Smith sat up. His face was grayish-white and a big, angry red mark traced all the way around his neck. He was cursing like a sailor.
Joey stepped away from the desk. He looked down at the cable in Smith's hand. To his horror, he saw it twitch. Smith dropped it and scooted away. The cable started inching back toward the desk, leaving a little trail of blood behind it.
Joey and Smith just stared at it.
The blue cable shot out and grabbed the red one, pulling it back under.
Smith spoke, his voice raspy. "Maybe Leon and Uri weren't laid off."
Joey managed a little gurgling noise in response. He cleared his throat. "Then how would Anton know to clear off their desks?"
Smith pulled himself up and into the desk chair. "I see two possibilities. One, this is Anton's pet. I mean, we've always said there was something wrong with that guy."
Joey laughed weakly.
"And two," Smith continued, "Anton's always the first one into the office. He could have found ... something. Leftovers."
Joey tried not to retch. "OK, either way, what are we going to do?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, are you going to call 9-1-1 and tell them the morale in our office is so toxic we accidentally opened a doorway to hell and now Cthulhu is under our desks?"
Smith swallowed. "Good point." He rubbed his neck. "How did you get it to stop?"
"The scissors -"
"No, before that. It was pulling me in. How did you get it to stop?"
Joey was embarrassed. "Um, I hit 'pause.'"
They both looked at the game controller on the desk. Smith picked it up. He pushed the button usually marked "pause."
An angry hissing erupted from under the desk and two writhing cables whipped out at their feet. Smith mashed the pause button again and the cables froze.
"Wow," was all Joey could muster.
Smith let out a slow breath. "What are we going to do?"
"Why hasn't it eaten us before?"
"Good question."
They sat in silence for a minute.
"Eating. I wonder if it's ... hungry," suggested Joey. Smith stared at him. "Leon was always eating something. Dropping stuff under his desk. It was a mess over there, remember?"
Smith nodded.
"And then Anton said no food at our desks?" said Joey.
"Yeah," said Smith. "About a week ago."
Joey had an idea. He headed for Callie's desk across the room, opened the third drawer down and pulled out a bag of chocolate.
Smith chuckled. "Count on Callie to break all the rules."
Joey came back, unwrapped a chocolate and set it down next to the two cables sticking out of the morass under the desk. He and Smith stood back as far as the cord on the game controller would reach and pressed the pause button.
The cords twitched back to life and one coiled around the chocolate. They both slid back under the desk, and there was a munching sound.
Smith blinked. "I always thought it was Uri who chewed with his mouth open like that."
Joey looked down at the controller in his hand. "I say we order a pizza."
Smith looked at the desk. "Make it two."
Wendy Despain is a freelance writer and game designer, and chair of the IGDA Writer's Special Interest Group. She previously wrote "Play Like a 3-Year-Old" for The Escapist Issue 132.
