Notes from Emmy:

Wow, I really wasn't expecting this thing to take off in the way that it did. Thank you so much!
This is the final setup chapter before we get into the fun. I promise, you'll see our fox girl in the next chapter. Thank you everyone for reading and thank you for the reviews! It's the lifeblood that sustains my existence! :P

Emmy

                I slipped off my  augmented reality headset and leaned back in my chair, the fingers of my right hand pinching the bridge of my nose. Augmented reality was seriously a cheapskate way to interact  with virtual reality, but it was required by company policy, so there wasn’t any use in complaining about it.

                My job forced me to use very limited tech to interact with idiots who had very not limited tech, and for a VR addict like myself, that was like being an opiate junky while being a pharmacist at the same time. I could look, but touching, interacting was completely undoable, and that was it’s own kind of special hell. Fortunately though, my shift was just about over. Just a little longer and…
                “Mr. Stephens, Mr. Stanford would like to see you in his office please.”

                 I glanced up, expecting to find an avatar projection of an AI standing over me, but no one was there. That wasn’t a good sign. Sighing and with my stomach feeling emptier than usual, I placed my headset on my desk and stood up.             I had worked for this company for a year and a half now and had seen many people come and go. Some left on their own, either because they found better employment elsewhere, or they simply just cracked under the pressure of being yelled at by idiots who couldn’t be asked to read the user manual. I had to admit, I nearly walked out a few times because of that myself.

                But no one got called to the supervisor’s office by AI and was allowed to return to their station afterwords. I was pretty sure I was about to lose my job, wich meant…

                My thoughts went back to the money sitting in my account. I hadn’t yet paid my rent as I had woken up late for work and hadn’t had the time to do so, but now all I could think about was that money. If I was about to lose my job, I was well and truly screwed. There was no way I could pay Zac back, I’d end up on the streets and probably in a grave shortly after that.

                A few moments later found me standing outside Mr. Stanford’s office, the acids in my stomach churning angrily. My hands shook as I reached up and tapped lightly at the door, fear coiling around my spine and sending ice water into my extremities. I could hear a ringing in my ears, feel a buz just under my skin, a tightening in my chest that signaled an on-coming panic attack.
                “Come in,” called a weary voice from the other side of the door. That voice didn’t make me feel any better about my situation. It was a voice that promised a very unhappy conversation ahead, and wouldn’t you know it, my anxiety spiked up a few more notches as a result.
                Gulping down the bile that threatened to come up with a vengeance, I took a shakey breath and pushed the door opened and stepped through.

                Inside the office, I was struck with just how bland everything was. Grey carpet, white walls with cheap pictures of nature scenes and inspirational quotes, crappy little plastic plants; The place looked like it had been cut out of some corporate décor magazine and blown up to life sized. No personality what so ever. How anyone could enjoy their job when they had to sit in here all day was beyond me.

                A standard curved desk sat in the mittle of the room, the guy behind it looking just as cookie cutter corporate as the rest of the place. Stocky with a receding hairline and a cheap off the rack suit that only made him look even more bland, Mr. Stanford was the picture perfect definition of middle-aged lower management.

                “Please take a seat Felix,” Mr. Stanford said as I let the door click shut behind me. Teeth clinched and hands trembling madly, I moved to a chair that stood in front of his desk and sat. I wondered idly how many people had sat in this very chair before getting a pink slip handed to them, which really didn’t do anything to quell the rising panic inside of me. I was afraid that he was going to be cruel and drag this out, make me swette some before he delivered the bad news, but to his credit, he didn’t make me wait long.

                “We’ve been tallying up support call reports to insure customer satisfaction and quality assurance standards are being met and a few things came to our attention.” Mr. Stanford raised a hand and gestured, a holovid screan fading into existance between us, though I could only see black lines where text should have been, a security feature to insure that only the person accessing the information could read it. Taking a moment to scroll through some data, Mr. Stanford cleared his throat.

                “When you started with us, your numbers were strong, above average even. Very promising, however, in the past six months we’ve noticed your performance gradually decreasing. Now you show up late, get very little done, then you are one of the first to leave when your shift is over, wich suggests an inadequate work ethic.” He flicked his hand again, dispelling the display and fixed me with an emotionless stare.

                “Usually, we would call a meeting, much like this one, where we would attempt to find the source of your suffering performance and attempt to nullify it, however, we’ve already had such a meeting, three of them in fact.”

                With every word, the ringing got louder and louder in my ears, my heart now pounding like a metal drummer’s tempo as I fought to keep my breathing even. I knew I needed to speak up, to say something, anything to assure Mr. Corporate Asshole here that I would do better, but the words stuck to the inside of my throat, making it hard to even swallow.

                “I’m sorry, Felix, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to dismiss you from your position,” Mr. Stanford said through a sigh. To his credit, he didn’t sound happy about having to deliver such damning news, but I wasn’t thinking about that right now. The only thing I could see in my mind’s eye was begging, alleys, suffering in the heat and freezing in the cold. So many dark emotions and images flooding my psyche, tormenting me with their hellish certainty, taking any hope, any joy out of me and evaporating them into nothingness.
                Mr. Stanford was still talking. I knew this not from his voice, in fact, all I could hear now was a constent high pitched ringing, but his lips still moved so I assumed he was still talking to me. Wave after wave of ice poured down my spine, settling somewhere in my gut until…

                I realized I was moving. No, not moving, I was running. I swung Stanford’s office door open so hard that I distantly wondered if I had damaged the wall behind it. A moment later, I was back at my cubical, grabbing what few belongings I had there and stuffing them in my backpack, my breathing erratic and uncontrolled. I had to get out of here, get out of this evil place and never look back.

                What felt like seconts later, I was running down the hallway, my old ratty sneakers propelling me as fast as my legs would allow. A door, a stairwell, through a fire escape on the bottom floor and finally out into fresh air. I didn’t stop there. I just let my legs do the thinking for me as the panic that had been bubbling just under the surface consumed me. With no destination in mind other than to get away from my place of former employment, I ran through crowded city streets, passed office complexes, storefronts  and diners until I rounded a corner and found myself at a dead end.

                There had once been a road here, but years of demolition and rebuilding saw this road cut off by a towering skyscraper that reached far above me. I turned and slammed my back against the wall and let myself slide to the pavement, tears filling my eyes as my emotions warred for supremacy. This was it, it was all over for me now. No job, no way to pay the bills, nothing but… This.

                I glanced around at my surroundings, my eyes taking in the cityscape around me. Maybe I could get used to the idea of living out here, I mean that bench over there could be good for sleeping if I threw enough jackets on it, and hey, look, grocery store down there. Maybe I could stand out there and…

                Who was I kidding. I wouldn’t last two days out here. My eye caught my reflection off a window a short distance away and what a sight I was. Tall, lanky, all bones and no muscle, scraggly brown hair that never did what it was told to, and…

                Damn, was that really my face? My cheeks were sunken in, the corners of my eyes hollow and gaunt, giving me a starved look that one would expect to see on a refugee. I hated everything about my looks. My face, my body, my hair, everything. I’d always felt disconnected from the person in the mirror for as long as I could remember, but the person staring back at me with those watery eyes and that vacant expression…

                Zac had been right, I did look like shit. Suddenly, something clicked. Zac, the money… Wait a minute!

                I yanked my backpack off my shoulders and tore into it, my vision distorted from the tears that hadn’t yet decided to stop leaking out of me like a civ. A moment later, I had my phone in one hand and was furiously wiping the emotional waterworks away with the other. It only took me a moment to log into my bank account, where those numbers still sat, waiting for me to decide what to do with them.

                The thought to screw Zac over never came to mind, though I suppose some might have considered it. He had given me a life line, and what a lifeline it was. Here was the answer to my problem. Granted it was only a temporary fix, but it was better than nothing. I tried to let cool logic calm my racing panicky thoughts, and for once, it worked, a little.

                “There, in the shadow of that skyscraper, with the sun going down and the street lamps buzzing to life, I ran some quick calculations and figured that I could pay four months of rent and still have enough money left over for a midrange full emersion VR unit. Not allowing my anxiety prone brain a chance to object to what I was doing, I quickly paid my landlord and included a note that I was sorry for the delays.

                That done, I opened Google and began the search for my new pod. Surprisingly, thanks to human digitization, many manufacturers were keen on selling refurbished models at a good discount, which meant I was able to find a unit that worked for me. I only hesitated for a moment before tapping the “ORDER NOW” button, even paying a bit extra for same day delivery. I tried not to think about how much money I had just spent, but, if this worked, I might actually have a small shot of getting my head above the current.

                The sun was nearly completely below the horizon now and hunger was beginning to remind me of its ever present existence. Not wanting to wait around for public transportation, I called for a cab and even ordered a pizza. It had been forever since I had pizza and my mouth salivated at the high resolutions photos on my phone, my stomach growling as I selected my toppings and crust. Just as I finished with my order, my cab landed softly in front of me, the automatic doors swinging open to allow me entrance.

                I took one last look around the now dimly lit dead end, shivering against the chill in the air. I wouldn’t allow myself to end up out here, one way or another, I was not going to end up out here and that was a promise. I grabbed my backpack and climbed into the cab and sighed as the doors automatically shut once more, locking me in relative safety. As the AI controlled craft lifted off the pavement, I had a sudden realization. I was back in the game. Before this night was over, I would be back in VR for the first time in months. Whatever came after that remained to be seen, but at least I had something, which is more than what I had two hours ago.

                For the first time in what seemed like forever, I allowed myself a smile, I might have even giggled a little. I couldn’t wait to get in my pod and get away from this screwed up world. Out here, I was a nobody, just another nameless soul trying to survive, but in there, I could be anything, absolutely anything I wanted to be, and right now, more than anything, I wanted to be free.

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