Ty, a shift manager with an alcoholic wife, creates a female replicant in a dystopia veering toward full mechanization. For Ty, the surreal drudgery of working in a retail environment is interrupted when robotic interfaces are installed at his job...
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"Jennifer. Jennifer."
Ty shook his sleeping wife. He was dressed for work, ready to go. The room reeked of sweat and booze, a combined smell that proved nauseating. He breathed through his nose and shook her harder.
"Wake up. I have to go."
Jennifer rolled over. "It's your turn to wake up with Helia. Let me sleep in."
Ty grit his teeth. "No, it's been your turn for the past three mornings. This morning I have to go to work. Damon's not here, so get up."
Jennifer erupted out of the bed in a flurry of blankets and curly hair. She wore red panties and nothing else. Ty watched closely, appreciating what he could. She huffed around the room, throwing on clothes and mumbling to herself. The most damning statement she made audible.
"You're such an asshole." Her tears forced weight into the words.
She knows how to make me feel like shit.
He thought about her all during the bike ride to work. Lust passed over him as he remembered what she had done after the name-calling.
Ty's incredulous face had shamed Jennifer into apologizing. Part of her apology was a well-thought out blow-job. Like a vacuum cleaner, he had bragged to his friends years ago, and the phrase was as apt as it had ever been.
You're a lucky man, his friends assured him. Ty didn't feel lucky when he found empty beer bottles hidden under the bed, or when he woke up alone to find her drinking on the porch at 3 a.m.
The rest of his day was spent learning closing procedures. To keep up with Pen's instructions, Ty scribbled notes. He asked questions, one of them being how he would know which cashier to assign each day. The answer was to assign the least productive employee.
"Women can't throw as much freight. You'll notice Antoinella on register, a lot. Thompson's better at freight," Pen said.
Antoinella waved at Ty, and he waved back. Pen's instruction finished at the new interface. Closing procedure now included obtaining electronic stats and information. Every customer using the kiosk was to be accounted for.
"Why does corporate need to know that?" Ty asked.
He had neglected to write any thing since arriving at the interface.
"There's lots of decisions from corporate that I don't understand." Pen tapped the machine. "But I do 'em anyway."
Being in a management position seemed less appealing as training continued. When Antoinella called him to the registers for a return, he took his time strolling to the front.
Pen let him handle the transaction solo. They had practiced several times, and Ty was confident. All of the return policies did laps in his head as he made his way. The customer that was waiting for him looked like a pleasant gentleman. Then Ty saw what he wanted to return. Bags of candy, half of them opened.
After sampling the product, he had decided the candy to be no good, and wanted to return it all. If it was so bad, why'd you eat so much, Ty restrained himself from asking. Instead, he explained the return policy.
"I'm sorry sir, but there are no returns on candy due to health concerns, especially for open bags."
The man's smile faded in a blink. "I didn't like the candy, and I'd like my money back."
Ty set his jaw. "Afraid I can't do that, sir."
Antoinella watched the escalating scene from her place at the main register. She finished cashing out her last customer, but they weren't leaving.
"Give him back his money, kid!" the bystander said.
Ty ignored the comment. "I can offer you an exchange, but not a refund."
The customer overviewed Ty the way a teacher would an undisciplined student. "Look, I'm a lawyer, and I know my damn rights. You have to give me a refund if I ask for one, or do you wanna get sued?"
Ty wasn't aware of any law against refusing a return, but hell, he didn't have a law degree. Defeated, he refunded the money. Bills in hand, the lawyer had more to share.
"Customer service here sucks ass!"
Antoinella's customer voiced agreement, and the two walked out complaining, instant best friends.
It wasn't the weirdest customer encounter to happen that day. Weird incarnate appeared in the form of an eighty-year-old man who shuffled through the front door in the late afternoon. He asked Antoinella where the bathroom was, and she pointed to the back, a prime moment for the man to drop his pants. A spittle of shit dribbled from his ass and down his leg. He left a Hansel-and-Gretel-style trail on his way to the bathroom.
Antoinella called Pen and Ty to assist, but the old man had locked himself into the bathroom. Ty knocked and received no answer. Ten minutes into the problem, a white-haired woman showed up. She coaxed him out of the bathroom. When he emerged, he tossed out hello and goodbye, as if nothing shitty had occurred.
"At least he left with his pants on." Antoinella remarked.
"What the fuck?" Ty surveyed the brown dots and lines of diarrhea scattered on the floor. "Who's gonna clean this shit up?"
Pen pointed at Ty. "I mopped up Darren's blood. Take a guess as to which manager's got this?"
If Ty could have afforded to quit at that moment, he would have.
~*~
A/N: As you go along and hit "vote", maybe adding a comment or two, head over to visit the page of Adrian_Birch , who featured Obsolution before anyone else, and who's also written WP award-winning stories like the Dead In Bed series, and Flesh/Bone:
