New York Alano
New York Alano
11:25 p.m. (Eastern Daylight Time)
I ’ m in the training room of Herald Hall along with our three new hires and onboarding director.
We’re sitting at a long glossy white table, one of the four originals from the first End Day; my mother thought it would be
nice to repurpose this piece from the past for the same space where the next generation of heralds receive their training.
The new heralds—Fausto Flores, Honey Doyle, Rylee Ray—have been taking notes the entire session. Even though I know everything
being taught from reading every handbook we’ve internally published since inception, I take down notes too so they don’t feel
even more self-conscious than they already do while sitting next to the creator’s son.
Roah Wetherholt regularly travels the country for onboarding heralds, but my father has them stationed in New York until the end of the month for next week’s gala and to oversee the training of our new hires. If Roah wasn’t in town, this responsibility would fall on the head herald in charge, and Andrea Donahue doesn’t have the right touch. There’s a reason why Roah was promoted from herald to head herald to training manager within our first year of operation and director by year five. They’ve even contributed to recent printings of the herald handbook.
Before anyone gets hired as a herald, we perform extensive background checks and have them interviewed by a human resources
manager or chief of staff. If approved, the applicant goes on to the last stage, where they perform a series of practice calls,
recorded and supervised by the head herald on duty. Those videos make their way to my parents, who have the final say, not
leaving the world’s most important job up to chance.
I was given everyone’s profiles tonight before meeting them.
“Make sure we were right,” my father said. He’d like to see me involved in the hiring process within the year.
The training tonight has been both a refresher on everyone’s preboarding lessons—telecom etiquette, active listening, de-escalation
techniques—and other important matters such as the desired window of time for each call, how to speak with a Decker’s proxy
(like a child’s guardian, for example), what to do when the Decker doesn’t answer, dispatching police if foul play is suspected,
time zone logistics when Deckers are traveling, and more.
Roah moves on to a new lesson. “A Decker will ask you how Death-Cast works. Who can tell me the best response?”
I can, but I don’t count.
Honey Doyle sheepishly raises her hand. I get her hesitation; I doubt she had to manage matters of actual life or death in her previous customer service role at AT I scribble some lines.
“I have a question,” says Rylee Ray, a former sales rep who moved to New York from Georgia with her husband, Brian Ray, who’s
unemployed but currently being screened for a security escort position here due to his extensive background in the field.
“What happens if we see a Decker who we know on our contact list?”
“Do you mean someone you personally know or someone famous?” Roah asks.
“Personally.”
If she had answered celebrity, it would have been a red flag that I would’ve reported to my parents. HR is usually skilled
at identifying who wants to be a herald for the right reasons and who’s trying to get intel on public figures dying to sell
that information to news outlets or abuse their power by pranking people from our lines (a felony, as of 2013) or simply get
a foot in the building so they can discover the Death-Cast secret. If we suspect they could be guilty of one crime, we consider
them risks for all.
“Seeing someone you personally know can be hard,” Roah says. “We recommend passing that call on to another herald. History shows that when a Decker has ties to an active herald, it can lead to suspicion that maybe they aren’t dying, prolonging their stage of denial and even risking them not believing in their End Day. Once the Decker has been alerted, the head herald on duty can give you space to personally reach out and offer your condolences.”
There’s quiet in the room, like everyone is imagining what names they dread seeing on their contact sheets. I would lose it
if I saw my parents or best friends on that list.
Roah asks if anyone has any final questions, as they’d like to get us in the wellness room so we can collect ourselves before
midnight.
Fausto Flores speaks up. “What happens if we’re working and it’s our End Day?”
I’d be surprised if everyone hasn’t gone from imagining a loved one’s name on their contact list to their own.
“The moment we discover it’s your End Day, we will pull you from the floor to deliver the news personally,” Roah says.
This has happened six times in Death-Cast history.
“Will you know before our shift starts?” Fausto asks.
Roah shakes their head. “The contact lists are active as of midnight in each respective time zone, not a second before. Every
night, your head herald is tasked with scanning the new roster as soon as possible for any heralds to relieve you of your
duties so you may capitalize on your End Day.”
“Good to know.”
Fausto Flores is eighteen, the youngest full-time herald in Death-Cast history. Death-Cast doesn’t have any major reservations
about hiring young apart from the heaviness of the job, but between being up-front about the realities heralds face and the
support we offer with our on-site therapists, we ultimately trust everyone to know their capabilities. The reason we haven’t
hired any eighteen-year-olds before has been because no eighteen-year-olds genuinely want to work here. Except Fausto Flores,
who has never had a job before this, but Aster Gomez vouched for him.
There’s a last call for questions, and no one answers, so Roah escorts everyone a few doors down for our active resting.
I breathe in the lavender and eucalyptus oils permeating throughout the wellness room as serene harp songs cycle through the
speakers in the corner. The public is always surprised to learn that this is a mandatory part of the job because companies
don’t typically pay their employees to relax for thirty minutes before their shifts. Death-Cast wants our heralds at their
very best and that means getting them in the right headspaces before their daunting tasks. To help release endorphins and
alleviate anxiety, we have a steam room, tubs for cold plunges, studios for yoga and dancing, a craft room to create bright
art, a waiting room with healthy snacks, and a quiet zone where you can relax with an eye mask and go on a guided meditation
journey.
Every herald chooses how they will best prepare for these three hours of their night, these three hours of their life to prepare others for the end of theirs.
Roah Wetherholt heads for the craft room; Honey Doyle walks into the waiting area; Rylee Ray bravely goes to the dancing studio,
which no one ever does on their first night; and Fausto Flores strips down to his underwear and takes a cold plunge. You can
learn a lot about someone from how they spend this time.
I grab an eye mask and headphones and go into the quiet zone. No one else is here, so I have my choice of where I want to
relax. I feel like Goldilocks bouncing between the beanbag to the velvet rocking chair to the bouclé swivel chair to the leather
massage chair, but it’s the faux fur bed that looks like a dog bed made for humans that strangely feels just right. I go through
the audio options, most tempted by recordings of rain pouring in a jungle, birdsong by a river, and small waves hitting a
beach while children laugh in the background, but I opt for the guided meditation in the hopes of taming my mind from focusing
on the weeds in my life instead of the flowers.
In the darkness of my eye mask, I begin my meditation, guided by a soothing voice. I settle into my comfortable position, trying to find peace, and as if my guide can read my mind, they tell me that my stress is normal. I inhale for five seconds, exhale for eight, anchoring myself to my breath, but I can’t help but think about this exercise not being enough for people who are about to find out they’re Deckers. How can anyone breathe after getting this information? How aren’t more people dropping dead from heart attacks the moment they hear that blaring alert? I try catching up with the meditation as the guide tells me to show compassion toward myself, but I’ve always been better about extending that to others. I work hard to be compassionate toward myself for getting distracted after hearing how our brains are skilled to take us out of the present moment; my brain doesn’t just take me out, it always transports me, whisking me away. Right now I’m going back to this afternoon, when Agent Dane’s training made me feel as if I don’t have a life worth fighting for. I have to stop imagining myself as a defeated Decker and refocus as a herald who must push through all trials to make sure no Deckers die unwarned. I repeat this intention to myself over and over as I begin fading. The meditation comes to an end with a final message about allowing gravity to keep me grounded so I can take on the unfolding night ahead.
It’s ten minutes to midnight as all the heralds gather by the wellness room’s front door.
I blend in with the heralds in my uniform: a white button-down shirt with our insignia—an hourglass with radio waves in place
of sand—and a gray tie with matching slacks. This has been the dress code since launch. I’ve sketched concepts for new uniforms
that could make our heralds more comfortable during a harrowing job, but my father said he wanted to create a separation between
work and home.
“It may be difficult, but it is not impossible,” he said. “If firefighters and police officers and doctors can keep their gear—and thoughts of their work—at their stations, so can our heralds.”
Right as we’re all about to file out to the call center, Andrea Donahue walks in, a slight limp from an old injury that used
to require her elegant wooden cane that was adorned with chamomile flowers. Her gold hoop earrings distract from her black
disheveled hair, and she looks less like a spy when she removes her shades and tan trench coat. Ariana looks so much like
her mother that staring at Andrea feels like getting a glimpse of Ariana at fifty-five. Hopefully not in personality, though.
Andrea simply nods at the new heralds, not bothering with any small talk or welcomes. She doesn’t typically invest her energy
into any coworkers unless they survive one month on the job. Even then, she doesn’t seem to have a social life outside her
daughter. She’s about to lead the line to the call center when she sees me and does a double take.
“Alano?”
“Good evening, Ms. Donahue.”
“Are you working with us tonight?” she asks, observing my uniform.
“Yes, ma’am. My father wants me to have the experience.” I’m sure Roah Wetherholt would’ve notified Andrea beforehand, but
I’m more surprised she doesn’t already know this from her daughter. “Didn’t Ariana tell you over dinner?”
Andrea shakes her head. “No, I haven’t seen her tonight. I wasn’t home.”
I’m expecting her to expand, but in all my attempts of getting to know her personally, Andrea doesn’t divulge too much about her life.
“Have you had a chance to say hello to the new heralds?” I ask.
Andrea seems offended at first, then seems to remember I’m the Death-Cast heir. “Not yet. I’ll be sure to check in on them
during the shift,” she says, and then checks her watch. “We should be going so we’re not late.”
This coming from the woman who was an hour and a half late without notifying anyone. This isn’t the first time, but Andrea
has expressed to my mother and HR that the active resting period of her shift doesn’t put her in the right headspace. She’s
always forgiven because of her productive outreach. But being late to call Deckers would be a bigger offense.
All twenty-one of us file out of Herald Hall and ride the escalator from the ninth floor to the tenth.
The call centers have evolved since the start of Death-Cast, all the layouts designed by my mother. First there were open-floor plans with the glossy white tables and fountains stationed around the workspace so that the sounds of flowing water could soothe the heralds between their calls. Then the glossiness became sterile and made the heralds feel like test subjects in a cruel experiment to see how long it takes for the job to break a person. So every Death-Cast facility swapped in colorful furniture and cheerful paintings with buckets of blue used throughout because psychologists said it’s a productive and calming color. The call centers were updated again in January with healthy and happy plants in every corner, elegant wallpaper that looks like an aerial shot of an ocean in motion, beaming light bulbs that mimic sunlight so the graveyard shifts feel brighter, and cubicles with black oak veneer desks and glass partition panels so that even though heralds have more privacy and less noise interference during their calls, they can still see their colleagues nearby and know they are never alone.
I’m stationed between Andrea Donahue and Fausto Flores. Unlike the other established heralds, my desk doesn’t have any personal
items on display, something the handbook encourages for heralds to be rooted to their own lives between the calls. My desk
has only the headset, phone, sleek computer monitor, mechanical telecom keyboard, and a binder with prompts for Deckers, all
of which I’ve long memorized.
A hand squeezes my shoulder, familiar.
I wasn’t expecting my father to check in beforehand. “Hey, Pa.”
“You ready, mi hijo?” he quietly asks, as if his presence hasn’t already been noted by the heralds, particularly Andrea, who
straightens up.
“I’m as ready as I can be,” I say.
“You will do well.”
I will because I have to. Messing up means messing with someone’s life and death.
Andrea spins in her chair to face my father. “Good evening, Mr. Rosa.”
“Evening, Andrea. All well with our newcomers?”
“Absolutely. I’ll be supervising them.”
“Excellent. I’ll quickly introduce myself and get out of your way.”
My father greets Fausto Flores, Honey Doyle, and Rylee Ray, unaware that Andrea had no role in preparing them for the evening.
Even if we had time to discuss this I wouldn’t want to. She’s our head herald, but most important, she’s my best friend’s
mother. I let my father exit the call center and choose to focus on my job.
I’m here to do a job—and that begins in one minute.
I put on my headset, switch on the monitor, and ready my phone so I can call people and tell them their lives are over.