3.

Looks Good To Me

“We entered one first-floor room (without obtaining the occupants’ permission, according to our translator) where four roommates occupy identical metal bunk beds, with thin mattress and mosquito netting on top, and a desk and storage underneath. A handful of garments hung from a rod suspended between the beds as a makeshift closet. It’s hardly ornate, but it didn’t give off a scent of rot, either.” ~ Where Apple Products Are Born, Recode

The end of the work queue came as quickly and unexpectedly as it had begun. My workstation simply showed the message End of queue, and my watch began to direct me away. R and I didn’t acknowledge each other. I had no idea if we would be stationed next to each other again, or if that was to be our last ever exchange. I couldn’t decide which outcome I preferred.

It must have been optimizing for the shortest route to the exit based on the flow of people on the floor: I took turn after turn, past identical desks and workstations, weaving in and out. Sometimes I would encounter another worker walking straight at me, only to turn away at the last second. We never acknowledged each other; no smile or glimpse of humanity I offered was returned. It was impossible to know which actions were being watched, and by whom.

I was struck by the brightness of the sky as I left the workhouse. It felt like the middle of the afternoon, and I suddenly had no idea how long I had been working for. I didn’t feel tired; I didn’t feel not-tired, either. I just was.

A car parked in front of me: a one-seater driverless pod that had been hand-painted with a friendly face some time ago. The paint job was fading, and pieces of the smile were cracking off to reveal the blank fascia underneath. A label on the side told me its name was “Bertie”. Its single door slid open, inviting me inside.

“Hello, Bertie,” I said, dryly, and climbed in.

The door slid closed behind me with a metallic clunk. Gradually, the cabin began to fill with music. “Casey Jones kept his junk pile running; Casey Jones was working double time. Casey Jones got a wooden medal, For being good and faithful on the S. P. line …”

It was a really old recording: often companies would use recordings that were out of copyright, or where the author had used a permissive license, forgoing royalties for hopes of wider distribution. From the company’s side, no matter how small, every cost saving was another number added the bottom line. Playing music made riders happier, more docile, less likely to rebel. I felt peaceful.

The pods themselves didn’t need drivers, and were light enough to run on solar power: incredibly sturdy machines that would keep going forever, shunting workers from dorms to the workhouse and back again for as little cost as possible. The seats were hard plastic; easy to wipe clean. Because every vehicle was driverless, they could safely travel at hundreds of miles an hour. The acceleration was jarring, and I found myself pinned to my seat for much of my journey.

After five minutes or so — I silently calculated the time from bed to workstation, worried about my Service Level Agreement — I found myself in front of another windowless concrete building on another part of the complex. My watch led me through a set of wooden double doors, which opened as I approached and locked behind me.

Unlike the open-plan workhouse, the dorm was split into cubic rooms, set out in grids across three levels. Each floor was just made out of grating, so I could look up and see the whole grid: people walking above me, going to bed, getting up, as emotionlessly as they had at work. The background noise was enormous: feet clanking on metal, reverberating throughout the space. I wondered how anyone could possibly sleep amid the din.

It was hard to know if the dorm my watch led me to was permanent, or if the beds were on-demand. There were eight beds, arranged into four bunks that seemed to be directly attached to the wall on metal struts. As I walked into the cube, another worker got out of bed and left. Immediately, the bedclothes were pneumatically sucked into the wall, and a new set were slid down the mattress, falling perfectly in place. Examining the bedclothes on my allotted bunk, I saw that they were made of paper. Maybe they were incinerated, or recycled.

My watch buzzed: It’s time to sleep!

Despite the pressure of the work queue, I didn’t feel sleepy at all. My heart pounded with adrenaline from the work queue, my conversation with R, and the situation I found myself in. I swore at it silently, as always, and climbed into bed.

Immediately, there was silence. The din of the dorm completely vanished. There must have been something canceling out the noise, but I didn’t see any speakers or tech of any kind: just wall and bed.

Incredibly, I also felt sleepy. I realized my heart had slowed considerably, and the need to shut my eyes was almost overpowering. Perhaps it was the silence, but I found myself wondering …

Before I could think about it too carefully, my eyes were shut and I was drifting away to a deep sleep.

I awoke, having dreamt of nothing, feeling perfectly refreshed and ready to work. My watch was leading me away, and I got up, finding that my clothes had been changed to a denim uniform while I slept. My worries from earlier were gone, and there was no hint of adrenaline; I felt fine.

Conscious of my SLA, I briskly followed my watch out of the building, glancing backwards to see my sheets shoot into the side of my dorm-cube. I took a driverless pod, listening to an old classical recording at two hundred miles an hour, and strode into the workhouse with a new sense of purpose. I was ready for my queue. I was ready to crush it.

This is chapter three of my NaNoWriMo 2016 story. To follow along, click the “follow” button below. Or click here to read my non-fiction pieces.