Work Text:
The alarm clock is already hitting 17:30 before Jamie’s coffee has finished dispensing. He mentally shifts gears — he’ll need to motor if he wants to be at work before eighteen. Quietly, he wishes he had a window in order to check the weather, but at this time of night he wouldn’t be able to see a thing, even if his apartment were above ground.
He checks the fridge in the false hope that a carton of milk has miraculously appeared overnight, and finds himself sorely disappointed. Oh joy. Black coffee it is, then.
The hike from Floor B2 to G is laborious; the garish yellow safety stripes on each stair mock him and his poor knee.
After fracturing his patella a few months ago, Jamie knows he should’ve gone to the hospital, but there was no way for him to pay for it unless he got a Civil Servant’s Grant, and everyone knows you only get one of those if your G.O. likes you. So, he took a week of time off (trying not to think too hard about the pay he was losing) and did his best to set the broken bone with the help of a nurse on Floor 1 of his apartment complex.
3 months later, it still isn’t better, though.
Jamie nearly sighs in relief when he reaches the ground floor and opens the door to the howling evening wind. It’s a pleasant surprise that it isn’t raining at all yet, but he keeps ahold of his crappy umbrella, just in case it starts to spit. The gravel squelches unpleasantly underfoot as he joins the crowd, thick with mud and grit.
Pedestrians hurry about Main Street like a pack of hungry wolves. Those coming from a day shift move feverishly, eager not to get caught outdoors during curfew, while night shifters like Jamie bustle down the road before they’re late to work. Uniformed enforcers prowl the outskirts of the crowd, and Jamie subconsciously thumbs his I.D. card in his pocket. Wouldn’t want to fail a random inspection, he muses, eyeing the taser one enforcer holds.
Department of Productivity is emblazoned across the awning of Jamie’s workplace, glistening with artificial light as he approaches. The building stands tall and passionless, a bastion of order and cleanliness and all the sparkling things Jamie can’t afford. Even after scanning his I.D. card and wiping his feet on one of the patronising welcome mats, the grime of the street tracks in anyway and he can’t help but feel a little guilty.
Getting in, he momentarily shields his eyes against the buzzing fluorescent ceiling lights before putting on his best ‘happy to be here’ face and making a beeline for his wing, his room, his desk. Right at the door to Digital Archiving, though, he’s halted by a neatly-styled toupee stepping in front of his nose.
“Jim! Hey! Right on time, I see?”
Mr. Ron J. Besel, Jamie’s boss. He’s the Cabinet-appointed Government Overseer for the D.O.P, and filthy rich. You can smell it — almost literally, with how much cologne he wears. His suit is always crisply ironed, his shirt unstained blue. Jamie feels self-conscious, standing in front of him in a cheap polyester blazer he got from Target.
“Hi, Mr. Besel. Good to see you,” he chirps, plastering on a smile. “I was just about to get to my desk.”
Ron claps a sweaty hand on his shoulder. “Excellent work ethic, Jimmy, I’m very pleased to hear it. You know, with end-of-month layoffs around the corner, I’m really glad you’re doing so much for the Department. Your above-and-beyond attitude might just earn you a bonus, Jim. As long as you keep up the good work, that is.”
Jamie swallows the lump that that puts in his throat and nods. “Yes, Mr. Besel. I’ll keep working hard.”
As the D.O.P.’s G.O., Ron is able to fire any employee on nothing but a whim. Worse, since Jamie’s rental apartment is government-funded, Besel reserves the right to evict him with a month’s notice.
All this to say: Jamie is very eager to impress.
“Right, then,” Ron remarks, “I’d best let you get on with it, eh?”
Jamie tells the voice in his head that suggests he strangle his boss then and there to kindly shut up. “Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Besel,” he says sweetly instead.
Finally, he reaches his desk, unwinding the cable of his mouse and sinking into the icy metal office chair. The trillion-dollar Department of Productivity apparently can’t afford to give Jamie a chair that doesn’t make his back ache.
A job in the Digital Archiving division of the D.O.P. is potentially the most boring job in all of America. All the job entails is reading and listening to Cabinetary Minutes from the past 50 years, tagging them by members involved and topics covered, and trying not to lose your mind over all the formatting inconsistencies. It pays well and doesn’t require any qualifications or experience, though, which is why a hundred or so dull-faced employees log onto their computers every morning for the day shift, and Jamie does the same thing at 18:10 every evening for the night shift.
A few hours in, Jamie is cursing his past self for waking up late; one mug of instant coffee is not enough to fuel a 14-hour shift. The hours listed on the job are from 18:00 to 06:00 — 12 hours. However, since someone the next division over was laid off for leaving half an hour early last month, Jamie and most of Digital Archiving have been working 2 hours unpaid overtime each night, just in case. Jamie’s not sure sleeping 9 hours maximum is exactly what his boss means by “excellent work ethic,” but whatever keeps the eye of Sau-Ron off of him, right?
He just needs to not slip up. Ever.
Unfortunately, Jamie isn’t doing too well at that today. A few documents in, he’s already nodding off, sorely missing that second cup of coffee. Why are his eyelids so heavy? Just keep them open, he reminds himself. Peeling his eyes wide, he peers at the minuscule text on the screen and listens to the drone of the dinosaurs who spoke in the old Parliament 40 odd years ago. He has to pay attention. He has to listen for keywords. He has to… He has to…
The last thing he registers as his head thunks against the keyboard is some long dead jerk in his ear rambling about a “big, beautiful bill.”
…
Soil is compressing beneath his toes, dark and damp and rich with all the things that crawl through the earth. He cranes his neck to look up, a hundred feet or more, to the warm light that filters through the canopy to cast dappled patterns on the verdant land below. Birds sing like bells in his ears, and he cannot help but smile.
There’s no rush, he knows, as his hand traces the countless rings on the tree stump he has come to rest beside. There’s nowhere else I need to be.
A raven perches on the stump, cawing loudly. The sound rings obnoxiously; it grates against the peaceful haze of Jamie’s mind and the forest dissolves, giving way to the darkness behind his eyelids.
Jamie groans under the persistent buzz of his alarm, and when he opens his eyes he finds himself in the bullpen, at his desk. People are shuffling out in neat little lines — Oh, crap! Quick as lightning, Jamie gathers his things into his bag, sparing a glance to the clock on his PC. 08:03, the light-up display announces cheerfully. It’s the end of his shift already? He must’ve slept through the whole thing.
His stomach drops. He can already hear Ron’s saccharine taunts in his imagination: “How ironic, Jim, being unproductive while working for the Department of Productivity. Such a shame, isn’t it?”
Cursing out the rain that pounds against the roof of the D.O.P., Jamie pulls his raincoat’s hood over his head (what if Ron recognises him and tries to confront him?) and scurries out of the office alongside his coworkers. If anyone has noticed him sleeping at his desk tonight, he’s screwed.
The walk home is damp and uneventful as usual, but Jamie’s mind is racing. What if someone checks his PC’s external footage? What if he snored and the overhead mics picked it up? What if Ron came around to make sure everyone was working and he found Jamie asleep at his desk? He can’t afford to lose this job — if this incident goes on record, he’ll never get a civil service opportunity again.
Calm down, he thinks, consciously unclenching his jaw. There’s no use panicking now. With any luck, all I’ll get is a salary cut.
Right?
He fiddles with the key to his building, unlocks the door, and begins the descent to his apartment. The only good thing about his place being two stories below ground is that it blocks out the pounding of the rain against the frail metal walls of the block.
With a sigh that carries the weight of 1000 words, Jamie reaches the second basement and… freezes.
There, pinned to his apartment door with a shiny brass pin, is a crisp, white, A5 sheet of paper. The heading is in bold, printed letters that read:
EVICTION NOTICE.