Chapter One: Take a look at the sky

As he pulled out onto Highway 150, Marc couldn’t shake the feeling that this was a mistake. An itchy feeling on the back of his neck, warning him that something bad was going to happen. That was ridiculous considering the circumstances. Something bad had already happened. For the last several hours he had been filling out forms, signing documents, and gathering up his few possessions after he had been fired from his job. Technically they had never used the F-word. “Temporary workforce reduction“ was the euphemism that the HR manager used instead. But since Marc was the only one who had been laid off today, he knew this was really because of his supervisor, that jerk Ryan.

Ryan was always on his case about his handle times and the number of refunds he gave to customers. Ever since Ryan had got that promotion he made it a point to single out Marc whenever he wanted to explain any deficiencies with the team’s results. Marc hated people like that, but it felt like that was a primary characteristic of management types at the company. Ryan had always been sucking up to the managers to get that promotion, following them around and asking them meaningless questions, and bragging about any small achievement he had made with his call statistics. Then once he had it, he used the microscopic amount of power it granted him to act like a lord over everyone else on the team.

Of course, management had waited until the end of the day to tell him. You have to squeeze out every last drop of blood before abandoning the carcass right? He had just shut down his computer when Ryan told him he needed to have a chat with Mary, the HR manager before he left for the day. Then that cowardly piece of shit had the nerve to skip out of the office while Marc headed off to the HR office. The whole thing felt like a trip to the doctor’s office. In a tiny little windowless office, sitting behind her completely empty desk, the HR manager clinically and methodically explained to him that effective immediately, his employment was terminated.

A year and a half ago, when Marc started this job it had seemed like a dream come true. A recent college dropout, Marc was in need of a steady paycheck. When he heard that a call center in Deming was hiring customer support for a video game company he thought it might be fun. Marc was a big fan of video games and while he couldn’t afford to keep up with the latest consoles and popular new software, he would often check out the local GameStop for any bargains to fill out his small library of vintage video games that he could use to escape the boredom of living in a small desert town. His favorites were role-playing games, although the number of unfinished games probably, definitely outnumbered the number of completed games in his collection. He enjoyed getting lost in a fantasy world with deep characters and detailed worlds.

There weren’t many other options for work in Silver City. The mine had shut down years ago and he was definitely too underdeveloped to work on one of the local ranches. The job most young people his age dreamed of was a long-haul truck driver. The thought of that left a sour taste in Marc’s mouth. Marc’s dad was a truck driver and they had spent about 10 hours in the last five years in the same room. His dad lived full-time in his rig. He purchased the double-wide years ago and used it mostly as a storage unit for his stuff. He let Marc live in it but also expected Marc to pay half the rent to the trailer park. Lately, more often than not, he forgets to send Marc money for his share. Marc didn’t particularly dislike his father but saw him as more like an absentee roommate. He had no interest in following in his footsteps for a career, or as a man.

Any type of office work was also a non-starter since he had dropped out of college. There was no chance he would look for work at the University, the cushy dream job of many of his former classmates. About to break down and ready to apply for a McJob or a stocker at the Super Walmart, Marc thought it was a lucky break that he might be able to find a job that he might enjoy. He could work inside an air-conditioned building while playing video games and hanging out with other people not too far from his age. The pay wasn’t that much, but he just needed enough to keep his car running and cover the rent and utilities for the double-wide. The offer from the center had seemed like a stroke of luck and he was glad he had found such a good match when he got the job. Yeah, famous last words.

The first few weeks were actually pretty great. He got to train on the game he would be supporting. It was a popular MMORPG or Massive Multi-player Online Role Playing Game. Time spent learning the game was the highlight as he was encouraged to fully explore not only the player interface but the huge online world within the game as well. He even stayed after his paid hours to explore the world as he didn’t have a computer powerful enough to play the game or an internet connection at home. He also sat through many lectures on customer service, tutorials on how to use the phones, and the customer issue tracking database systems. Training had been even better than he had expected from a corporate job, but all too soon he was “graduated” from his training group and sent to the phones.

It wasn’t long before he realized that this was probably not going to be the fun and easy experience he had been hoping for. He quickly fell into the daily pattern of answering calls from angry and abusive customers trying to get refunds or other benefits by yelling at him, trying to manipulate him, and finally demanding to talk to a manager. Taking negative calls one after another was hard, but the absolutely ridiculous nature of the system at the company is what bothered him the most. He was constantly told by supervisors and managers to treat the customers like gods, put them up on pedestals, and make them happy no matter what, but also lectured repeatedly to avoid at all costs giving them what they actually wanted, which was usually refunds. Customers called with problems, to complain, or just to make demands, and he was judged, both on how happy the customers were on their surveys, and how few refunds he eventually issued. If there was a bug in the game, calls exploded, and support took the blame. If refunds went up, managers exploded and support took the blame. If they didn’t make the customers happy, surveys dropped and support took the blame.

In the end, everything his performance was judged on was totally outside of his control. Half his training class quit in a month. A year later, he was the only one left. Marc was pretty good at the job. He learned the game systems well enough that he could often assist the customers in getting problems solved. His solution rate was one of the highest of any employee, but of course, that kind of care took a little bit longer, so then he would get yelled at for taking too few calls. This was a favorite complaint for Ryan. Ryan had happily accepted an award for having the team with the highest customer satisfaction rating then pulled in Marc for handle time coaching the next day. Marc had the highest C-sat on the team by far.

Day in and day out, the same thing, angry customers, a condescending supervisor, and a rotating cast of soulless coworkers who usually didn’t stick around long enough for Marc to remember their names. Ryan had actually started working at the company six months after Marc and had been a pretty mediocre service agent, but he was much better at sucking up to the managers and had quickly failed up to supervisor. Maybe because of that, and the fact that Marc was one of the few experienced agents on the floor who had been there longer than him, Ryan seemed to take great pleasure in poking at any perceived, or imaginary shortcomings he could find, and it had finally been enough to justify showing Marc the door.

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Now it was finally over. The HR manager explained to him how his health insurance would be ending, that his badge access had already been canceled and that he would be escorted to the parking lot where he could collect a box containing any of the personal items left on his desk. Marc surprised himself by not feeling upset. In fact, it was clear to him that this was a really, really, really bad situation, at least for his finances. He had no savings, no other job prospects, and rent due on his double-wide berth in a couple of weeks. Still, he really really really couldn’t make himself care. If anything, it was a relief. Lately, every single morning had felt like he was walking willingly into his own grave. His brain was warning him that losing his job was the worst possible thing that could be happening now and that he should be begging them on their hands and knees to keep him on the payroll. Instead, the hard part however turned out to be keeping the stupid grin off of his face as he felt a breath of freedom seeping into the recycled air coming from the air conditioning vent.

At the end of the termination meeting, he collected the folder with all of his paperwork, including a health insurance extension he definitely couldn’t afford, unemployment insurance information, and a check for the $82.36 that amounted to his last paycheck for all the work up until this minute including his holiday pay. He was escorted to the security desk to collect his things, hand over his employee ID badge, and walked out of the building, an odd mix of depression and excitement growing with each step toward his car.

He threw the box with his things which included an old hoodie, some worthless awards he had won over his time working for the company, his water bottle, and a ratty old paperback, Neil Gaiman’s Neverewhere, into the passenger seat and sat there for a while in the parking lot. It was already past eight, and this time of year it had been dark for hours. He hated to drive back in the dark. The road from Deming to Silver City was a straight hundred-mile line in the desert with no street lights, intersections, or even buildings on the side of the road. Driving on this stretch of road was dangerously hypnotizing and more than once while he had been driving home from work late he had to pull himself back onto the road after he nodded off. Driving on these desert roads was like staring at a museum painting. Everything was far away and with a straight road ahead it created an optical illusion of a static picture.

After pulling out of the parking lot, he made a quick stop at an old trailer parked on the side of the road a short drive away. The lights were on in the trailer so Marc pulled up behind it and got out. It was getting a bit chilly, so he reached back into his car and grabbed the hoodie, pulling it over his head. Then he walked over to the door on the trailer and knocked.

“Hi Señora Diaz, you still have some tacos?” He asked hopefully.

“Ah! Marc! Sure, sure. Just finished up a batch for the late-night rush.” A large Hispanic woman with a large face said after cracking open the door. She quickly turned around and disappeared into the trailer, leaving the door slightly ajar.

“How many do you want? Carnitas as usual?”

“You’re a lifesaver! Sure, I’ll take two!” Marc beamed, then his face froze. He searched his pockets and frowned when he pulled just a few coins. He counted them quickly and with a sheepish look on his face said “Sorry, Just one this time.”

“No seas idiota! I can’t give you just one. Here, I’ll wrap up two warm ones for you.”

“I just have a buck.” He protested, mortified.

“Ha! Just take them and pay me back next time.”

“No! No, really I can’t. I just got fired and I probably won’t be coming back around anymore.” The shame burning his face scarlet, Marc wanted to die from embarrassment.

The large woman threw open the door and shoved a small brown paper bag into his hands.

“¡Vaya! Take them! Porque soy tu mamá y punto!” she scolded, then with a soft smile on her lips she said “Don’t worry about the job. Most of the losers around here can’t keep a job for more than a month. You’ll have a new job in no time. Besides, I can’t afford to lose one of my best customers. Now go! I’m busy!” She turned and pulled the trailer door closed.

“Muchas gracias! I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He yelled through the door with very little conviction in his voice.

Marc threw the bag into the box, then pulled out and began the long drive home. His car stereo hadn’t worked in years, so he used his iPod to keep him awake for his long commute. Apart from his car, it was his most valuable possession. An impulse buy from a few months back he had bought it used, but the seller had loaded it up with pirated music which was great since Marc did not have a computer to load up music with anyway. He enjoyed exploring the thousands of songs on it and the variety was a godsend on these long drives through the desert.

When he was about fifteen miles away from home, Marc thought he knew where the bad feeling had been coming from before. His engine started making that coughing pounding noise that let him know things were about to go from very bad to even worse. Sure enough, the car quickly lost power and slowly rolled to a stop on the side of the road. Marc had gotten pretty good at fixing the various ills that his ancient Ford hatchback had developed in its old age. He sighed and hopped out of the car. After tinkering under the hood for about half an hour, however, both his flashlight and his hope had dimmed to a weak flicker. Who knows if any car would be driving by anytime soon? Marc decided it was better to hoof it and see if he couldn’t figure something out tomorrow morning, not that he had enough money for a tow. At this time of year, the road should be relatively safe. Not a lot of rattlers or coyotes around. He grabbed a few things from his car and jammed them in an old backpack on the floor of his car and started walking down the road, hoping he could get to the trailer park before midnight.

He had only been walking for a few minutes when he heard the sound of the vehicle coming up from behind. It was quiet so he thought that it was still a ways off, but when he looked around, he couldn’t see the headlights of any vehicle coming down the road. As the sound grew louder, he started to get a little concerned, but he couldn’t see anything or even tell which direction the sound was coming from. The idiot driver probably had his headlights off which was crazy and stupid on this empty dark road, so Marc took a few steps off the road just in case. He hoped he could catch the driver’s attention as he passed by in case he might be able to convince them to give him a lift, but he also didn’t want to get run over in the darkness.

It all happened in a blur. He finally saw the car, it was a small white truck, the kind that dropped off deliveries for stores in town. Indeed it had its headlights off, but Marc was surprised at how close it had gotten before he had seen it. It was close, really close. It appeared out of nowhere just a few dozen feet away, and it was moving fast. He took one step toward the road and raised his arm to try to flag the driver down, but realized the truck was almost on top of him and heading straight at him. He swiveled to jump out of the way and…

Everything was white, blindingly white. Even when he closed his eyes, everything was so bright it burned right through his eyelids. Then an odd shape burned its way into the center of his vision. It was burned in like he had been staring into the sun because as he turned his head the shape remained directly in front of his face. He tried to blink it away, rubbing his eyes, and tried to wipe whatever it was away. Then his eyes focused on the shape and he could read three unexpected words that sent a chill down his spine.

【YOU HAVE DIED】