Steelcollar Worker Read online

  Jannine went to take a shower. As she went through the pockets of her sweat-damp clothing, she closed her fingers around the note.

  "Shit," she said again.

  She smoothed the crumpled paper, staring at it, afraid to find out what the black marks said. Maybe it was too damaged to be read.

  She dug the reader out of the closet, shoved the note into it, and listened.

  "This evening, please report to room fifteen twenty-six instead of your usual position. Regular hourly

  wage will apply-- "

  Jannine shut off the reader, pulled the note out, and flung it into the sorter.

  She'd avoided this test twice already, once by pretending she never received the note and once by calling in sick. She couldn't afford another sick day. Maybe tomorrow she could pretend she'd forgotten about the instructions. Once she hooked into her helmet, maybe they wouldn't bother her. She was a good worker, always above average. Not too far above average.

  Jannine wondered what she had done, why she had to take a test.

  She should've started looking for a new job as soon as she got the first note. But she liked working on the substrate. It was fun. She was good at it. It paid well. And despite Neko's worries, the company mostly produced crop fortifiers and medicines.

  If she got away with forgetting the message-- she didn't believe she would, but if she did-- she'd have a week or so to look for new work before her employers realized they were put out with her. Maybe then at least they'd fire her without making her take the damn test.

  Leaving her clothes strewn on the floor, Jannine climbed into bed, pulled the cold covers around her, and lay shivering, waiting for sleep.

  * * *

  At midnight, Jannine arrived at work and pretended it was an ordinary day. She checked in and played through the alert without paying any attention to it. When she passed, it congratulated her for a personal high score. Seeing how far up the ladder she'd run the testing game, she cursed under her breath. She hated to stand out. It always caused more trouble than it was worth. If she'd been less tired, less distracted, she would've paid attention and kept her results in the safe and easy and unremarkable middle ranges.

  That's what I get for lying awake all night, she thought.

  She reached out to cancel the game and use her second try. She'd never canceled a game before. That, too, drew the attention of the higher-ups.

  "Good score."

  Jannine started. "What-- ?"

  An exec, in a suit, stood at her shoulder. She couldn't remember ever seeing an exec on the production level. Sometimes they watched from the balcony that looked out over the work floor, but hardly ever during the graveyard shift.

  "Good score," he said again. "I knew you could go higher than you usually do. You got my note?"

  He smiled, and Jannine's spirits sank.

  "Yeah, well, thanks," she said, not really answering his question. "I better get to work."

  "You did get my note?"

  She saw that this time she wasn't going to get away with pretending she didn't know what he was talking about. He could probably whip out security videos that showed her taking the note, glancing at it, shoving it in her pocket. From three angles.

  "I completely forgot," she said. "Is it important? My teammate's already waiting for me."

  "We brought in a temp. Come along; we mustn't put this off again."

  Jannine was scared. A temp was serious business, expensive.

  Reluctantly, she followed the exec out of the alert room. They passed through sound effects and bright electronic lights. Jannine's coworkers played the games, proving they were fit to do their jobs for one more day.

  Nearly late, Neko hurried toward her favorite alert console. She saw Jannine and the exec. She stopped, startled, looking as scared as Jannine felt. Behind the exec, out of his sight, Jannine shrugged elaborately and rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. She tried to communicate: No big deal, see you later. She wished she could make herself believe it. Her hands felt cold and her stomach was upset.

  The exec's I.D. opened a door that Jannine had never been through, that she'd never seen anyone use. The exec entered the elevator.

  "Come on," he said, smiling again. "Everything OK?"

  "Where are we going?"

  He pointed upward. That was no help. The building was twenty stories high. Jannine had never been above the production level.

  She entered the elevator. The doors closed behind her. She stood there, waiting, looking at the exec. She didn't know what else to do. The upward motion made her feel even queasier. Her ears popped.

  The elevator stopped. The doors opened behind her.

  "Here we are." The exec gestured for her to turn and precede him out.

  He took her down a carpeted hall. She hardly noticed her surroundings. Photos hung on the wall. Fields and forests, she guessed, but out of focus, weird pastel colors. Some upper-class fad.

  The exec opened another door.

  A dozen people sat at blank computer terminals, waiting. One machine remained free.

  "Right there," the exec said. "Get settled, and we can start."

  Jannine didn't recognize anyone in the room.

  Everyone else is new, she thought. They're applying to work on the substrate, and there's a new test to get the job. What did I do to make them think I should have to take it? Somebody must have noticed something. Now I'm screwed.

  The job test she'd taken a few months ago was all physical. It was still hard to believe she'd found such a job, with such a test. She hadn't known how to figure out a safe middle score, so she'd come out near the top of the group. She had always been athletic. Not enough to go pro. She'd tried that, and failed.

  She approached the computer terminal warily. She stared at it, disheartened. Its only interface was a keyboard.

  "I don't type," she said. She spoke louder than she meant to, startling several of the others, startling herself. A nervous laugh tittered through the room. Jannine turned toward the exec. "I told them, when I applied, that I don't type!"

  "That's all right," he said. "You won't need to. Just tee or eff."

  She sat down. She began to shiver, distress and dismay taking over her body with a deep, clenching quiver.

  The chair was hard, unyielding, uncomfortable. Jannine wished for her reclining couch, for the familiar grip, the helmet and collar and imaginary reality.

  The screen blinked on. She flinched. She ground her teeth, fighting tears of rage and frustration. Her throat ached and her eyes stung.

  "Any questions about the instructions?" the exec asked.

  No one spoke.

  "You may begin."

  The screen dissolved and reformed.

  I should have been looking for another job a month ago, Jannine thought angrily, desperately. I knew it, and I didn't do it. What a fool.

  She stared at the keyboard. It blurred before her. She blinked furiously.

  "Just tee or eff." One of those. She searched out the T, and the F. She pressed the T. On the screen, the blinking cursor moved downward, leaving a mark behind.

  She pressed the T twice more, then varied the pattern, tentatively, with the F. The blinking light reached the bottom of the screen and stayed there. The patch of writing behind it jumped upward, bringing a new blank box beneath the blinking square. She pressed the keys, faster and faster, playing a two-note dirge. Her hands shook.

  She touched the wrong key. Nothing happened. The system didn't warn her, didn't set her down as it would on the substrate, made no noise, made no mark. Jannine put one forefinger on the T and the other on the F, and played them back and forth. All she wanted to do was finish and go back to work. If they'd let her.

  The screen froze. Jannine tried to scroll farther down. Nothing happened.

  She shot a quick glance at the exec, wondering how soon he would find out she'd crashed his system.

  He was already looking at her. Jannine turned away, pretending she'd never raised her head, pretending t
heir gazes had never met.

  But she'd seen him stand up. She'd seen his baffled expression.

  Paralyzed at the terminal, she waited for him to find her out.

  "Are you all right?"

  "Yes," she said.

  "You finished very quickly," he said.

  She glanced up sharply. Finished?

  The test ought to go on and on till the time ran out, like a game, like the alert, games you couldn't win. You were supposed to rack up higher and higher scores, you were supposed to pretend it was fun, but you were judged every time against the highest score you'd ever made.

  The screen had stopped because she'd reached the end of the test.

  The end.

  Amazing.

  The exec looked at the screen over her shoulder, reached down, pressed a key. The screen blinked and reformed. Jannine recognized the pattern of the beginning of the test, and she thought, Oh, god, no, not another one.

  "You're allowed to go through and check your answers," the exec said. "Plenty of time before the next section. Don't you want to do that?"

  One of the other test-takers, still working through the questions, made a sharp "Shh!" sound, but never looked up.

  "No," Jannine said. "I'm done. I don't want to go through it again. Can I leave now?"

  "I really think you should work on this some more. It's for your own good."

  "I don't want to!" Jannine shouted. "Don't you understand me?"

  "Hey." The test-taker who'd shhed her sat up, glared, saw the exec, shut up, and hunched down over the test.

  The others continued to work, without a glance at Jannine or at the exec.

  "I understand what you're saying," the exec said. "I don't understand why. You do fine on the alert, so it isn't test anxiety, but your score on this is terrible."

  Jannine felt spied on. He'd been watching her answers as she chose them.

  Angrily, she rose. She was taller than the exec, and bigger.

  "I'll tell you why," she said. "Why is because I don't want to take your stupid test." She knew he was about to tell her she'd failed, she couldn't work here anymore, she was fired. "I quit!"

  She pushed past him, heading for the door. She was halfway down the hall before he recovered from the shock and came after her. She'd hoped he'd just write her off, let her go and be done with her. She hoped he'd spare her more humiliation.

  "Wait!"

  He was mad, now, too, and wanting to take it out on her. She could hear it in his voice.

  "You're a valuable employee," he said. "We think you have a lot of potential."

  He baffled her. "Can I go back to work?"

  "What's wrong with you?" His voice rose. "What do you have against being promoted?"

  So that was what this was all about. A management test. Not a test to keep working on the substrate.

  "Who asked you?" she said, furious. "Who asked you to promote me?"

  He stopped short, confused.

  "You can take the test again."

  "Why can't you just leave me alone?"

  "Will you to talk to me about this?" The exec rocked back on his heels and folded his arms and looked at her. "Do you... Do you need help with something?"

  Jannine hated the pity in his face, the pity that would turn to contempt.

  "I quit! I said I quit and I mean I quit!" She fled into the elevator. When the doors closed, she was shaking.

  The elevator halted at the production level. The doors opened. Instead of the quiet, cold workspace, each person in a couch, no noise but the pumps and the high-pitched hum of the electric fields, Jannine walked into midmorning break. Everybody milled around, drinking coffee and eating junk food, stretching and moving.

  She crossed the floor without stopping. She hoped no one would notice where she'd been, or notice she was leaving. The best she could hope for now was to get away clean.

  "Jannine!"

  Jannine's shoulders slumped. If she'd just disappeared, she never would've had to tell Neko what had happened. But she couldn't keep walking, not when Neko called to her.

  "Where have you been? Where are you going?" Neko hurried to her side. "Are you OK? Was it the alert? You never fail the alert! How late did you stay out this morning, anyway?" She grinned. "I'm sorry I was so grumpy. Are you done with counseling? Can you come back to work?" She lowered her voice, whispering, confidential. "The temp is really good. I think he wants to work here. Permanently. He's even got his own equipment. Are you in trouble?"

  Jannine wanted to explain, but she had no idea how. She wanted desperately to get out of here.

  "I quit," she said.

  "You-- what?" Neko stared at her, stricken, then awed. "You quit! Because of what I said? Is that why you had to go to counseling? How did they find out? Jannine... Oh, you're so brave!"

  "Brave?" Jannine said, baffled.

  "I ought to walk right out the door with you!"

  "No," Jannine said. "No, you shouldn't, that'd be dumb." Neko thought she was leaving because of the company's products. That was OK, because Jannine couldn't explain why she'd quit. It was too complicated and too embarrassing. But she couldn't let Neko quit, too. Not if she was going to quit because of what she thought they might be building. Not if she was going to quit to be in solidarity with Jannine. That would make everything, even their friendship, a lie.

  "Do you mean it?" Neko said. "That's such a relief! You won't be mad? Did they know I-- ? I can't quit, Jannine, I'm awfully sorry. I can't afford it, I need this job..."

  Jannine felt betrayed. That made no sense. She didn't want Neko to quit. Hell, she didn't want to quit, herself. She would've felt awful, she would've felt guilty, if Neko had tried to leave with her, and she would've tried to talk her out of going. No: she would have talked her out of going, no matter what she had to tell her. No matter how much she had to tell her.

  The lights blinked: end of break. Everyone had to get back to work. The temp would be in Jannine's couch.

  "It doesn't matter," Jannine said. "I have to leave."

  "I'll walk you to the door."

  "Why?" No one was supposed to leave the floor during work hours. "You'll be late. You'll lose points."

  "I don't care!"

  At the checkout, the barrier gave Jannine her I.D. It refused to hand over Neko's. Neko hesitated.

  She could come through the barrier. But she'd have a hard time getting back to the floor: security, explanations, maybe even counseling. A lot of lost points.

  "It doesn't matter," Jannine said, disappointed despite herself. "Stay here."

  "Well... OK, if you're sure..."

  Jannine went through the barrier. It closed again behind her.

  "We'll get together," Neko said. "For a drink. Sometime. OK?"

  Without turning back, Jannine raised her hand in a final wave.

  The exit opened. She walked out onto the rain-wet street, into the darkness.

  Published by Alexandria Digital Literature. (http://www.alexlit.com/)

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