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I worked in one of the most secure government research facilities from 2009 right up until 2015. At least, that's what I tell anyone who asks me. 

They don't need to know that I helped run the café.

I don't work there anymore. A lot changed, and unfortunately we were forced into closure by the events of a single day. It wasn't all bad, as every employee who worked in the café under Sidney were given a generous redundancy bonus, courtesy of... Well, I don't think I'm legally allowed to give you the name.

The day that everything changed started as a day like any other. Milk delivery goes in the fridge, the tamp gets washed through to remove any chems and the food gets priced and date checked.

We don't get our first customer, usually Max from BioTech One, until around seven, but there's always plenty to do.

I had something of a crush on Max since I started working at the café. He just had this perfectly white smile and the way he laughed was just so... graceful. Everyone who worked with him in his little office block probably mooned over him too. 

He looked like a model, and dressed like one too. Twice I almost worked up the nerve to ask him out.  But I'm getting off topic.

Anyway, sometimes it's not Max, it's Steve Carpenter from two floors above. 

It was Steve on that particular day.

I can tell it's him from a mile away.

He wears these stupid gold pins on his lapels.

You can spot him in the lobby quite easily, the way the damn things glint.

And that's even before he's walked over and demanded his morning cappuccino. If it's too foamy, he insists that you make it again. Too wet? You have to make it again. Not hot enough? Oh, you'd better believe you have to make it again. Seventy degrees celsius and not one fahrenheit below. He can tell.

Only he can't tell.

I take great pride in my work and I make what I'm told.

If some prick orders a:

- Vanilla 

- Soya

- Wet

- Sixty Five Degrees

- Decaffeinated 

- Latte

- W/ Whipped Cream

- Cinnamon Sprinkles

And I make almost that exact drink but sprinkle chocolate powder on it instead of cinnamon? That's on me, man. That's on me.

I'll apologise and scrape the cream off, and then fix the drink.

And if they want me to remake the whole thing?

You can bet your ass I'll remake it.

Doesn't matter how long the line gets or how expensive the drink was. The moment you start blaming other people for the fuck-ups that you create, is the moment you may as well pack it all in.

And there are people who get mad at customers for their own incompetence.

I've seen it. James does it. Terry does it.

And every day they get bitterer, and they work a bit slower and they look at the clock a little bit longer and they put off the cleaning tasks for ten more minutes and they just slowly lose all their conscientiousness.

You can see it sometimes when they sigh, and when they mope.

Steve approaches me. 

He always stares down my top and makes it glaringly obvious.

I never feel uncomfortable with any other customer. It's always Steve.

He asks for an espresso and I make him one.

He doesn't take it because there's a mark on the cup.

I clean the side of the cup.

The espresso is dead.

I pour the shots through again.

He's tapping his foot.

The shots go through and I put them in a fresh espresso cup.

The orange crema is fine, the cup has no stains, it's a perfect grind.

He refuses it again on the grounds that the hopper now looks empty and clearly it was made from beans at the bottom that were ground.

It's 6am, the coffee is fine, I've had period cramps for the last three days and don't fucking need this.

So I politely tell him that the coffee is fresh and that I started pouring the new bag in as he walked over, and even gesticulate in a calm manner to the open bag half full of fresh roasted beans.

He tells me he believes that maybe, perhaps, the grinder is dirty. I tell him it isn't.

 

He asks for proof and I have to clamber into the little cupboard at knee height, put on a pair of gloves and stick my hand in the hopper, sifting the beans to show him the sparkling machinery that's cleaned daily.

He nods at points a finger at the espresso. There is no orange crema. Just a wide black spot that feels like the pit of my soul.

"The crema is gone." he said. "I can't drink this and I told you that there was something wrong."

The crema goes, I had said, after just ten seconds of being exposed to the air.

But of course, Steve Carpenter wasn't having any of it.

After threatening to report me to my manager, who was taking three days off because of his stomach ulcer that his doctor believed was stress-induced, he spent a good five minutes yelling at me, calling me an entitled millennial, insisting I couldn't do my job, screaming about how I was the sole reason why 'unskilled migrants were coming over and taking all the jobs' and i just stood there and nodded.

I was too busy looking at his head and thinking of inventive ways to crush it open. Axe. Crowbar. Mallet. 

At some point he left, but I couldn't tell you when.

I felt a little emotional for the rest of the day. It wasn't that he'd got to me, but having day after day of Steve was like having your head slowly moved towards a grindstone inch by inch as you feel the sparks scattering onto your face and hear the dreadful wheedling of the machine.

You almost want to headbutt the thing just to get it all over with, you know?

I don't normally get that emotional, I'm don't really do emotions.

So I was surprised as anyone when kindly bespectacled Gavin commented during the lunchtime rush.

"What's wrong, Trish?"

And I touched my face and my cheeks were wet.

I'd just started crying and hadn't even been aware of it. You even seen those Moai statues on Easter Island? All stoic and serious? Yeah, imagine one of those just started leaking.

"Kitchen steam." I'd said.

Gavin was a kindly bloke. All his office mates called him Gav. At fifty-five, with three grandkids and a penchant for colourful Hawaiian t-shirts, he was probably one of my favourite regulars.

Always cracking jokes, always bringing down his own plate to save me washing up and bringing me odd things from his office.

Once it was a set of bobble-heads he'd got from a petrol station. He'd got the A4 version of the office Christmas party photo (He snuck us in, that's entirely another story.) and printed out enlarged versions of our faces, stuck them on the front and made miniature cafe workers. 

We were all delighted and gave them pride of place next to the snack counter.

Before Steve complained to the owner of the building and we had to take them down.

Sometimes he brought in interesting stamps, coins or buttons. He was a little bit of an eccentric bloke, was Gav.

That day was different.

He'd brought in a strange metal box with a little flashing amber light on the front. 

He hands it to me with his usual Gavin smile, gives me an odd little wink and said "Await further instructions."

Obviously, I thought this was some sort of Gavin prank. Maybe the machine was going to shoot silly string or start emitting purple smoke or something.

But he just smiled, turned and walked away. He didn't order any food, like he did every other day. He just left.

Odd.

I never saw Gavin again. And if there were any kind of instructions, I was never told.

I was on my own for the close down that evening.

As I wiped down the fridges and cupboards, turned off the lights and re-stocked and opened the personal laptop out the back to send Sidney over a picture of the itemised delivery note he'd requested whilst he was bedresting, I heard a strange clunk coming from the coffee machine.

And it makes noise. Watery gurgles, hisses, slurps. But this was a different noise. Some sort of clang.

I went to investigate and got out the front just in time to see a dark figure sprinting towards the entrance of the building and the odd metal machine stuck to the side of the coffee machine.

I yelled out, but the figure sped up and was out of the foyer in seconds. I never caught their face and the camera recordings from that day were wiped. The security guards onsite say it was an "accident", a "mix-up with the records" but I don't believe them.

I tried to tug the thing off of the coffee machine and it wouldn't budge.

It was as if it was superglued to the side of the machine.

But it wasn't.

I brought out a steak knife from the kitchen and tried to cut it off. The knife slid underneath and went out the other side. The device was magnetised to the machine.

I tried to lever the knife and prise it off. Nothing.

And so I left it. I wasn't happy about doing it, but I just left it.

After I locked up the office, I phoned Sidney. His phone went to voicemail but he picked up whilst I was midway through leaving a message. His breathing sounded laboured and heavy. Clearly he was in quite a bit of pain.

"How's the ulcer?"

"Terrible. Why are you calling? If till two broke in half in the cash drawer there's some sellotape in-

"It isn't that. There's a weird thing on the coffee machine."

"What do you mean there's a weird thing on the coffee machine?"

"It's this weird thing with an orange light. Just a chunk of metal. It-

The line went dead.

I tried to call his cellphone a few more times, but I only got dial tone.

The next morning, I was surprised to see Sidney had come back into work. He was pretty cheery and pretended he'd made a swift recovery but kept holding his stomach whenever he had a spare moment. Four times he had to sit down, his pale face evidence of his ulcer acting up. 

He leaned over the sink once.

But he didn't actually throw up. 

The little device on the coffee machine didn't seem to do anything, not at first. Sometimes it would make an odd beep or a whir when a customer approach. Several times the light would change colour. On occasion the colour would change to blue, green, red or pink. 

The coffee came out just the same though. It wasn't until a week later when Steve came in for his morning espresso that the machine started acting weird.

Sidney had more or less made a full recovery and was only lightly massaging his side and wincing instead of cramming his hand into his stomach as if trying to push his ulcer out the other side of his body.

And Steve came over to us and the little red light pinged on. But it grew brighter, until the entire coffee machine looked as if it were bathed in an angry crimson light. The heat emanating from the machine became scalding and it was if I was standing on a precipice near some sort of hell-pit.

The espresso itself was horrible. Burnt, as if the beans had been roasted inside the sun. It wasn't steaming but smoked. 

Steve was on the phone and didn't notice. He grabbed the espresso cup as I was trying to pour it away before I could say anything or do anything.

I felt strange, watching him in the murderous and cruel heat that had suddenly enveloped me. And then it dissipated as he walked away.

 

He was becoming more angry and animated as he talked on the phone that he'd clenched between his cheek and right shoulder. He shook a pill from a little plastic bottle for his blood pressure and threw it back, then attempted to wash it down with the espresso.

He screamed as the liquid scalded his throat.

I managed to avoid laughing, but it was honestly quite difficult.

A managed to point an accusing finger at me and croaked out some expletive from his stupid maroon face, but then he left. According to three of my customers he took the rest of the day off.

Despite the fact he's a dickhead and I've caught him staring down my top twice during my first week at the cafe, I hope he's okay.

I didn't see him again.

Clair came down from upstairs a few minutes later. 

Cappuccino Claire, two sugars and a little glass of water on the side.

She's slightly older, and in remission from cancer. I can't quite remember what type, but I can clearly remember she tearfully broke down to the manager on my first day, back when she was diagnosed, telling me how she only hoped to survive long enough to put away a little pocket of money for her grandchildren.

So I'd always liked her.

When she came up to the counter, I remember the weird thing attached to the machine beeped, turning a strange colour I'd never quite seen before. 

It was sort of green and yet had clear violet pigments in it. An eighth colour I can't quite put into words.

And the coffee machine worked fine. Better than fine. Perfectly, even. 

The milk was smooth and velvety and everything just flowed out so beautifully. The espresso was just so orangey and gorgeous I had to look underneath the machine to see if there'd been some sort of accident. Nope.

When I put her glass underneath the built-in water dispenser, the water poured out. But it was clear, but smelled a little bit citrusy. Tart, even. 

I was about to pour it away when Clair picked it up and swigged it in a single gulp. A smile lit up her face, pulling away the mask of age to reveal a younger person beneath.

"Rosehip water... When I was a little girl I'd always pick rosehip from down the lane and mix them in with a little bit of water. How did you do that? Did you have a new button installed?"

I had no answer and so settled for the old customer favourite: The smile and the shrug.

She seemed content with that and walked back to her desk, sipping her coffee. 

I could still hear her murmurs of approval even when she reached the end of the hall.

And it was odd because when I'd served her, I almost felt as if I was channelling her in someway. It was the strangest thing.

And the rest of the day went by. And it went by fairly smoothly, honestly. The coffee machine seemed to play up a bit when a few people got flustered. But that was it. Really.

Until the last drink of the day.

Max came back. When I saw him I felt a little swooping feeling in my chest. He'd never come back after the coffee he has at breakfast and so I instantly I assumed that he was coming back for something else.  Something more than a cup of hot coffee.

And he did.

Oh god, he looked so beautiful. Those sparkling eyes, the slight upturned smile and the way he looked at me. My boyfriend had broken up with me three months ago. Just dropped me a text. So my body confidence wasn't exactly sky high.

I knew I'd already say yes before he opened his mouth.

He asked if I was doing anything over the weekend and I opened my mouth. I'd been leaning on the steam wand, perhaps trying to angle myself in what I'd thought was a seductive pose.

But then I realised that I wasn't leaning on a steam wand.

It was a large femur bone, attached with a chunk of gristle to the rest of the machine. Only where there had been metal, rubber tubing, glass and plastic there was now only gore. The coffee machine looked like a giants ribcage speckled with black spots that looked like putrescent growths.

Until I saw one of them move.

Beetles.

I was horrified. I tried to talk but the words wouldn't come. I was briefly aware of Max looking at me, puzzled, as the light attached to the machine turned violet and somehow hideously bright.

A black light.

I could hear a squirming from the bean hopper. Even before I looked up I had some idea of what I was going to see. Hundreds upon hundreds of maggots squirming over each other.

I pressed no button, but shots poured through. They smelled of death. They smelled of earth, soil and things you hide for far too long. They smelled of wood rot, fungus and diseased skin.

Max, at that point, seemed to notice that something was wrong.

He turned to run but was immediately set upon with a handful of policemen and guards who'd seemingly appeared out of nowhere.

They pinned him down, cuffed his hands and frogmarched him away.

I learned later that on the news that he was a serial killer. The police had found three bodies of working women stuffed into his bedroom wardrobe, mutilated beyond recognition. 

There was no mention that he had ever worked here, or that he'd been arrested here.

I turned back to the machine, only to see that it was back to the way it was. As if nothing had ever happened.

I also saw that the little light was no longer attached to the side of the machine.

And I spotted a man in a white labcoat who'd managed to make his way over during the fracas. He was gone before I could do anything.

To this day, I still don't quite know what happened in my cafe.

We closed down from natural causes. The business just went under due to cashflow problems.

If I had to guess? The guys in the science division have a little toy they use when they think something's up to monitor employees. Maybe it goes higher up. Area 51, CIA, MI6 super secret whatever. Hey dude, I just pour the coffee. I never promised you answers.

So I never dated Max. I never figured out what happened. I don't know if maybe there's a new cafe and if there's another barista that will come across it one day.

I work in a warehouse now, operating a forklift.

I met someone online.

And it goes without saying.

I never used a coffee machine. Ever again.

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