Book Eight, Chapter 48: Assignment

Following the arrow on my arm device did not lead me directly to the next scene. Instead, it split me away from Cassie and Anna and led me to my character’s living quarters, or should I say living eighths, because the room was just tall enough for me to stand up in and just wide enough for me to lie down in either direction.

In truth, I didn’t mind that at all. There was something very comforting to me about a nice, secure door and a little den I could curl up in.

Cassie was totally right about the communist thing, though, because my character must have had maybe ten items of personal property, and most of those were made of paper. Mostly magazines and books, which were kept in little plastic bags as if to protect them.

Since I was Off-Screen, I knew I was supposed to flip through all of those materials to learn about my character.

There was not much to know. He had a notebook, which, to the best of my understanding, was some kind of dream journal with hundreds of entries. I would have to examine it later, because at least one of the entries would be prophetic in some way.

Other than that, I found something called a directive, which was almost like a resume, except my character had not written it. Some bureaucrat had listed all the jobs I was qualified to perform, from trash collector to documentarian, which was the highest value application of my skills.

I had to assume that was why I was being buzzed in for a briefing, unless the storyline just happened to be about picking up refuse. Each task I was qualified to perform had a preset payment structure.

Unlike in the real world, trash collectors did not make much money here. As a documentarian, though, I was worth approximately five and a half trash collectors. That profession was where the real meal credits were.

I found the communal showers and got cleaned off before stepping into one of the only sets of clothing I owned, other than the gray workout clothes, which was a very simplistic gray jumpsuit that looked like it denoted rank.

After I had a solid idea of who my character was, or at least the tasks he could perform and the dreams he thought were worth writing down, I made my way out toward the elevator, where I found Anna and Cassie waiting, wearing very similar jumpsuits to the one I was.

“What was your most profitable job?” I asked. I was just making polite conversation, maybe getting a little competitive.

“Birther,” Anna answered, with a look of disgust on her face. I was not expecting that.

“Same here,” Cassie said. “Communications expert was a distant second place.”

I had not been prepared for that answer, and while it made sense that a society like this would value a woman’s ability to procreate, the ick was strong.

We got on the next elevator car, and it began to rise toward the skyscraper’s highest level.

When the elevator doors opened again, it was to a lively, futuristic command center. Dystopian, sure, but futuristic. Like all proper dark visions of the future, the lighting situation was inadequate. The computers were advanced, and yet the graphics were minimalist.

The little arrow on my arm device guided me through the chaos of bureaucrats with readouts, having technical conversations.

Eventually, we arrived at a big door worthy of a commune’s overseer.

Except I quickly learned that they didn’t call him an overseer. They called him the Arbiter, which was a much gentler substitute for dictator.

When the doors opened, we found Camden and Antoine standing at attention in much more impressive jumpsuits than ours. Where ours were gray, Camden’s was blue and Antoine’s was a copper color. They were the real hot shots.

We quickly lined up beside them.

“You guys get behind us,” Antoine said. “We outrank you.”

We quickly followed suit.

“The way you said that sounded like you think you earned it,” Anna said.

“I’ll earn it later,” he said.

“I’m sure you will,” she said.

“We’ve got ninety seconds till On-Screen,” I chimed in.

We stood nervously at attention. I used the time to glance around at the Arbiter’s suite, which was far and away the most beautiful room I had seen in the entire apocalyptic city. The furniture in there was actually made of wood, and there were ornate brass fixtures around the room.

None of that compared to the grandeur of the view. I had not seen a window since I had entered the skyscraper. They must have existed, but the way that the building had been divided up for efficiency had hidden them from me.

This view was quite good, showing the entire city and various farming operations in the distance. Most of the land was devoted to agriculture. From this high up, I could see the dome we were under just a little bit better.

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I couldn’t quite understand what I was looking at. It must have been very thick glass, but at this height, I could tell there were intricate support systems within it. I couldn’t imagine what it would take to build or what laws of physics would allow it to exist.

We waited and waited as the ninety seconds elapsed, and we went On-Screen.

And then he entered.

He was not as tall as I would normally assume a dictator to be, but he did have an intensity and a permanent scowl that made everyone in the room nervous to make eye contact with him.