The Screaming Printer

The printer was screaming again.

Not metaphorically. Not some frustrating whirr. This one was shrill—an almost-human cry from Conference Room B.

Lance Mercer hovered in the doorway, one hand wrapped around a dangerously lukewarm paper cup, the other hanging useless at his side. He half-smiled at the printer, as if it might apologize if he met its gaze.

"Hmm—Ctrl+P wasn't supposed to weaponize you," he drawled, raising his eyebrows at the paperclip lodged between its rollers.

The junior analyst beside him—eyeliner more smudged than a D-minus project—is deadpan: "I swear, I only hit print."

The scream cut off. The printer whirred, suddenly agreeable.

Lance crouched, flicking open the front panel like a nurse on call. A silver paperclip dropped with a hollow tap onto the pile of discarded toner. "There's your soul," he said, pulling it out. "Next time, try a prayer instead of reprints."

She cracked a half-laugh. "I owe you one."

He stood, straightening. The fluorescent lights above flickered twice before reigniting—each blink strangely timed, like a heartbeat you could feel in your sternum.

He rubbed the back of his neck, shrugging it off. "Yeah, they do that." Then, soft, under his breath: "Probably."

Nine floors down, the elevator dinged and spat him out into the hushed basement corridor of Kronos Solutions. Plant walls lined the hallway—two alive, one fake. Cisco routers hummed like a tech choir.

His cubicle was a shrine to mediocre ambition:

A bobblehead of Mulder, perpetually sniffing the air.

A framed doodle titled "How to Punch a Robot."

Three succulents—two alive, one fake (because Lance forgot to water it).

A single Polaroid of him and Dario in matching hoodies. Dario looked betrayed, which Lance found fitting.

A flash of movement through the cubicle partition—something gray and soft, but gone when he blinked.

He shrugged. "Karen with shadows," he muttered, dropping his bag with a sigh.

At 5:01 PM sharp, he vanished. Clock-watched with stupefying precision. Which probably hadn't endeared him to HR. He'd picked up dead spots by mid-morning, but not caring was part of the charm.

At home, the hallway smelled of lavender dryer sheets and warm concrete. Lance stepped inside, the familiar creak of the worn wooden floorboards greeting him like an old, reluctant friend. He dropped the cold cup of leftover office sludge—a sad, lukewarm brew he refused to toss—onto the side table near the door. It trembled slightly, a reminder of the building's persistent hum, a dull vibration that settled under his skin.

He flicked the overhead light switch. The bulb buzzed once, flickered, and then died.

"Figures," Lance muttered, tugging his jacket off and tossing it onto the chair. The apartment was old, drafty, and cranky in its own way—much like him.

Dario's toy, the squeaky banana, lay abandoned on the floor in the corner of the hallway. Lance bent and picked it up, rubbing the rubber between his fingers.

"You must really regret this place," he said softly, smiling despite himself.

The microwave in the kitchen dinged suddenly. Lance spun around, startled. The digital clock blinked 00:00, the display resetting after a power hiccup. He frowned, recalling that he'd unplugged the microwave earlier to conserve energy.

He shrugged and opened the cabinet to grab the ramen packet he'd planned for dinner. As he dropped the noodles into the pot, steam rose in lazy curls—then whipped upward briefly before settling like gentle rain.

Lance blinked. Weird. Nothing else in the world does that.

He shrugged again and muttered, "Building vibes," as he went back to the living room.

His living room was small and sparse. The peeling wallpaper had once been a pale blue, now stained with time and smoke. A faded couch with lumpy cushions sat beneath a window that rattled whenever a bus rumbled past.

In the corner stood a battered bookshelf that looked like it could collapse at any second. But to Lance, it was a fortress—a trove of things that mattered.

There were dog-eared paperbacks—classic sci-fi novels, detective thrillers, and a few puzzle anthologies. Scattered among the books were stacks of Rubik's Cubes (only one solved), a wooden box filled with tiny watch gears and broken clock hands, and a half-finished crossword puzzle taped to the side.

On the small coffee table lay a scattered collection of pencils, graph paper, and an old sketchbook, its pages crowded with cryptic scribbles—encryption ciphers, half-drawn diagrams, and occasional doodles of strange creatures with too many eyes.

Lance dropped the ramen bowl on the table and sank into the couch, pulling his hoodie tight around him. The familiar scent of worn fabric and faint smoke was oddly comforting.

Dario padded over and curled at his feet, head resting on Lance's sneaker.

Lance smiled down. "Hey, buddy."

He pulled the crossword from the coffee table and smoothed out the creases. The puzzle was from last week's paper—he never got around to finishing it.

The clues stared back, like riddles taunting him.

"Author of The Hound of the Baskervilles?"

He muttered, "Doyle." One down.

"Capital of Mongolia?"

He scratched his head, then wrote, "Ulaanbaatar." He grimaced, unsure if he spelled it right.

The mundane comfort of the crossword settled him. He liked puzzles because they had rules, boundaries—things that made sense.

Unlike his life.