Short story: Pen Tree Cat Seven Tuna Tuesday

Pen Tree Cat Seven Tuna Tuesday

What exactly counts as an intrusive thought? Connell remembered seeing an online argument years ago about the phrasing but couldn’t recall who’d won. There was someone insisting that intrusive thoughts strictly involved thoughts that were violent, upsetting, and unbidden. Drive your car off a bridge, drop the baby on his head, dice your finger like a carrot on the cutting board. Others suggested that this also included random annoying ideas, absurd notions. Shitposts, jokes. Well, that’s just having thoughts isn’t it? A lot of thought comes unprompted, unconscious.

The phrase stuck in Connell’s head, intrusive thought or not, was definitely unasked for and not caused by any stimuli in his environment. In the 8^th grade during a science lesson, Connell’s teacher had provided the class with a memory exercise. They were learning about the brain, the different lobes and the areas that controlled bodily functions like appetite, breathing, fear. Things as automatic as the little phrase knocking around his head. Connell couldn’t remember what those parts were but he could picture with crystal clarity the stupid exercise. Each student received a long list of random words to memorize, they’d practice reciting them in groups and then there was a contest to see which student could say the most words in front of the class. Those who could outlast their classmates could pick a candy prize out of a bucket on the teacher’s desk. Connell didn’t get terribly far, though the words did settle into a kind of cadence if you grouped them mentally, like song lyrics or little haikus, but it became harder the more words piled on.

Now, sitting alone in his Tesellon (a glorified electric go-kart) the words popped back into his mind. Pen Tree Cat Seven Tuna Tuesday. The eighth grade was 20 years ago and he was thinking about this now. Pen Tree Cat Seven Tuna Tuesday. Something something, Excite and Add were a later part of it, but he was missing the words in between.

He puffed on his vape and checked the time on the Tesellon’s console. 12am. Time for his ten minute break. He selected the red “10 MIN” button on the console, prompting a countdown timer. The 10 MIN button grayed out and would not be activated again until his next shift.

Connell was the only person in this sector of the warehouse at this time of night, functioning as a combination of stock boy and security guard- though for the latter part the security cameras, facial recognition and fingerprinted passcode system made him sort of redundant. Still, it was work, and it wasn’t as bad as working the package line or loading up the sometimes volatile electric trucks. Here all he had to do was drive along the winding corridors, stopping only to scan codes on pallets of boxes and make sure that everything was in its correct place, noting down inventory that needed to be restocked and marking slow selling items for discount or termination. Rainforest both manufactured and shipped goods worldwide, boasting low prices and fast delivery for a variety of products. They also acted as a middleman for other smaller companies, handling distribution for a cut of the profits.

Connell was one of thousands of workers employed by Rainforest, and like all those others he was living in their company housing. It was cheaper than paying rent and fairly convenient too, coming right out of his paycheck. No worries about posting checks by mail or being late with payments. Food, uniforms, toiletries and medical care were also paid for directly from his earnings, and if he so desired there were some luxury items he could purchase at the company store as well. Entertainment was bundled into rent- $200 for a year of all the streaming movies and tv shows you could ever want, mostly ad free too. Not bad.

When the clock ticked over to 12:10 he pressed a green RESUME button. The console flashed a spinning loading sign shaped like a little gear and froze. This was fairly common. He sighed and pressed in the power button next to the touchscreen and powered down his vehicle. The Tesellon’s soft hum disappeared, leaving only the high pitched VZZZZZ of the light bars above and rhythmic whoosh of the airvents cycling. Pen Tree Cat Seven Tuna Tuesday. His wristcom beeped and spat out its typical recorded message “warning, you are 1 minute overdue to resume work. Further time theft will incur fees.”

“Fuck you too” Connell said, smirking. He pressed the power button again and vehicle powered on, bringing up the now operational console display. It loaded up an animated pink unicorn that lifted up its tail and farted sparkles and rainbows before dissolving away into the work menu. He pressed RESUME, now 2 minutes late to clock back in and losing a couple dollars for the trouble.

He usually skipped break because of how fussy the Tesellon could be, but too many skips resulted in an annoying pre-recorded message to “remember to take time for self care. At Rainforest, your mental health matters.” The last thing he needed was docked pay for an evaluation meeting.

He drove down the orange guidelines on the concrete floor towards a set of pallets stacked high. Lot 453-680-15A- containing beauty and health care products and an abundance of baby formula. He removed his scan gun from its holster on the dashboard and aimed at the blocky symbols stenciled on the nearest box. A corresponding image popped up on the console “Mother’s Old Fashioned Infant Formula, Original Recipe” said a tinny computer generated voice. He opened the stats panel next to the image- at $50 per small container the product wasn’t really moving and the company had too much in stock. He selected TERMINATE so that maintenance would know to junk these boxes in the morning.

A voice crackled through the wristcom. “Hey Connell, I noticed you were two minutes late again. Is the console still giving you shit?” It was his supervisor, Mikey. Although Connell was alone in this sector, the control room was always staffed.

“Hey Mikey, yeah this thing just freezes up whenever I take my 10 minutes. Do you know if IT processed the trouble ticket yet?”

“Eeyup, it’s been received and they’re working on the patch. It’ll probably be another week before it pushes live though. They’ve been really bogged down with the ventilation errors over in Sector 9”

“Oh right yeah, the day shift guys on package line said it was sweltering the past few days” Connell said.

“Yeah I bet you’re glad we have you on scan duty, huh” Mikey said with a chuckle.

“Roger that Mikey.”

The shift proceeded as usual, with Connell finishing up without any further technical difficulties. He pulled his vehicle into the charge bay, then made his way down the corridor heading towards residential, following the familiar yellow arrows that marked the way. Pen Tree Cat Seven Tuna Tuesday.

Now what was that science teacher’s name again. Something with a T. Thomas. No, Thompson. Mr. Thompson, who had a bushy mustache and always wore a different silly tie ever day. Connell could picture Mr. Thompson calling him up in front of the class to recite the list of words. He didn’t make it far, didn’t get a candy prize, but it was still a nice break from normal school work.

He placed his palm on the scanner in front of the residential hall, the blue light throbbed around his hand then filtered green. “Welcome” said a synthesized female voice.

His apartment was a small but comfortable unit up on deck 4 that even had a window to the outside, showing a view of the rolling grasslands and the extensive highway structures suspended high above it. Rainforest is committed to our environment popped into his head, echoing the hundreds of times he’d heard that promise played on tv and on the company store’s radio. He believed it and was thankful to have this view and the soothing white noise of distant cars.

It was time for dinner and Connell was in the mood for a slightly fancier meal. His next shift was scheduled as his monthly day off and he intended to relax and enjoy it. Now he was remembering a school pizza party and posing for a photo with his classmates before the beginning of summer vacation. Odd. He couldn’t picture what he looked like as a child. His mother had that photo on the fridge for a while, why couldn’t he remember? Night shift makes you forget things, a friend on assembly had told him. Said friend had experienced some memory problems and had to take a sick day before being scheduled on a different job. Hopefully that wouldn’t be necessary in this case. Scanning was easy and fun.

Connell pulled up a menu on his fridge door. Pizza, that was a good idea. He selected a BBQ chicken pizza and added a sixpack of Rainforest’s Eco Lager- sustainably sourced. $34.95 was automatically subtracted from his paycheck. In a few minutes, a delivery drone would drop his order on his doorstep.

While he waited for the pizza, he found himself pacing a little across the concrete floor, fidgeting with his small collection of books (Rainforest recommends 10-15 minute break from screen time with a soothing activity) but not settling down to read any of them. Something was bothering him.

His mother. Why couldn’t he picture his mother? It had been a long time since they’d seen each other, let alone talked on the phone. Wait, that wasn’t right. His mother had passed away 5 years ago, breast cancer. His father had passed away before he was born. No. No that wasn’t right at all. He could picture his father driving him to a baseball game- when he was still in Little League. No! He’d never played baseball in his life. Connell was starting to feel a little dizzy.

“DELIVERY” said the staticky voice of the drone, followed by a soft thump on his doormat.

“Clearly, I am very tired and very hungry” Connell said to himself, out loud, as if voicing it would make that literal fact.

Eating did make him feel a lot better after all. Lunch wasn’t a part of the typical shift and it could make you feel woozy if you didn’t have an especially solid breakfast beforehand. He’d been eating a cheaper cereal after the prices went up on his usual choice, maybe that was the culprit. Not enough nutrition.

As he ate, he cracked open a can of beer and decided to enjoy a bit of television before bedtime. He was settled in his chair, an ergonomic recliner with a massage function- $4000, and he only had three more payments left before it was all paid off, worth every penny. He waved his hand and the flatscreen on the wall hummed to life with its comforting glow. The Rainforest logo appeared and a very realistic CGI toucan perched on the letters. The chair hummed underneath him and massaged his back with its delicate rolling bars that tugged and rippled the gray fabric.

“Sammy, resume last played” Connell said.

“Resuming program. Real Housewives of Eugene Oregon, Season 5 episode 6”

An advertisement played first before the program. “This June, celebrate Pride with Rainforest” a friendly female voice said as the screen showed two women, an attractive skinny white woman holding hands with an equally thin and beautiful black woman. They smiled and walked down the aisles of a luscious grocery store, shelves brimming with bright products, all festooned with rainbow flags. The women laughed and smiled warmly as they placed a loaf of organic bread in their basket.

“Diversity and Equality, that’s the Rainforest promise.”

Connell had a good night’s sleep and when he awoke the next morning to the gentle rocking of his E-Z-Morning efficiency bed ($8000, guaranteed to never let you oversleep), he was in good spirits.

Connell sang while he brushed his teeth and washed his face, admiring himself in the mirror. A lean face with a little stubble, a strong jaw and a slightly aquiline nose. He had close-cropped hair (long hair was a safety concern) that was blonde and fair. Funny, hadn’t he been a brunette once? Perhaps his hair had lightened with age. He loaded a brew pod into his coffee maker, put a frozen omelet into the microwave, and sat down at the kitchen table. This seemed like an excellent time to call his mother. He dialed the outgoing calls number on his wristcom and waited to be connected.

“Hello, this is Jan speaking, where can I connect you today?”

“Hi Jan, this is Connell Rogers- Employee ID 78 dash oh oh 94 8 hundred, I’d like to place a call to my mother please.”

There was silence and the sound of typing on the other end.

“I’m not seeing a family contact listed here sir, would you like to give me a number to call?”

“Oh. Of course, that would be fine. Her number is,” a pause. What the hell was her number?

“Sir? Are you still there?” Jan prompted.

“Yes, sorry. I… I don’t call often, give me a moment to look in my address book. I know I have it written down.”

“Sure thing, sir.”

Address book? He’d had one in high school but that was already old fashioned by then. No, it would’ve been a number on his smart phone. But that wasn’t right either. Now everything was done via wristcom or implant. All the supervisors had the wrist chips with the fancy displays that projected on their skin. Smart phones hadn’t been relevant in at least 30 years. Why was he remembering tech he was too young for? Connell felt sick.

“I’m sorry, I must have misplaced it. Sorry to bother you.” he said.

Mikey frowned at the monitor that was displaying multiple red dialogue boxes. The readings from Connell’s bioscans were triggering a bunch of different warnings. Abnormally high heart rate, cortisol levels rising, rapid breathing, unusual brain activity readings, now an erratic call from his wristcom popped up with it’s own warning. He pressed play on the recording and shook his head, time to call someone from Bio.

“Steve? Yeah it’s Mikey. We’re having a code 44 on one of our employees, sending you a copy of the bioscans right now.”

Connell was hysterical. He was pacing back and forth in his tiny apartment, muttering and shaking. It was like a bunch of tv programs were playing together at the same time, except it was his own thoughts, but they didn’t feel like his anymore. Pen Tree Cat Seven Tuna Tuesday.

“My name is Connell Rogers, I was born in Fort Wayne Indiana. And Memphis Tennessee to Cheryl and John Rogers. No. James and Rachel Lochlan. We moved to Portland when I was 5. But my dad died when mom was pregnant with me. But he lived with us on 423 Cherry Avenue-” he moaned and gripped his head.

A baseball mitt. A man smiling at him from the bleachers. A teacher wearing a silly tie with circus animals on it, beaming happily at his students as they studied a list of words. A dog named Charlie who died when a car hit him in 2001. A dog named Abby who was alive and well in that same year in a different house in a different state. A swimming pool, clear and turquoise on a hot June day. Viscous liquid surrounding his body like amniotic fluid. Blinding fluorescent lights. The darkness and pulse of his mother’s heartbeat in the womb. Nothing.

“What’s wrong with him?” Mikey asked. “I’ve never seen this kind of thing before. I mean, I’ve seen them freak out before but these readings were bizarre, especially all the brain stuff.”

“You’ve only been here a couple years right?” Steve prompted.

“Yeah, in management at least. I was with Rainforest’s customer service division but I got to transfer for good behavior. To be fair, my parole officer was really helpful.” Mikey said.

“Lucky,” said Steve, “I had to finish my whole testing period before they’d approve me for paid work.”

Mikey looked at Connell, who was strapped firmly to a stretcher. The man was awake but heavily sedated and groggy, rolling his head back and forth on the cool padded surface he was bound to. He looked very pitiable and sick. Sweat stained his blue coveralls and there was a little dried blood on his lip from a nosebleed. Poor bastard.

“So, you know the whole process for these guys right?” Steve continued. “They probably briefed you on where they come from and their basic set-up, but maybe I should give you the whole picture. We’ve been having some issues lately in a couple different sectors, it’s good to know what to look out for.” He gestured to Mikey and began wheeling the stretcher to the Med-Tesellon- a funny polygonal truck with a big Rainforest logo on the side and the tagline Compassionate and Affordable Care emblazoned on both sides. It’d been a little effort to get Connell down from Deck 4 because the service elevator was down again. They’d have to hoist the tranquilized man and the stretcher down a couple flights of creaky metal stairs to the access tunnel.

“Let’s go to Bio together.” Steve said. “I’ll show you how the sausage is made.”

“Isn’t that the one thing you never want to see?” Mikey said with a laugh.

The drugs were wearing off. Connell struggled against the straps holding him in place, trying to remember why they were there. He was aware of being in a vehicle. A Med unit, he reasoned. He remembered collapsing but not how he’d gotten here. A lot of his memory hadn’t been making sense recently. They’d probably read his vitals and come to pick him up. Thank goodness. He was definitely sick.

He relaxed his body and took a couple deep breaths, letting the swaying motion of the truck soothe him nearly to sleep. It was going to be okay. He might miss a couple days of work, accrue a little debt, have to learn a new schedule. That was fine. Connell was in good hands.

The truck pulled up to the charging port at Bio. Steve struggled to get the Med-Tesellon to recognize the charger cable.

“Oh, just restart the truck, plug and then unplug, plug again and turn the engine off. It’s tricky but that always does it for me” Mikey advised.

“You’re a life-saver. If you ever want to move into Bio I can put in a good word. We need guys with a little more hands-on machine savvy.” Steve said.

The two men unlatched the back doors of the med unit and eased the stretcher down the little ramp. Connell looked at them sleepily and smiled.

Bio was busy with activity. People in white Rainforest branded coveralls made notes on their tablets, checked monitors, and examined the read-outs on whirring and clicking instruments that lined the circular room. At the far end of the circle was a wide corridor that seemed to stretch on forever. Glowing tubes of liquid reached from floor to ceiling, bubbling silently under tangles of cables that snaked all throughout room. Cables heaped in piles under work stations. In the center of the circular room were several metal slabs that looked like operating tablets.

“This is Bio, mind your step, the cables are a bit of a trip hazard.” Steve said to Mikey. None of the white suited workers paid them any mind as Steve and Mikey made their way to the tables.

“So you probably know all about the grow vats and how that goes, but has anyone explained our memory protocols? That’s a really important step.”

“See, our menial workers come out of these vats as fully formed adults, physically functional but without any lived experience, language capability. No thoughts. We have to load all that stuff into their brains for them.”

“Right,” said Mikey, “I remember this from training.”

“But what you might not know is that they need a delicate touch to be operational. See, in the early days we’d try to just put basic programming in them- language, simple commands, self maintenance and survival and then add in whatever specialized skills we needed them to perform. It’d work for a little while but it was hard to keep results consistent. They didn’t have motivation, they’d get erratic and start causing accidents. There was a whole slew of workers that just walked off a ledge into an iron smelter down in industrial manufacturing, it took weeks to get the place back online.”

“Fucking hell” said Mikey.

“We figured out that they needed more. They needed memories, childhoods, hobbies and interests and desires and established personalities. Of course we modify and fine tune those things to keep them docile. No sex drive, no overly inquisitive nature, and we select for low risk taking.”

“That sounds really complicated, how exactly is this programming created? I know there hasn’t been a lot of success with self aware AI.”

“Aha, now that’s the beauty of it!” Steve said with a mischievous grin. “Do you remember when you first started working at Rainforest, the brain scan, biometrics panel and the DNA samples they required?”

Mikey thought for a moment and frowned. “Wait, are you telling me…” he trailed off, looking first at Connell, then towards the bubbling vats. Vague human shapes bobbed in the thick fluid like men drowned at sea.

“That’s right. That’s going to be you some day!” Steve said, his eyes twinkling. “Well, not literally you. You’ll be long dead when Rainforest is legally allowed to grow clones of you. And your memories won’t be in service while you’re still alive either.”

“Jesus christ” said Mikey. “Fuck. They can just do that?”

“Those are the terms we agreed to when we accepted our jobs here. Always read the fine print, right?”

Mikey’s face dark face took on a sickly pallor. He looked at Connell again, who was looking around him, confused and seeming more lucid by the minute. The gears in Connell’s mind were turning and unlike the spinning loading sign gear on his Tesellon console, his menu was actually loading.

“Hey, look, don’t sweat it. This beats prison, right? You get a good job, steady pay, and you’ll never have to do any of the manual labor. That’s what the vat geeks are for.” Steve said, clapping Mikey on the shoulder.

“Now as for what’s wrong with Connell Rogers here, well that’s a peculiarity of putting memories into living brains.” He motioned for Mikey to help him unbuckle Connell. They unfastened the straps and lifted the limp man onto one of the metal slabs. A green light cast down onto Connell, scanning him and then casting a mesh pattern on his entire body. He winced at the unexpected brightness. A console folded out from the table and Steve scanned his palm, then hit a couple buttons on the touchscreen. Out from the ceiling descended a mechanical structure that reminded Mikey of an anatomical drawing of an arm- steel bones, rubbery muscle bound with a vascular system of blue cables. At the wrist of this great tensing arm was a helmet, a blue silicone cup that flexed on a wire frame of of segmented metal rods. They splayed like fingers inside the cup. Mikey noted that each finger terminated into a thin hyperdermic point.

Steve pressed another button and the metal slab elevated and folded so that Connell was sitting upright.

“The problem with dead people’s memories in living people’s brains is that their knowledge is outdated, we have to add a lot of stuff in to keep them from getting confused. Not all of our programs are as refined. Sometimes we have to wipe an existing memory program and load in a new one.”

Connell frowned. He was beginning to get nervous. It was hard to keep track of all of the strange man’s words with his head still swimming, but some of them were starting to come into focus. He didn’t like what he was able to understand, it didn’t make sense.

“See, with software or files on a computer, when you delete them they’re not totally gone. There’s still data on the machine that says that something was there, there’s all these junk files that stay behind. It’s the exact same thing with memories in the brain. If we’re not thorough about cleaning up the junk files, you get errors. These junk files, these junk memories of another person start to conflict with the current program.”

“That’s fucked” Mikey said. He was visibly uncomfortable and Steve just seemed to be reveling in the whole experience, like he was hazing an initiate at a college fraternity.

“When you delete them. Their memories. It’s. Well it’s kind of like killing them isn’t it?” Mikey said.

“Ah, I guess. It doesn’t hurt though, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Steve said with a shrug. “We’re going to wipe Connell, make sure we get all those pesky extra memories out of there, and we’ll fit him with a new program. He won’t feel a thing and he’ll be happy and functional in a day’s time.”

Mikey said nothing, just shifted his weight and thought about every single worker he’d met and talked to in his sector. He knew they’d been clones, but they’d seemed so happy and comfortable. He liked working with them and even had a good rapport with most. Connell was a nice guy, he didn’t deserve this.

“Hey, the first time with this is always the hardest. I was really weirded out too. You’ll be totally used to it soon. Now come on, help me fasten the harness while I queue up the new program.” Steve said, trying to sound a little more sympathetic.

Connell looked at the two men. Beardy squat Steve with his safety visor and receding hair-line. Mikey, who he mostly knew as a voice on the wristcom, a tall lean black man who usuallly had a disarming smile- now absent. Pen. Tree. Then comes cat. The number seven. Tuna, that’s fish. A day of the week, Tuesday. A brain is a computer and mine is filled with junk. Steve is going to wipe it. I need to call my mother, not the one who died 5 years ago. My mother. I’m going to forget I have a mother.

Mikey sighed. “Sorry Connell, just sit tight okay? We’re going to get you back to work in no time.” Fuck. He really needed this job.

“No.” Connell said, the word coming out slow and heavy, like dense dark honey out of a bottle.

“Shit, I think we didn’t give him enough of the sedative, he’s coming out of it” Steve muttered.

“No. No. I won’t.”

Mikey reached for the harness and Connell slapped his hand away. He flailed as Steve tried to push him back against the operating table, striking the other man in the face with his half-asleep arm. Steve’s visor clattered to the floor and he staggered.

“Fuck!” Steve grunted.

The people in their coveralls finally paused to acknowledge the three men, looking up from their terminals and setting tablets aside. They didn’t move from their positions but watched intently, muttering to each other in hushed tones.

“Hey, Connell calm down” Mikey began, but he didn’t reach out to restrain the panicking man. Connell was still flailing his arms, kicking wildly with his legs. He was unbalanced and unsecured, the effort of his motions sent him tumbling to the concrete floor. The sensation was coming back to his body. Stand up. Move. Move.

He lurched forward and ran from the center of the room, down towards the long corridor the stretched on and on into the distance. Pen Tree Cat Seven Tuna Tuesday. Run, keep running. He heard Steve yelling behind him but not giving chase.

“Security, we have a code 89 in Bio. Repeat, code 89. Subject is hostile and on the move towards Remains Processing.”

Connell ran. His footsteps echoed in the low corridor. The ghoulish glow of the clone vats surrounded him, bodies drifted like ghosts in the eerie blue green light. He spotted 1. 2. 3 people who looked like his friends. 4. 5. One that looked like him. Some of the vats contained infants and children and he didn’t know who they were. Who they’d become. The reality of his own existence was constructing itself in his mind, like the way lists of unrelated words turned into neat little paragraphs that made them easier to repeat.

Running was started to get easier. No one was chasing him and the exercise seemed to be helping his body shake off the drugs. The corridor started getting darker. Most vats were empty up ahead and there were no overhead lights, only solid concrete above him and under his feet. He ran under the cover of darkness and remembered catching fireflies as a child. Was that his memory or the other man’s memory? In the distance a small rectangle of red light beckoned to him.

PROCESSING and BIOHAZARD were stenciled on the sliding glass doors in imposing blocky letters. Connell was no longer running. No one was following him. The doors whooshed as they slid open, parting slowly like a curtain on a theater stage. The play unfolding before him was a grotesque display, a grand guignol inside a concrete cave. Inside a maddening labyrinth of machinery people in yellow protective suits scurried about like ants dissecting a corpse. In teams of two the people hoisted bodies from wet troughs of fluid and placed them on conveyor belts. Machines whirred and clanked as they separated organs and skin and muscle from bone. Rows of people lined the conveyor belts, deftly inspecting organs and placing them into bins. Disassembled flesh and bone dropped wetly down a long and narrow chute at the center of the room. The concrete floors were stained red and brown by a mixture of old blood and new. The stench was unbearable.

He was not conscious of the fact that he was still walking, trance-like, as he gawked at the scene before him. Some of the suited people were noticing him now and gesturing, talking into unseen helmet comm systems, though most could not afford to look away from their work.

To his left a large access tunnel door raised with a slow ominous thrum. Black-suited security officers marched through with plexiglass shields held firm in one hand and weapons in the other.

“There he is, proceed with retrieval protocol 5” barked their commander.

Mikey sat in the office of Marjorie Swift, a 50-something white woman in a sleekly tailored pants suit- his supervisor in this sector. She had long gray hair with pink highlights and contacts that made her eyes look like cat’s eyes. She leaned nonchalantly in her white leather office chair, clicking a fidget puzzle in her hand.

“Are you sure there isn’t anything we can do to convince you to stay? I understand that today’s events were very off-putting, but we could transfer you to a different position that doesn’t oversee our manufactured workers. There’s some openings in agriculture that I think would really suit your skills. Plus we always value having the insight from our,” she paused, searching for a term “people of color.”

Mikey grimaced. “No, I’m sorry. I really appreciate everything Rainforest has done for me but I don’t think this is the right fit for me.” He wasn’t meeting her gaze, eyes wandering to the family photos on her desk- two pig-tailed twin girls in matching pink outfits ice skating, and another photo of those same girls older and in graduation robes. The words “girl power!” were emblazoned on the glittery frame. Marjorie’s desk was a clutter of stress toys, stylized child-like vinyl action figures of superheroes, and paperwork. A plush version of Rainforest’s toucan mascot matched his gaze accusingly with unseeing beady eyes.

Marjorie made that awkward white person smile that wasn’t quite a smile- a jaw clench that Mikey had learned was somewhere between apologetic and unsure of how to respond.

“Well, I’m sorry that we’ll have to see you go. Your records indicate that you’ve been a model employee in spite of your coming here via our prison program.”

“Thanks” said Mikey, squashing down the urge to swat the stupid toys off the woman’s desk and storm out of the building. It’d take too long to storm out of this building anyway without security coming to help him the rest of the way.

“There aren’t a lot of opportunities like the ones Rainforest provides for former convicts,” she paused “sorry, I mean returning citizens. That’s the term now isn’t it?”

Mikey decided to ignore her question. Probably rhetorical. “I’ll take my chances. I should probably get going.” He grabbed his suitcase and got up to leave.

“Oh, Michael, I should remind you that you’re of course under NDA as a term of your contract here. And we will need to bill you for the remaining debts on your account.”

“Of course.” he said, flashing his best fake smile. “Goodbye Marjorie.”

Connell walked down the aisle of shelves with his trolley. It was his second day of a new job. Apparently he’d suffered a memory spell working night shift- something that could happen when you had too much time to yourself- and now he was stationed on package fulfillment where he’d have more regular interactions with coworkers. He scrolled through the list on his tablet- all containing items that he would need to scan, tag, and drop off at packaging. While it bothered him a little that he’d lost such a large chunk of his memory, he was happy that he was well and cleared for work.

He paused to pick a couple cans of cat food off the shelf, scanning each can and checking off the items on his list with his stylus. The label printer on his trolley’s console printed out corresponding labels for each can. His coworker Daliah walked by in the opposite direction with her own trolley heading towards packaging, whistling cheerfully. They waved at each other. It was nice seeing friendly faces.

Next up were office supplies, then multivitamins, and then plantain chips. He was making good progress on his list and he found that he didn’t need to reference his tablet too often to remember all the items and where they were located. The words, though unrelated and nonsensical together, grouped easily together in his mind like lines of poetry.