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Mister Dancer - ch 17

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Mister Dancer - ch 18Working shift after shift, job after job, I've reached my next quota of ten on the day before the medical technician is supposed to come. My notes are a little more lengthy this time, which feels nice, but also means I spend longer checking the spelling and transcribing them. I glance at Vin’s UR channel after lunch. His latest video is the review of apple and walnut pizza. I don’t watch it. Instead I send him a text message.‘Please please post that disconnection study video tonight’ Then, with nothing else to do and no desire to wallow in worry at home, I bundle up my notes and request an auto-van pickup to go into the city.~-~ Riding down the highway, I’m surrounded in the auto-van by couples with their arms around each other, heads together and whispering. They fill most of the seats. When my cell beeps, I need to twist around to get a hand into my pocket, then hunch down for some privacy.‘Scheduled near midnight tonight in fact, our peak traffic hours . Yur gonna love it!’ I need that to be true. ~-~ With the sun hanging low in the sky, I walk past the crowds of people renting scooters and enter the city. Unlike the middle of the day, there are actually people lined up outside of restaurants and going into movie theaters and wandering the streets. Most everyone is in a group of two or more, while the single people like me seem to be rolling back toward the transit center.The fast food joints transition into fancy eateries as I head toward the residential zones. I pass the square office buildings, lively malls, lamp-lit parks and finally start seeing big apartment blocks for the semi-rich.Even when I get to the private houses there are people to be seen, not unlike my suburb at this time of the evening. Yet some here move like androids, others are flesh and blood but look lean and well dressed, and almost none of them could be considered a blob. The one I do see is wearing a tall black hat and coattails and twirling an umbrella as they roll down the sidewalk on a wide scooter. Marc’s tall, skinny house has lights on in the windows. I sigh with relief, walk up to the front gate and knock on the wrought iron. “Hello, Ms. Marci?” My voice seems muffled by the evening air. “Ned?” Still, I keep my tone soft and low. “Hello?”A voice comes from a speaker in the gate wall, “Wil? Hey, good to see you. Come on in.”I hear a click from the gate and push. The iron bars swing forward and I proceed up the garden path to the front door. After a moment someone rifles through the locks and opens the door wide.They might be as tall as me but stand bent with a hunched back. Strangely thin arms, like skin wrapped tight around bone, clasp together. Their clothes look snug and comfortable, a mix between a fancy suit and leisurewear. I can’t see much of their face between the dying light outside and the bright entryway lights above and behind them, but I think they might be smiling. “More notes?” The voice sounds the same as the one that greeted me, maybe warmer without any distortion from speakers, yet marked by a slight tremor.I nod, confused now. If this person has seen me before, they must be Ned or Marc - but I’ve never seen this android before, if it is an android. If not …“Marc?” Hoping to respect their wishes, I go for an apologetic tone. “Should I call you Marc?” They grin and take a step back, one thin hand gesturing into the house. “Uh - yeah. Or whatever you want.” Marc looks away from me, one hand fiddling with the door. “Mr. Hardy is - well, I might think you’re talking about my dad.”My mind takes a moment to accept the person standing before me. I knew Marc wouldn’t look exactly like their android, and probably I should have guessed they would be less like the Ms. Marci frame and more like the one Ned usually uses, but - Seeing Marc in the flesh feels like I’ve witnessed something I wasn’t supposed to know about. Not to mention the different personality or how in the light they look about the same age as me.“Is it weird meeting me in person?” Their voice falters through the question but they smile at me like they’re joking. “Sorry. Uh - do you remember Xharm? I sort of promised her a date - which I’m going to later tonight. Even after - I mean, where are my manners, would you like to come inside?” They gesture again.I blink and enter the house, walking toward the back room. Behind me I hear the door close and Marc’s slow, measured footsteps. Glancing back, I notice their frail limp. I turn my gaze forward again and don’t look around until I’m inside the room and taking a seat in the small chair.Without a fire going, the room feels colder. Marc sits across from me, sagging into the couch and leaning against the armrest.“So I’ve been here for the last few days, walking up and down the stairs, strolling the neighborhood, just using the old legs for once.” Marc pats a hand against their skinny legs and smiles at me. “Nothing as rough as dancing, but hopefully we’re just going to dinner. You, uh - You wouldn’t really know much about tube rehab, huh?”“Actually, I know a bit.” Despite the initial strangeness, the comfortable feeling I get from talking to Marc is the same as with Ms. Marci. “Anything more than a year without coming out can take about a month for a full physical recovery, though most people say it only takes a few days to be moving around and talking normally.”Marc grins, nodding a little. “Exactly. Wow, yeah. Moving my mouth to talk is so much more effort compared to the neural link. I can hardly wait to go back in - though I shouldn’t say that. I might be out a bit longer this time, depending on what Xharm wants to do next.” I nod. We sit in silence for a moment, then I reach into my jacket’s inner pocket. Pulling out and pressing a thumb to my wallet case’s keypad, I remove the folded square of papers from under the card clip. Marc holds out a shaky hand but I stand and step closer, laying the papers down beside them on the couch. As Marc starts to read, I lean back against the chair and take a deep breath. My throat feels dry. I wish Ned was here.“Can I get some water from your kitchen?” Marc glances up. “Look through your cell. There should be a delivery app within range.”I stare back. “But just some water would be fine.” Brow furrowed, Marc’s head tilts. “I have a half-full pitcher of iced tea I ordered earlier, with the glass it came with. There’s a sink in the bathroom, but the local water is a little oily - oh, and a small pantry space in the basement, which is droid access only. That’s it.”The more he says I can’t have water now, the more parched my throat seems to become. I pull out my cell and scroll through the local available apps, finding marketplaces and fast food delivery and shopping aplenty. In the first supermarket’s selection, a bottle of water is about as much as a small meal. I check another and find an even higher mark-up. “They’ll have it here within a few minutes,” Marc mutters, gaze down in the papers. “I can pay - and while you’re getting that, would you order me some wine? Single serve bottle, anything sweet and low content.”“Wine?” I look up at Marc. “Isn’t that - kind of potent?”They smirk. “Says the guy who thinks courage crystal drinks are a party drug.” Smoothing out the papers, Marc looks up at me. “These notes are even better than before, so great job on that. I’m wondering though if you might be having some unnecessary concerns? Worrying that a game is too boring, or too difficult - They might just not be to your taste.”I nod. “I’m trying to keep that in mind, but what I actually meant by those comments was something different.” Can I say this? What will Marc do if I reveal how much I figured out? Sure, they seem okay and probably would just fire me or put me on some kind of list if I object, but they’re rich enough to do worse and get away with anything.I want to tell them though. Ned didn’t seem concerned, so if this is all an open secret, I don’t have any reason to be vague. “The other day, when I was doing the driver assist game, it hit me later how there had been real lives in my hands. The partner took over as soon as I got around the obstruction, but in those moments - I could have gotten someone injured, or hit a pedestrian or any of the animals. I wouldn’t do that, but someone else might. That’s a hard thing to call a game. And there’s plenty more like that. As a doctor, as a lawyer - I had no idea what to do.” Marc winces. “So you -” Setting the papers down, they look away from me. “We’re not, uh, doing anything - wrong, per-say.” Their hands fold atop their knees, then start to wring. “If you had ever done something - Ned has people overseeing your work, which is a standard practice in game development. We knew there might be risks, but we -” Marc looks at me, shifty eyes steadying, hands clasping together firmly. “We needed an outside tester.”At least they’re not denying the basic facts. “For what? Sure, there’s a lot of them. But why would you want to make the entire job board available to people? It’s been fun trying new things, but in a lot of them someone without the right training wouldn’t be able to do the job.”“But what about all the ones where we can?” Marc’s gaze remains firm and their voice gains some strength. “For example, do you know how many jobs were available to you before?” I sigh, feeling my stomach clench. “Uh - four.”Marc pauses, mouth agape. “Seria? How? Most people have between ten and fifty, with a few favorites.”“I basically dropped out of school and didn’t do college and never took any work study programs before turning twenty five and - yeah. Seems if you completely check out on life, four jobs is all you can get. Janitorial, material handling, media sorting and security.” “Okay. Wow. I probably should have looked at your resume more.” Marc smiles, ever-friendly, and with a moment to let the air clear moves on. “Let’s imagine someone is on the high end with fifty. Yet there’s thousands of jobs on the board. Think about that.”Picking up my notes, Marc waves the papers up and down with a steady grin. “If even half of them can be done by a reasonably intelligent person, as you have no doubt discovered, that’s over a ten-times increase from what we ever have. Most people are good and hard workers, especially when they like their job, so the freedom to try more jobs would be a better world. That’s essentially why I wanted to do this.” Was that the reason? Making the world a better place sounded like an impossible dream, and I still wasn’t convinced people would want or should be given that kind of freedom.But maybe rich people always dream this big.Marc’s expression changes, getting slightly paler and pinched. “You wouldn’t tell anyone, right? This is all strictly confidential, part of the agreement you signed.” “I understand.” I hope I sound more sure than I feel. “I mean, I see the purpose now in having someone test these.” Even if I wasn’t sure of their reasons, at least I knew them. “Now that I know - I’ll make sure to mention when I think a job shouldn’t be done by anyone untrained.” That’s probably all I can do. Picking up the papers, Marc goes back to reading. “That’s great, Wil. Thank you.”I look away and back to my cell, staring at the price of water in the nearby stores. With one click the water goes into my online cart. ~-~ With a thin shot glass bottle held between both hands, Marc takes a sip and sighs. “What do you want to do when this is all over?” “Huh?” I look up from my water - delivered in a jar smelling faintly of flowers for some reason - and stare at them. “After what is over?”“This job. If you continue at your current rate,” Marc glances upward at the ceiling and mumbles to himself for a moment, then nods. “Two years, roughly. And without doing the neural jack ones, you might be down to a year. Do you have plans for afterward?” My hands are squeezing the jar. When my fingers start to hurt, I loosen up and thank the sturdy design. What will I be doing a year from now? The video should post in a few hours and tomorrow my life could change entirely, one way or another. I have no idea what tomorrow will bring, so a year is out of my sight.“Uh, but no worries if you don’t.” Marc lets out a thin laugh, their voice quicker now. “Take life at your own pace, you know? If you ever need a letter of recommendation I would happily help you, so don’t hesitate to ask. Or -”Fast, lively music with a good base beat comes from somewhere. Marc fumbles a hand into the pocket of their suit and retrieves a cell so shiny and sleek I can see a reflection of their hand. Holding up one finger to me, Marc speaks into the cell.“Hey, you ready? Okay, I’ll arrive, uh, yeah, same time. A reservation. It’s set. Yes. I promised. See you.”Tapping the cell, Marc falls back against their chair and looks at me. “Let’s talk about this another time. Is there somewhere I can drop you off?” I shrug. “The transit center I guess?”But the thought of going home now - What will I do? Tell Dad to watch the video as soon as it goes public? Suggest we watch the breaking news feeds together for some reason? If I push the issue any more, his worries about the whole thing being fake might deepen. The person who needs to be convinced is the medical technician, but I can’t help that. When the world starts to see the truth, Dad should change his mind to match.“Actually I’d rather stay in the city tonight.” The office rental has wall screens, so I should be able to follow the news there and decide on my next steps. “I don’t need a ride. I’ll just walk over to the office space I’m renting.”“Oh. Uh, if you don’t have any plans -” Marc looks down into their drink, pours the remainder into their mouth and sighs. “Normally I would have Ned, but he took the night off. I could really use a sort of, uh, wingman. Someone to help if I fall, or keep Xharm company when I use the restroom, or just to be there if anyone tries to make a scene.” Meeting my gaze, Marc smiles. “Not that anything will happen. What do you say? You’ll get free food, probably see some interesting people - and I could pay you for your time as well.” I stare at them, considering the strange offer. “Wouldn’t you rather have an android?” A night on the town with your crew is something famous people and their friends do for UR vids. “Or …” Does Marc consider me a friend? They shrug. “I don’t need a bodyguard or a promoter. Bringing someone Xharm knows is better for this kind of thing.” Glancing down to their cell, one skinny finger slides across the screen. “If you’re busy - Jac? He and Xharm don’t get along. Nefist - no, he’s at that retreat. Yier! She wanted to meet Xharm, but I think she might have been out of town ...” “I’m not busy.” Ignoring the whole video thing for a while might be good for me. “Marc -” An odd instinct to apologize comes over me - for what? Uncertainty? “I’d like to go.” Maybe what I need to do is offer an explanation. “But I might feel weird if you paid me for the time.”Marc looks up at me. “Oh! Yeah, that was a little presumptuous of me. Sorry!” They grin and swipe up on their cell. “Okay, I’ll order us that auto-car.”~-~When we're walking to the front door, I notice Marc moving slowly and realize I might have said I'd be helping them walk. But they limp toward the door and shoo me forward, so we walk onward with me in the lead.“Marc.” I stop near the front door, wondering if I should undo the locks myself or wait. “Do you - Why not use a wheelchair, or a rollway?”They slip past me and start on the locks. “Why would I? I can walk fine. Does my pace bother you?” Their tone is light, a mix of carefree and innocent curiosity. So this is the feeling of a bomb beneath my careless feet. “No. Sorry. Just seems like that would be easier for you.” “I see. Thanks, but - ease isn’t really my goal. Despite spending so much time in a VR tube that I end up like this, I do like the feeling of walking.” The last lock clicks open and Marc pulls on the door, their other hand waving me down the path toward the silent auto-car parked outside the gate. “Slow is good. The sensations in my heels, in my toes, the pressure on my ankles and calves - that’s all good.”What sensations? As I walk toward the auto-car, I try to focus on what my feet are feeling. The light rubbing touch of skin against socks, the tiny shock of every footfall, then lifting my foot off the ground - I nearly stumble on the sidewalk but turn my forward momentum into a lean against the gate, which rattles but supports me. Opening the latch, I pull the gate inward for Marc. They grin at me and nod, walking through and stepping into the auto-car. “That’s right, Xharm said you did running? You must be a connoisseur of those sensations.” I pull the gate closed and follow Marc into the auto-car. The interior lights shine from every corner onto thick blue seating. A couple bottles of water sit in an otherwise empty central ice chest. Sitting across from Marc, I shrug and continue peering around, feeling the car begin to move beneath us.“There is the way my feet feel after a long jog. But what hurts the most when I run is my lungs.” Marc crosses one leg over the other and tilts their head. “Ah, true. Once, I went to watch Xharm training. She had a breathing mask on while doing everything else and I believe said it was to control the oxygen intake. That’s some dedication, choosing to feel such pain. Wow, was that how athletes trained? I had never tried making a run harder - nor did I want to. For me the hard breathing, tired muscles and collapsing at the end were enough, an unfortunate but necessary side-effect of the activity.If anything, the pain was a reminder of why I'd started jogging.
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Mister Dancer - ch 1When did jogging get easy? Okay, not easy, exactly. At some point these sweaty walks got faster, steadier and maybe even routine. The when doesn’t really matter. Now it’s easier than … work, maybe. But work will always be hard. Why else would they pay us. Hustling along the empty sidewalk, the late-morning haze filters the sunlight to a distant warmth. A tiny mail car shoots down the empty street, slowing only when it goes past me. Another streaks through an intersection far ahead. Factory identical houses, one after another. Dirt lots, maybe an unkempt flower bed, empty driveways next to flood floors. Each home has a few visible differences: window curtains, deck furniture and other outdoor garbage mostly. Back when they were built, each of the thousand or so houses in the neighborhood had been painted one of a hundred pastel colors. Are they able to use different colors in other places? I turn at the corner. A few houses down the road, an old lady stands, water can and cutters in hand amid a yard full of vibrant flowers. She smiles and I nod in passing. I don’t know her but I do jog by here often. There’s no one else around. Or rather, no one outside. More come out in the evening, perhaps to walk around in groups, sit on benches and discuss the day’s scores and prizes. Especially couples, young and old alike, spending time together before they go back home to be alone. I jog and think about the evening, when I’ll be off work. Focusing so I can ignore the sights along the way, like … A red and white ambulance parked outside a yellow house. Three medic droids wheel out a blob of flesh in a blue bathrobe, still sitting in their chair. Probably stuck to it. They heft the blob, all three straining, onto the ambulance’s ramp and push the chair up into the back. You sometimes see them use cranes. On the other side of the street, I jog past. Gotta keep moving to reach the destination. Two small faces stare out a window of the yellow house. That’s why you go outside. ~-~ I jog up the stairs of our house. At the door I stop, allow myself to finally relax, and turn to go sit in the porch swing. Nice day after all, even with the haze. My cell has a bunch of message notifications. Most of them are my local IRL group talking about meetup plans, along with some spam and a few automatic reminders. I delete everything else. There’s a bit of a breeze, just enough to keep the air clean. Birds fly by, or drones shaped like birds. Who can tell anymore. A big mail truck rumbles up and parks across the street, the logo for a sports drink on the side. I stand, walk back to the door and tap in the keycode. Dad is in the kitchen, sitting at the counter with a cup of coffee and his newspaper. The ads on every page start moving each time he moves his head. A story on the front page flashes once before updating a few details. “Morn,” I say, walking to the fridge. The paper rustles behind me. “Sup.” My post-jog drink in the fridge is a bright neon green. Real OJ brand Chartreuse Juice. All the added vitamins and minerals a stable body needs. I pour out the remainder in the jug, filling my cup to the brim, then tap the message on the fridge door saying I’d like to order another. Dad tilts his head out from behind the newspaper and eyes my drink, but says nothing. I shrug and take a sip. No matter what he thinks, Chartreuse Juice is better than most of the other stuff on the market. It’s more bitter than sweet. He sighs and puts down his paper. “Good jog?” “The best.” His arms fold over a sugar gut and he smirks. “For real?” The ambulance siren receding in the other direction comes to mind. I grin and twist my hand like I’m shaking off water. “Nice weather.” While I finish my juice, he picks his newspaper back up. I pour egg hashbrown mix into a bowl, sprinkle on some hot sauce and head for the microwave. The kitchen stays quiet for a minute other than the steady cooking buzz. Going to the sink, I rinse and scrub the sticky residue from my cup. “Retirement good?” He chuckles. “The best.” “Can’t wait.” I open up the drawer beside the dishwasher and pull out a fork. The newspaper lowers as his eyes peer over. “Trouble, uh, at work?” “No.” What does he even mean by trouble? “Super boring. Normal.” He clears his throat with a slight cough and says in his deepest tone, “Not much you can do about that now, son.” He’s back to his paper before I can arch an eyebrow at him. The microwave beeps and I pull out my lunch, puffed up to double its liquid size, soft and chunky and bread-like. I stick the fork in and a scent very clearly of cheese wafts from inside. “Gonna work.” “See ya.” As I head up the stairs he calls out, “Dishes, sink.” I tiptoe down the hall to open my door at the end. My two side-by-side windows face our neighbor’s siding. The overheads come on dim - they’re not really necessary with enough sunlight angling in. Setting my bowl on a nearby shelf, I stare at my recliner. Either most chairs look similar or that blob had the same brand as me. I bend down, spot the seam where the base would disconnect, and trace a finger along the groove in the plastic. There’s not really any latch that I can see. After they separate, can a chair reconnect to its base? I lean back, stand up, slide into my chair and flip the power on my rig. The computer hums to life, lights blinking along the box and up the cables to the head-mount display. I toggle over to screen mode. My old display projector lights up the ceiling and the operating system’s boot process flashes through lines of code faster than I can read them. Still, it’s hard to look away. I pull my left and right hand controllers from their pockets on the sides of the chair and set them in my lap. At the login screen, I tap my password into the controllers and the home page loads. My news feed begins scrolling past with stories about athletes cheating, politicians fighting, NGTOs attacking, and new video games dropping. Finally I dig in to my lunch. The egg hashbrown has cooled enough to not be mouth-blistering hot. I drink some water from the tank beside my recliner before I’m through. Reading through the news, I learn the government is testing atomic bombs in space. Some corporations ordered them to stop. Another company is raising funds to try building a human colony on Mars. This one thinks they can find water deeper under the surface. Someone filed a lawsuit against one-to-one neural jacks. I stare at the headline for a moment before moving on. When I’m done with my lunch, I close the news and toggle back to headset mode. I sink into my recliner and position my legs over the restraint loops, which roll and snap into place. The room lights dim and blinds close over my windows. The shelf beside my chair has a small bowl of oblong pills. I swallow one, sip a little water, and pull the headset down over my face. My home world inside the computer is infinite, bright and uncluttered. A few colorful icons float nearby, all my apps and most used portals. The Bureau of Labor portal waits but first I tap my warmup exercise program. My world disappears. I'm inside a large cube room with the logo Precision Movement Industries plastered everywhere. My virtual skin is the typical fitness guy, probably the same one most freeware action games use. I’m pretty sure I could jog three times a day and never look as fit as he does. A tennis ball bounces nearby. I snag it and throw towards the cement-textured wall. The ball bounces back at a decent simulation of real gravity and I reach up to catch it. Too easy. I open the program’s settings with a button on my hand controller and increase the room’s gravity, making the ball harder to throw and catch. After a few more, I tap the button to move on. The skin’s hand grows a tennis racket and now I have to rebound the ball across the field to a simulated partner. She sends the ball in a new direction every time with the exact same motion. My ankles press against the leg restraints to move in two dimensions, pushing harder as she forces me to go faster. When I tap the button again, the ground disappears and we are free to fly in all three dimensions. The ball travels a little faster with each exchange. After three misses I move on. Floating orbs of different colors appear around me. Instructions scroll below: ‘Touch Red’ ‘Hold Green’ ‘Yellow and Green twist’ ‘Look Blue to Red to Yellow’ ‘Blue and Yellow push then pull’ and more and more, requesting longer series and more complex interactions. The orb test has an actual end and the results screen pops up, graphing my performance over time. The line has almost flattened out; I haven’t gotten much faster for a while. Maybe it’s a slump. Or my limit. A picture of my tennis partner, lean body curved and arm back to hit the ball, asks if I would like to purchase the premium version. I decline and close the program. Time for work. I dive into the Bureau of Labor portal, already wishing I was done. The server recognizes me and logs me in; ‘Wil’ appears at the top of my screen, along with 7429WI and a bunch more numbers I don’t bother to read. Their world is formal and mostly bare, a hall with white marble walls and a few flags fluttering to the side. Four doors appear along the hall with a golden, labeled plaque on each: ‘Janitorial’ ‘Material Handling’ ‘Media Sorting’ and ‘Security’ … the only jobs I got licensed for after my early exit from high school. I’m not feeling like a thinking, waiting type of job today. My hand wavers between the first two doors and my stats at each scroll down. I’ve got more years with Janitorial and I’m closer to a promotion, but my pay is already better with Material Handling. With one long press I’m through, the world transitioning to the basic lobby … for about two seconds. The job’s empty training room appears around me. I lift the hands of my virtual droid skin up to my eyes and inspect the rubbery grips on the palms. A partner droid walks in, sets some kind of clunky object down on a rack, and walks back out. The object is twice the size of my entire home rig but covered in the usual data ports and power jacks of a computer. I check the site details. A medical scanner manufacturer and used device refurbisher. That must explain why their part looks a decade old. The job nav overlay points me toward a stack of cardboard along the wall. I grab one and follow the cues to open the flat box, seal the bottom closed with heat glue from inside my droid’s finger, and flip the box over. A stack of irregular pieces, a mix of foam and pre-folded cardboard with plastic screens, appears nearby stacked one atop the other. One goes into the box, then the computer, and more packaging to sandwich the device inside. I close the box with another swipe of glue and the cues direct me to slide the completed package out through another door. My skin walks back to the center of the room and the training continues. The partner brings in two more objects, one a bit smaller and angular like a machine attachment, the other a much larger and heavier monitor screen. The first gets stretched plastic and cardboard, the latter a few large pieces of foam. Halfway through packaging a part identical to the first, a large red ‘5’ appears on my screen. ‘4’ ‘3’ ‘2’ My screen goes dark. Somewhere in the real world, an empty droid recalibrates to my settings as I'm sent in. The room is bright from the LED+S bulbs above. I’m in some kind of warehouse, or rather a side-room of a much larger building. The racks of parts waiting to be packaged sit along one wall, and the stacks of cardboard packaging on the other. The instruction overlay returns - though the arrows and lines don’t fit the real world as neatly as in the training room - and I head for my first flat box. “Hi, Wil,” someone calls out from ahead of me. Another droid stands in the corner, cardboard packaging flipping and twisting in their hands to form the insert pieces, which they stack in a tower beside them. “Welcome to the crew.” I nod and grab the box I need. Above the other droid’s head floats ‘Tiyr’ and a shield medal symbol with a ‘5’ in the center. I speak into my mic, “Glad to be hired, Tiyr.” My droid body has a bit of a crackle to its speakers. “How is the work here going?” “Busy as can be.” He - I’m guessing - flips the insert around like he’s juggling, fingers darting and catching the side to slap the piece down and fold the other edge. “That droid’s been running for at least an hour straight. You might be ported to the backup at some point.” One finger extends, gesturing behind me. I seal the box’s underside just like in the training. The hot glue almost spills over the edge but I smooth down the drips before getting any on the floor. “Busy is great. Means no waiting.” I turn the box over and go toward the parts shelf, then turn as the overlay flashes, pointing me toward an insert first. “Good point.” The dull monotone seems to suggest otherwise. With the insert in, I place the part inside and close the box - the overlay again reminds me about an insert. I add that, pushing to get a tight fit before the lid goes down. With no more warnings I can seal the top and push the box out. At most places the part comes prepped ready to go into the box, but everywhere is different. The next room is a huge warehouse space with aisles of racks going up to the ceiling, a couple of droid sleep closets at the ends, and several droid-forklifts driving around storing and retrieving the boxes. One beeps at me and scoops up my finished product without a word. I glance to my left and see a long row of other packing rooms like mine along the wall. No time for gawking. I go back inside and pull my next box. “If I may ask, where are you?” There’s no response as I seal the box, flip it and drop in an insert. I look over and see the droid in the corner, hands frozen idle at its side. The stack of insert pieces he made stands within my reach. I get the part, lower it into the box, sandwich down the second insert and seal the box shut. ~-~ I’m pushing out my tenth or eleventh part for the forklifts when a droid walks out from a room two down from mine and yells, “We are not machines! We are people, we deserve the rights of -” They’re cut off as the droid powers down. A second or two later, the droid stands up straight, turns around and reenters its packing room. My instructions overlay says, ‘Your shift is not over. Please return to work.’ I go back in and continue packing. ~-~ Another droid, piloted by a ten-year veteran named Greag, brings a cart full of parts at some point during the shift. They don’t say anything but wave once before focusing on moving the parts to racks. A true professional. Tiyr returns a few times, always folding me a stack of the inserts before porting off to some other droid. He’s in Germany and likes metal bands. We talk about rhythm games and he gives me a few track recommendations. After a long two hours, the overlay says, ‘Break time. Please finish current operations.’ I seal up the box, push it out, walk back to the center of the packaging room and stand still. Nothing happens for a moment, then the large red ‘5’ appears. ‘4’ ‘3’ ‘2’ My view of the real world freezes and my score scrolls down the screen: forty-six parts in one hour and fifty-three minutes. They probably took off ten minutes for that disruption. The average for the position is fifty-three parts in two hours. I get a Good Worker rank and my promotion experience bar updates with a few more points. The screen cascades and I am back in the lobby. I sip some water and for a moment consider going back and doing Janitorial after all. The words ‘Please enjoy a fun game on us during your break’ slide across the screen. Ten icons appear in front of me, most of them popular VR sims and micro-action games. On the bottom row I spot Dance Kings. I tap the icon and the lobby disappears. If their copy comes with Elvis unlocked, I might stick around. ~-~ After my break, I’m dropped somewhere with snow drifting against the windows. The time zone also appears to be different, a deep black dark outside rather than early afternoon. They put me at an assembly table packing small parts into larger boxes: ten of some kind of cable into a tray which goes into a shipping box and then those into a larger container. Next to me is a woman named Yeara who has no achievements. She chats on and off in a language I don’t know with Regin, the five-year veteran who brings us everything. I turn on some music and tune them out. At some point, Yeara taps the table in front of me. “It is good working. Bye now.” She waves and then stands still. A second later, the name above the droid swaps to Qris. Their hands move, settling on the table, as their head tilts to look around. I turn down my music. “Hi, Qris. Welcome to the crew.” Their gaze settles on me. “Eh, we’ll see. No promises, okay?” They grunt, short and dry, perhaps as a laugh. Masculine? Older, but not retired? And no achievements? Regin hands me the next shipping box tray. I continue stuffing cables inside trays, layering the ends so they won’t tangle. We all go back to work and Qris fits in like Yeara never left - except for the silence. When I’m jogging, music is a distraction. Even if I never went by another house with flowers, even if I saw ambulances on every street, I can't listen to music while I jog. But at work, I need the distraction. Between trays, I turn my music back up. ~-~ My score for the second shift isn’t quite as good, but my Teamwork stat received a credit from someone, maybe Tiyr. The day’s salary transfers to my account and I pay my daily bills at the same time. They portal me back to my home world. I stare into the empty infinity, letting my hands rest, wondering … At work I only need some of my attention for the tasks, like a really grindy video game. Music helps keep me sane. Yet when I jog, music doesn’t feel necessary. Jogging became easy at some point, which is kind of cool now that I think about it. There’s not a single job I could say the same about. Then again, I get paid to work. No one pays me to jog; I go outside for my own benefit. Speaking of which ... I sigh and push the headset away from my face. My closed blinds glow green and lilac from the chemical sunset outside. Pressing a button on my chair releases the leg restraints and I sit up. My hand hesitates for a moment but then I flip the rig’s power off. Walking across the room, my legs buckle and pop like Elvis. How does he make it look cool? I bend my knees and squint at the wall. “Thank you very much.” ~-~ On my way down the stairs, I smell something cooking well before I spot Dad at the stove. He’s actually using flame, like a caveman. But the smell is rich and strong and smoky. Red rice and synth-meat. He turns and eyes me. “Evening. Dinner?” “Yeah,” I reply. “Gonna jog.” I stop and lean against the door frame. “Can I, uh, ask you something?” His eyes widen but he nods. “What?” “Did you like working?” He goes back to the stove and stirs a spatula through the rice. “Uh, sure.” His voice deepens, “In my dad’s day, they didn’t have all that fancy droid work.” I smirk, even though he can’t see. “Uphill both ways?” “Through snow,” he adds with a chuckle. After another glance back at me, he returns to the rice. “Why?” Where would I even begin? “Wondering.” I open the door. “Back soon.” The sunset looks like a painting, streaks of color layering in bands across the clouds. Many-hued light covers the landscape around me, a rainbow spread across everything. These are the sights I go outside to see. A steady traffic of mail cars drive by, along with a few auto-vans and one silent ambulance. As I jog, the sunset begins to fade and each house I pass looks more muted and somber than the last - yet a few have lights on. There’s even people coming outside.

Now we have a time limit! Throughout the story, I've been working to build towards the threat of Wil's mom being removed from her pod, and here we finally have that moment on the horizon. In simple terms, this would mean her body dies, the same as taking someone in a coma off life support. There was another chapter where Wil's dad helped a maintenance droid refill the food and drain the waste, and father and son have been talking about needing to do this for the whole story, such as Wil asking if the money was running out and being assured that wasn't the reason. After so long waiting and hoping, Otar is ready to give up, but he did his best searching before the decision.

The final job of this chapter is one of my favorite, because it represents something our world actually needs. Autonomous vehicles have been talked about in a lot of places, but there's always too many problems associated with them. For example, can programming tell the difference between images of people and actual people? We can't account for every possible concern with code, while even modestly-trained human drivers are actually pretty great at responding to unique situations. So in my setting, auto-vehicles are driven by Partners until they come to a situation the Partner can't deal with, at which point the vehicle is brought to a stop and a human is placed in control to get the vehicle past the problem. Also this provides yet another example for why Marc's dream of making the jobs board into games available to anyone would be a bad idea. Job training is very important!

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