Gemma cracked an eye open as the bleating of the alarm broke through to her. She gave a heavy sigh and sat up letting her purple bed sheets fall away as she fumbled for her personal device. She got the bulky little rectangle of plastic on the second try and disconnected the power cable. The painted-on letters on the miniscule keyboard had rubbed off some time ago but Gemma could still tap out the password and disable the alarm just fine. One day, she was really going to have to update it. But that cost money, and money was always criminally short for her. 

She swung her legs off the edge of her bed and stood, ignoring the pops along her spine that told her her PD wasn't the only thing outdated. Her morning routine was always the same; shower, brush,  dress, eat, shoes, then out the door.  Familiarity and deeply ingrained patterns of behavior ment she was through it and on the metro before she truly woke up. Even then it was only when a stray sun beam managed to lance between two high rise buildings and strike her in the face that the day finally registered for her.

The city around her was gray in the morning light, caught in the transition period between the neon glow of the night and the drab tones of the day. The stark, unforgiving sunlight somehow managed to make the buildings  look like they were hunched over with the weight of the day to come. Gemma  heaved a sigh, and looked down at her PD. There was just enough time to try and beat the next level of Meckitty before her stop. She checked to make sure the cartridge was slotted into the side of her personal device and sighed again. The slot was empty.  She'd taken out the cartridge to clean the contracts last night and forgot to put it back in.  Instead she reached into her bag and retrieved the tangle mess that was her earphones. By the time she got them untangled and plugged into the port at the bottom of her PD the metro chimed that it had reached her stop. Fitting the little speakers into her ears she slipped her PD into her jacket pocket and got up, it was a twenty minute walk between the metro station and her office job. She still had time for some music. 

Above her, lights winked in the dark blue of the morning sky. 

Gemma  held her personal device to the scanner plate by the front entrance of her office and waited for the ding. When the doors in front of her slid open, she was greeted with the cream colored corporate hellscape that was Arthurus Public Accounting. Cream colored linoleum tiles blended into ivory colored walls, the reception desk was birch, the couches no one sat on were white, even the amber colored tube lights in the ceiling blended mirthlessly into the all pervasive beigeness of it all. Gemma walked across the lobby to the elevators, the clicking of her heels the only sound bouncing around the space. APA had spared every expense possible, and that included music for the lobby. 

A short elevator ride took her to the floor she worked on. Here the carpet between the cubicles was a light blue, presumably to keep the employees from taking a run at the windows. Twenty two steps got her to her cubicle and its squeaky beige office chair, the vinyl cracked and patched with clear tape. Gemma opened an eggshell colored “safe storage” drawer thoughtfully provided by her employers and deposited her bag into it. After closing it up she inserted her PD into the slot for it in her computer and heard the “click” of the lock trapping it in place. Like most computers, it required a person's PD to run as it lacked the hard drive, processor and personal programs a person kept on the little multitasking device. But APA had gone a step further and integrated this into their clock in/out protocall. A person would not be paid for any time their PD was not in its proper slot. To help employees remember that, said slot was locked with the PD in place until their designated lunch time. Likewise, there was no key to the safe storage locker. It was tied into the same clock in/out program and only unlocked when the PD slot unlocked. 

Gemma pulled the gray blocky keyboard out of the gray blocky computer and set the gray blocky mouse on its gray blocky mouse pad. She had to get through Mr. and Mrs. Armeraths taxes by lunchtime and they were always terrible at turning in receipts. 

Time crawled on. Gemma pulled cream colored binders off the white shelf over her blocky monitor, corporate messages came in, responses went out, and spreadsheets stretched on like the vast plains of hell. Eventually there was a click as the computer partially ejected her PD and the screen locked up. 

DESIGNATED LUNCH BREAK

REMAINING TIME:

19:59

Gemma grabbed her PD and retrieved her bag from the safe storage drawer. She’d made her deadline but felt strung out from crunching numbers and trying to read Mrs. Armeraths spidery handwriting. Her cafeteria was located on the other side of the floor near the managers offices so she got a chance to clear her head before she made it there. As always she made sure to be looking at her PD when passing the glass walls of her manager's office. He was one of those “friendly” bosses that would invite you in and waste your one and only break telling you about how great his family trip was. 

She got by without incident and moved into the 20ft by 10ft tan colored room beyond. One of the long walls was taken up by an assortment of vending machines dispensing a meager assortment of drinks and frozen meals. The far short wall had a bank of toaster ovens and the one small sink and garbage can. To keep waste costs to a minimum, staff were encouraged to not bring outside food and beverages with them into the building so the sink was hardly ever used for anything.Oddly, the policy did little to actually help reduce waste, and the trash can was usually always stuffed full. Gemma bought a small pack of perogies and a can of green tea then sat and watched her food cook in the oven from the nearest table. As always, it took half her remaining lunch allotment to cook, leaving her only about 8 minutes to eat and get back to her desk before the company installed timer program on her PD began to beep.  

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The only way to silence it at that point was to slip the PD into the company computer again and she wanted to avoid that walk of shame past her boss. Not just because it was embarrassing to go through the whole floor with a loudly beeping PD, but also because her boss would likely stop her right outside his office to give her a lecture about better time management and make her even more late than she already was. She got  her lunch down in four minutes and was back to her desk just before the timer ran down, jamming her PD back into the slot at 00:01.

The afternoon went about as well as the morning did, boring not only her but the one watching her as well. 

After work was a quick metro ride to her apartment. The gray buildings tinted a ruddy orange in the evening light making the trip slightly more interesting than it had been in the morning. From there she packed her dirty clothes into the large canvas carry bag she kept for that purpose and was out the door again to the laundromat down the street. This time she made sure to grab the Meckitty cartridge and slot it into her personal device. 

It was misting a light rain as she left her building, bringing out that fresh smell that only existed in the presence of so much water. Anxious people jostled her to and fro as they all vied to get where they were going before moisture made the journey unpleasant. Most of the journey followed under the raised metroline so Gemma didn’t have to worry too much about herself. The laundromat, or “Bills Quick Wash and Arcade” as the flickering neon proclaimed it, occupied the first floor of one of the many nondescript concrete buildings on the block. The large front windows spilled warm yellow light into the gathering gloom. It always smelled of fresh soap and warm water and despite its aged and dingy appearance, it always made Gemma feel safe. Like a little soap scented island in a dark and scary sea. 

Tonight had a few regulars in it with her, people she didn’t know but who nodded a familiar greeting all the same. The arcade in the back chimed and beeped away as a gaggle of children fought over the few functional machines. Gemma was glad she remembered to bring her Meckitty cartridge with her, it wasn’t likely she was going to get a chance to play Dino Terminator tonight. The TV mounted in the far corner was playing something on the news.  A picture popped up over the newscast's left shoulder of a dark night sky that had a red arrow pointing at a patch of blackness. But the sound was turned off and Gemma didn’t notice it.

Instead she flopped onto a bench near the washer she was using, flipped her PD to game mode and connected her earbuds. The tiny fluorescent screen lit up in bright pinks and purples as a violently colored cat streaked across a dark purple starscape. Gemma selected her file and got down to business. The game was pretty straight forward in principle. Pilot the Meckitty 1, a pink cat shaped spaceship, back and forth across the 2d downwards scrolling background shooting other spaceships and asteroids while avoiding the frankly ludicrous amount of incoming fire from everything and every one. But the game boasted a “learning AI” and procedurally generated levels. The advertisement said that it would learn the players style of play and adjust its tactics to exploit the players weaknesses. Gemma didn’t know how true all of that was but had been stuck on level 34 for almost a week now so could only assume it was true.

She was no closer to beating it when the last load was done in the drier and needed to be folded. Tugging the earbuds out of her ears she stuffed the whole mess into her bag and got to folding her clothes. By now the TV had moved on to rerunning old cowboy movies. Gemma watched it mostly as there wasn’t much else she could do while folding. The Dino Terminator machine was finally open, but she would be leaving as soon as this load was done. 

And the cycle repeated.

Gemma cracked an eye open as the bleating of the alarm broke through to her. She flailed at her PD, knocking it off the nightstand and onto the floor where it continued to yell at her. Shower, brush,  dress, eat, shoes, out the door and off again. Metro to work, walk to the elevator, down the line to her cubicle, bag in the storage drawer, PD in the computer. Click. Gemma cracked her knuckles, rolled her shoulders and hunched over the keyboard to start on the taxes for another person with more money in their PD than she’d had all her life. The mono speaker in her computer dinged softly alerting her to a new message in her inbox. Gemma welcomed the distraction and clicked on the message;

FROM: [email protected]

TO: [email protected]

Subject: SPECIAL OFFER!

Tired of your desk job? Listlessly spending your life/cycle/reproductive years wasting away making other beings rich? Why not:

TRAVEL THE STARS!

Our top of the line, pre-owned starships might be just what you’re looking for. With our 45 point custom inspection we ensure that all our starships are just as good as new!* Don’t have the money? Don’t worry! With our deluxe suite of financing options you’ll be cruising the galaxy with as little as no credits down! Interested? Click the link below to find out more! 

||Accept Offer||

*not a substitute for an inspection done by a licensed professional

Maybe it was the lack of sleep from another night on the mattress her parents had bought her when she was twelve. Maybe it was the fact the free coffee machine had been broken that day. Maybe the tedious drudgery her life had become had finally reduced her neural processes to a gray miasmic mush. Whatever the reason was, Gemma clicked the link without actually reading it. The screen began to flicker and her computer made noises that did not sound normal or safe. She scooted her chair back, worried now that she’d accidentally let a virus loose on the company server. Before she could get up or truly start to panic she felt an electric zip run up her spine and a sharp pain at the base of her skull. The screen flickered over to a new message. 

Thank you for your purchase! Your transaction has been tagged to your genetic account and your shipment is inbound!

Time until shipment arrives: 15 minutes

Please get to an open, surface level area at your earliest convenience!

Far above her, a shooting star streaked across the morning sky.