by Cat Rambo
“Great work, everyone! I just wanted to let you all know that we here at the Amazon-Wells Fargo-Academi family are fighting hard for your rights in these turbulent times. The more you concentrate on making us strong, the more we can concentrate on keeping you safe. To that end, and to recognize everyone’s diligence, I’ve approved a ten credit bonus for every worker for this month. Don’t spend all of it in the company store at once! And finally, don’t forget that reviews for my new book, ‘The Self-Made Man,’ are due by the end of the week!”
The screen flickered out, replaced once again by the control panel, now showing eight blinking lights. Marcus sighed, and lifted his hand for the nearest dial. Off to the side, he saw Lupe spit towards the grimy factory floor, timing it to hit an onrushing mechanized arm. The arm whizzed on, uncaring.
Briefly, Marcus thought about following the same trajectory, but then put it from his mind and bent back to work.
More hours passed, and then a strident tone cut through the fog blanketing Marcus’ mind—the end of shift signal. His entire body aching, Marcus shuffled his way out across the factory floor towards the exit, struggling to hurry while also staying within his minuscule safe zone; the grey-on-grey path so faint as to be invisible. Other workers from nearer stations scurried ahead of him, with Lupe falling alongside in the same shambling trot. Newer faces, not yet battered by years on the factory floor, flowed by in the opposite direction, scrambling to get to their areas on time.
“Ten seconds until factory operations resume,” a toneless voice announced from above. “This is your federally mandated safety warning.”
Marcus and Lupe, among the last in line, picked up their pace, now on the verge of running. They reached the exit door almost simultaneously, huffing hard for breath, as clanging snarls of metal on metal announced the arms lurching into motion once more.
A crashing impact joined the cacophony, followed by a brief scream.
The two looked back out towards the factory floor, dreading what they knew they would see. Lying sprawled halfway across the safety line was a young man from the furthest console, his right arm a mangled ruin, his face a mask of shocked pain. Before they could take even one step to help him, another mechanical appendage whipped through, slamming into the boy’s body and flinging him against the wall with a sodden thump. Blood pooled beneath his unmoving form, slowly spreading across the impermeable floor.
Marcus hadn’t even known the kid’s name.
A harried-looking woman appeared as if from thin air, her grey suit almost the same shade as her skin, her hands clutching a clipboard. She tsk’ed tiredly, chewing on her lower lip, then approached Marcus and Lupe.
“Sign here, here, and here,” she said robotically, shoving a sheet of paper at each of them.
“What are we signing?” Lupe asked, a hint of rebellion in her voice.
“The standard forms. Arbitration waivers,” the woman continued in the same monotone, staring at her clipboard as two men in hazmat suits were rolling the body into a black plastic bag. “Statements of witness that the company followed standard safety procedures. Abnegation of class-action rights. It’s all covered in your contract.”
“And if we don’t?”
Marcus wanted to look around, ask who was speaking with his voice, but then realized that he was the one who’d said it. The woman looked at him as if seeing Marcus for the first time, her gaze sharpening.
“Then you lose your job, we sue you, we pull your citizenship, and we get the government to deport you. Any other questions?”
A feeling of warmth,—no—of fire; blazing, burning, magmatic fire from the very core of the world bubbled up in Marcus’ stomach, a pillar of incandescent rage that seemed to have no beginning or end. He clenched his fists, veins standing up along the backs of his hands, tiredness melting away. Just as it seemed impossible not to throw himself at the woman (Betsy, from HR, some corner of his mind whispered) he felt Lupe’s hand grabbing his wrist, pulling him away. She dragged him out of the factory to the security checkpoint.
“You crazy pendejo,” Lupe whispered once they cleared the mandatory exit patdowns. “You trying to get killed?”
Marcus let out a long breath, rage still simmering away in his belly.
“They treat us like shit, Lupe. They don’t care if we die on the floor. What’s it matter if they kill me for taking a stand?”
Lupe shook her head.
“The difference is, we’re still alive. At least we’re not at one of Musk’s factories. I hear four people fell into his candy vat last week alone. Besides, if you don’t have a job, ICE is gonna come for you.”
Marcus shrugged, kicking his feet along the dusty frontage road that led the two miles to the bus stop. On the other side of the freeway retaining wall, hidden from sight, electric vehicles whined their distinctive hum.
“ICE is gonna come for us anyway. Having a job, being a citizen, that shit don’t matter anymore. We’re the wrong color, Lupe. Nothing we can do to change that.”
Lupe scowled. “You read too much. Still, though. We got a job.”
“Doing what, Lupe? They ain’t teaching us anything they couldn’t teach a rabbit. ‘Here’s a red light, twist the green dial.’ ‘Here’s a blue light, flip the orange switch.’ How are we supposed to be anything more than cogs in their machine?”
They continued on in silence, the dim rays of early evening giving way to the nighttime glow of the city. Several times, Lupe opened her mouth, looking ready to share more, but then closed it again, thoughts left unsaid. Marcus kicked aimlessly at the small stones lining the road, sending them skipping into the weeds. The chirp of crickets gained ground in their battle against the incessant flow of the freeway as rush hour died away.
Only another mile to the bus stop, Marcus told himself as he suppressed a yawn.
The sound of tires crunching on gravel came from behind, like bones grinding together, and a bright light blazed into existence, throwing their shadows in front of them. An amplified voice boomed forth, like the herald of some particularly malignant god.
“Freeze! Don’t move! Hands where we can see them!”
Marcus and Lupe made exaggerated, deliberate movements as they raised their arms and clasped their hands over their heads; a familiar position.
“Turn around! On your knees!”
The two complied in tense silence, squinting against the spotlight’s harsh glare. The car’s front doors opened, disgorging two shadowy figures. As they stepped in front of the light, their uniforms became visible—light brown khaki pants and navy blue jackets with yellow lettering.
“Pinche ICE,” Lupe whispered. “Be cool.”
Marcus didn’t respond, watching the two men approach with their hands on holstered pistols. Mirrored sunglasses hid their eyes, despite the late hour.
“What are you two doing out here?” the one on the left asked, thumb caressing the butt of his gun. “Not looking for trouble, are we?”
“We’re just heading home from work, sir,” Lupe replied meekly, keeping her eyes down. “Our bus stop isn’t very far.”
“You hear that, George?” the other agent snickered. “Taking the fucking bus. Like we haven’t heard that before.”
“Let’s see some ID,” the first agent barked, still fondling his gun. “Slowly now.”
Marcus reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet, not daring to speak out of turn, and drew forth a laminated strip of state-mandated identification. The first agent scowled at it, then tossed it into the dirt at Marcus’ knees. Beside him, Lupe patted at her pockets, slowly at first, then with increasing desperation. The second ICE agent grinned, an ugly leer punctuated by bad breath and tobacco stained teeth.
“Well well well, what’s the excuse gonna be this time?”
“I—I must have left it at the factory. Por favor, if we can just go ba—”
“Por favor, por favor,” the first agent mocked in a singsong voice, turning away from Marcus. “Looks like we bagged us another illegal, Jim.”
“She’s an American citizen. Just like you and me!” Marcus was once again startled to hear his own voice, the rage bubbling up from its unseen well.
“What was that, amigo?” The first agent turned back, his words deceptively soft. Dangerous. Beside him, Lupe bit her lip, tears barely visible in the corners of her eyes.
“I said she’s an American citizen. Like you and me.” He swallowed, mouth suddenly dry as sand. “Sir.”
The agent stepped closer, then lashed out with his fist in a blur of motion. Marcus found himself on his back, pain blossoming in his jaw and with the taste of copper in his mouth.
“Without papers, she’s whatever the fuck we say she is,” the ICE agent snarled, shaking out his wrist. “And right now, I say she’s an illegal. What the fuck you gonna do about it, amigo?”
On the ground, Marcus tensed, his rage demanding release.
The agent’s eyes narrowed, his hand dropping to his gun. “Think you’re some sort of hero, amigo? Think you can outrun a bullet?”
He unsnapped his holster, never taking his eyes off Marcus.
Shaking, adrenaline surging through his body and making him dizzy, Marcus stared back, leaning on one elbow. Headlights appeared on the frontage road, a distant set of electric eyes, and then the second agent grabbed Lupe by the arm.
“C’mon, George, let’s roll. It’s too busy out here. We got one, no need to be greedy.”
He dragged Lupe to her feet and she let out a soft cry. “P—please, sir, I have children, they need m—”
“I don’t give a shit about your worthless kids!” the second ICE agent screamed in her face, causing Lupe to stumble. “Shut the fuck up and get in the car!”
He dragged her towards the patrol-car mounted spotlight, throwing her into the back seat. In the distance, the headlights grew closer. The first agent stared at Marcus a moment longer, then snapped his holster closed.
“See you around, amigo. Gonna be your turn soon.”
Heart pounding, Marcus watched the agent get back into the car, his ears barely registering the slam of doors. Tires crunched over gravel again, and then Lupe was gone, a pair of ruby tail-lights disappearing into the unknown. Feeling numb, Marcus staggered to his feet.
A car rolled by, the headlights from earlier, some lost vehicle searching for a way back onto the brightly lit freeway. Inside, the smiling faces of a family—father, mother, daughter, son, all dressed in their Sunday best—sang a popular new evangelical hymn, their pale cheeks glowing rosy red. They didn’t give Marcus even a first glance.
Shoulders slumped and head bowed, he continued towards the bus stop. The books were waiting.
If he cut another hour off his sleep, he’d have time to get through the chapter on C4 tonight.
About the Author
Chris Kluwe is a former NFL player, a tabletop game designer, once wrestled a bear for a pot of gold, and lies occasionally in his bios. You can find him being Not Mad Online at @ChrisWarcraft (until he’s inevitably banned for screaming at Nazis).
Editor’s Note
Workers drive the American economy—what part will they play in the future and how will they be treated by the people benefiting from their labor? Kluwe looks at one cog in the system, a laborer named Marcus whose work is uncomplicated and might as easily be automated. Marcus lives in a world of mandatory sixteen-hour shifts under brutal and dangerous physical conditions, trying to console himself with a vision of books.
At the edges of his world lurks ICE—an entity we’ve been hearing more and more of in the past year, with stories of them splitting up families and ruthlessly executing 45’s zero-tolerance mandate. What happens to a volatile mix when it’s under that sort of pressure?
That Our Flag Was Still There
Sarah Pinsker
It would’ve been a normal day if the Flag hadn’t up and died on us. Not even halfway through the shift, she’d been up there on the platform, wide-eyed and smiling from the Stars and whispering to herself in the way Flags usually do, and then she got a funny look on her face. A moment later her vitals went all screwy.
“She’s tanking!” I said, trying to control the panic in my voice. I’d trained for this scenario, but never encountered it in the five years I’d worked at the National Flag Center.
“Take a breath,” said Maggie Gregg from the console beside me. “Can you get her under control?”
“I’m trying,” I said, though I couldn’t figure out the problem. I tried and failed to stabilize her chemically, then let Maggie deliver a series of jolts through the Flag’s screensuit. It didn’t work.
“We have to bring her down,” Maggie said.
I looked over, surprised.
Maggie’s dark skin had gone pale. She’d been here twenty years. She had to know the protocol for a dead Flag. Even I knew it, though I’d never had to use it before, and she must have been through this at least once or twice. The Flag can’t come down until sunset, or the visitors on the Mall would freak out, so we have to leave the dead one up there and trust the visitors can’t tell a quiet living Flag from a dead one, and loop footage from earlier in the day, with the sky color-corrected to the current weather. I didn’t respond, and she didn’t say anything more.
We brought the Flag in at sunset like always. It was harder than if she could’ve assisted in the transfer, but not too much harder, since most are pretty glassy after a day up on the platform. Removing the ink from someone whose liquids are pooling instead of pumping turned out to be tricky, but we couldn’t hand a body back to a family in that condition, with the skin settling red, white, and blue. I hope that doesn’t come across as unpatriotic or disrespectful of the dead. I set the Colors draining the same as I would’ve on anyone.
I have two jobs: one, administer the Colors (under which falls monitoring and retiring the Colors, as well); two, administer and monitor the Stars. When the dead Flag came off the flagpole, I had the easy part. I felt worse for Maggie, who had to call the family. I did my part and watched Maggie do hers and afterward offered to buy her a drink. To my surprise, she said yes. The first time she’d said yes in five years working together.
It took a while to finish the paperwork and make arrangements with the team who’d take the body home. By the time we left the Flag Center, the National Mall was empty except for the policebot that chased us down to inform us the Mall was closed to visitors. It scanned our Center IDs, which were enough to appease it.
We didn’t pass any people before we hit Chinatown, where the sidewalks got busy again. We hadn’t discussed our destination and I couldn’t tell if she was leading or I was, so things got progressively slower and more aimless until finally I had enough and pointed up 7th.
“That one okay?” I pointed to the Pewter Spoon. “It’s got a long happy hour.”
In all the times I’d gone out with the other techs from work, Maggie had always said she had to get home. I didn’t take it personally—she lived far away, and she had grandkids living with her—but I’d assumed that meant she hadn’t spent time down here at all. I was surprised when she rejected my suggestion.
“Not that place. How about Forte?”
I’d never heard of Forte, but she was the one who’d had to call a family with bad news, so I agreed. She took me past the arena, under the bigscreen nightly Flag replay and the news tickers listing the day’s top patriots, past the Friendship Arch. We walked faster than before, which told me I’d been right about neither of us leading earlier. Two blocks farther, around a corner, to a side door.
The place we stepped into was dark, with a utilitarian wooden bar down the room’s length and six tables against the opposite wall. Four customers sat along the bar: one talking to the bartender, two talking to each other, and on
e nursing a beer. No windows, no pictures. No screens anywhere. Nothing on the black walls at all, which is to say, the next thing I noticed was the absent Flag. Not over the bar, not on the back wall, nowhere.
“Don’t say it, Lexi.”
I shut my mouth. I’d offered a drink to a colleague. If she wanted to have that drink in a bar that broke the law, if she trusted me enough to take me to a place like this, she didn’t want me pointing out the obvious.
“What are you drinking?” I asked instead, faking nonchalance.
She pointed to the last tap handle, a cheap local lager. I motioned the bartender for two while Maggie shrugged off her coat and chose a table.
She raised her glass when I handed it to her. “To killing people and notifying their families by phone.”
“Jesus.” I sat without removing my jacket. “I can’t drink to that.”
“Sorry. It was an awful day. How about ‘to another day closer to retirement?’”
We toasted, even though she was way closer to retirement than me.
“What is this place?” I asked.
“The only bar within walking distance where I can have a drink without having to watch the day’s Flag reruns.”
“Maggie,” I lowered my voice. “It’s illegal not to have a Flagscreen.”
“I’m not stupid. I know that. But I’m not going to sit here and watch someone die for the second time today.”
“Jesus,” I said again. “We’re not supposed to discuss that where anyone else can hear.”
She had to know that too.
“Look, I know you believe in what we do—”
I had to interrupt. “You don’t?”
“I don’t know what I believe anymore, but I thought—when you offered to grab a drink with me this time I thought maybe you felt the same way I did. Like maybe this isn’t how it’s meant to be.” She took a long drink. “Do you know what that husband said to me tonight? He didn’t cry or yell or curse at me. He thanked me, Lex. He said ‘the risk is worth the service.’ Is it, though?”
