Yume erupts out of bed. Despite having a rough night of sleep, she is bursting with energy. She is aware that today is the last day for her to prove her worth in hopes of being ascended.
She cheerfully hums while heating up a couple of pre-prepared eggs and toasting some canned bread. Her humming is harshly contrasted against the way her hands shake as they move items around her small kitchenette. This little song is the only thing keeping her nerves from consuming her.
She takes a couple bites of food before ultimately deciding she’s too anxious to eat and scrapes her meal into the trash. She picks up where she left off and hums while donning her worker’s uniform.
Truly a blinding sight to behold given the color palette of her uniform is white, white, and oh, that’s right, more white. Now that she is properly reflecting every source of light in her room, she heads towards the hallway and proceeds to a large, metal double door. With the press of a button, the doors release a plume of gas and shoot open revealing a wall covered in glowing, numbered buttons. She presses the button labeled with a star and the doors swiftly shut and re-pressurize.
The ride from floor 372 to the main lobby is just enough time to slightly fix her bed head with a small comb in her bag. From there, Yume puts on her mask and walks out into the bustling slum around her building.
The dim, red sun burns a hole through the pollution. You would think it was nighttime due to the ominous shade in the sky. The people populating the streets match the grim ambiance. Tired, lifeless individuals marching to their roles across The Rung like ants. All of them wearing bland, white garb that suited their jobs, unable to lift their gaze off the crumbling infrastructure beneath their shoes.
Yume rounds the block and carefully steps over grates covering the flow of deep-red sludge. There is a lot of industrial waste around The Rung, it’s important to watch your step and plug your nose, this stuff stinks. As she avoids the gurgling river below, she passes a wooden-slat fence covered in “Earn Your Dream” posters. Each one showcasing a unique piece of property or university with a smiling ascendant in the foreground. She takes a sharp turn into a pristine, white building.
Within the doors of this establishment, is a magnificently streamlined process. Queue lines leading into pneumatic pods that load citizens on, pressurize, and then zoom off into the distance. The people around her move in harmony to their individual destinations.
Almost every inch inside of this building is constructed out of polished, white tile.
The bright and sterile environment is immediately overwhelming. Yume stops for a moment to rub her eyes. Praying that dilating her pupils will be enough to stomach the day. As the world in front of her comes in to focus, she walks to the check-in gate. An incandescent belt connecting the two ends of a curved archway blocks her path. A flowing chalice icon materializes in front of it and then transforms into a projection of a woman. In fact, it’s the same woman who tells Yume when to sleep at home, except now she is donned in a black scholar’s gown.
“Present N.I.D”
Yume touches a small, metallic node on her temple. It glows blue, revealing an intricate web stemming from it. producing a geometric outline of her facial features. Nodes are an integral piece of biotechnology that every splinter has. Implanted shortly after birth, nodes hold identifying information such as age, lineage, and one’s role in The Rung.
The projected woman peers deeply into Yume’s face, scanning her geometry. She always seems to ponder a bit longer than she does with other candidates but passes her after an awkward pause.
“Please proceed, Yume.”
The projection zips away and the belt dissolves with it. Yume walks through the archway and onto the docking station. She finds her group of co-candidates and gets into her slot in line. It’s the same slot every time, there can be no deviations.
The man in front of her, known to her as 026, is laughing loudly at something the woman in front of him, 025, had just said.
“That’s hilarious oh my god! Did Jen see anything?” He asks.
Yume perks up and eavesdrops on the conversation.
“No! Of course not, that would have been so weird!” She says as she rubs her hand against his arm.
“Ha! Well, I’m glad she didn’t have to see any of that. Guess we got lucky.” He says and leans in for a kiss.
“Yeah, I guess we did!” She says as she leans in herself.
The two of them kiss quite passionately and Yume starts to get very uncomfortable. She turns around trying to find something more palatable to look at and sees the man, 028, behind her. She tries to make eye contact with him but he’s staring straight down at the tile.
Yume tries to spark a conversation. “Hey! How are you doing today twenty-eight?” She asks, with her confidence and volume trailing as the words came out.
028 looks up all the sudden and speaks in her direction “Hey you! How have you been man, it’s been so long!”
Yume, not sure if 028 was speaking to her, looks behind her to see a man from a separate line jogging over to him. The two men embrace in a hug and Yume shrinks down to her spot in line once again.
She so desperately wants to speak to those around her, even if it’s just small talk, but is utterly discouraged. Time and time again she’s been given the cold shoulder, blank stares, or forced responses. Not one person has cared to even ask her name.
A new pod screeches into place ahead of the queue and the people in front start loading in. Yume makes her way to the front and steps inside. Unsurprisingly, the décor lining the pod’s interior is just as bland and bright as the loading station. Inside there are rows of hard plastic seats that align to tiny glass windows.
The pod operates like a pneumatic tube, shooting them to their destination at high speed. The combination of zipping along and small windows to see out of leaves the view of the city very brief. A gargantuan network of pipes and flowing sludge that serpentine through a dilapidated nation. All of this is dwarfed by the ceiling, a large, slightly curved surface that separates The Rung from the next tier. Some of Yume’s co-candidates have jokingly described it as ‘the big bowl’ due to its inverted dome-like appearance.
Placed throughout the city’s perimeter are massive columns that support the ceiling. These megastructures infantilize the buildings of the city below. It’s been a sight of wonder for Yume for years, she thought that something requiring such hefty support must be a miracle to behold.
Yume’s job site is a significant distance from her home, so the pod rides past a few of the other divisions within The Rung. The Rung is separated into many sub-divisions; some containing housing, bars, and hotels, while others contain work sites, utilities, and resources.
Even though The Rung is described as the lowest tier, there is still significant differences between the sub-divisions. Yume’s region is regarded as the ‘forgotten zone’. It may just be old wives’ tales or folklore, but it’s believed that it got that name because of a rebellion that happened ages ago. It’s all just whispers and stories passed down through generations, but Yume’s one and only childhood friend, Lucien, told her that there was an uprising. Supposedly a hundred years ago there was a vacant building where people met up and formed a faction.
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This faction was against The Chamber and tried to initiate a revolution. It gained traction and soon there were thousands and thousands of followers. They all believed that those in the highest tier, The Pinnacle, were up to something. What they were up to varies from who tells the story, but Lucien’s tale said that they all hated Splinters and would host parties sacrificing a few at a time.
When the revolution started, they stormed their way to the middle, and made their demands. They wanted vacation time, more food rations, and more time to raise their children. The revolution was apparently quite a success, and they were granted their demands. Lucien said they didn’t stop there though, they wanted more. That’s when The Chamber finally stepped in and extinguished them.
Maybe it happened, maybe it didn’t, all Yume knows is that she was dealt the shit-end of the stick. The other sub-divisions look immaculate. Through the small window on the pod, Yume has been able to see little slivers and pieces of their dormitories. It’s hard for her to imagine a nice room, let alone having the garbage swept off the street.
As the pod passes over the nicer parts of The Rung, Yume finds herself day-dreaming of things to come through ascension. If she can’t have nice things down here, hopefully she’ll be graced with luxury and cleanliness up there.
With a loud CHUNK and a mist of air as the pod de-pressurizes, Yume arrives at her work site. 001 is the first to exit, shortly followed by 002, and 003. The rest of the team leads their way out and Yume gets up to follow 026 outside. They form another line and then proceed through a checkpoint.
One-by-one, the laborers walk through a glass enclosure with a blue dot-matrix of lasers in the center. Once a person enters the array of light, the individual points dart all around their body until abruptly stopping and connecting to each other with straight lines, creating a geometric grid.
Heavy fans begin to blow air around the individual and start coating them in a white, pasty material. After a few seconds of this, the fans turn off and the person walks out, now dressed in a slender, full-body hazmat suit. It leaves only their eyes and nose exposed.
Within the first step or two past the enclosure, a robotic arm swings down from the ceiling and sticks a face shield, covering the last two points of open flesh.
The group marches through and dons their protective gear. As the last member, 030 exits, they all line up and enter through double doors at the back of the room that are guarded by two large and intimidating robots, delightfully named Sentinel Bots.
Within this large room is an intricate system of belts, tubes, and containers. The room is very cold and it makes Yume shiver a bit as she steps up to her station of the day. Today, her role is called wrapping associate. What this entails is waiting at the end of a conveyor belt for 026 and 025 to prep the product and send it down to her. Once she receives the product, she then pulls it off the line and places it onto another machine.
This machine has a small pedestal to place the product and two large arms that rotate around it, tightly covering it in plastic-wrap. She then must take the packaged product and send it down to 028, who will attach two devices to either side and send it further down the line.
Nobody really knows exactly what they are doing, but they don’t have much of a choice aside from shutting up and doing it. If they dare question their duties, there are four armored Sentinel Bots overseeing the workflow. One misstep, and these bots will swiftly reprimand you.
Yume recalls a time when there were warnings given for a first offence, but that is not the case anymore. Yume was lucky to have had her only slipup during a time that they gave warnings. The warning itself felt horrible and demeaning.
They would glide over and snatch your wrists, pulling you to the ground in a prayer-like position. You would then be asked exactly what you did wrong. In Yume’s instance, it was when she couldn’t hold her bladder anymore, and asked one of them to use the restroom.
The sentinel’s eyes lit up red at her question. “027, you are exhibiting un-productive behavior. Are you aware of the action you just made?”
It snatched her arms and held her down into the prayer-like position and towers over her.
“Y-yes!” She grunts out in pain from its tight grip. “I really need to go though, can I please?”
It tightens its grip further. “This is your one and only warning. You may use the restroom but be aware that your daily restroom allowance will reflect this decision.”
Yume shivers and shakes off the memory of her discipline. A loud buzzer can be heard from a corner of the room and then the belts and machines begin whirring and start up. 001 begins the first step in the assembly line and passes the product down to 002.
This continues down the line until the first piece reaches Yume. It’s an indiscernible chunk of frozen meat with several wires and precise holes punctured through it. Yume grabs it and feels her shivering increase as the frozen flesh steals the warmth from her fingers.
Piece after piece go by and Yume continues her process diligently. She knows that her productivity goal is a mere five seconds per product, so she moves with precision and speed. It’s not long before the room heats up a bit from the workers’ movement and collective sweating.
It was all going smoothly until 025 leans over to 026 and whispers something into his ear. Yume tries not to look as it could distract her, but she watches the scene in bits and pieces as she continues her role.
It reaches a boiling point when Yume runs out of product to package. She looks up the line and sees the two of them passionately kissing and groping each other. Ahead of them, 024 catches and glimpse and audibly gasps.
“HEY SNAP OUT OF IT!” 024 yells, hoping to stop them before the sentinels catch on.
It was, unfortunately, not quick enough of a warning. Before the two can even separate their faces, the sentinels swarm them and throw them apart. 025 slides and hits her head harshly against a corner of Yume’s machine. She yelps out in pain and clutches her head, now dripping with blood.
026 meets a similar fate, bouncing off the nearby wall and gasping from having his wind knocked out. One of the sentinels abruptly turns away from the two of them and faces 024. With glowing red eyes it speeds towards him.
“Hey! Wh-what did I do? I was helping you guys!” He pleads towards deaf ears.
The sentinel snaps one of its hand against the back of 024’s head and slams it against his machine. “EYES ON YOUR WORK, SON.” It screeches.
Yume, shaking like a leaf, rapidly turns to her machine and begins to “tune it”. Frantically twisting the exposed nuts and bolts, ensuring their tightness. Even though she gave the appearance of being busy, the sentinel ordered her to take over at 025 and 026’s station.
The rest of the shift was silent and steady. Yume didn’t dare lift an eye above the level her station required. She made it through all twelve and a half grueling hours without so much as taking a bathroom break.
The pod ride home was just as silent and diligent. None of her co-candidates had conversations and all had the same empty stare straight through the front of the pod. A few of them had tears still streaming down their faces from the shock. It’s not often that an employee is reprimanded nowadays.
The health of 025 and 026 was not discussed even after the train arrived at the station. Yume and the rest of the crew silently parted ways after exiting the doorway to the street. Once away from her co-candidates she finally had a moment to process what had transpired earlier. She finds a small alley away from foot traffic and kneels, sobbing heavily.
She finds herself getting frustrated over caring so much about people who never give her the time of day. Shouldn’t she be glad they were reprimanded? They treat her terribly, yet she still feels a tremendous weight on her shoulders.
Should I have said something? Maybe I could have stopped it earlier had I just looked up and been brave she thinks. Ultimately, she realizes that her fate would have been much like that of 024. The last thing she needs is a reprimand on her record before the final cycle-end.
She brushes herself off and catches the spinning, holographic sign of her neighborhood bar in her peripheral vision. After such an awful day, she could use something to take the edge off. With three rapid blinks, an overlay appears in her vision. She motions to the left twice with her hands and the screen transitions over two times. It lands on a screen with a count of her hours worked for this cycle and her respective refreshment tokens.
CURRENT BALANCE: 23.5 RC
She glances at the windows of the bar and squints to read the advertisement displayed.
25 RC PER DRINK – NO EXCEPTIONS
She sighs heavily and lets her arms fall into her sides in protest. After a few huffs and puffs, she heads back to her dormitory. It wasn’t until she took her uniform off and endured a cycler of her cleaning station that the weight of her future hit her.
Oh, Jesus FUCK! Tomorrow is my final ceremony she realizes, in a state of absolute panic. She paces and frantically cleans her apartment. Not because it is dirty, but because she doesn’t know what else to do.
She cleans every inch of her tiny room until the late hours of the evening. It wasn’t until the nurse announced it was past twelve am that she finally snapped out of it. Existential dread is not exactly the key to a good night’s sleep, but Yume plays the hand she’s been dealt.
At some point near three am, her tossing and turning finally yielded a smidge of sleep, before her alarm sounds at exactly six twenty-five.