to admit.

What's the extraction plan? I asked. Casey was still staring at the thermal display. His expression wasn't encouraging. Depends on what we find when we get in there.

You've done this before. He looked at me then. Similar situation. Prague Warehouse two years ago. How'd that turn out?

Casey's face went flat. Let's just say we're hoping for a better outcome this time. That was it. The way he said it told me everything I needed to know about Prague. Whatever had happened there, it wasn't something you'd put in a success story.

Sophia checked her watch. We need to move. The longer those signatures stay active, the more variables we're dealing with. Felix finished whatever he was doing on his tablet. Reach equipment's ready.

We can cut through the blast door in about 10 minutes. Do it. Sophia said as Felix and Casey started prepping their gear. I kept watching the thermal display. 17 figures walking in perfect formation around the servers, never stopping, never breaking pattern.

I figured I was about to find out what the hell was going on down there. Part of me wasn't sure I wanted to know. Sophia pulled up a tablet and started talking. Numbers. Real numbers.

The kind that made my stomach drop a little. The server room has its own independent air supply, she said. Full life support for 72 hours. We could keep it sealed until Wednesday if we had to. I figured there was a butt coming.

There's always a butt. But the data stored down there belongs to three federal agencies and one defense contractor. We can't just wait around for answers. She looked at me like I was supposed to understand what that meant. I did.

Federal agencies don't like waiting. They really don't like mysteries in their server rooms. That's why I called you instead of the police. Sophia said Meridian can't afford the questions law enforcement would ask. Too many contracts at stake, too many clearances that could get pulled.

Made sense. I'd seen companies lose everything over security incidents that went public. One phone call to the wrong detective, one report that ended up on the wrong desk, and suddenly you're explaining to Congress why your building has mysterious thermal signatures in a classified server room. Casey was standing by the monitor, watching those shapes move in their perfect circle.

He looked back at us and shook his head. You need to understand something, he said. Once we break that seal, we can't lock it again from the outside. The emergency system only works one way. Whatever's in there will have direct access to the building.

I looked at the thermal display again. 5 signatures moving like they had a plan. What kind of direct access? I asked. Elevator shafts on the other side of that corridor.

Emergency stairwell connects to the parking garage. Service tunnels run under three city blocks. Casey's voice got flatter with each detail. If something gets out of that room and we can't contain it immediately, it's not our problem anymore. It's everyone's problem.

Sophia was quiet for a minute. I could see her running calculations in her head. Risk versus exposure, Containment versus disclosure. I kept watching the thermal feed. That's when I noticed it.

Every 45 seconds, one of the signatures would break away from the circle. Just one. It would move toward the door, stop for maybe 10 seconds, then return to the pattern. They're testing the lock, I said. Casey looked at the monitor, watched it happen.

One signature detached, approached the door, lingered, returned. How long have they been doing that? He asked. Sophia checked the timestamps. Since about 4:00 this morning, every 45 seconds.

That bothered me more than the circle. The circle could have been random, some kind of automated behavior. But testing a lock? That was problem solving. That was intelligence.

We're opening that door, I said. Sophia and Casey both stared at me. Fair enough. It probably sounded insane, but we're modifying the plan. I continued.

Emergency bulkhead system. How fast can you seal off this corridor? Casey frowned. Maybe 30 seconds. Why?

Because we're not just opening the door, we're creating a trap. I pointed to the layout on Sophia's tablet. The server room was at the end of a long corridor. Emergency bulkheads could seal both ends. Standard safety feature for underground facilities.

We seal the corridor behind us first, I said. Then we open the server room. Whatever comes out gets trapped in the hallway between two barriers, contains space. No access to the rest of the building. Sophia looked at the layout.

I could see her working through it. That would work, she said slowly. But it would also trap you and the contractors in there with whatever comes out. That's the idea, Ethan. Sophia's voice got sharp.

If something goes wrong, we can't get you out. The bulkheads can't be opened remotely once they're sealed. I'd already thought about that. Figured it was the only way to do this right. Better than letting it loose in a building full of people.

I said. Casey was nodding. He got it. Military thinking. Containment over survival.

Your call. He said, But if we do this, we do it fast. No hesitation, no second guessing. Sophia was quiet for a long time. She kept looking at the thermal display, watching that perfect circle, watching one signature breakaway every 45 seconds to test the door.

There has to be another way, she said. Finally. Maybe, I said, but this is the way that keeps whatever's down there from becoming everyone else's problem. She didn't like it. I could see that, but she also knew I was right.

Sometimes the safe choice is the dangerous one. If you're wrong about this, she said. If something happens to you down there, I'll have to explain to three federal agencies why their data recovery turned into a casualty situation. If I'm wrong, I said, explaining to federal agencies will be the least of our problems.

Felix hit the bulkhead control and I heard that steel barrier slam shut behind us. Heavy pneumatic hiss like a submarine sealing up. That sound you don't forget once you've heard it meant we were committed. Now. Whatever was behind that server room door, we were dealing with it ourselves.

No backup coming through that bulkhead. The hallway stretched about 20 feet to the server room entrance. White walls, industrial carpet, fluorescent lights buzzing overhead. Normal office building stuff. Except for the humming.

It got louder as we moved forward. Started as that low vibration I'd been hearing upstairs, but now I could make out individual sounds, multiple voices. Had to be at least six or seven people in there, all making the same noise at the same time. Chanting. That's what it was.

Some kind of chanting. Couldn't make out words, but the rhythm was steady, constant, like they've been doing it for hours. You hearing that? Casey whispered. Hard to miss.

I said. Felix just nodded. Guy didn't waste words. I pulled my Glock and checked the chamber. Round ready to go.

17 in the magazine should be plenty for whatever maintenance crew had lost their minds down here. I figured it was some kind of group breakdown. Stress, isolation, maybe chemical exposure. People did weird stuff when they snapped. But the chanting didn't sound panicked, it sounded organized.

Casey and Felix moved to the sides of the door frame with their rifles suppressed. H and K4 Sixteens professional gear. Sophia hadn't been kidding about these guys being contractors. They positioned themselves like they've done this before. I took the left side of the frame, standard breech position, Casey on the right with his rifle ready, Felix behind him with a clear line of sight into the room.

Sophia, I said into my earpiece. We're in position. Copy that, she said. Remember, we need to know what happened to the servers before we do anything irreversible, right? The servers had to keep reminding myself this was supposed to be a data recovery operation.

Even with the chanting and the locked doors and the complete lack of response from anyone inside, the door was heavy steel with an electronic lock, red light blinking, sealed tight. Ready when you are, Casey said. I looked at Felix. He gave me a thumbs up. Do it, I said.

Sophia triggered the release. From upstairs. I heard the electronic lock disengage. With a soft click, the red light turned green. Then the door slid open and everything went dark.

The lights inside the server room just died all at once, like someone had thrown a switch the second that door started moving. But the chanting kept going for about 3 seconds. Same rhythm, same multiple voices, then silence. Complete silence. I waited, counted to three in my head.

Nothing. No movement, no sound, just that open doorway leading into total darkness. Motion sensors. Felix whispered. Maybe.

Casey said. Or they heard the lock. I strained to see into the room. The emergency lighting from the hallway cast maybe 2 feet into the darkness. After that, nothing.

Could have been a closet or could have been a warehouse. No way to tell. Anyone have night vision? I asked. Casey shook his head.

Wasn't briefed for that? Of course not, because this was supposed to be a simple extraction. Walk in, grab some servers, walk out. No one mentioned the possibility of dealing with people hiding in the dark. Sophia, I said into my earpiece.

Can you get the lights back on in there working on it? She said. The circuit Breakers show everything should be operational. Should be. That was encouraging.

I kept my Glock trained on the darkness and tried to listen for movement. Nothing. Whatever those people had been doing in there, they'd gone completely quiet the moment that door opened. Then I saw something move. Just a shape at first.

Tall, maybe 6 feet, moving from deeper in the room toward the doorway. Slow, deliberate steps. But something was wrong with the way it moved. The limbs bent too much, arms swinging at angles that didn't look right, like the joints were in the wrong places, and the head was tilted way too far to one side, 45° at least contact.

Casey said quietly. I could see it better now as it got closer to the emergency lighting. Human shaped, but wrong. The skin looked wet, shiny, like it was covered in oil or water. And the face, No eyes, no nose, just a horizontal slit where the mouth should be.

What the hell? Felix whispered. The thing kept moving toward us, steady pace, arms swinging loose like they weren't attached properly. That slit on its face was moving, opening and closing like it was trying to talk, but no sound. Casey fired 3 rounds, centre mass suppressed rifle made soft coughing sounds.

I watched the bullets hit, saw the impacts. The thing staggered back a step. Then it made a noise like musical laughter, high pitched, almost pleasant, and kept walking toward us. Shit, Casey said. More shapes started moving in the darkness behind it.

Same wrong movements, same fluid way of walking that didn't look like walking at all. Looked like flowing. I counted at least four more, maybe 6. Hard to tell in the dark. The first one reached the edge of the emergency lighting.

I got a clear look at its face. That horizontal slit was definitely a mouth. Opened about 3 inches wide, running ear to ear, no teeth, just darkness inside. I fired at the closest 1-2 rounds to the chest. It collapsed like a deflated balloon.

No bone structure at all, just folded in on itself and hit the ground. But two more immediately stepped over it, moving in that same fluid way, arms bending wrong heads tilted at impossible angles. They're not stopping, Casey said. He fired again, dropped another one. Three more came out of the darkness.

How many people were supposed to be down here? I asked into my earpiece. Six maintenance staff, Sophia said. But these readings don't make sense. I'm showing 12 heat signatures in that room, 12 We'd already seen seven or eight of these things, and more shapes moving in the back.

The nearest one was maybe 10 feet away. Now I could see its skin rippling like water, constant motion across its entire body, like something was moving underneath of Felix. You got a shot? Casey asked. Clear.

Felix said he fired. Three round burst hit the thing in what should have been its head. It stumbled but kept coming. That horizontal mouth opened wider and made that musical laughing sound again. I aimed for center mass and squeezed off 4 rounds fast double taps.

The thing went down hard, stayed down this time, but now I could see at least six more moving toward the doorway. Same wrong movements, same rippling skin, same horizontal mouths opening and closing. We need to fall back, Casey said. Negative, I said. Sophia needs those servers, Ethan.

Sophia's voice in my earpiece. The server readings just changed. They're all going offline, 1 by 1. I looked past the approaching figures into the darkness. Couldn't see the server racks from here.

But if they were going offline while these things were moving around, how long until they're all down? I asked. At this rate, maybe 2 minutes. 2 minutes? Then whatever data the feds needed would be gone, along with any chance of figuring out what had happened down here.

The closest figure was maybe 6 feet away now. I could smell it like ozone and wet metal. Chemical smell that made my nose itch. I fired three more rounds. It dropped.

Another one stepped over it immediately. Casey, can you get to those servers? I asked. Through that. He nodded toward the crowd of figures still coming out of the darkness.

Not likely. Felix fired again, dropped two with a sustained burst. His magazine ran dry and he started reloading. I had maybe 8 rounds left. Casey was changing magazines too, and more of those things kept coming.

The server room was bigger than I'd thought had to be because they just kept emerging from the darkness. Then Sophia's voice cut through everything, screaming over the calm system. The thermal feed was wrong. 17 signatures was misdirection. I almost didn't hear her over the noise.

Gunfire echoes weird in enclosed spaces, but that word misdirection got my attention. The system only detected warm bodies. She kept yelling it missed the cold ones. Backup refrigeration section. Jesus Christ, there are dozens more.

That's when I saw them coming from the far end of the server room, where the backup cooling units were not 17 creatures, dozens, moving like some kind of organic flood, pouring between the server racks in a wave of impossible flesh and reaching appendages. The refrigerated section, of course. Thermal cameras detect heat signatures.

These things had been sitting in the cold storage area where the backup server stayed at sub zero temperatures, invisible to our scans, waiting. I'd walked into ambushes before Afghanistan, mostly, but this felt different, more planned, like they'd understood our technology and worked around it. Casey was almost to the bulkhead now, Felix right behind him, still shooting, but you could see the panic starting to set in.

We had maybe 10 feet of space left before we'd be pressed against that steel barrier with nowhere to go. Every instinct from three tours in Afghanistan said fall back, consolidate your position, find cover and wait for extraction. That's what you do when you're outnumbered and running low on ammo. But extraction wasn't coming, and the cover was behind us.

A dead end. I looked at those creatures flowing toward us, then at the emergency power controls on the far wall of the server room. Red metal box with warning labels all over it, maybe 30 feet past the worst concentration of whatever these things were. Cover me, I said. Casey looked at me like I'd lost my mind.

Cover you where? Emergency power shut down far wall. You'll never make it through that. Probably not, But sitting here waiting to get cornered wasn't going to work either. And something about these creatures made me think they needed the power, The lights, the electrical systems, all those server racks humming with current.

I charge forward into the server room. Not towards safety, not toward extraction. Right into the middle of the worst situation I'd ever seen, against every piece of tactical training they'd beaten into my head during Ranger School. But sometimes you have to do the wrong thing for the right reasons. The creatures swarmed me immediately, reaching appendages that felt cold and wrong against my gear.

I kept the rifle up, firing point blank into anything that moved. The muzzle flashes lit up their faces in quick snapshots. Still looked human enough to bother me, but wrong in ways I couldn't explain. One grabbed my left arm. I put 3 rounds into its center mass and it let go but didn't drop, just stepped back and kept reaching, like pain was more of a suggestion than a problem.

I pushed through the mass of them, rifle butt to clear space when I ran out of ammo. These things were strong, but they moved slow, deliberate. Maybe they weren't used to resistance. Casey and Felix were still laying down, covering fire behind me. I could hear their rounds whipping past, taking down anything that got too close to my back.

Good shooting under pressure. The emergency power controls were right where they should be. Red metal box mounted on the wall next to the main electrical panel. Big warning sign about authorized personnel only. I figured current circumstances counted as authorized.

I ripped open the cover and hit the main shutdown switch. Everything went dark. Not just dim. Complete blackness. Every light, every server, every piece of electrical equipment in that room died at once.

The air conditioning stopped, the ventilation fans wound down, even the emergency lighting failed to kick in, and the creatures just collapsed, all of them simultaneously, like someone had cut their power too. I stood there in the dark, listening to them hit the floor. Wet sounds organic. Then something else, like they were dissolving, breaking down into component parts.

The smell changed too, from that rotting meat stench to something cleaner, chemical, like disinfectant. I waited maybe 30 seconds before the facility's main power grid reset itself, emergency systems kicking back online. The lights came up slowly, section by section. The server room was empty. Not just empty of creatures, empty of everything they'd left behind.

No bodies, no organic matter, just damaged server equipment and scuff marks on the floor where we've been fighting. The bulkhead opened with that same pneumatic hiss. Sophia's voice came through, clear now that the interference had stopped. Status report clear. I said all clear.

Casey and Felix came through the bulkhead, looking like they'd seen ghosts, which I guess they had. We all had. Sophia was waiting for us in the corridor above, tablet in hand, already typing up her report before we'd even made it to the elevator. Gas leak, she said without looking up, caused mass hallucinations.

Temporary but severe emergency shutdown was necessary to prevent electrical fires. That was it. That was going to be the official story. What about the server damage? Felix asked.

Equipment malfunctioned during the gas exposure. Insurance will cover it. She'd thought it through already, Probably had the whole story mapped out before we'd even finished clearing the room. The next week, Meridian Tech quietly moved their data storage operations to a facility in Virginia. New building, new servers, clean slate.

Nobody talked about what had happened in the basement of the old building. I resigned the following Friday. Not because I was scared, I've been scared plenty of times before and kept doing my job. But this was different. This was the kind of security threat that conventional training doesn't prepare you for, the kind that gets people killed when they try to handle it like a normal situation.

Sophia didn't try to talk me out of it, just asked if I'd be available for consulting work off the books if similar situations came up. I told her I'd think about it. Some security threats can't be contained by conventional means. I understood that now. Question was whether I wanted to be the guy who dealt with the unconventional ones.