Stairway to Somewhere

The First Automatons

Lloyd sat in silence for a while, thinking about how happy Kennedy seemed. The whole operation still felt off to him. Mostly because of training. Watching them pretend to inject a dummy and putting its body in a cryogenic chamber. They took them on a tour of the facility, showing them the hundreds of massive tanks they had prepped. They didn't need nowhere near that many, the majority of the city either went to bigger and better transfer centers or moved to cities that had slightly less smog than this one. His computer beeped, signaling and incoming call from Marcy. He answered it and grabbed Kennedy's files.

"What's up?" he responded.

"Everyone's done. We're waiting for you in the rec room."

"On my way."

Lloyd swiftly got up and left his office, the lights dimming as he approached the door. He looked to the left and still saw people sitting and waiting, with some in line with a clipboard full of paperwork. He found it creepy that they couldn't see him on the other side. They didn't even see a door. He shook off the feeling it gave him and took the right path to the break room. Inside was a wide room with the same glass black floor as the waiting room, but with comfortable white furniture and black marble counter tops. Everything in the break-room had black and white accents, from the art to the dishes. Greeting him was Beth, who still looked bothered, Marcy, a dark skinned woman in her thirties wearing a grey pantsuit without the blazer, Arthur, a younger guy with caramel skin and a full beard, and William, a man in his sixties who currently looked extremely mad.

"What's the deal with the meeting?" Lloyd asked the crew. "We just need better security next time."

"The meetings about a little more than that." said a voice behind him. Lloyd turned around to see Frederick Murray, the man who owned this franchise of Manifest Digital.

"First, I would like to check on each of your commitment to this job. Who's here till the end?!" he said enthusiastically, as if to rouse them. Lloyd, Arthur, and Will put their hands up slowly, as if they didn't have a choice. Beth started to, but kept it down. Marcy didn't budge. Frederick frowned at them.

"Are you serious? We can't be this understaffed."

"Why the hell would we stay?" Marcy demanded. "I got family in the new world already. You know damn well 84% of the population is already inside."

"Yes, I know but we need people on the outside until after the new year. It's already bad enough with their new implementation."

"What implementation?" asked Beth.

"Because of the riots. Too many centers are being attacked by protesters. Not only have they enacted martial law, but they are sending people back out as militia men."

Lloyd laughed. "What are a couple random citizens with guns going to do against mobs?Wouldn't that just put them in harms way?"

Frederick stared at him in silence until Lloyd's smirk disappeared.

"They aren't putting them back in their bodies, Lloyd." He walked up to the table and sat his phone down, tapping something that turned the whole surface into a screen mirror of his phone. He displayed an image of a tall black mannequin looking thing in dark military garb.

"These things have no faces, but once the army uploads a person into it, they can see you." he explained. "The National Guard just started deploying them, and they're seven feet tall, for no fucking reason."

"That's scary as hell." murmured Arthur.

"Yeah, no shit." Frederick retorted. "Ours arrive tomorrow."

"They just guard right? We don't have to fear them." Beth suggested. "It could be a mother with kids."

"Yeah. A mother with kids who's going to escort you home in a seven foot killing machine." William added.