The Tower
Call center workers battle for supremacy inside a sadistic building. A short story.
LOOKING out at a bright blue sky makes yesterday feel like a lie. Swallowing, pain lances my jaw. As I reach for a drink, sharp-edged hurt crisscrosses my body. Memories doused in anger shoulder over the pain.
This is a bloody hospital. Where’s my scotch? It’s got to be neat.
A thin blue blanket hides a scene of wreckage. All bruises and tubes. Pain layered on pain. How can I stop it? It’s coming back. A little button thing is attached to my right finger. I’m left-handed. Why don’t they know that?
Click. Click. Click, click my finger. Hey, bloody presto. Hello morphine, my lovely. Warm walls wrap around the bed, closing me off from the pain. It’s not gone, just doesn’t matter anymore. I don’t need Scotch.
I spy a TV hanging from the wall. Proper room eh.
The blank screen comes to life. I can see Jerry, Patty, and Josh from my team. Where’s the rest? Crouched behind an upturned table, they are looking at each other and back at me. Patty’s face and shirt’s covered in blood. Josh is holding someone I don’t recognize. They are all saying something. The corridor behind them flashes and shapes move. What are they saying? Hold on, let me turn up the sound.
The message pinged across my screen, two hours into my shift. It read:
“They’ve taken Archie and Jeremy. This is it! We’re going to floor 25 to take them back. Who’s with us?” A gang of angry-looking emojis and a pineapple signed it off. The pineapple was a nice touch.
My last call was a complaint about the 270S, how it was, yeah faulty. Tried switching it off and on sir? Course I fucking have. Alright, Sir, we’re just first-line support. Please hold. You can sit there listening to Ah-ha on repeat till you learn some manners.
I heard Josh say later, remember when we got that message about Archie, how they started it right. It wasn’t true. I know this now. The hunger was in each of us, the Tower feeding us, like ghouls at a midnight feast.
More messages flew across the chat “I’m with you” and “let me get cover and I’m there!” The one that sealed it for me was “Team Steel, floor 26. Dave and his bastards are with us.”
I’d fought against Dave once when I was a newbie. A meathead with a daft big goatee. He was a hard bastard and favored the club. Things were looking up.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. If you’re listening to this and you don’t work here, you’re on the other side. You’re a customer.
The Tower, where we work, is to call centers what the Lloyds building is to insurance. The Tower predates the internet. It predates fucking India I reckon. Human rats in cubicles, each of us headset wired, dealing with call after frustrated call all the while focusing on our truths: call time, response time, hand-off time. Your complaints, yes you, are queued 24-7 and never-ending. These days the algorithms only feed us rats the worst of them they can’t handle. Only the really awkward-bastard ones.
The Tower sits squat and concrete like a prizefighting, debt collector in North London. Soaking up all that human frustration into its formica-clad heart, decade after decade. Well, it must’ve done something to the place. It has me and I’m only coming to the end of my second tour. I think it learned to relish that misery. Maybe we all did.
Funny rules about who gets in the Tower. Companies got to lease a whole floor. Only one floor per company. And only for call centers.
A couple of years back, a company was found to be selling timeshare villas. I was outside having a fag break that day. It was sunny, not a cloud about. Maintenance marched them outside. The company’s managers, four of them, were stripped down to their underwear. The rest of the staff formed a line and had to kick them as they were dragged back and forth across the car park. I stayed and had an extra fag.
Place breeds a competitive air, especially between the floors. It’s not for everyone. I used to go to the football (soccer) which was always rowdy, but this place is way better.
At the top of the Tower is the Canteen. Great views and great prices. It’s not changed a knife or fork in twenty years. Curry’s always on a Wednesday. Don’t bring your own pack-lunch in though. Kitchen staff are worse than Maintenance.
Anyway, you get the picture.
Josh is laughing like it’s the funniest thing. His hair’s all matted, I can see that hunger in his eyes. Josh is solid like the table we’re both holding. He’s got the left side and we’re holding it like a shield, upright. But its more than a shield in our hands. I look behind me briefly. My team is all there. God, I love them.
Something smacks hard against the table from the other side.
“Let's fucking give ’em some!” I shout. Josh and I charge forward, the team right behind us.
I realize this is my first time on floor 25. The layout feels similar, as office doors flash past us.
The corridor lights suddenly switch off. Nice tactic. I feel dull thuds against the table but I ignore them. Move forward. Just move forward. Then a terrible pain explodes in my shin and I almost fall. I let out a cry and Josh answered back. “Yessss!”
We collide with something that finally stops us and we both crash to the floor. My team flies over the tabletop into the enemy. Josh and I are right behind them.
It’s chaos. But we know our job. Get in and get ours out. Smash and grab.
Looking down, I’m holding the arm of a chair, an exec meeting room model given it’s dark mahogany edging. And a server door strapped to my other arm, its jagged edge covered in blood.
“You will pay!”
I recognize him from the canteen. Paulo something. We stand our ground in the concrete-stepped stairwell, sweat, and violence clinging to us all. My team, or what’s left of them surround me. We have the higher ground and the exit door. Let’s be having it is all I’m thinking.
“Yeah?!” Patty steps forward, dragging someone hooded in front of her. Josh rips off the hood. “One of yours?” she leers down at Paulo.
Hate owning him, Paulo starts up the stairs. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Josh or Patty push Paulo’s teammate. Tripping, he collides with the banister and falls over the edge.
“Oops” I hear Patty say. Josh and the team start to laugh.
I look back at Paulo who’s staring at me. Team-leader to team-leader. His eyes hold a promise. I know that look.
And then a clatter begins and a pile of Paulo’s comrades comes flying up the stairwell. I grab Patty and Josh, push them up the stairs. “Come on!” I’m shouting.
But then everything tilts. I’m falling into Josh. Josh is holding me, dragging me. My legs aren’t working.
Gray light steels in through the blinds. The figure lying in the hospital bed is asleep. Silently, the visitor enters the room and closes the door. Then the blinds, blocking the view from the corridor.
Walking over he looks again at the figure, surrounded by machines. The patient wakes up and sees his visitor.
“It’s you!”
Savoring the moment, his smile widens till his teeth show. Each word sounds like a bite.
“My name is Paulo Montecchi, Alpha team leader of the Pharma Cap call center. Known to you as Floor 25. You killed my brother and teammate. And I will have my vengeance.”
Author’s note: from a keyword prompt, vendetta.
