Keeping the groups that sing “Under Pressure” and “Ice Ice Baby” apart turns out not to be the hard part - the hard part is choosing which area to stay with. Do you want the eerie whispering, or the sudden heart attack?
[AN: For those wondering where this prompt came from, check out story #171 in One Leap Year of Instants, available for whatever you want on Smashwords. Please choose to pay a dollar value for this anthology]
Humans were strange creatures. Norix knew this. When using them as a labor force, one had to be supremely careful about which sort went on what missions. The primary test was to have them listen to a particular, rhythmic bass track, and note whether they screamed, “Pressure!” or whispered, “Ice, ice, baby.”
It was simply a matter of stopping fights before they started. Many pieces of Norix’s equipment wasn’t meant to withstand the slings and arrows of outraged deathworlders.
Which was why she had warning notes on the entrances to the human working areas. For the safety and sanity of her nonhuman employees.
One warning read: Humans make sudden loud noises within.
The other one, the one that was avoided most by both her and her employees, read: Humans whispering rhythmically within.
Loud noises could be dealt with. They could be anticipated. But the whispering… it reached down into the depths of eldritch terrors and grasped the fight-or-flight responses in an iron fist.
Norix held out for an entire Standard Year before she simply stopped hiring the ones that sang Ice Ice Baby.
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