I never grew out of my cartoon phase. From an early age, I
was drawn into the colorful characters and upbeat voices. This is what led me
to deep dive into the creative process behind them in my teenage years and pursue
it as a career as an adult. When I landed my first animation job,
it was a dream come true. I knew the hours or long the
time was thankless compared to the more public names that do the voices and direction,
but this is what I wanted to do. However, as my time
went on with a fresh startup, I started to notice something strange about my
coworkers. For starters, the team was small. You would think this would
be a bottleneck for output, but the team was efficient. They'd work late
into the night and be there for days that they weren't scheduled. I never
knew how early they showed up. All I knew was that it was earlier
than me, no matter what time I started. This is often seen as
a negative in the animation industry. Overworked and underpaid is a common sentiment.
However, this wasn't some strong arm move by management. It was completely voluntary.
Whenever I asked any of them what they were working on, they'd be
vague and quickly changed the subject. This kind of evasive behavior was from the
whole team. But the strangest one of all was the company's founder, a
man named mister Jones. He was always in his personal office, door permanently
closed, besides his goings in and out, working on some exclusive project.
No one was allowed to see, and it seemed it was only me that
was curious. He was a called and calculating man, dead eyes, but
he held himself in a strong manner. No matter how much I tried to
justify this as him just carrying himself the way a leader should, I always
got a strange feeling about him. As I continued to work with the other
members, I quickly picked up on how talented they were. It was how
we got away with such a small team despite the heavy amount of projects we
took on. They were multi specialists too, colorists doing shading, the sound
team picking up for the animation, tweeners pitching in for direction. There was
never a dropped beat in the flow of work, which made me feel pale
in comparison, having only specialized in animation. Despite their chemistry, everyone seemed
distant, almost robotic communication was just one step away from nonverbal. The startup
was advertised as new, but they acted like they'd been working together for a
lifetime. The moment things began to unravel because when I had a meeting with
the elusive mister Jones, I was summoned to his office to discuss a project
I was working on. As I entered, I couldn't help but feel a
sense of a knees. I felt this was all of a sad to discuss
my lack of chemistry with the team. This was the first time I'd seen
anyone besides mister Jones. Enter always deemed his space, and it was me
that had the honor of crossing the threshold. Mister Jones sat behind his desk,
his eyes cold and calculating as he looked me up and down. He
didn't say a word for several moments, and the silent beats were almost suffocating
if this was some kind of CEO scare tactic he was working. Finally,
he spoke, I've been watching your progress on your project and I must say
that I'm impressed, he said, his voice barely above a whisper. Your
work is truly exceptional, and I think you have the potential to be one
of our top animators. I couldn't help but feel a sense of pride at
his words. All the extra time the others put in, yet I was
the one that stood out. It was a boost to my ego, to
say the least. Maybe the others were spread too thin, covering for each
other, and I managed to stand out in my one true field. But
I couldn't shake the feeling that he was hiding something from me. Thank you,
mister Jones, I said, trying to keep my voice steady yet polite.
I'm glad you're pleased with my work. Oh I'm more than pleased,
he replied, his eyes narrowing. In fact, I think that you're ready
to take on a special project for me, a project that will take your
skills to the next level and truly showcase your talent. I was about to
ask him more about the project, but before he could speak, he stood
up from his desk and walked over to me. He placed his hand on
my shoulder and I could feel his cold clammy fingers gripping me tightly. You
will work on this project, and you will not speak of it to anyone
outside this company, he said, his voice low and menacing. Do you
understand? I nodded, feeling a sense of fear coursing through my veins.
I didn't know what he was planning, and he gave no hints to what
was about to come. Mister Jones didn't make me sign any NBA's, but
I still felt the pressure of legal colmdown if I were to breach this verbal
agreement. As I worked on the special project for mister Jones, I couldn't
help but notice that there was something strange about the entire situation. For one,
I was never allowed to see any other final animations they were created,
but my new personal team. Whenever I asked about them, I was met
with yet more vague answers and quickly redirected to another task. I tried to
brush it off as just the way things were done at the company, but
as time went on, I couldn't shake the feeling that there was something more
sinister at play. I started to notice that the other members outside my team
were acting strange as well. They were even more secretive than usual, and
they always seemed to be on edge around me. I tried to talk to
some of my co workers about it, but they all shut me down.
They told me that I just needed to focus on my work in a manner
that was the closest human from any of my interactions. I couldn't shake the
feeling that something was off. I knew that I needed to find out what
was really going on, but I didn't know how. I was already making
myself a target with my questions. I was stuck working on these special projects
for mister Jones, and I was afraid of what would happen if I tried
to dig too deep. Something I picked up after a few projects was that
I never knew who the clients were that commissioned the animations or where they were
going once they were finished. Whenever I asked, I was yet again met
with more avoidance. I added it to yet more things I'll never get to
know, But I couldn't shake the growing curiosity behind this company. The questions
that true to the forefront of my thoughts was what were these animations being used
for? One day, while working on a project, I stumbled across a
stack of papers on mister Jones's desk. It was a rare time I was
permitted to enter a space since there were some machines in there that had niche
uses and was tasked to get one. The papers were all in voices and
receipts, and they were addressed to various government agencies from around the world.
I was stunned. I knew the clients must have been high profile for the
boss to make us churn them out with such an urgency, but I didn't
know it went this deep. With this snippet of an answer, a flood
of more questions rushed at me, and it got to Wrenchel. When I
looked closer. The specific agencies listed were from branches I'd never heard of,
acronyms that weren't the obvious culprits to common online conspiracy theories, names that sounded
like something from a sci fi movie. I quickly left with the equipment I
needed and hushed up about it, having learned to start asking questions at the
workplace. When I got home, I searched all the names I could remember
online, but nothing showed. I tried pairing it with the respective countries and
it still came up blank. I knew they must be real, because the
animations had to be going somewhere, so I tried the most direct answer I
could think of. I made sure to remember her specific branch, one based
in my own country. My plan was to call the public government number and
asked to be put through to the specific branch. I dialed the number,
my heart pounding in my chest. I was nervous as the phone rang.
I waited anxiously for someone to answer. When someone picked up, it was
a polite woman asking how she could help me, and I nervously asked to
be put through. Without a response, I was met with a strange clicking
sound and a high pitch tone. I was terrified, in a panic,
I hung up the phone immediately. I didn't know what was going on,
but I knew that I needed to be careful. I didn't want to put
myself in any real danger. I tried to think of more ideas and left
it for the night. The next day, as soon as I showed up
for work, mister Jones called me into his office. He straightway let me
know that I was fired. He gave some vague reasons about my performance not
being up to par, which I felt couldn't be true. I'd been praised
not too long ago about my outstanding performance, and my workflow hadn't declined since
working the new position in fact, it might have improved. I immediately knew
it was connected to the phone call i'd made. I was angry and upset
at having lost my first animation job, but I knew there was nothing I
could do. I backed to my things and left the office, feeling a
sense of dread. As I left, I was watched by the others in
a cold silence. They were emotionless, stairs piercing through me, though not
with inflictions of embarrassment, but rather a sense of malice. After being let
go, I continued to look for a new job, but I struggled.
I tried to use the old company as a reference, but quickly learned that
it was impossible. When I called the company for a referral, the calls
never went through. I went back to the office, but he was vacated.
Not even a drop of ink was left. I searched online for more
information, but the sites were now blank. It was as if the team
never existed. I didn't know what was going on, so I tried to
dig deeper and look for the clients that I remembered from the papers, but
it was impossible. I tried to do research about my old animation company,
trying to uncover what was really going on. But the more I looked,
the more frustrated I became. They covered their tracks well. If I couldn't
find anything out while working there, being this distant made everything much harder.
Meanwhile, I was still on the hunt for a new job. I struggled
to explain the gap in my work history between now and my education. Whenever
I mentioned the company, potential employers would look at me with confusion. I
started to feel like I was going crazy. However, one day, while
I was being interviewed for another fresh animation team, I mentioned them again.
The interviewer looked at me with skepticism and told me he hadn't heard of them
before. I was getting frustrated. I was about to explain further when a
worker who was passing by overheard our conversation and nodded his head. I went
on to bomb the interview as usual and left went outside. The worker quickly
rushed over to me and handed me a slip of paper with his contact information.
Please you have to reach me, the worker said urgently. I used
to work there too, was all he said as he rushed back inside,
leaving me standing there with a slipper paper in my hand. When I got
home, I stared at the slipper paper that was given to me. It
was obvious he did it all in a rush, as the paper was hastily
ripped from one of the work documents who was carrying, and the penmanship had
holes from how it was written, most likely on the palm of his hand.
I didn't know if I could trust him, but if I wanted to
investigate further, I knew I had to take the plunge, so I decided
to take the risk and contact him. I sent him an email and waited
anxiously for a response. A few hours later, I got an answer.
All it contained was a link to a small website that documented one of the
animations I had briefly worked on. The website was some small conspiratal site that
looked like it was made with the most basic template, but what I read
was wild. It tried to correlate the animation releases to a major political event
and one off is a coincidence. But every example given was so specific to
each country an event. I now knew more, but I had no idea
where to go from here. My curiosity was always thirsty, and this did
nothing to quench it, I was craving more. After this, though,
my attempts to contact the worker failed, I started to get worried, so
I decided to try to call the company where the worker was from, hoping
to find some new contact information. But when I garled the number, I
was met with a strange clicking sound and a high pitched tone. I locked
them up and they too disappeared. After my attempts to contact the worker failed,
things started getting weirder. My friends and family seemed to be avoiding me.
Whenever I ran into them in town, they would walk away from me,
as if they didn't want to be seen with me. It was as
if I'd somehow become a prior, and the thought made me feel isolated and
alone. Even when I went to the store to buy groceries, the cashiers
would barely acknowledge me. They would wordlessly serve me and take my money,
but they wouldn't make eye contact or engage in conversation. It was as if
I was poisonous air breath held until I was safely away, and the thought
made me feel like I was losing my mind. And after everything, I
was still unable to find any solid information on my own until One night,
I was flipping through the channels or watching TV, and I came across an
advertisement for a worldwide premiere of a new cartoon. The cartoon was going to
be translated into multiple languages and broadcast around the world. And as I watched
the advertisement, I recognized some of the countries listed. They were the same
countries that were listed on the papers I had found on mister Jones's desk.
My eyes widened. I don't know what's going to happen, but I can't
shake the feeling that something terrible is going to happen. The worldwide premiere of
the new cartoon is fast approaching. I don't know what kind of effect this
cartoon is going to have on his viewers, but it's going to be something
that's going to happen on a grander scale than anything we had done before.
I can't help but worry about the future.