“Doug, where did you get that?” Minos asked quickly.
“The uhhh, big angel guy with the sword gave it to me. It’s just a letter.” Doug said, showing him the side with “Love, G” written on it.
“No Doug, that’s not just a letter. Please take a seat.” Minos’s demeanor had changed, he was almost polite. Doug took a seat, very confused. “What you hold there is one of the most powerful objects in existence, at least for this realm. That slip of paper is akin to a divine override, if that is fed to the Bardo, it accepts the other paperwork with no checks. I’m assuming they gave this…” Minos’s voice was cut off as a phone on his desk started ringing which he picked up immediately. “Yes Sir?......Yes you heard correctly……I agree……I will do that.” He hung up the phone and turned back to Doug and started again, “Like I was saying, I’m assuming they gave this to you should this bridge fail so you could at least go back. You’re probably now thinking, ‘Why don’t I just use this to get Jane out, take the bridge, and then hop right back down?’ Correct?”
Doug wanted to ask about the call but that offer switched his focus. “Uhhh I hadn’t gotten there yet but that sounds about right.” Doug started to get a little more confident, for the first time he felt he may have some leverage on Minos.
Minos was dead serious at this point. “You should know doing so would have a large effect on the operation of this facility, namely my immediate removal from my position. There’d even be a possible extension of my sentence, should I be found to have unfairly judged the individual.”
Doug slipped back into confusion, “Your...sentence? You’re a soul being punished as well?”
Minos almost slipped back into annoyance, paused, then said patiently. “Yes Doug, every soul here is here for transgressions. My species is much older than the human race, from a star system far away from yours. Our punishment is shepherding a species as lowly as yours. Even the worst of our kind have a greater moral compass than most of your kind.”
Doug pushed back, “Big words coming from someone damned towards someone with a halo.”
This pushed Minos into annoyance again. “That halo is earned from circumstance more often than not. You were unable to harm others because you were weak and powerless, not because you’re a saint. You had potential to do more, and possibly would have if you lived longer. You’re lucky you continued your education and stayed humble, else you might be in here for Sloth or Greed.”
Doug stayed silent for a bit, then shot back “Alright so the guy who’s been an asshole to me the whole time I’ve been here now wants me to help him, at the expense of my own and Jane’s happiness? Just so you can keep a job?"
Minos’s face fell. “Doug you must understand, all of my kind have developed enough to fully remember the experiences we have here. I need to do well here to not only get out, but to be accepted amongst my people again.”
“Are you some kind of mass murderer?” Doug asked a little too forwardly.
Minos sighed, and with a bowed head said “No, just one. My boss, who was the leader of our people. I poisoned him after he and I had a disagreement. I am here for Treason. I need to go through these trials and return to my people redeemed. Please understand Doug, the time spent here has a purpose for all of us.”
Doug started to see him with some of the uncomfortable pity he had extended to the human souls. Trying to lighten the mood, Doug smirked and quipped “Could use a couple guys like you where I’m from.”
Minos chuckled, “Yes, many of the leaders from across your globe toil away here. Mostly wrath and greed, plenty in for lust as well. Some of them we didn’t even let come inside for a few centuries.” The two stared at each other for a bit. Doug tried to keep some banter going as he thought of his next move. “What’s your home planet like?” He asked.
Minos paused for a moment, then answered wistfully “It’s not too different from the outside of this building, though not quite so intense. We’ve carved deep caverns to shelter though where we live comfortably, and our seas are bountiful with food, which we harvest during the season with the least storms.”
An idea struck Doug, “Even if a soul is supposed to be here, you can technically write anything on a form and it will be accepted as long as it has proper signatures right? Worst case is you get fired?” He asked
Minos replied, once again dead serious. “Yes, and possible extension of the sentence, not a trivial worst case by any means.”
Doug shot his shot. “What if in exchange for you fully commuting Jane’s sentence, I give you this card to commute your own? Maybe try coming back as a human to avoid the stigma of past lives. A species that holds grudges across lifetimes seems kinda strict to me, and honestly that planet does not sound like a good time.” The words shocked Minos a bit, and he nervously looked over at the phone that rang earlier.
He retorted quickly, his voice angry but with a nervous face. “Absolutely not, I’m not going to be bribed into treason to avoid my punishment for treason. Also I would never want to belong to your ignorant species.”
Doug wasn’t ready for a hit like that. For a second he felt like he’d broken through Minos’s shell and was offering him freedom and he just got militant again. “Fine, be ungrateful”, Doug said angrily as he rose up. “I need to hear it from Jane though. I need to hear her say to my face directly that she wants more time here. Send her to my office or I’ll think of something really stupid with this piece of paper and screw up more than your job.” Doug turned to the door and walked out, slamming it. Alone in the hallway again, he tried to compose himself a bit. He looked over at the vault door, and realized the wheel to open it was spinning slowly. Doug’s body filled with fear and he sprinted towards the elevator, and he even sprinted to his office once he reached his floor, slamming the door shut behind him.
Doug went to his desk and pulled out the pack of cigarettes, which he still had a few left. He kept thinking that whatever was held behind that vault door was going to come and kick down his door, drag him to the basement and lock him in there with them. He kept the card handy in one hand, thinking he’d use it like a cross against a vampire or something. He was almost finished with his cigarette when there was a knock at the door. Doug leapt to his feet, tossed the cig on the ground and stomped it out. “Who is it?” He asked with fake boldness.
“Employee T492 sir, escorting a soul to your office at request of Minos.” came a voice through the door. Doug relaxed a bit and told them to come in. The demon T492 opened the door and waved Jane inside. She entered, the demon bowed to Doug and shut the door behind her. Jane looked bewildered and started talking fast.
“Doug? What’s going on? What is this place? Eww, have you been smoking?” Her nose turned up.
“Yeah, sorry for the smell. I had quit when I was alive so I could live a longer life, taking some revenge on the irony.” Doug said with a smirk. “This is my office. Well, the office that they give to the angels who are doing the arbitration job.”
“What am I doing here? Did you actually convince Minos to change my sentence?” Jane asked hopefully.
“Not exactly, more like threatened to blow the place up unless I could talk to you again.” Doug replied with a grin. “I need to ask you straight up. I can get you out of here with this.” He held up the card. “This thing can be used as a ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card. Do you want to leave this place?”
“Of course I want to leave Hell! What kind of silly question is that?!” Jane said excitedly.
Doug pushed back a bit, “A lot of the few souls I’ve met down here seem to think they deserve to be here and are getting something out of it.”
Jane hesitated, then said “They’re not entirely wrong, but I think I’ve gotten the “Don’t kill people” message pretty clearly, which is all I’m here for. How does it work?”
“Minos said we just feed it with the other paperwork when going into the Bardo and it will override any checks. I don’t know where that happens though.”
“That’s on the first floor. Once you have discharge papers you line up at a door, no idea what’s inside but people go in and don’t come out.”
“Where can we get discharge papers?” Doug asked.
“Normally you get a Bardo ticket from IT and punishment resolution from HR. I might know someone in HR who can help there, I don’t know anything about getting Bardo tickets though. Try your terminal maybe?” Jane wondered.
“Oh right!” Doug said as he powered on the machine and picked up the phone. “Central switching, how may I direct your call?” Came a voice from the other end.
“Hi, can you connect me to port 666?” Doug asked.
“I am sorry sir, your access to the network has been revoked, I can only route phone calls from this line.” The voice responded with no emotion.
Doug thought of another option, “What about Cinder? Can you have her sent to my office?”
“Cinder is currently on an assignment for Belpha and is unavailable.”
Doug slammed down the phone in frustration and looked at Jane worried. “They took away my network access, and Cinder isn’t available. I don't have anyone else I can trust.” He thought for a bit then chuckled as he asked, “Think we could get away with hacking in Hell?”
Jane looked at him confused, “How are you going to hack without network access?”
“We just need access to any terminal, let’s sneak up to the IT floor and use one.” Doug said with a smile. Jane didn’t seem convinced.
“I don’t know Doug, I’ve never seen breaking the rules down here go anywhere but horrible. I’ve never even been to the IT floor.” Doug thought for a bit. He couldn’t allow Jane to be put in a worse situation because of himself again. He had to go alone.
“Let’s split up.” Doug said with some conviction. “We can convince them for now that you are rejecting my offer and want to stay. That way you can go back to HR and try and get that side of the paperwork while I head up to IT to get Bardo passes.”
Jane was still hesitant, but agreed to go along with it. Doug went to the door and opened it. Ritavas was in the hallway, seemingly waiting for the two of them impatiently. “Have you two come to your senses yet?” Ritavas asked.
Doug tried to keep his cool. “Uhhh yeah, Jane will be heading back down to HR now.”
“Yes she will, I am to see to it personally. Follow me soul.” Rivitas walked towards the elevator bank with Jane in tow. Doug waited in his office for a bit, then walked to the elevators himself. He got in and commanded it to go to the Envy floor. As soon as the doors opened Doug slipped out, crouching as best he could to avoid being seen. He went down a few rows of cubicles, hoping to find an empty one with no luck. Eventually he just stopped at a cube of a nerdy-looking soul who was typing a document.
“Hey, you uhhh, need to report to HR” Doug said, trying to sound official. The soul turned to Doug looking confused.
“What? Why?” The soul asked.
“There was a…mistake on one of the forms you submitted, they need you to go correct it right away”
“Oh shit I hope I’m not in too much trouble.” The soul said, quite worried. He locked his machine and started towards the elevator. When he was out of sight Doug slipped into the chair. The computer was on a login screen. The username was still showing as jmathison@hell.inc. Doug considered logging into his own user name, but figured he’d be tracked down easily. He remembered that Jack was called down to him from this floor, what if he had a login? Doug put jbenhoff@hell.inc as the username. In the password field, he typed ‘baseball’. “Can it really be that easy?” He thought and he submitted it, and found himself logged in as Jack. Problem was, Jack seemed to have pretty limited access. Doug was able to find where the Bardo documents were stored, but couldn’t open them. He was going to have to elevate his permissions, but how? He thought back to the last time he was on this floor. He decided to pick up the phone,
“IT Operations, how can I direct your call?” Said the voice at the other end.
“I need access to some restricted files, I have a manager override code.” Doug said as confidently as he could.
“Directing you to IT Security” The voice replied. After a short pause another voice came through identifying itself as IT Security.
Doug gave it another shot. “Hi, I need access to the Bardo files, Invidias said I need to review them. He gave me a manager override code, RTX5080.”
The voice on the other end acknowledged, and said that the access would be available once Doug rebooted his terminal. Doug thanked the operator and turned off his machine. He waited a moment before turning it back on. He waited patiently for the machine to come fully back online when suddenly a black bag went over his head and two demons grabbed his arms. “You’re coming with us Doug, do not struggle” said the voice of Deletros.