John feels an itch in his right leg. He goes to scratch it, only to feel metal. And so he puts his hand back. Yet, it still itches.

  He looks around mutely, admiring the serenity of his-now not-so-new apartment. He overlooks the city below, the light tap of the rain caressing the glass. He takes solace in the lack of noise from the new neighbors around.

  Breathing in deeply, with his eyes closed, he then takes a deep breath out. “Hey Amy?” He calls out to no response. “Amy.” He says again, met with silence.

  “Amy?” He questions one more time as the illusion begins crumbling and is ripped away again.

  “Cheer up John, you're back on the clock. Get moving.” His boss says, letting go of the door to the simulation pod to open the pod next to him.

  Sparks burst from the catwalk in front of him— the damp, hot, humid warehouse banging endlessly.

  The lights hung from the ceiling and walls, though from afar, were opaque with condensation. John gets to his feet and stumbles out the pod door with the rest of his workmates from break; the metal grates of the catwalk clatter below his metallic boot.

  He catches himself on the railing to look down towards the floor below. It is packed and unapologetic; forklift suits, crates, workplace safety incidents and dirty water brought in from outside littered the place.

  Pushing his workmates aside, John stumbles to the end of the catwalk to put his hardhat on for the suit mounting station. He navigates throughout the minor gap in the traffic to run across, reaching the other side of the warehouse where his forklift suit is stored.

  Climbing yet another set of catwalks to reach the cockpit loading bay, he finds he is early. Crosby must still be working in it.

  As he waits, he pulls out his digiphone, a risky move given they are forbidden in active work areas. He sends Amy a message.

  “Hey, hope you're asleep right now. And I hope that shadow dude hasn't come back still. This should be my last shift here before I'm able to head back for a couple days. This has both felt like the longest and shortest two weeks of my life since starting here.

  Send me a reply once you're up, I'd really like to know how you've been going. I'll be back soon.”

  As he sends her the electronic message, he hears a now-familiar sound of stomping pneumatics, synths, sirens and heavy metal.

  Looking up, he is greeted by the back of the cockpit which he is soon to enter and man— the cockpit of a T105 Alloy-Tec Industrial-Grade Mechanical Kinetic Solenoidal Utility Tug, colloquially known as the T105-IG MeKSUT.

  The suit itself is just walking scrap due to its absurd mileage. Kept alive due to no more than spite, elbow grease and industrial love. It walks backward into the catwalk for docking. The rear doors depressurize, opening vertically so the pilot has room to squeeze out.

  “You son of a bitch.” John exclaims with huge posture.

  “I thought you'd appreciate an extended break!” Crosby replies through a smug, knowing smile. The two smash hands together, engaging in a long-sought masculine handshake that is not too common these days. John slaps him on the shoulder a couple times, spirits lifted. “So, what do you have left for me to do?” He asks.

  “Just a couple more supply crates need to be loaded on that mass hauler rig. Once she's gone, the boss will get you to do some pretty work I'm sure. After that? I'm not even sure God knows.” Crosby replies, seeming eager to catch his break time.

  “Well, I won't keep you waiting.” John says, tapping his shoulder again. “I'll talk to you next when I talk to you.”

  “Sure thing!” Crosby yells back, jogging jolly down the catwalk. “God knows no-one else will!”

  John turns to the cockpit, muttering under his breath as he enters. “Yeah, well, you know how it is.” The smells, sights, senses and motions of his second home flood back to him.

  The smell of body odor, mold, metal and oil.

  The sight of buttons, warnings, levers and lights of the machine are abundant and apparent.

  The sound of beeping, hissing, hydropneumatics, turbine whines and its high-displacement two-stroke engine whirring.

  The roar subsides as the cockpit of the beast closes. The inside pressurizes, and it roars to life. And so as John takes his first steps forward into the load-bay of this new shift, the march towards the Mass-Hauler loading docks begins.

  As he exits this warehouse, lightning thunders through the clouds and his suit is caked with rain. Yet he remains dry.

  The route is winding and rancid, some of the bodies of his co-workers left out to soak in the rain. He doesn't know what caused them to die, or why. All he knows is that the nature of their death was surely transactional. Accounted, accepted and cataloged. Only to be forgotten by any human mind.

  Maneuvering through the corrugated fencing, he arrives at the Terminus Warehouse of the facility. Accompanying him were five other MeKSUT pilots, tasked with loading the endless pallets, awkward constructs, machine parts and other consumeristic goods into the storage compartment of the mass hauler.

  He arrived early, having gotten to work before the others slowly arrived. Every movement was like clockwork; the machine controlling as if an extension of himself.

  The control, the power, the height and the order of it was just as intoxicating as the first time he piloted one. The itch of his leg became unnoticeable, and before he knew it, everything was locked and loaded away into the mass haulers.

  Those accompanying him worked slowly, lifted awkwardly and stumbled with careful malaise. He did not recognize any of the other pilots, though this is to be expected given the vastness of the facility and high turnover of the staff.

  He felt his digiphone vibrate just as they finished, parking himself towards the corner as the mass haulers departed.

  He pulls it out to check what must be the message Amy has sent him. Only to find out that… it isn't Amy. Someone with an unknown number is trying to contact him.

  He opens the message and reads. “Heya, remember me sweetie?~”

  John feels a pit open in his stomach, a mix of disappointment and apprehensions coming to fill it. He decides to leave the message for now, and await his boss. Or for Amy to actually reply.

  He decides to observe the other pilots, all of whom seem oblivious to the outside world; stuck scrolling aimlessly through content of the contentsphere. Messaging whoever— probably SERaMACs on their digiphones, or engaging in acts which should be reserved for private spaces outside of work.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  He remains in his MeKSUT, which stands tall and alert. He fails to understand the miserable lives of his co-workers to be absorbed so constantly in the immaterial.

  Yet, at the same time, he does understand. For while it never became the objective for him, it was a needed distraction from the real world oftentimes. Yet it was never so all-encompassing. Not when compared to them. Or, most people actually, as he thinks about it.

  He stares at one in particular, an obese man with greasy hair, raging acne, unkempt facial hair and the posture of an unfortunate soul. He observes as the man drools over himself. His soul locked into the screen of glorified silicone. Then, John looks to another.

  This time, it is a woman who has had large parts of her body cybernetically replaced.

  He watches as she sips on a wine glass that's not actually there; a headset of lies broadcasting into her eyes. Not a virtual device. It looks like a really old precursor.

  A smile was plastered upon her face; so vain and pretty was the little of her that she displayed. But then John looks down to her waist which was obscured to all her cameras and broadcasting. He sees a colostomy bag full of shit and piss, hidden in vain under a rag from any view from above. The camera's view, of course.

  Then, finally, he looks around the shelter of a warehouse they’re in itself. A dimly lit metal box, erected by a soulless machine, and a soulless corporation; sterile concrete floors marred by organics such as mud and blood.

  A massive, gaping door where the mass hauler once was; thunder booming once again into the inside. Rain assaulted the roof and ground in a terrible racket.

  And yet, he looks back to his fellow coworkers. Too absorbed in their virtual, fantastical worlds to care. He contemplates for a moment within the noisy silence. A chaotic peace after some hard work. Among all of his thoughts, the one he found most entertaining was this.

  If the real, waking world was so horrible that these people must escape it so often; how the Hell does he tolerate it? What exactly causes this need for escape?

  Actually, that wasn’t very entertaining, he found. He would genuinely love to know the answer.

  So jaded and cynical he has become, and yet… there is no warmth or feeling fuzzy inside at the thought of the present. And especially not, he assumes, for those people. In this suit, in this room, on this mountain… Perhaps these conditions aren’t naturally bearable.

  A high-pitched buzz comes from the intercom of his suit, and the screens of his co-workers shut off.

  “All of you.” His boss says. “Move your sad asses back to your docks, a princess among you decided to work too fast.” Another buzz comes through the intercom as the others head off elsewhere. “I'm talking about you, John. Meet me in the mechanical bay, WITH your suit on. And hurry up!”

  Without a fuss John begins making his way, marching tall above those who lack a suit, until he reaches the mechanical bay. The roof extended dozens of stories above them, even bigger suits of incomprehensible purpose being worked upon.

  He always felt small in Mechanical. As if he was some sort of impostor among the giants and intellectuals who maintained these machines. He sees his boss, clad in a much shinier, newer looking suit than his own.

  The two stand directly apart, each other visible through the cockpit glass.

  “Do you see this, Son?” His boss asked.

  “Sure I do boss. Ya hear to growl me?” John replies snarkily.

  “I should!” His boss replies, getting closer. “Rather, I'm here to bargain.” John raises an eyebrow as his Boss continues. “You see, I could continue to be a hard-ass but that hasn't been working with you, and so I'm here to make a deal.”

  His boss moves to his side, John tracking him as he paces.

  “You've only been here for two damn weeks and yet you make the rest of your co-workers look like garbage. Lazy even. I don't care why, I only care about keeping my job which I'm sure is the case with you too.”

  John feels compelled to correct him, but his Boss continues.

  “The suit you see me wearing are the ones that my big boss wrote a contract for to replace the current ones, like yours. This is in the pursuit of increasing productivity. I'm sure you see where I'm going with this.”

  John answers, his smugness only increasing. “Oh, so you're telling me that if I keep being productive, it would harm the justification for that contract or whatever?”

  “Precisely.” His boss replies, having made a full circle, now to his left. “And if that keeps being the case, the shit of the problem will trickle alllllll the way down the ladder and come raining down on me. But as for you? Well, below me is you.”

  John's wonders if he can push his luck with the information he has been given. Perhaps twist what seems like this good will into something even better for himself.

  But, he decides against it, taking the good will for exactly what it is. “Sounds good to me Boss. And… these old suits… it must be expensive transporting them for disposal and everything?”

  “I tell ya what.” His Boss replies knowingly. “If you just make sure the suits don't rain shit on me, I'll see it through that you can do whatever the fuck you want with that thing. Deal?”

  “Deal.” John replies, reaching out the suit's hand to his Boss. His Boss looks him up-and-down, a cringe forming on his face as he says. “Son, word of advice, keep that corny corporate platitude shit out of here.”

  “Right. Okay.” John mutters to himself. As he turns away to go back to the docking station, he sets the suit to cruise control as he celebrates.

  “YES. YES. YES. FUCK YES. FUCK YEAH!” He yells in the cockpit, pumping his fist in the air and slamming the glass out of excitement.

  He reverses it up to the catwalk, just as Crosby and himself do at the end of every shift. The door depressurizes and the suit powers down— awaiting its next pilot. Just on time, he gets a call from Crosby.

  Walking down the catwalk, a little pep in his step, he answers the phone. “I keep forgetting you have my shift schedule. What's up man?”

  Crosby answers, his voice fatigued yet sharp. “I see you're leaving for a couple days. Getting time off work so soon?”

  John laughs, reaching the bottom of the catwalk stairs. “Yeah well I'm only here for this leg anyway. It's not like they're paying me to be here. Anyway, what are you up to?”

  “Back in my dormitory. Have another shift in three hours. Just thought I'd give you a call before you head off, it's been good talking to you man.” Crosby replies.

  “Likewise man, you'll be the first man I come to if I need anything moving forward. Speaking of, once I get back, we definitely have to catch up on stuff. I've got a plan brewing.” John replies as he waits for a clearing in the traffic.

  “Oh really? Can't you just tell me now?” Crosby asks. John brings his voice low as he crosses to the other side, blocking his left ear to hear better.

  “No, really, not in this. Better in person. But it's something I can only really trust with someone like you. I hate to be cryptic but you've got to trust me. I'll tell you in person next time.”

  Crosby pauses for a moment as John keeps the digiphone glued to his ear.

  “...well, I’ve only known you for two weeks. Oh, God, who am I kidding. If it's anything like what we've previously discussed about this place then I'm already signed up man!”

  “And if that's the case, then you also know why I can't talk to you about it right now.” John replies, feeling their minds are communicating on the same wavelength.

  “I appreciate the call but I've got to catch a hyperrailer. Stay safe man, I look forward to seeing you next.”

  Crosby replies, chipper even through his yawn.

  “There's a lot I still have to explain with you. So you'd better not get into any trouble either. Oh, and, before you go, I left a gift for you in your exit locker. Stay safe and be careful.”

  Crosby finishes, hanging up for John. Before he knows it, he has made it back to the same monotonous loading bay for every hyperrailer depot in the county, or so it seems.

  Now on his way to the depot, John heeded Crosby's word; surprised to see a-now retro gadget in his locker. A cassette player, which he takes as a memento to show Amy, or maybe even use.

  Whereas the ride he took here was packed to the brim, his one leaving is awfully quiet and the passengers were scarce.

  John takes a seat on one of the many vacant. And, as the doors close and the hyperrailer departs, he begins planning his schemes in his head.

  https://a.co/d/ijtViNl