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...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
On the first floor, the various doors that had been closed before stood open. In one of them, men and women bent over standing workstations, rows of bolt cloth strung around the space. They wore the same shapeless sack as Sam, though their faces were cleaner. She hadn't bathed in a few days. Instantly, her own harsh odor hit her nose.
Hope this caretaker prick gets a good whiff.
In other room, similar workstations housed tech pieces, being assembled by more sack-clothed guests.
Two doors in the hallway were still closed. Faintly, hushed grunts and moans rose and fell. Though, with the nose from the other rooms, Sam couldn't be sure of what she heard. Then, the noises stopped altogether.
The caretaker led her to another workstation room. Blocks and plastic colorful pieces cluttered the area. Unlike the others, this room had a few guests, just three women and two men.
"The guests in here will help train you on proper protocol, including enhanced work." His grin widened with the term 'enhanced work,' and behind him, a mulatto woman cringed. "I trust you're well-motivated to start, for Helia, right?"
Sam considered what it would cost her to punch the ill-man through the teeth.
One breath. Two breaths.
Then, "Yes."
Seeming satisfied, and unaware of the threat to his full set of teeth, the caretaker left. Though the door remained open, a dark-suited guard waited in the hallway.
Sam released a deep breath, and greeted the other guests.
One of the women, a small Korean, wouldn't speak or look up from her work. The two others gently explained how she didn't understand English, or pretended not to. Sam immediately regretted speaking English, as she should've also faked it by speaking nothing but Spanish.
Greta, a curvy Hispanic, did most of the talking. Amaretto, an ebony-skinned beauty with endless legs, would supplement answers few minutes. They had worked for about two months, being moved upstairs after one week in the basement like Sam.
"From what I can guess, this place is like, a last-stop for anybody who doesn't listen at those stupid ass camps," Greta said.
"Yeah, I prefer it over there," Amaretto said, tinkering with what looked like a half-assembled child's toy at her station.
"Yeah, 'cause here they use us up for State labor," Greta flicked the toy at her workstation, "or sex."
Amaretto snorted with laughter, somehow drained of all humor. "Enhanced work!"
"But, if you're real good, they send you back to the camps."
"No they don't."
One of the men, olive-skinned with a dark beard and long braid, had spoken up for the first time.
Sam turned to him. "Where do they send people from here?"
He shook his head. "Like Greta said, it's a last-stop. No one is sent anywhere, good or not." He approached, non-threatening. Sam could tell he wanted to get closer to tell her something important. Only an inch from her face, he said in a low voice, "I hear the guards sometimes, in the backyard. They shoot, and then someone you saw for a week, a month...they're gone."
