Book Six, Chapter 78: The Employee Lounge

Jules didn’t like the plan at all.

The plot cycle may have said it was the beginning of Rebirth, but there were other things to take into account—the vibe, for one.

The problem with players is that so few of them, even back in the days of rescues, ever truly experienced a doomed storyline, not with their eyes open, at least. When players failed, they usually didn’t know what hit them.

Jules had been on plenty of failed missions since arriving in Carousel, and she knew the feeling when a story was really heating up, when it started to accelerate into the finale. That was the trick with movies. Sometimes they could take place over weeks or even years. Other times, they could take place in one afternoon. She had even been in storylines that barely lasted long enough for a movie’s runtime.

Rebirth could take off, then Second Blood could hit like a hammer, and the finale could kill every single one of these players, and they wouldn’t see a thing coming.

She pretended to take money from another car as she stared over at Bobby’s lane.

He had always been a sad man, a bit of a doormat, really. If there was anyone who needed her help, it was him. The way he engaged with life explained why he had been made a Wallflower. He just took the hits and kept on going, and while normally that would be admirable, Carousel was liable to take advantage of a person like that.

In Carousel, you needed to hit back.

It was almost quitting time at the Turnpike, and soon she would do as Bobby had asked of her. She would be a lookout. Bobby was going into the belly of the beast, and if he never made it out again, she was supposed to do what—report on it?

What good would that be?

The enemy had struck hard, but what should have been the last, final attack had instead been the first one. It would only get harder from there, and it was going to get hard quickly.

Jules could not see the whole script, but she could see the NPCs moving closer and closer to Eternal Savers Club. The script wasn’t specific, but she knew what it meant. Carousel needed witnesses who would observe the coming tragedy. It needed victims who would suffer the ultimate fate.

The end would come soon, Jules knew, and she had expressed this to Bobby the best she could with the limitations she had.

Jules had a nose for disaster. It’s what made her an effective leader in the campaign on Rotuu. She knew where to send her troops, and she also knew when she was ordered to send them to their deaths, and she went right along with them.

That wasn’t too impressive. She was never getting off that planet alive. The enemy was too powerful. The human weapon supplies were running short. All they had left was a bombardment from space, and the only way to make that useful was to flush the enemy out using bait.

Jules had died as bait. Not a bad way to go, all things considered.

Now, Bobby was going to die as bait, too, maybe in this scene or maybe in the next. Sending Bobby in as an infiltrator would have made sense if he were still a minor character, but this was his rescue trope, and Carousel wouldn’t let him get away with that.

The end was in the air.

And so was quitting time. They were On-Screen.

She packed up her things into a bag and left her small booth, running to catch up with Bobby, who was already on his way to the parking lot.

“Hey Bobby,” she said. “What are you up to tonight? They’ve got a candlelight vigil for the victims of last night’s attack in Town Square. I thought we might take a peek. You know, it would be a good place to pass around posters for Janet.”

That caught his attention.

“That’s actually a good idea,” he said. “But I do have a prior engagement. I might have to go tomorrow night if they’re still doing it.”

He was playing his role, but he wasn’t acting. The emotion was real, the sadness, the listlessness. It was the hollow sound of a man ready to die.

“A prior engagement? Don’t tell me you have a date,” she asked.

“No,” Bobby said as he shuffled toward the locker room. “I have group.”

“Right, the therapy thing,” Jules said. “Well, I’ll see you on the flip side.”

Somehow, she felt that a woman her age still wouldn’t be saying words like that, even if they were appropriate to the decade. But what did she know? She had grown up in the 90s, but not the 1990s.

Off-Screen.

She quickly found her place at the gas station across the street from Eternal Savers Club so that she could “accidentally” catch Bobby going in there and get suspicious for some reason.

This was silly, she thought. Whether Bobby died in there or not, having her as a lookout wouldn’t help one way or another.

Oh well.

She followed him from a distance as he wandered into the store. Carousel filmed her doing it, though she doubted it would wind up in the final cut.

Bobby made his way to the back of the store quickly. Jules followed with her cart, mindlessly filling it with every random thing she might have wanted.

What was happening?

She looked down at her cart. It was almost halfway filled. How did that happen? The script never asked her to do that, and she wouldn’t have done it. She had grabbed slippers that were pink and fuzzy. She was always a more practical woman. She knew there was a surcharge on pink and fuzzy.

But if it wasn’t the script compelling her, what was?

She followed Bobby until he got to the very back of the store, to a place next to the pharmacy. There was an alcove with some bathrooms and an employee lounge.

Bobby was talking to someone in front of the employee lounge. He was a tall man with a kind face. Jules couldn’t see what was on his script, but she could tell how big it was, and that was all she needed to know.

She loitered in that area while Bobby made his way into the employee lounge. Then she began her watch.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

(Bobby)

Bobby Gill didn’t see anything interesting inside the employee lounge. Just the eyes of all of the people wearing red aprons, the associates.

Whatever this was, they were in on it because they weren’t just casually curious. No, they were expecting him. The question was, was the involvement of retail employees purely to add a little silliness, or was there a real reason? Bobby would have to find out.

“Come over, our meeting is this way,” Tom said. “I know it’s a little strange for us to meet at the store, but most of our members actually work here. You’ll understand in a minute. Right this way.”

There was only one path leading out of the employee lounge, and it appeared to be a dead end. It was a hallway lined on one side with lockers and at the end with a door that said Boiler Room.

“The meeting’s in the boiler room?” Bobby asked.

“Not exactly,” Tom said. “Don’t worry, it’s a nice place.”

Bobby began really thinking about his plan to infiltrate the Eternal Savers Club. It would be so easy for him to get murdered here, but why would they do it? They had no motive.

As if they needed a motive. Riley may have over-relied on the tropes enemies had, but Bobby knew that when the plot demanded it, Carousel would find a way to get what it wanted. The rules were just technicalities.

“Right this way,” Tom said as he opened the boiler room door.

Bobby stared into the room, and it was exactly what it said on the tin. There was a large boiler designed to heat the building, though it was off at the moment since it was still summertime.

Tom could sense his hesitation. “Look, the room’s right through here. I know it looks dingy, but I promise it’s okay. Our meeting is about to start.”

“No, this is fine,” Bobby said, trying his best to sound upbeat, like he wasn’t suspicious at all of what was going on.