Rolando Rubio
9:06 p.m.
Death-Cast did not call because he is not dying today.
The job of a herald is not for the faint of heart, Rolando remembers well—unwell, he should say. He served his Deckers by
alerting them of their fates, but it was a difficult undertaking. He still remembers speaking with a teenage girl around Paz’s
age now, he believes, who was excited about her first date until Rolando called with the bad news that she was dying. He does
not know if that girl went on her date or not. What about the husband whose wife was finally returning home from deployment
weeks after his End Day? Was he able to reach her? Is she well today and moving on as Gloria was able to do with Rolando after
Frankie died?
Of the many Deckers who Rolando called on the first End Day, he was only ever able to get some closure from his very first, Clint Suarez, a wealthy man from Argentina whom he met at a café in New York early in the morning, hours after Rolando quit Death-Cast. Over coffee, Rolando listened to Clint’s life story, and years later, he attended the opening of the dance club he’d heavily invested in before his death, so heavily, in fact, that it was changed to a dance club for Deckers and named Clint’s Graveyard. They don’t serve alcohol at the club, but Rolando ordered a mocktail martini called the Eternal Espresso and toasted to Clint, the Decker whose wisdom transformed his life.
If Clint hadn’t encouraged Rolando to not only redeclare his lasting love for Gloria but also warn her of the dangers of remaining
in a marriage with Frankie, who knows what would have happened?
Maybe Frankie would still be alive and married to Gloria.
Maybe Frankie would be serving life in prison while Gloria was six feet deep.
Thanks to the first Decker he ever called, Rolando is living his dream life.
Well, maybe not dream life.
In the decade since he worked at Death-Cast, Rolando has only ever regretted quitting during times of financial struggles.
Times like now, where the job market is hard. At the end of every day since being laid off, Rolando has gone to bed worried
about not having any money, but he knows his soul is intact. This is what allows him to get out of bed the next morning and
apply for jobs and smile in interviews and to keep climbing and climbing until he emerges from this financial hole, especially
now as he needs to support his firstborn.
He prays there will be a firstborn to support.
Rolando goes from staring at Gloria’s belly to Joaquin and Naya. “Given your personal history, is there really nothing that
can be done about Death-Cast predicting miscarriages?”
“If we could, we would,” Joaquin says.
“You are already doing something we couldn’t before. Why not the extra push?”
“If we could, we would,” Joaquin repeats more sternly. “We do not want anyone to go through the terribly unique grief of losing
a child they hope to bring into this world, but that is simply not insight we can provide.”
Rolando leans forward on the couch, almost like he’s about to drop to his knees and beg. “I am trying to keep my family together.
I am finally with the love of my life, and we are expecting our first child together—my firstborn—so if there is any assistance
from Death-Cast that can enlighten us on the viability of this pregnancy—”
“There is not,” Joaquin interrupts. “This has not changed since your time with the company.”
“Then why are you not advancing?”
Joaquin takes a large gulp of his drink and then rubs his forehead, as if the smoothie has given him a brain freeze when Rolando
actually believes that he is just annoyed. “We are advancing, and even if we were not, we have advanced society plenty.”
“That is a shame,” Rolando says. He is terrified of losing the baby, of course, but of losing Gloria most of all. “What about
someone’s End Day? Any way you can know that, even if it is years away?”
“Would you like to go through the training program again to refresh our capabilities?”
“You said you were advancing,” Rolando says tensely. He recalls Clint’s advice back on the first End Day to speak up while he could to protect the woman he loves.
Joaquin folds his arms. “Tell me, Rolando. How are you contributing to society?”
“Pa,” Alano says.
“I am catching up with Rolando,” Joaquin says.
“I’m sure your background check told you everything,” Rolando says.
“Our team at Shield-Cast unfortunately misses things sometimes, as I am sure they have done while looking into your current
place of employment.”
“I was working as a career adviser at Claudi University—”
“Was?” Joaquin interrupts.
Rolando blushes. “I was laid off because of funding.”
Joaquin scratches his beard as if bored. “Where are you employed now?”
“Currently unemployed.”
Naya cuts in. “What would you like to be doing, Rolando?”
“I want to help people,” Rolando says.
“Unemployed for almost two months now?” Joaquin says. It appears his Shield-Cast investigators must have found Rolando’s records
within the past few seconds. “It is very revealing when a career adviser does not have a career himself. Are you sure you
were laid off because of funds and not incompetence? History supports that theory.”
Both Naya and Alano tell Joaquin to cool it, and Rolando senses that Gloria and Paz are coming to his rescue too, but as humiliated as he may be, he will not yell, because Rolando never wants Gloria to mistake him for Frankie, or to set a bad example to Paz. But that does not mean Rolando will not speak up for himself. “This disrespect that you show your employees—”
“You do not work for me, nor will you ever again—”
“—is exactly why you found your son’s name on the news today,” Rolando says.
That shuts up Joaquin instantly.
There is no attacking a man on his success when his company has granted him enough cash to build a tower into outer space,
but before Joaquin was the creator of Death-Cast, he was a father, and Rolando calling out those failures is how he drags
this man back to earth.