Maxi sat across from Ted. One hour, she could do this. The man squeezed a stress ball and passed it back and forth. He was a dumpy middle aged fellow surrounded by chintzy corporate gifts that said things like “teamwork makes the dreamwork” and “success starts with the first step.” Maxi had never been one for herd mentality.

  When she was sixteen, there was nothing more uncomfortable to her than a room of people stoking school spirit and having no idea what they were cheering for. Her education had a higher record of people dropping out than going on to find successful jobs.

  Had her mom hadn’t cashed out everything to buy out her father’s contract when he died, Maxi may have gone to a fancy private school, the kind of place where the next senators, presidents, and CEOs went. People who were so used to their families achieving such high levels of success that they’d consider Ted a failure.

  She was glad she was never in one of the elite academies. If she was, she wouldn’t know if she could even explain what her parents did, even if they had told her everything growing up. Most of the private school kids were used to peers with parents who had owned nationally recognized retail chains, or were successful lawyers, or editors at powerful news organizations. She would have had to shrug her shoulders, and say, “My mom and dad just do things. Work. It’s boring stuff.”

  Then they would have written her off as some middle class kid who got in on one of the pity slots and dismissed her parents as being about as important as Ted. Not that Maxi thought that Ted was unsuccessful or not important. He did well for himself and his family and his efforts should be commended. It’s just that his choices wouldn’t be the ones she would make.

  She never aspired for a job that had her waste away in an office chipping away at her soul meeting by meeting until all she had to look forward to were discount appetizers on Fridays to mark two days where she could wonder what the hell had gone wrong with her life before starting the cycle again. Company potlucks being the highlight of the week were for Ted not for her.

  But since he was the person in charge of her Branch, she had to meet with him monthly. So here she was in his office in a large uncomfortable silence, probably more for him than for her. She wouldn’t mind just passing the time in silence. Maxi wasn’t the kind of person to sit around and think. Being forced to do it was almost what she needed.

  Ted shifted uncomfortably and looked at something on his screen as if he was deciding something. In Maxi’s work life before the company this is when the managers would say she wasn’t a culture fit, or tell her she had much better skills elsewhere. Since she was almost always in a temping situation, they really didn’t need to give her the talk, but they did as if she’d be hurt by the situation.

  What they didn’t know was that everytime she was let go from her job, it was a relief. She was always thinking to herself, “Glad I didn’t end up at that place” or “no more of those awkward company get to know you sessions!” Leaving a job was like lifting a weight off her chest, and this job was the first time where she’d be sad to go.

  The irony was that she wouldn’t be sad. She’d be dead. Despite their scheme to buy out contracts at the end of the month, the only people they were able to help out were low level newbies whose contract wasn’t worth much. Her contract alone was the equivalent of millions of US dollars to buy out at the end of the month.

  Being cut for a month of poor performance was only for Tier ten through twelve. At Tier 9, they were safe from elimination because there were enough employees under her. She wasn’t sure how it worked. If terminations at the end of the month were decided one person per Office Pool or if an entire Office Pool could be spared and another wiped out because they were the lowest performers of all the company.

  “You didn’t take any generalist quests lately,” Ted finally said.

  “What?” Maxi said coming out of her own thoughts.

  “Generalist quests. You need to do more of them,” Ted said.

  “I’ve been busy,” Maxi said. “Saving people from monsters, you know, company mission and all.”

  “There are other departments that do that.”

  “My skills are pretty suited for fighting the beasties.”

  “Until you can dual class–”

  “I thought the quest system was invented so we all can spend our time in a way that is most beneficial to the company. Who cares who does the spreadsheet so long as the spreadsheet is done? The only thing is that someone else does the spreadsheets. I fight the monsters.”

  “But you need to do quests for your Branch too. It’s all part of your job performance metric,” Ted said and swiveled his monitor around so Maxi could see what was on the screen. She saw different measures that tracked her progression in quests, level, and so forth. Her generalist quests completed was very low.

  She had mostly done fetch quests when they happened to be in the direction where she was headed. Fetch quests were mostly low payout and low reward, so didn’t get her much other than a few extra credits but worth it to her for getting out of menial labor during her down time. Most fetch quests were about as lucrative as an individual meal for on-demand food service delivery driver. In fact, she had brought Rudy a coffee before saving him from a cat-bunny-dog thing.

  Because of the low risk, low reward nature of fetch quests, her Generalist quest completion part of her job performance metric was considered substandard and that led to the metric that seemed to be what Ted was hemming and hawing about. There was a graph that showed her almost dipping below a line that said, “termination likey.”

  “What the hell, Ted?” Maxi said. “I’m saving people’s lives. “Why would I be even close to that?”

  “That’s what’s keeping you above that line,” Ted said. “The fact that you have been saving people is what’s keeping you around.”

  “So how do I get it up?” She asked.

  “You complete Generalist quests,” he said.

  Maxi’s heart went cold. She had seen the Generalist quest lists. They were things like helping with spreadsheets in accounting, or taking calls for IT when a lot of people were out sick. She even saw one for HR that involved scanning old paper files into the computer and shredding them. They were the same work that was her personal brand of hell, boring, tedious, endless, and thankless.

  “Trust me you don’t want me to do that temp crap,” Maxi said.

  “The ‘temp crap’ is what we do. If you don’t want to do it. You shouldn’t have been a Generalist,” Ted said.

  “You’re the one who selects the quests for our Branch? Get some monster fighting ones.”

  “We have Branches for that. Sales Associates, Paranormal Investigators–”

  “Now you have one on your team, so make use of me. I’m quite good at it.”

  “It’s not that simple. You don’t have Accountants doing IT work or Paranormal Investigators doing Customer Care. Just like in the real world people specialize. You don’t hire a lawyer to do your surgery or Accountants to do your yardwork. People specialize for a reason. Why would you believe your plumber on medical decisions from the doctors who’ve been working in the field all their life?”

  “But we are Generalists. We fill the gaps in the company. When there aren’t enough PIs or Sales to tackle a problem. What then?”

  “If you’re asking me to purchase quests for you, what happens when you’re sick? Or incapacitated? Generalists are decent fighters compared to the average Worker. They learn enough to minimize the chance of death penalty especially during a raid, but we aren't a combat class, never have been. So, all those quests I put in the Generalist queue have to be done by you, and you can’t be everywhere. When those fail, the Generalists pay for it. I pay for it.”

  “So, what you’re saying that I’m not a valuable enough employee to stick your neck out for?

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “But you did, if you don’t put quests in the queue that utilize my skillset, that’s just as good as not placing a value on what I bring to the table.”

  “I’m just saying that I run a whole branch, and I got to get quests for the whole team. Ones that many people can complete, so it has the highest probability of success. You don’t hire a room of writers to draw your artwork.”

  “But an artist can enhance your writing.”

  “The answer is no.”

  “Okay, so how do I get out of this Branch?” Max said, looking him in the eyes.

  “It doesn’t work that way without termination. You can dual class, but then you’ll just be working for two Branches. I’m sorry Maxi, I really am but it’s time you start working on spreadsheets and leave the monster fighting to the professionals.”

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  ***

  Maxi slumped in her cubicle after her “mentoring” session was over. Farhad peeked over the cubicle wall and must have seen her sour expression. “Ice cream?” He said. “My treat. We’ll even do it in the muggle world.”

  “Except Harry Potter didn’t have to deal with that much bullshit.”

  An elevator ride and a couple of blocks later, they were sitting in a park located in Manhattan that was no bigger than a city block, eating ice cream from an NPC shop on what was turning out to be chilly November day. They were sufficiently bundled, but the cool treat just didn’t have the same appeal.

  In fact the owner of the bodega gave them an odd look when they asked for spoons as most ice cream parlors were closed for the season, and the only ones they could find was the mass produced kind intended for the freezer and children’s birthday parties that was available all year around.

  “We should have went for coffee,” Maxi said, and scooped out another mouthful from the box they were sharing.

  Farhad, who had sensibly stopped after a few bites, pulled his jacket closer, “That would mean planning in advance. You don’t strike me as a planning in advance type of person.”

  “Shut up!” She said and flung a dollop of ice cream at him. He dodged and the stuff plopped on the pavement to the delight of the pigeons in the area.

  “Want to talk about what’s on your mind?” Farhad asked.

  Maxi told him about her conversation with Ted and the trainer. She recounted asking her mom about the time Cassidy went to her homeworld looking for the Printer of Never Jamming, and how her mom dismissed it as a reckless, stupid thing to do, and that there was no printer ever found. After she let it out she felt measurably lighter.

  The ice cream box was sadly sagging and gooey. While the temperature was chilly, the frozen treat was still on a march to becoming a puddle because of the sunlight. They stuffed their plastic spoon into the box and tossed it in the nearest bin, much to the dismay of the local pigeons.

  They walked for a time chit chatting about nothing in particular. Farhad told Maxi about Albuquerque. How that it was mostly desert, but high enough in elevation to get snow in the winter and the cockroaches were massive creatures that were the true masters of the city and would scatter walking around at night.

  Eventually, Farhad said. “We can’t fix the fact that you have an asshole boss, but we can go to your home dimension.”

  “I can’t ask you to do that.”

  “You don’t have to. I am there for you,” he said softly.

  She squeezed his shoulders and looked into his eyes. He looked back at her. She felt the urge to kiss him. Like his lips were calling to her. Looking into his eyes, she wondered what he was feeling. He was a friend, a co-worker, something more? Maxi wasn’t sure.

  She switched topics before she could allow herself to feel anything. “What do you do for the Hacker Branch? What are your class quests? I don’t ever see you leaving on your own. Not like the others.”

  “It’s mostly on the computer,” he said. “Mostly scrubbing social media of monster videos. We used to be a secretive spycraft part of the company, making sure Earth governments don’t weaponize the monsters. But now it's just about keeping a lid on the whole thing, deleting videos or altering them so they look fake. Secrecy is not making sure no one knows the truth but just ensuring there's enough bullshit out there so most people dismiss it.”

  “So the Earth governments know about the monsters? Like Area 51 is the US Monster Holding?”

  “I’m not sure. I don’t work for that part of the Hacker branch. I’m low level. The equivalent of phone support for IT or the Customer Care Advocates who work in virtual wellness. But I wouldn’t be surprised if the Earth governments know. While we operate in the shadows and don’t answer to any of them, I just don’t see how it’s possible to operate without some collusion.”

  “So grunt work then?”

  “Yep, I usually try not to delete the videos, but make them look fake to discredit the poster. Deleting them puts the person on a crusade, manipulating them gets them doubting what they saw in the first place.”

  “It’s kinda of insidious.”

  “I find it to be kind. I just don’t think most people are cut out to live in the world where nightmares are real.”

  “Yeah,” Maxi said. While she agreed with Farhad on most things. She didn’t agree with him on the secrecy part. She felt the world could use a dose of transparency in just about everything. How could the world get better if we buried mistakes? She supposed that if everything was approached from a how can we learn from it attitude then how can we punish it, people would be more ready to admit their past transgressions.

  They continued to walk until they eventually made it to the water and could see the Statue of Liberty in the distance. She was so used to seeing it that she didn’t have the same gaze as all the tourists around them who were snapping pictures, and pointing it out to each other.

  She had taken a picture near it when she was a kid, standing in the same pose with her hand held high. She thought it was the most amusing thing. It was a moment back when her family was whole and her father hadn’t gone on the maddening quest to find the Printer.

  It was before his dogged devotion tore the family apart. She couldn’t help but think that she was about to do the same thing to her Office Pool, tear it apart as she was pretty sure Belinda and Farhad would follow her to the pits of hell and the others she wasn’t so sure about.

  “I did some digging about Daisuke,” Farhad said after a while of staring at the water.

  “Anything we should be worried about?” Maxi asked, not taking her eyes off a boat she saw drifting through the gentle waves.

  “He was in the server room the day of the attack. Not just the day, but at the time precisely,” Farhad said. “I know the data is legit because it comes directly from Francis.”

  “Who?”

  “Francis, the tech who helped us remove the safety protocols on Terry.”

  “I didn’t think he would help us after Yancy murdered him.”

  “I think that’s why he helped. He’s scared, everyone in IT is scared.”

  “Monster Holding failed, and they restocked it the next day.”

  “Most of those were already there, just gathered and put back into the cages.”

  “So what’s spooking them?” Maxi pondered.

  “That’s just it. I don’t know. Francis tells me, it’s these new protocols they are putting in place. They have to get permission to do anything. Then even when they are doing their job they have to get approval before anything.”

  “I don't get it, like big brother? The state is always watching?”

  “No, imagine you work in an auto shop and you’ve changed oil more times than you can count and suddenly your boss wants you to ask permission to change the oil, and then as if the boss doesn’t trust you, they come and inspect the oil change. They don’t say anything bad. They don’t criticize you, they are just watching.”

  “So, IT just has some prick micromanager in charge?”

  “It’s not even that. No one is telling them how to do their job. Their job has this extra layer that it didn’t before. But that layer feels invasive like the company can’t trust anyone to do what they were hired to do.”

  “Like if I had to ask permission to stab a monster trying to gnaw my leg off?”

  “Exactly.”

  “What’s that have to do with Daisuke?” Maxi asked.

  “Nothing, but Francis was nervous about providing me the information, like he was Deep Throat handing me a top secret file in a parking garage.”

  “I mean, can he provide you that information? Like, is he going to get in trouble with this new micromanager or whatever it is?”

  “No, it was a standard information request, made legit by the fact that I’m your ally in the Von Patrick quest. Nothing he should have to worry about.”

  Maxi didn’t know what to say. Maybe it was just nerves. A lot of their colleagues permadied, and those lucky enough to survive probably had hefty fees from Janitorial.

  “Where was Janitorial anyway?” Maxi thought out loud. “That day of the incident. Daisuke had to put me on Von Patrick’s chair. Von Patrick permadied because his window had expired. Why didn’t Janitorial come until later?”

  “Maybe they were stuck somewhere because of the elevators.”

  “They have giant staircase that runs through the whole building.”

  “Maybe they weren’t near it. Stuck in a conference room or something.”

  “Doesn’t the building adapt to our needs?”

  “I was trapped that day,” Farhad said. “No staircase appeared for me, but I also wasn’t in danger. Maybe it was a team potluck, meeting, or company retreat, and they couldn’t get back. They came eventually, late doesn’t mean anything nefarious is going on.”

  “Yeah,” Maxi said. “So what was Daisuke doing in the server room? Did Francis tell you that?”

  “No,” Farhad said. “He wasn’t there. Francis shared the log.”

  “Do you know who was?”

  “That particular employee was one of the ones who was permadead.”

  “What about the cameras?”

  “That I can show you.”

  Farhad pulled out a tablet. The camera angle was the same one where she watched Yancy and Daisuke fight. She could see the work stations where Francis enabled the program before his death. There was a younger man with long blonde hair in dreads and draped in baggy tie-dye clothing. Daisuke entered the room and they exchanged words.

  “Where’s the audio?” Maxi asked.

  “When Yancy tore out the old camera, he caused some damage to the audio wire. The Tech who installed the new camera didn’t notice. No one did until I asked for the video.”

  “Maybe the reason why IT is under so much scrutiny?”

  “Or maybe just a mistake. Yancy trashed the entire room, they had to install a lot of equipment in a short amount of time. Overworked underpaid employees end up costing a company more from their mistakes than just valuing them and their time.”

  He had her there. While the quest system was nice because she could decide how to spend her day, it did have the effect of devaluing their labor as there was always someone willing to do it for cheaper. Not that the benefit of deciding her day was much of a benefit anymore, if she had to start doing more Generalist quests to keep her performance up.

  “We don’t have audio,” Farhad said. “But we can read lips with software. Unfortunately Dasisuke is at the wrong angle, but the IT professional is mostly saying affirmations like, ‘Yes,’ and ‘I think we could do that.’”

  “That’s not very helpful.”

  “No, but there is one thing. ‘I think I can code that for you, but are you sure that’s a good idea?’”

  Farhad played the moment with subtitles under the tech for what the AI thought he was saying. After he said it, Daisuke said something and patted the guy’s shoulder. Whatever it was, it was reassuring enough for the man to sit at the computer and type away. Unfortunately, the man’s head and body blocked the view from the screen and his hands. They didn’t know what he was typing other than it took a long time.

  Daisuke waited, paced, and sometimes looked over the guy’s shoulder. After the man was finished typing. He swiveled in his chair. Daisuke said something else and the man turned back to the screen. It was hard to tell what was happening next, because Daisuke’s body was blocking the view but it looked as if they were struggling over something, and by the time Daisuke stumbled back the IT man was dead. Blood gushing from his neck. Daisuke pulled out his blade and ran for the door.

  The evidence wasn’t looking good for Daisuke.