ref: b9fbb17c04e4ccfb2021dac818e514351ca8f646
dir: /troff/0202.ms/
.LP \& .ce .sp |4.25i .PP .ps 12 .CW ░ "If everybody's from Megatokyo then nobody's from Megatokyo." .PP .ps 12 Nistopher was at it again. He'd come over to SL's personal pan apt after his last day at work, and now, beer in hand, he held forth on matters personal and political. .PP .ps 12 "Citizenship's not a zero sum game," SL offered, evenly. "The whole world could join Megatokyo, who cares?" .PP .ps 12 "Everybody who lives somewhere else," Nistopher countered adamantly, and sipped his beer. He poured some of it out on his hand, made a fist. Slammed it down on the kitchen counter. "I used to live somewhere else." .PP .ps 12 "Well, now that you're no longer chained to the company maybe you can think about living somewhere else, again." .PP .ps 12 "In this economy?" was all Nistopher could muster. He stared out the kitchen window, straining through the greasy fingerprints on his visor. His eyes crossed. .PP .ps 12 SL stole a glance at the wall clock. .PP .ps 12 "Say, why don't we move this into the living room. Maybe we can pick up a signal from the office before they start shutting down for the day. I've got something I want to show you." .PP .ps 12 .I "Don't let me catch you off the Internet again." .R Nistopher was imitating the raspy, cigarette ravaged voice SL affected (SL had never smoked) with his subordinates at work. He staggered and nearly toppled SL's rickety old CRT display. Haha, he was drunk. .PP .ps 12 "Okay, good one, buddy," SL said, patting his longtime cubemate on the shoulder. There had to be some way to get him out of here before he puked on the carpet. In addition, SL still had to be at work in the morning, earliest. What to do? .PP .ps 12 "I tell you," Nistopher told him, "I don't know if I'll ever be coming back." He was bargaining now with chips he'd already frittered away. "And \fIthat woman\fR can kiss my underweight ass." Here Nistopher referred to their mutual supervisor, whom SL had also found it hard to work with. Nis seemed at last to be wrapping up the series finale of his long\-running soliloquy, piloted and premiered so many years ago. SL nodded one last time and patted his ex\-coworker's arm a bit more firmly, locking the door as Nistopher finally exited the apt. Roll credits. .PP .ps 12 \fIThat could have gone better,\fR SL thought, with some regret, but at least now it was over. .PP .ps 12 SL tapped his visor and shut himself down for the night. .PP .ps 12 Fell asleep thinking about the Internet. .PP .ps 12 Simpler times. .PP .ps 12 Promotion. The company had graciously moved SL up to the second floor. It was very much like the first floor, but this time with windows. From his desk SL could .I just .R make out his car in the open\-air parking lot. (There weren't many open\-air parking lots left in this part of the world.) .PP .ps 12 Work was okay. He now spent the bulk of his days mentoring a fellow who had moved into his old position, down on the first floor. His one and only direct report. Not a recipe for swift advancement, but then he'd been promised more direct reports in the next quarter. .PP .ps 12 On the day of THE BIG FIRE, SL tried to make sure his man made it out of the building alive. That was what you did and that was who you did it for: the man beside (or in this case, directly beneath) you. Managers on the second floor were able to break their windows and leap out onto the street, some suffering broken ankles, but all surviving the calamity. Most everyone on the first floor was trapped, locked in by the failing security system. Those few who had dared to venture up the stairwell would later find out that their employment had been retroactively terminated, \fI(à la\fR SL's old pal Nistopher). Owing to their brazen abrogation of company policy, insurance would refuse to cover their injuries. .PP .ps 12 SL's man did not survive. He'd seen a handful of his coworkers running up the stairs, and then, falling back on his training, decided for himself not to deviate from company policy. SL had already determined to let him pass, but, owing to his sudden flare\-up of integrity, his man never appeared. .PP .ps 12 SL's hands had been tied. There was nothing he could have done. .PP .ps 12 A year or so later, promoted again. SL now had his own button on the lateral elevator, which transported him directly to his desk. (Okay, all right, everybody used the same "smart" button, but when SL pushed it he was delivered to his own desk. Progress?) It was a perquisite unique to his new status as a third level. .PP .ps 12 The new building was further downtown, in the heart of the city, and was very much taller than the firebombed wreckage of his old office back in the two\-story walk\-up. This place had history, gravitas, .I balls. .R A hundred years ago it had been hoisted into the air, twisted on its base, and then drilled back down into the earth nearly a block down the street. And that was only foreplay, foreshadowing renovations that would ultimately climax in its certification as the tallest building in Megatokyo, fully six times its original height, eclipsing even the spiraling spire of the Shit Emoji Tower across the street. In a city full of tall buildings this place was very fucking tall, indeed. .PP .ps 12 Advertising on and around the building was minimalist, smoothly textured, and mostly generated in\-house, which distinguished his company from its many neighboring competitors, each of whose headquarters strained proudly, veined with uncurated spam, great marbled sprouts stabbing futilely into an indifferent gray sky. .PP .ps 12 SL's new job was hard to pin down. He came in to work. He logged in to his meetings. When it came his turn he would read dutifully from his scorecard, valiantly straining credulity, but he had no clear sense of his task. As a senior executive he enjoyed the abuse of a bunk in the penthouse dormitory, so even the ride to his desk every morning seemed pointless, ostentatious. Why did he bother coming in at all? His desk was too large and his chair was uncomfortable. .PP .ps 12 But, the very situatedness seemed to suit him, and at last, clothed in his new circumstance, he made no drastic attempt to improve his situation. .PP .ps 12 In his spare time he began to work, after a kind, on his resume. Surrendering the contour of his immediate past. Typing and re\-typing each fraudulent claim on an absurd manual typewriter. Feeding each successive draft into his personal paper shredder. Something he'd picked up, long ago, from Nis. He captured one such performance in a picture frame and set it up to cycle indefinitely, facing in toward himself, on his desk. A purely puerile memory of a promiscuously physical exercise. .PP .ps 12 Occasionally he thought about West Berlin.