What Happened in Strasbourg

Chapter sixteen: Quitting

By the time I made it to the pet store the mist had cleared up, and sunlight shone through the cracks in the clouds. The window displays held stuffed animal dogs modeling harnesses and raincoats, a fancy birdcage, and a big dog bed which I pointed out to Ginger as I went inside. "You want that, don't you?"

I walked down the narrow aisles, the cat section, the dog section, the fish section, but I didn't see Imogen anywhere. Maybe she'd gone home early or was in the back? Up at the checkout counter, an employee who looked a little older than Imogen stood, flipping a coin the palm of his hand over and over again. "Can I help you?" he said when he saw me.

"Do you know where I can find Imogen?" I asked. "She's my friend who works here."
"Worked is more like it," he sighed. "She's gonna quit."

"Wait, why? She told me she liked it here."

The cashier shrugged and led me back behind a curtain into the storage room filled with cardboard boxes. Imogen sat in the corner, vaping. She didn't even look up when I walked in. "You're quitting your job?" I said.

"So you know?"

"Yeah, I--"

"Wow." Imogen rubbed her temples. "Wish I could quit being alive too. I mean it."

"Imogen no--"

"Tomorrow's my last day," she said. "It doesn't suck here. I don't even want to quit that much. But I need a job where I can get tipped, like a restaurant. I can't make enough money here to afford school. To be honest, who even gets a living wage anymore, except well-off Acheron employees? Stupid Acheron is gonna close this place down in a few months anyway...."

"Well, the restaurants aren't doing too great either, are they? Acheron--"
"I know Acheron's food delivery is a lot more popular than real life restaurants! But I just need something different, okay? I can't keep working here. It's really hard for me to focus on stocking shelves and mopping the floor. I space out and the manager gets annoyed."

"Okay," I sighed. "Leave if you don't think it's a good fit. I just want to make sure -- you know, you could probably apply to get aid from the Landry foundation, like Ava said."
"You and Ava can't help me," Imogen sighed. "Paul Landry and Mond and their stupid foundation can't help me either. Nobody can help, except me...." She glared at the opposite wall. "You know what I hate? How having a corporation in charge of everything feels like some weird algebra problem. "Simplify the economy! Simplify the shipping process! Simplify architecture and design! Reduce everything down to the bare minimum until Acheron gets left by itself! That'll make our almighty customers over the moon!"

She buried her face in her hands and sighed. "I hate Acheron. I hate spending my entire teenage life obsessing over some dumb company -- what's wrong with me?"

"Nothing's wrong with you," I said. "And I have something I really need to tell you about," I lowered my voice to a whisper. "Trench. The report about... you know..."

"So it came out?" Imogen's eyes went wide.

"Yeah."

"Oh, god... What'd it say? Do you believe it?"

I explained to her all I remembered, speaking in a whisper so the other employees wouldn't overhear us, trying to piece together the testimonies, the evidence, everything in a way that seemed half-believable to someone who hadn't read it themselves.

"Wow. That's.... That's really crazy," Imogen said, once I'd finished. "Who would've thought! I mean, I would've thought, but like, I'm some random teenager, my thoughts don't count. But actual executives and nurses and... they're all so sure about it! Why didn't anyone say this stuff about Acheron earlier!"

She jumped up. "Just wait until the word gets out! The company's gonna go down before they have the chance to--"

"No, it's not," I said. "At least I don't think it is. My mom told me once, most people never want to bite the hand that feeds them... even if the hand also punches them in the face. She was actually talking about the police then, but it's the same for Acheron."

"Who cares what your mom says!" Imogen said. She hopped up onto an overturned plastic bucket that crackled dangerously under her feet. "What does she know about Acheron? You and I know everything now!" I hadn't seen her grin like that for months, even years. And now that she had her hopes up, I didn't know how to get them back down.

"I need to go now," I said. "I'm going to see Ava today too."

"Oh, can I come?" Imogen said, leaping off the bucket.

"Aren't you still supposed to be working?"

"Yeah, I guess..." Imogen rolled her eyes, and picked up a dusty mop from the floor. "See you later. Buy something if you want. If you think it would help the store stay open any longer."

"Sure," I said. "Ginger's running out of chew toys."

"Great," Imogen said. "Everything's half off. You know why. See you later, I guess."

I walked out from behind the curtain and down the aisle to pick out a new toy for Ginger, the cheapest one that I could afford with the amount of cash I had left after paying Russell. I couldn't remember the last time I'd actually bought an item in real life, besides an occasional coffee or a little bag of chips. Everything we could ever want or need came in a shipping box.

As I left the pet store with Ginger's new squeaky toy in a paper bag, the words of Imogen and my dad battled each other in my mind. "I just wish I could've seen it when it was open..." Imogen had said when we were at the abandoned mall. I knew there were so many stores that would have stayed open, so many things that could've been around if it wasn't for Acheron. But then I thought of what my dad said: "The world as you know it could not exist without Acheron, and it isn't very wise to wish it away."

Maybe it wasn't wise, maybe I was quickly becoming that rebellious teen archetype my mom had once been and always warned me about. But for the first time in my entire life, I wanted to know what life without Acheron would be like.

Something told me it wouldn't be the anarchist dystopia my parents imagined.