But then Joey choked on his chuckle. He swore. One of the cables had wrapped around his wrist. He tried to pull free, and it bit into his hand at the base of his thumb.
"What?" Said Smith. "Did you find a mouse turd?" He giggled at his own joke.
"No, man. I'm stuck. It's got my hand."
Smith laughed. "What? The mouse?"
"No," said Joey, feeling a touch of panic. "I think it's that red cable." He tugged again and felt it slip a little bit. He twisted his hand around and got free.
He scrambled away from the desk and stood back.
Looking down at his hand, he saw a red mark all the way around his wrist, almost like a jellyfish sting. It was even bleeding a little in one spot. He shook off the pain.
"Whoa," was all Smith had to offer. He sobered up and set down the wastebasket. He bent over and looked under the desk. "What did that to you?"
"I don't know, but it was no mouse."
Smith went in head first, looking carefully before he touched anything. He shuffled some things around and came back up with a game controller.
"What's this connected to?" he asked.
Joey shrugged.
"It's not from my desk." Smith said. He turned it over in his hands. "Weird." Then he shrugged and handed the controller to Joey. Joey saw why he was confused about it. The buttons were all in the right places, but they didn't have any markings on them. They looked like someone had scratched the printing off and maybe tried to write in new symbols with a black pen. On black plastic - black, gummy plastic. It wasn't very helpful.
Smith headed back in again. "How do these things get tied in knots like this? What -" and the word trailed off into a gurgle.
"Smith!" Joey saw his friend pulled, fast, under the desk.
His actions were reflexive. Later on, when he thought back on it, he felt stupid. Really, really stupid. But he was a hardcore gamer and he couldn't deny his reflexes. He was standing there with a game controller in his hand when he saw Smith get jerked into a dim hole full of cables.
So he hit the pause button. Hard.
At least he didn't run.
Smith's forward motion stopped. He even started pulling himself back out again. He was still making gurgling noises, though, so Joey threw the controller on the desk and grabbed his buddy's arm. He was stuck. Something had him. Joey reached in and felt a thick cable wrapped around Smith's neck.
Joey grabbed the cable and pulled. Smith twitched. Joey let go of the cable and heard a slow, hissing noise coming from deep under the desk. He started feeling around on top of the desk trying to find some scissors. His hand landed on the game controller again. He felt several buttons depress, and chaos erupted under the desk. Joey stood up, grabbed the controller and found the pause button again. Everything froze.
He found the scissors he was heading for, reached down and cut the cable. The scissors bit into his hand, but Smith came free. He fell back on the floor, ripping a length of red cable from around his neck.
