It’s the dusk of night as the sound of crackling fire can be heard with the occasional gunfire. Standing in the desert we meet our protagonist, John Fray as he stands in front of a pit of fire while he watches as piles of tires are thrown into it. This would be near the end of the Second Corpo War of 2033.
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A door opens as a Doctor comes inside of an examination room.
Inside we’re greeted by John as he sits on a table. As the Doctor heads inside he quickly looks through several records along with a few pictures. He looks over at them with a grim face as he turns towards John.
“Well John, I don’t want to be the bringer of bad news to you but, you have cancer.”
He shows him a CT scan of his lungs as John wheezes as he looks over.
“Shit. Are you serious?” John says as he stares at it unsure what it is.
The doctor points to a large blob.
“See this? It should not look like this.”
“Well, no shit doc. Geez, I’m glad I went to an expert.”
The Doctor sighs.
“The tissue in your lungs are forming large clots that are slowly killing you. Does that make sense?”
“Yes, yes, it does.”
The Doctor grabs another photo and hands it to him.
“Here’s what a normal lung should look like.”
Looking at the two pictures, John looks up towards the Doctor.
“Am I going to die?”
The Doctor begins to laugh.
“Of course not, even though it’s starting to look like it’s reaching the late stage, with the technology available, I’d say you have a 50/50 chance. If we caught it earlier it wouldn’t have been a big deal.”
“That’s good to know. Any idea what could have caused all this?”
“Hmm. Have you ever smoked?
“Never.”
“Then it’s probably just bad luck. Anyways, we should set up your appointments for treatment. I’ll also prescribe you some drugs that should help with your cough. Good thing you have platinum membership or you’d be dead already. Heh.”
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Driving in a black sedan, John stares out onto the highway, his car on autopilot, he’s on the highway as we see a sign showing the upcoming cities, Foster City 12km, Brisbane 35km, NeoTokyo 58km.
John takes out his phone as he looks at it blankly before turning it on.
Suddenly the sound of several chimes, beeps, and vibrations come sporadically from his phone, continuing to look down at it, without doing a thing, he sighs.
Without reading any missed messages or calls, he begins to call someone, on the caller id we see a name, Boss.
The phone rings. John closes his eyes just for a moment to rest.
It clicks.
“Hey, how’ve you been?” A male voice asks.
“Fine, just got done with my appointment.”
“You get that cough checked out? Anything serious?” The voice ponders.
“It’s Cancer. Doctor says I’ll be as good as new with a few treatments.”
There’s a brief pause in the conversation.
“That’s good, hopefully they’ll get you sorted out. What else do we pay them for anyways?”
John laughs.
“Yeah.”
“Anyways, you got your presentation ready on our quarterly balance sheets?”
“Yeah, about that, there’s something I needed to ask.”
“Great, talk to you soon. I’m about to enter a meeting.”
The line drops.
Picking up a bottle of pills, John looks at them.
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Heading inside the office building, John makes his way through the busy lounge. Thousands of people busily walk around towards their destinations, a few sit and rest while others go on their way. John joins the crowd as he walks towards the elevators.
Making his way towards one, the doors open as John slips inside the tight fit.
It’s odd and uncomfortable, but everyone seems to not notice or care.
Exiting on a floor, it’s like a busy office from the 80s, cubicles and people in business attire quickly walking around, with sheets of paper towards their respective spaces.
Members from different departments talk to their respective cliques as John walks along.
“Josh, I need those sales reports by the end of the day.”
“What’s the status on the project?”
“Any update on when we’re going to hear back about the design document?”
Passing a coorider, John makes his way towards another set of cubicles, looking around he sees his coworkers all busy on their computers, making his way to his desk, he sits down.
John takes a deep breath of air as he prepares himself.
He boots up his computer.
The screen lights up, it’s a proprietary model of a unix based operating system, a custom one at that. The company's logo pops up, a jaded triangle and the name, Mitsubashi.
Typing away, he quickly logs into his corporate account.
Taking a second for it to load he glances over at his notifications as they begin to pop up one after another, it’s relentless as scans through them. Each and everyone of them identical and nearly the same, Urgent! Action Required, Follow up question.
He opens up his email as several hundred emails can be seen being updated simultaneously at the same time, going through them he clicks select all and marks them as read. Then at the bottom of his screen a red notification pops up.
John glances over.
The title reads, Meeting with HR, late thirty minutes ago.
“What?” John says quietly out loud.
He opens up his meetings, all of them are canceled, even his quarterly report, besides one, Meeting with HR, John clicks on the meeting to see the email.
> To: [email protected]
>
> This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
>
> From: [email protected]
>
> Subject: Quarterly Review
>
> Cc: [email protected]
>
>
>
> Hi, John.
>
> Sorry for the quick update, HR wants us to do our quarterly reports.
>
> Hope it’s not too much of an inconvenience.
>
>
>
> Mike.
A follow up email appears in his inbox.
> To: [email protected]
>
> From: [email protected]
>
> Subject: Re: Quarterly Review
>
> Cc: [email protected]
>
>
>
> Hi, John.
>
>
>
> Could you please come to the meeting? We’re still here waiting for you.
>
>
>
> Best, Akari Yamato.
John's eyes open wide as she clicks on the meeting to check it’s location, getting out of his seat he makes a dash over to the meeting, where he says Mike nervously smiling with an older female woman as they seem to converse with each other.
“Sorry, he isn’t usually like this.”
“Oh, I’m sure.” A female voice replies.
Seeing them inside, he knocks on the door.
“John? Is that you? You can come inside.”
Opening the door, John walks inside to a meeting room that looks more like an interrogation room. Looking around, Akari smiles at him as she gestures to a seat in front of them. Mike smiles as well.
Before John is able to say anything, Akari speaks.
“Why don’t you take a seat?”
With his hand reaching out as if trying to give a handshake, he puts it away sitting down.
“John Fray? Is that correct?” Akari seems to ask, reading off a document paper.
John looks over at it to see his details inside of it.
“Yeah, that’s me.” John says.
“Mmm, polite. I’ll give you that.” She says.
John looks over at Mike who seems to be hesitating to look him directly in the eyes.
“I’m Human Resources Supervisor Akari and this is your Manager Mike Miller.”
“It’s nice to-”
“I’m told that you have been consistently three minutes late to every meeting you have been to, our records would suggest that this is true. Is there any reason for your tardiness?”
“Well, uh-”
“What’s even more unacceptable is your tardiness to your own performance review. Is there a reason for that?”
“I was driving over from-”
“So you were out of the office. Well, that’s not a good excuse is it, Manager Miller?
“No, no it isn’t.”
“I was given an excuse to go, it was a doctor's visit.”
“Oh, really?” Akari asks.
As she begins to scan through the documents in an exaggerated manner.
“That’s strange, I see no written record of such an event. Do you recall that Mr.Miller?”
Mike begins to cross his arms as he looks down.
“No, no I don’t think I do.”
“Late on company time, how many other times have you done this?”
“Reflects poorly on the trust of your manager.”
Like a script she begins to pull out a sheet of paper, as she throws them to him.
He looks at them as she tosses a pen as well.
“What’s this?”
“Your release form, stating you understand why you were let go.”
He pauses as he picks up the papers reading them, then looking over at Mike who looks at him blankly as if he wasn’t even there.
“You, you can’t do this to me.”
“Do what Mr.Fray? You did this to yourself.”
John looks over at Mike as he stares at him.
“Mike, Mike! Say something Mike!”
“Please calm down, Mr.Fray.” Akari says as she seems to press something.
“Say what exactly?” Mike responds.
“Tell her about the cancer.”
“What cancer?”
John freezes as if trying to process what Mike said.
He stands up as he puts his arms onto the table.
“You can’t do this! It’s wrongful termination!” John says.
Behind him, security guards begin to walk up behind him as John looks over.
“No, it isn’t.” Mike says.
“I won’t sign.”
Akari sighs.
“The signature was a formality really, it wasn’t necessary. Please help Mr.Fray to his cubicle so he can pack up his things.”
“Of course.” A security officer replies.
They escort John as he seemingly accepts his fate.
As he leaves he overhears the two talk.
“Good job, I’ll be sure to let your manager know you saved the company millions.”
“Thanks, it was hard pretending to be his friend.”
John’s eyes twitch as he briefly stops as he’s shoved across by the guards.
At his cubicle, he sees a cardboard box. Around him, his coworkers look over at John, looks of pity and disgust, the once “friends” not treating him like a piece of garbage on the streets.
A few people begin to whisper as they walk by.
“What do you think he did?”
“I don’t know, probably got caught stealing.”
Taking his personal belongings, John begins to place them inside of the box, grabbing a picture frame, he looks at it, on it a picture of him and his squad in the desert posing next to tank.
A security guard hits him on the shoulder.
“Hurry up.”
Putting it away, John begins to lift the box up.
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Sitting in an almost empty studio apartment, John lays on his bed looking up at a ceiling fan.
He gets up as he looks at himself.
Making his way into the bathroom, he washes his face.
“You can do this John.” He says outloud.
“Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia.”
He lets out a light laugh.
“This is nothing.”
John begins to cough as he takes out his prescription and takes a few pills.
“Fuck.”
Walking out of the bathroom, John checks his phone, on it his bank balance, ¥1,800. Along with a few recent transactions, medical bills, rent, food, basic needs and essentials.
He continues to stare off at his phone, laying on his bed he seemingly waits.
Then his phone rings.
“Hello?” John asks.
“Is this John Fray?”
“Yes, it is.”
“I’m calling about the phone interview you have for our CPA position at Explorer, are you still interested?”
“Yes.”
“Great, I’ll skip the formalities, there was one thing you answered on your application which I wanted to ask you about. What’s this preexisting condition you have?”
“Oh, it’s not much.”
“Mr.Fray might I remind you that honesty is the first step in a relationship of any sort?”
John sighs.
“I- I have Lung Cancer.”
It’s silent for a moment as on the other side someone writes something down as it’s crossed out.
“Well, thank you for your time-”
“Come on, just give me a -”
Click.
John throws his phone across the room as he lays down on his bed.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
John ignores it as he continues to rest on his bed.
Knock! Knock! Knock!
“Fuck off.” John says.
“It’s your landlord. You better open up or I’m going to come in myself.” A man shouts.
“Alright, I’m coming. I’m coming.”
John gets up as he walks towards the door.
He opens it up slightly as waiting for him on the other side of the door, his landlord sticks the barrel of a shotgun into the doorway prying it open with his other hand.
“Jesus fucking christ.” John says as he falls down.
“You haven’t paid rent in over five days, John. Pay up or get out.”
“I- I don’t have it. I have terminal cancer.”
“Terminal, huh? So you’re as good as dead. Just get out, so I don’t have to waste a bullet on ya.” The Landlord sighs.
“Please-”
The Landlord shoots the ground.
“Move!”
John puts up his hands to surrender as he looks over at the door.
“Alright! Alright!”
John walks out of the studio apartment as the Landlord looks over at him.
“What a fucking mess.”
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It’s late at night, rain falls down from the sky as John looks around his surroundings. He violently coughs to himself as he stumbles around in the rainy dark night.
He leans against a wall as he desperately tries to catch his breath.
People walk by as some look at him, eyes full of contempt.
Some of the homeless point at him, while others are laughing at him.
Processing everything around him, John begins to laugh too.
“Ah, what the fuck is wrong this this shit.”
“I don’t know, let’s just get out of here before he does something crazy.”
Leaning his head against the wall, he begins to shout.
The alleyway begins to clear out.
He falls to his knees as he looks up at the rain that falls onto his face, then he begins to rummage through his clothes, taking out a pair of dog tags as he stares at them.
Some of the other homeless laying on the ground around him, notice it.
He begins to weep and weep.
Then suddenly, a homeless child walks in front of him.
John looks up at him as he points to tags.
“There’s a camp for people like you over there.” The child says as points in a general direction.
“People like me?”
"I can take you there if you want." The child says.
"Come on." they wave at him.
John gets back onto his feet, as he slowly follows the child.
Then he sees it in the distance, a large gated facility with the sign, Veteran Association on it. Next to it a large campsite, John stares in disbelief.