Clean up Part 2

Dave was an elderly balding janitor he was still years away from retiring and his mean disposition and surly attitude came from his hard life that things just never worked out his way. His fat beer gut didn't help him at all and his drinking cost him his car his last job and his wife and that just made him more bitter. He had made his own bad luck though when he decided to drive home drunk and got in an accident totaling the company car that cost him his job. His wife had enough of him, and it was an easy decision for her to first leave and then divorce him. That left him with nowhere to live as well. Dave had resigned himself to the fact that his life sucked and being in his late 50's getting another high-power job was out of the question. So, he was stuck as a janitor doing grunt work.

Dave had a bad feeling as soon as he got to work that day there were too many people still there and the place seemed to be still buzzing. It didn't take Dave long to find out what happened that day. That did not help his mood or temperament, especially when he found out that was one of the rooms that he was responsible for cleaning. Well, he thought there was no putting it off, he would at least go and check it out. He made his way to the window of the lab. As he looked in everything was scorched even though it was made from stainless steel now it would all have to be cleaned and polished making it shine like it was new. Shaking his head, he knew that it was going to be a pain. He thought about just going back home but he knew that the work would just be waiting on him for when he returned.

Dave thought that there was no point in putting it off and he might as well get started he when to his locker and changed into his work suit. It was going to be a very hot and long day he normally only had to use the suit to clean the lap for 20 minutes while he wiped things down to get things straightened up for the next day. But today he knew that he was going to be in this hot and hard-to-breathe suit for most of the day. With every piece of suit that he had to put on the worse his attitude got, and he started grumbling under his breath about how he hated this job and all the bad luck his life had led to.

When he was finally ready, he entered the room, and the stale air was like a punch in the face, and it had a burnt smell that even went through the mask. It was almost enough to make him nauseous, but he was barely able to keep his lunch down. It was still 90 degrees in the room they had not been in any hurry to cool it down and it would not be till everything in the room was sanitized. All Dave could think of is how bad life sucked and he didn't see this helping anything as he had to maintain this big bulky suit and sweat his ass off scrubbing everything. As he made his way around the room, he never heard the faint crack of the small piece of test tube that he stepped on. The glass had protected the liquid and though the flames heated it they never touched it. No one knew the consequences of it but now they were about to find out. As he broke the bit of glass it cut threw his protective suit and pushed into the rubber sole of his boot where it lodged.

The glass was held firm trapped in the rubber as he walked doing his job. Dave noticed the broken vial that was on the floor and paid special attention to making sure that nothing punctured his suit and that the vial was gathered and disposed of properly. Taking extra steps to sanitize the floor where it had landed. It seemed like it took forever for lunchtime to roll around. It was not that he was hungry it was that he was drenched and really wanted out of that protective suit. He carefully stripped out of the protective suit and put it down the incinerator shoot without noticing the tiny hole left from the puncture. The fire had made everything black and even though he was in a white suit the char of the room mixed with the cleaning fluids had darkened the suit. If he had not been so tired and so angry at this time, there was a moment when he was putting it down the shoot his hand felt something wet but at the time, he thought that it was just from sweating and if it was not that the sanitizer was covering everything.

As he stepped into the decontaminator a fog enveloped him. Dave had always hated this part, it stunk and left him feeling nasty and wanting a shower. But there was no time for that now there was too much to do and not enough time. Dave had not worked that hard in a long time and he was already starting to hurt so he made sure to stop back at his locker to get some of the anti-inflammatory drugs that he kept in there just for times like this. Dave got the pills out opened it and set the top down so he could take one and take a drink of water that he had with him. He had always hated taking pills, but it was better than suffering. The pill kind of stuck in his throat and it took a hard gulp of water to push it down. But that gave him a cough and he knocked the cap on the floor.

Dave kneeled down to pick up the cap. The soul of his boot flexed, and the soul opened dropping out the piece of glass. The soul of the boot had protected the glass and the organism from all the sanitizers. Tim was a twenty-two-year-old punk kid in every sense of the word he spent all his time smoking, drinking, and getting laid. There was nothing about work that he liked, and he made sure that he did just enough to make sure that he didn't get fired but just barely enough. Tim had a habit of going out of his way to piss off Dave at every chance that he got. With a smile on his face, he slapped Dave on the back as he passed him. Dave could see that he had been just goofing off since he had clocked in and now, he was on his way out for another smoke break. This had just the effect that Tim was after. He noticed Dave's face change and sour even more and that gave Tim a cruel chuckle. Dave did his best to ignore the young punk picking up the cap and returning it to the bottle of pills then putting them away in his locker without a word.

Tim knew that he had gotten to the old man again and thinking about that would keep him in a good mood for the rest of the day. It was not that he didn't like Dave it was that he was just young and bored and needed something to do with his time other than the work that he was supposed to be doing. The glass had found its way to sticking to the bottom of Tim's boots. Tim wandered around from place to place, never staying in one room too long, every place had sensors on the doors and if he didn't keep moving, they would know that he was slacking off again. He had been busted twice before and this led to the write-up and the warning before he learned to keep himself moving. Besides, by wandering around, he knew all the places to hide and where he could go to sneak a smoke and it gave him plenty of time to sneak outside and smoke a few. Today was no different in any way and he was wasting time the only difference was something that no one would notice as he carried it outside and the stones finally knocked it loose as he was smoking a cigarette.