Tim told his friends his job at the factory was a public service so that the trained chimps he could be replaced with wouldn’t be subjected to the extreme temperatures and mind-numbing boredom. He told his college buddies he took it so he’d have time to think, that he was getting his mind right before he went back for his Ph.D. in philosophy. It was definitely a lie but kept the told you so’s from folks who hadn’t gotten a liberal arts degree down.. He told girls he did it for the stability. Tim was convinced a steady paycheck and a responsible breadwinner always found it a tad easier to get laid. In the quiet depths of his soul though, Tim admitted to himself he worked there because of cowardice.
After college he’d been afraid to go on to grad school, afraid to move out of state for a job in his field. Instead, he’d taken the safe choice and stuck around at the same factory he’d worked his way through school from. Sure, he was quality control now, not on the cutting line, with a whopping 1.75 more an hour. Who says a college degree is a waste? Tim was slowly walking up the line, regretting his life choices, stamping the occasional box as good to go. Then the entire world changed as he heard a voice from thin air.
"Congratulations Beta Tester. You have been chosen to help calibrate your world’s entrance into the system. This exciting opportunity will begin in one minute, please secure personal belongings before porting."
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It was a stilted mechanical voice, the kind of thing you'd expect from a robot in a crappy 80's scifi movie. He wasted the first 30 seconds considering the possibilities. Hallucination, stroke, weird practical joke were all considered and dismissed almost immediately. Treating it like it was real if it wasn’t might get him laughed at, but failing to respond if it was the real deal would be much worse. As soon as he had the thought he started to jog. He passed up all the boxes of PVC pipe fittings, they didn’t have much survival value in his head. He bumped into one of the material handlers and tried a half assed spin move to get around the man and the pallet of crushed plastic he was moving, a torrent of spanish swearing following him down the aisle. Tim snagged a fire extinguisher off a steel pylon as he passed, then shoved through the door into the next room.
A blaring 5 sounded from behind him, and then a 4. He was almost there, a giant snap on toolbox full of anything you could want in a survival situation was just feet away. He charged forward as the 3 sounded. Chance, his supervisor was standing in front of the tools, and as the 2 rang in his ears Tim yelled, “Move.” It didn’t work to clear him a path, so he juked right and tried to scoot the big wheeled cart full of part samples out of the way to get to the toolbox. Adrenalin pumping, moving as fast as he possibly could, Tim still couldn’t quite make it. The 1 popped up and a bright white light blinded him while he was still pushing the cart out of the way.
Tim stumbled forward, blinking and rubbing the purple spots out of his eyes. He was standing in a grassy clearing, surrounded by orange shrubs. He slowly turned a circle and saw nothing but empty nature and a single metal cart full of plumbing fittings.