Chapter 3 - Dax #2
Samuel stammers for a moment while Emmet—an older white man with a similar build to mine—moves behind the pack, not making direct eye contact with anyone. I brand a coward when I see one, so I wish I had my hot poker at the ready to singe him with. Make him howl from the burn.
“No, not exactly,” Samuel says. “Unfortunately, the Arrow Mart app was supposed to send you all a push notification this morning telling you that you did not need to come in today.”
“Why wouldn’t we come in today?” Dina asks.
“That’s an excellent question,” Samuel says, fumbling over his words. “Because you’ve all been terminated.”
“Terminated? On what grounds?” I ask. The fire inside me curls my fingers into fists. Two weapons I always have at my disposal.
The woman with the briefcase answers, “Wyoming is an at-will state. Arrow Mart is downsizing our warehouses nationwide to cut back on operating costs.”
“Cut back costs?” Raj asks. “Didn’t our CEO just buy a twenty-three-million-dollar vacation compound in Jackson Hole three months ago?”
Of course he fucking did. Jackson Hole is an upscale playground beside Yellowstone National Park, crawling with tourists.
Only the elite and the wannabe-elite call it home.
It’s the one place in this godforsaken state I vowed I’d never step foot back in, given all the history it holds for me.
I’d carve it clear off the map if I could.
“That’s not for us to comment upon,” the woman says.
I step out of the pack and address Emmet. “You’ve been on our asses for months about upping our speed and fulfillment output. You said at our last all-team meeting that we were improving.”
“You were,” Emmet says as if his shoes are suddenly very interesting. They’re an ugly pair of black anti-skid sneakers mucked up with dirt.
“I guess not enough then?” I ask.
Samuel clears his throat. “These are not performance-based terminations.”
“They’re also not, not performance-based terminations,” says the woman. Like that even makes sense.
“So we’re not being replaced with other workers?” Raj asks.
“In a manner of speaking, no,” says the woman, who has yet to identify herself.
The rest of my coworkers pipe in with questions of confusion and annoyance. If they cut the staff, how do they expect to improve their bottom line? It makes no sense.
“You’re firing us to bring in more robots, aren’t you?” Dina asks. But it sounds more like a statement than a question.
“Arrow Mart has taken a pledge this year to implement more automation in their warehouse processes. This warehouse will be the first to see a substantial uptick in technology, but again, unrelated,” the woman says.
“Which I assume is legal speak for we should all go fuck ourselves,” I growl. Emmet won’t meet my eyes. Samuel is useless. And this ice queen with the briefcase seems like she relishes ruining the lives of those lesser than her.
“I don’t think we need to resort to that kind of language,” Samuel says, a turtle poking out of his shell in the middle of a storm.
I stride toward him, getting in his face.
There’s lightning in my vision and thunder in my hands.
The hungry predator in me comes out to play when I need it to.
I’m not often able to hold him back. “You don’t need to resort to that kind of language because you still have a job.
You too.” I point my finger at Emmet. “Why do you get to stay and your grunts don’t? ”
“Mr. Fields will be moving to a new training division,” says Samuel.
Dina says, “Wait, he’s going to be trained to monitor the robots that are replacing us? Weren’t we told when this happened over in processing that there would be opportunities for us to transfer to monitoring too? How do we do that?” Her expression is brighter and fixed on Samuel.
Months ago, the processing team at Warehouse 451327 got slashed in favor of creepy robots with claw arms that swing and spin using sensors and complicated coding.
I was confused when the employee locker bay was emptier than usual until Dina came in with the gossip, as she often did.
“Layoffs” was all she’d had to say in a quiet, meek voice as if she were afraid Big Brother might be listening in and would punish her for even uttering the word.
Weeks earlier, we’d had a big meeting with the Arrow Mart suits about how Warehouse 451327 was chosen as the testing location for modernization and streamlined warehouse processes.
Every single mockup image displayed on their prepared slides looked like a machine out of a Nova Ranger comic book.
At the time, Raj, Dina, and I kept company in the back row of the room, chuckling with each other over how foolish and far off it all seemed.
Cheyenne, Wyoming, was not on the cutting edge when it came to anything, but especially not when it came to innovation.
Imagine my surprise when I saw all those locker doors left creaking on their hinges. Like the former employees had been rushed out before any of the current employees could see what fate had come to them. Modernization happened slowly until somebody in power got trigger-happy. Got greedy.
“Sure, yes, well, as I said earlier, you wouldn’t be able to transfer to a new division because you’ve been terminated,” Samuel says in a shaky voice. “But you’re welcome to send in a new application.”
“Right, which you won’t even look at because the proper keywords won’t ping on our resumes for our most recent work.
We’re manual laborers, not technology nerds.
Why are you giving her false hope?” I ask.
The unfairness crashes through me and makes me want to smash something. Everything. Heat leaps off my skin.
To that, the trio of Arrow Mart minions says nothing. Almost as if they’ve powered down. From the way they’re treating us, I’d half believe they’re robots too. Cold and unfeeling.
“You were seriously going to fire us over a push notification, so you cowards could avoid this? The awkwardness of having the basic decency to treat us like humans?” I ask, voice booming.
“Though I suppose that makes sense. You’d rather have robots than have reasonable expectations of your employees.
I’ve worked here for five fucking years.
I’ve never gotten hurt, never complained, never asked for a raise. I guess that means nothing?”
“We are only acting on what corporate has mandated. We’re sorry,” says Samuel.
“You’re not,” I say, growing fiery and antsy. I step forward again. “No, you’re fucking not.”
My head clouds and my vision goes red with injustice. I’m nothing but fast-firing instinct.
I don’t even realize I’m still advancing until Raj and Dina grab me by the arms. They both whisper variations of “don’t” and “it’s not worth it.” My fists unclench and my chest heaves in its first breath of air in a minute or more. I don’t know where I just went, but it wasn’t a good place.
“Before we need to get security involved, please return your badges and exit the premises,” says the woman, expression tight and unsympathetic.
Some of the others do as their told, unwilling to fight a system they’ve always known was against them but didn’t think would screw them over.
Not trusting myself, I unclip my badge from my pants, throw it on the ground, and kick it in their direction. If I get too close again, I can’t be held responsible for my own limbs. My brain is whirring in a new register.
I storm back into my truck, and without waiting for the trio of suits to move, I throw it in reverse.
The squeal of my tires causes them to jump out of the way. They narrowly miss my bumper as it flies toward them.
Bummer, my inner villain says. A twisted voice in my head that I haven’t heard in a long time. Welcome back, I guess?
It must be nice to be a suit, I think as I drive away. To be well-off. To be clean in the eyes of the world. To be educated enough to know that if they got let go from their position at Arrow Mart, they’d land easily on their feet somewhere else.
I raise my middle finger and point it through the back windshield. Whether they see it or not is of no consequence to me. Especially because I realize just how screwed I am.
Once I’m on the freeway, I question if I should even bother going back to my shitty apartment.
For the last five years, I’ve lived paycheck to paycheck.
I pinch pennies to make rent and keep the lights on.
My landlord would love another excuse to evict me aside from the noise complaints.
Again, like it’s my fault all my submissives have been screamers…
After the third time he came banging on my door, I got creative with homemade gags that did the trick to keep my submissives quiet. At least quiet enough that their whimpers of pleasure and pain were for my ears only.
Still, my landlord wasn’t happy. He’s a homophobe. I’m sure of it. And now, if I miss a payment, I’m sure he’ll throw my stuff on the curb and change the locks right away without a second thought.
Johnny Cash crackles through my radio again. This time, the song is “Busted.” The lyrics are all about losing your job and getting your belongings repossessed. Nothing like the universe laughing at you when you’re down in a hole.
There’s already such a limited job pool I can apply for with my background.
And based on my alphahole performance back there, I’m not going to get a good reference out of anybody from Arrow Mart, one of the few employers that hired convicts when I was ready to start reintegrating into society.
It’s not like I have skills that set me far enough apart from the more educated people that they’d look past my infractions.
I take a sip of now-cold bitter coffee and sense my old instincts crawling out from hiding. The wild animal caged inside my ribs paces, leaving a zigzag trail of slobber behind. My brain urges me to think, plot, act now, or risk losing myself.
Cash croons about not being a thief, but that a man can go wrong.
The difference between Cash and me is that I am a thief. Or was. A pretty damn good one too. That is until I trusted the wrong guys and their loose lips landed me in the slammer for the second time.
Wyoming has a three-strikes rule when it comes to theft.
It wouldn’t even matter if I stole a single stick of beef jerky from a convenience store just to curb my hunger.
If I were apprehended, I’d be right back behind bars.
Rawlins again, probably. Maybe that’s where I belong, behind bars.
Because right now, I’m liable to do something I’ll regret later.