by Rohan Healy
“Now as I was saying, for the next six months your non-earning days have been reduced to zero. Providing that you remain employed for the full term of your probationary period your full one hundred days will be returned to you. However if you spend a single day un-earning or commit a single violation you will be automatically sentenced with banishment to Gyaros. We cannot understate the seriousness of your work code violation Miles. Extreme bodily violence against a superior is no laughing matter,” Paula said condescendingly as she looked at Miles with an expression akin to that of a mother reprimanding her child. Paula then turned her attention to the monitor in front of her.
“We have two positions available today that comply with your eligibility criteria, shall I read them to you?” she looked up at Miles who nodded sullenly and folded his arms, ‘it doesn’t get much worse than this.’
“The first position is janitor at Le Cinema Magnifique, duties include cleaning, running errands and some light maintenance. And the only other option is as a cart runner for Yellow Carts, and the only duty listed is, well, cart running,” Paula finished and looked up to Miles awaiting an answer. Miles had a pretty good idea what a cart runner was. During his brief drives through the Yellow Districts with The Enforcers he had noticed a phenomenon he’d never witnessed in the Green Districts. Cart running, as it appeared to be called, from what Miles could tell was the act of one person pulling another person along in a rickety wooden chair with large spoked wheels and a covering to stop the rain from reaching the passenger. As well as the physical demands, the very idea of performing such a degrading task was enough to make up Miles’ mind.
“I’ll take the janitor job,” Miles muttered without looking up.
“Very well,” said Paula, typing away on her computer, “I have confirmed that you are now an employee of Le Cinema Magnifique. You are to report to Le Cinema Magnifique for orientation and training today at eleven AM sharp.” Miles looked up to the digital clock situated behind Paula, it read 10:12.
“I have printed the address on this slip,” Miles reached into the small opening at the bottom of the plastic barrier and took the piece of paper.
“Good luck Mister Stanton. Work diligently and productively and you will have nothing to worry about. Those six months will fly by and you’ll have every one of your days back,” Paula beamed a smile with her big red lips that Miles refused to return. Without saying a word the cheerless man stood up, turned and when the automated door slid open, made his way out of the hatch and then out of the building. ‘How the hell am I going to last six months down here?’ Miles sighed and asked himself, looking up at the torrential rain.
While taking shelter under the awning of the office he looked down at the address on the slip, and then up at the large digital tram timetable across the street. A tram was due and so Miles made his way to the stop, running through the rain until he was sheltered again. After a minute of waiting an automated tram pulled up, Miles boarded and took a seat. The tram doors closed and whisked the dejected man off to Le Cinema Magnifique, ‘let’s get this over with.’
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Chapter 4
'So this is it?' Miles thought to himself as he looked up at the faulty neon sign of Le Cinema Magnifique. The run down old building was surrounded by petty criminals and yet more mysterious half naked women, in a part of Elissa which he'd never had the slightest desire to visit much less work in. Miles' briefcase which usually contained important documents and other work related necessities now carried nothing more than his ham sandwich and his packet of lightly salted potato chips. He sighed deeply and stepped through the double doors and into the main lobby. The cinema lobby was empty except for a young employee behind the counter with a pair of large headphones on, drumming along to the music with a couple of long red candy strips on the counter top. He had spikey blonde hair, tattoos covered his arms and he was wearing what appeared to be the cinema's red and blue uniform. Miles let out another soft sigh, rolled his eyes and approached the counter. The employee had his eyes closed and was miming the lyrics to the song as he continued to drum, not noticing Miles. With his brow furrowed into a disgruntled expression, Miles stood at the counter impatiently before yanking one of the colourful sweets from the young man's hand. The employee looked up startled and removed his headphones, Miles could hear the fast punk rock music still playing through the speakers of the headphones and wondered how anyone could listen to music at such a volume.
“Uh…hey, can I help you?” the young man asked looking slightly embarrassed. Miles took a deep breath, contained his frustration and replied.
“I start work here today.”
“Oh,” said the cinema employee, taking a bite of his remaining candy, “you should talk to Mr Grayson, the manager guy. I'll go get him for ya,” and with that, the young man disappeared through a door behind the counter leaving Miles standing in an empty lobby with his lunch in one hand and a piece of stale candy in the other. Miles took this time to examine his surroundings, taking in the atmosphere of his new workplace. The dark green carpet, peppered with popcorn and countless sticky stains from a variety of beverages was certainly a change from the clean white floors of The Elissan Energy Department. Even the smell of the cinema seemed off, Miles always enjoyed the familiar scent of the theatre when he would go to see a movie with his family, but this place reeked of old popcorn and alcohol. A smell quite unfamiliar to Miles as Hellen would rarely let him drink other than to have a glass of wine on their anniversary each year. ‘How the hell am I going to last six whole months!?’ After a short while, the blonde haired employee returned with an older man whom Miles presumed to be Mr Grayson, ‘the manager guy’.
He was a few inches shorter than Miles and a few pounds heavier by the look of it. He had a slick comb-over in an attempt, entirely in vain, to hide his balding head.
“Mr Stanton is it?” the older man asked.
“Please, call me Miles,” Miles replied with a strained smile as he quickly put the piece of candy in his back pocket and extended his right hand.
“Well Miles, I'm Ellis Grayson, the owner and manager of this fine establishment,” said Grayson somewhat ironically as he took Miles’ hand and shook it roughly, apparently acknowledging the fairly decrepit state of the cinema.
“When you're ready, grab one of those uniforms from back here and start cleaning this place up, gotta look nice for the customers!” Miles could hardly believe that Mr Grayson even knew what a customer looked like judging from the state of his ‘fine establishment’. He simply continued to fake a smile.
“It'll be a pleasure to work here Sir.”
“That's what I like to hear from my employees Mr Stanton!” he said boisterously, “now, if you have any questions, I'm sure Ryker here will be able to fill you in,” continued Mr. Grayson, briefly putting his hand on the young employee's shoulder before returning to his office. ‘Grayson seems like a decent enough guy, could use a shower, but pretty harmless, could have been worse!’
Miles took his uniform from behind the counter. It was a medium sized blue and red polo shirt with the Le Cinema Magnifique logo on the front pocket. He begrudgingly threw it on over his white long sleeved shirt which he was more accustomed to wearing under an expensive suit. As Miles buttoned up the shirt Ryker looked at him for a while before speaking.
“So you lost your real job huh?” Miles paused and stared at Ryker with a look of irritation, he wasn’t in the mood for making friends.
“That's none of your God damn business.”
“Sorry, man,” Ryker apologized, “it's just that, I've seen guys like you before...they usually don't last too long,” he added, taking another bite of candy.
“Well,” said Miles, “that's because 'guys like me' don't belong in places like this. Guys like me find respectable jobs and make something of our lives no matter what circumstances arise.” Ryker laughed, chewing the last of his candy strip.
“No dude, guys like you don't last because they get shu
ttled, you know, to Gyaros.” A sudden spark of panic rushed through Miles as reality briefly broke through his ego but he quickly reinforced himself.
“I've devoted 5 years of loyal service to The Energy Department of Elissa, I hate to disappoint you Ryker, but I'm not going to be sent anywhere near that moon,” he said, his eyes piercing intensely.
“Alright,” said Ryker, “but hey, if you do end up over there one day, I know some guys who might be able to help you out.” Miles looked at Ryker with a confused and doubtful expression, his left eyebrow raised high above the right one.
“Firstly, let's get one thing straight: I do not need your help because I am not going there. And secondly, how can anyone, let alone a lowlife such as yourself have contacts on Gyaros?”
“Well,” said Ryker with a devious smirk, “cuz I've been there.”
Now Miles knew for sure that Ryker had to be lying.
“Do you seriously expect me to believe that?” he asked.
“Not really,” replied Ryker, “but it’s true,” Miles rolled his eyes as Ryker continued, “see, I was a second child. My parents tried to keep me hidden. And they did, until I was five that is. I got shuttled over with my Mom...she died a couple of years later though.”
“You can stop lying to me now Ryker,” Miles said impatiently, without even a hint of empathy, “even if you were sent over, there's no way off Gyaros, not for you or anybody else,” he added.
“That's what I'm trying to tell you,” Ryker said with an animated look, “I know someone who can send people back!” Miles was tired of listening to Ryker and he refused to let himself believe a word of what he had just been told. As he the events of the past twenty four hours flashed across his mind he lost his patience and turned to Ryker angrily.
“Do you have any fucking idea what I've been through?” he asked rhetorically, his cheeks turning pink, “I don't think you do, Ryker. You see this place?” he continued in a low voice, looking around at the empty cinema lobby, “this disgusting, run down, pathetic excuse for a cinema? This, Ryker, is the last place I would ever want to spend a minute of my time,” Miles paused, looked Ryker straight in the eyes, “and yet, here I am. Getting ready to bend down on my knees and sweep up old pieces of popcorn from a rotting carpet, and the only thing I can possibly do to make this any easier, is to tell you to shut the fuck up!” There was a moment of silence as Miles continued to stare fiercely into Ryker's bright blue eyes.
“Yeah, whatever,” mumbled Ryker as he shrugged, turned away, put his headphones back on and went back to manning the register. Miles indignantly took a dustpan and broom from behind the counter and began to clean the floor of the lobby. With Ryker sitting quietly behind the counter and Mr Grayson remaining in his office for the rest of the working day, Miles had several hours to himself as he cleaned the various rooms of the movie theatre, which given the recent turn of events, wasn't entirely a good thing. Hundreds of thoughts raced through Miles’ mind as he worked, thoughts of his family, his job, his future, ‘Chet must be wondering where his dad is, I wonder what Hellen told him.’ These thought made Miles feel nauseous, his mouth was dry and his body ached from the beating by The Enforcers. ‘Just stay focussed Miles, you can do this. Take things one day at a time and the months will just fly by!’ Forget about months, the hours seemed to tick by slower than ever that day as Miles waited anxiously for his shift to end. The cinema finally closed at around 10pm. Miles saw Ryker packing his bag on the way out of the lobby. ‘Ah man, I really shouldn’t have been so hard on him,’ Miles cringed and thought. He felt bad for snapping at Ryker earlier but just couldn't bring himself to apologize. Instead, Miles just made his way to the tram station a few streets down in the heavy Yellow District rain with his now empty briefcase to wait for a ride back to the hotel.
The next day was much the same as the last, though the tension between Miles and Ryker had subsided somewhat and they found themselves engaging in light conversation throughout the day. Ryker had learned to avoid the subject of Gyaros, talking instead about sports results and recent news stories. Miles was actually thankful to have something to distract him from the current events in his life, even if he still considered Ryker to be somewhat of a loser. At one point during the day, they found themselves on the topic of video games, something that Miles had enjoyed greatly during his days in high school and college though had not had any time for in recent years.
“You look way too serious to be into video games man,” said Ryker jokingly.
“Oh yeah?” Miles replied smiling, “in my college years, I put a solid two hundred hours into Legends of Red District 4!”
“No fuckin' way dude, I can't even get halfway through an rpg like that without getting bored to shit,” Ryker said, looking surprised.
“That's the problem with your generation, Ryker. You have no patience. It’s all War of Unification first person shooters and mindless action games. You'll never know the simple joy of grinding for hours on end, slowly but surely levelling up each member of your party in preparation for an epic battle of wit and perfectly executed strategy,” Miles explained philosophically.
“Yeah, and thank God for that,” Ryker replied, making Miles laugh for the first time in the past three days. During the conversation, Ryker brought up the idea of stopping by the arcade down the street after work. Miles thought it was a childish plan but, after some coaxing, eventually agreed, ‘well I guess I could use the distraction’. Miles' shift continued rather uneventfully with only about five or six customers showing up to the cinema that day. He tried to keep himself focused on work but with little to do, Miles often found himself slipping into anger, frustration and regret as he recalled Tyler’s smug grin, ‘that asshole is the reason I’m cleaning toilets in this shithole!’ Though now on moderately friendly terms with Ryker, Miles was still alone with his dark thoughts for most of the day. ‘I wish I’d fucking killed him,’ Miles thought to himself, ‘I wish I’d finished the damn job.’ As closing time was approaching, Miles returned to the lobby to meet up with Ryker who was already out of his uniform and looked eager to get to the arcade.
“You ready?” Ryker asked excitedly as he saw Miles leave cinema 2 with a bag of trash having just cleaned up after the final showing of the night.
“Just a second,” Miles replied as he brought the bag to the trashcan by the front window. Although embarrassed to show it, Miles was also quite eagerly awaiting the night out, anything to get out of his own head space for a while. Even at his job in The Energy Department, he had rarely spent time with his colleagues outside of work, other than the odd dinner with Clark who, truth be told, was quite a cook. Miles dusted his hands and took his briefcase - which served as little more than a lunchbox these days - from behind the counter as Ryker hoisted his backpack over his right shoulder and the two left the cinema leaving Mr Grayson to lock up for the night.
The sights, sounds, and smells of the Yellow District were still foreign and disturbing to Miles as he and Ryker walked down 12th Street to the Gamer's Paradise Arcade arguing light heartedly about their drastically differing tastes in music. Upon passing a small and cheap looking fast food restaurant Ryker stopped.
“Hey man, I'm gonna get a burger, you want anything?” Miles shook his head gently and Ryker disappeared into the burger joint alone. As Miles waited impatiently out the front of Mike's Burger Palace, an old woman with ragged grey hair and a long brown trench coat began to approach him from across the street. Beginning to feel uncomfortable, Miles glanced through the restaurant window at Ryker who seemed to be waiting for his order. The old lady began to mumble incoherently as she drew closer, Miles stared at the ground, trying to avoid eye contact. 'God damn it Ryker, hurry up...' he thought as the woman started shouting what sounded to Miles like complete and utter gibberish. Moments later, Ryker returned with a greasy paper bag and a large drink under his arm. He casually pushed the old lady out of the way and continued towards the arcade. Miles followed, slightly disturbed by what had just happ
ened. You just didn’t see crazies on the streets of the Green Districts. Anyone deemed psychologically unsound was whisked off to The Psychiatric Department for treatment and testing, and they rarely came out again.
Ryker spent the next minute and a half comically attempting to unpack and eat his meal while keeping hold of his large soda which slightly amused Miles.
“Aw fuck it, I'll eat it when we get there,” he said, finally giving up. Ryker didn't have to wait much longer as they soon reached their destination. Nostalgia swept over Miles as he stepped through the doors of the arcade. Although much smaller and more poorly maintained than the great arcades of The Green Entertainment District where Miles had spent a large portion of his youth, the familiar sounds and flashing lights were a welcome reminder of a carefree age.
“Oh sweet, there's hardly anyone here!” said Ryker with a grin, “so what do you wanna play first?” he added excitedly. Miles carefully scanned the small, dimly lit arcade, all of the games were new and unfamiliar. Except for one. Miles' eyes fell upon a small worn out machine at the back of the building. Enforcer 2, a famously unforgiving side scrolling shooter which Miles had spent countless hours, and credits, playing every day after school. Miles jogged towards the machine with the excitement of a seven year old child and Ryker followed.
“God, I haven't seen one of these in years!” said Miles with a subtle smile stretching across his usually serious face.
“Not too many people play this one anymore,” Ryker said as he looked at the bright flashing title screen of Enforcer 2 which displayed a heavily armoured Carthage Enforcer wielding dual magnums and blasting away green aliens.
“What do you say?” Miles said, positioning himself at the player one controls, and smiling suggestively at Ryker. Ryker put his burger and drink on the machine.
“Let's do it!” he replied.
Miles placed the palm of his hand on the machine's dusty credit transfer terminal and purchased lives for himself and Ryker. He stared down at his controls. It had been so long since his hands had assumed this position, it felt familiar and safe somehow. A large joystick was accompanied by three small buttons, one for shooting, one for jumping and the final button performed a powerful melee attack. In the centre of the machine there was a large red button labelled “START”. Without further hesitation, Miles pressed it down hard.
