Finding myself in the lift once more, I stared at the cold steel doors as the chamber descended. It was prosaic by this point, the constant ascent and descent. Most of the employees in this place probably spent more time in the elevators than they did on their clients. After a moment, the doors opened to my office floor.

As they did, I ambled over to my desk: clutching the notepaper and the manilla folder. 

Sitting down at my desk, I logged into the old computer at my desk. It was an old machine, nearly the exact same as all the others in the office, except for the line of grey duct-tape lining the left-side of the screen - holding the monitor in just the right place so that the screen kept working. I'd asked I.T. to look into it nearly a month ago, but with four people in charge of the entire building's technology, something told me they probably wouldn't get around to helping me any time soon.

As the computer booted up, I opened up the Case Manager, and accessed the active case of Andy Waters. Lines of useless information descended down the page, jargon and IDs littering nearly every aspect of the profile. Everything about her was reduced to numbers. Here, the bosses tried to make sure that this job was all about numbers: never about people. It made the employees worry less about the consequences of their decisions. Descending to the very bottom of the page, an empty box sat underneath all of the numbers, the only part of this form that wasn't made up of meaningless numbers. 

Active Reincarnation Candidacies (0)

I clicked on the box, taking the sheet of paper that I'd gotten from the Alexandrium and punching the numbers recorded on it into the system - detailed and methodical as I did so. One careless mistake could leave a person in a universe beyond their own comprehension, and as much as the suffering it caused would probably get me a promotion: I would rather not earn an accolade fit for a sadist. With the final meticulous digit, I pressed enter, and the screen updated. 

Active Reincarnation Candidacies (1)

With that, I closed the case manager and checked the time on the computer: it was late afternoon already. I would probably have to brave the queues of people waiting to get through the portals downstairs. I hoped, for my sake, that the midday rush wasn't that bad downstairs - though I knew that was wishful thinking. I threw the note from the Alexandrium into a small paper-waste bin under the desk, wandering down the hall. 

As the office workers chatted with one another across the room, I could hear their whispered words of jest and mockery, the rumours of my vomiting incident preoccupying the office discourse. I sighed to myself. One would've thought that when your job was literally to decide the fates of hundreds of people, you'd have something a little more interesting to talk about than one person chucking up into a bucket - yet apparently not.

I could stomach the ridicule. Hell, worse things had been said about me. However, I knew what their snickers meant - that to them, a bucket of spew was more significant than the fate of a human soul. That was something I don't think I'd ever be able to stomach. They sneered about vomit, while silently ignoring the souls of their victims. It was a strange world that we lived in. As the whispers plagued my ears - I quickened my pace as I moved toward the elevator doors, my brow furrowed with frustration.

Pressing the elevator button three or four times as I waited, I stood by the reflective doors as I waited for the lift to arrive, with my arms crossed around the folder and my lips forming an embittered frown. The elevator arrived, and from inside, I could hear a group of people already inside chatting about something. As I entered, I could hear the whispered words of a woman asking a question.

"Is that vomit girl?" She whispered to her friends, certain that I wouldn't hear her. 

She was a woman I'd seen before, following Dalton around, telling her own gruesome stories as if they were triumphs. Pressing the elevator button, I watched as the doors closed. The group continued chattering as we descended, and cutting in to their conversation - I spoke up.

"Yes," I said aloud to them, as I turned to face the woman who'd been muttering behind me. "I'm vomit girl, the one who spewed in a bucket this morning. The Inspeculators knock me around a lot. They make me very, very dizzy..."

With a heavy gait, I moved toward the woman, my temper getting the best of me. She turned rose read with embarrassment, my voice echoing around the elevator.

"Do you know what makes me truly sick though, Miss?" I continued. "People who use the misfortunes of others to laugh off the misery they themselves create. You know what's in your reincarnation record, does that sound like you?"

"Y..." She began, but she didn't finish her thought. She knew the answer - each and every person in that group did, but none of them dared to voice it aloud. I knew the answer too. With the chimes ringing and the elevator doors parting, I headed off to the portal queue, making a final parting remark before I left. 

"You ruin the lives of others for the sake of your own," I said. "If I were in your shoes, that would make me more sick than any machine ever could."