Attack of the Corporate Overlords: Chapter 7

A queer sci-fi story set in near-future Toronto, when corporations have gained control of the people.

Violet’s feet hit the dust-covered concrete with a muted thud,

The sun was just beginning to cross the horizon as Violet made her way through the plant’s sterile lobby, trading the natural blaze of light for cold industrial fluorescence. She’d arrived ten minutes ahead of schedule for today’s shift, hoping it would give her enough time to get through part one of her plan without being so early as to arouse suspicion. 

The foyer was eerily quiet at this hour, absent of the usual Supervisors who lined the halls before the standard shift start. Solid luck, Violet mused silently. She chanced a glance left, then right, before ducking into the unarmed Maintenance locker room. 

Standard-issue lockers adorned the walls, narrow benches stationed between rows. She counted five cameras where wall met ceiling, maintaining an even pace across the cement floor as she waited for the red eyes to look elsewhere. Her timing was perfect, her hip coming right in line with a bin of soiled uniforms as she reached a blessed blind spot. She deftly reached in, scooping up a set of coveralls and crumpling it into a haphazard ball in her bag. She turned towards an unoccupied locker just as the camera’s lens panned back her way, feigning interest in its imaginary contents so as to lend credence to her locker room visit. 

That was easy, she thought to herself, steadily plodding the route back to the door she’d entered, bag tucked firmly under her right arm. She pushed her way through the swinging door, immediately coming face to face with a Supervisor.

“Watch it,” he growled, brushing invisible dust off of his uniform where the door had narrowly missed him. She stared at him, face blank with shock, as he gave her a once-over through narrowed eyes. Holy shit, she strained to keep her expression unaffected, hoping he would see her as just another mindless zombie. The Supervisor gave a flick of his wrist as if shooing a fly, walking around Violet towards the procession of other blue-clad people standing against the walls as a flood of Assemblers began surging through the front door.

She breathed out low and slow, exhaling the tension of almost having been caught as she merged with the crowd. She could’ve sworn she saw the same Supervisor shoot another suspicious glance her way, but perhaps it was her imagination. 

At her station, she found herself slipping in and out of conscious awareness, her mind fixated on her next task. Though she was thankful for a short shift – twelve hours, rather than the usual sixteen – it felt like the day was dragging on. She fit components together, the small metallic click echoing through her mind as her eyes focused on the floors above. A Manager tapped their card to an access pad. Click. A Supervisor scanned the room, resting his hand on the butt of his firearm. Click. A Maintenance Worker came out of a supply closet with a cart. Click. 

As the hours passed by, any residual worry of being noticed earlier in the morning melted away. She’d been monitoring the Supervisors, and none seemed to be particularly focused on her. It struck her as odd that they carried such heavy-seeming firepower, given she’d never seen any of it used over the thousands of shifts she’d worked at the plant. She tried not to let her mind go there, instead honing in on the movements of the Maintenance Workers. She’d begun to develop a profile of how, where, and why they went where they went, always with at least one tool on them. She hadn’t thought that far ahead, having only grabbed an outfit. 

When the break chime sounded, she made her way to the room with the terrible coffee. The Maintenance Worker from the other day was gone, replaced with an “OUT OF ORDER” sign over the sink. A glint caught her eye as she noticed a shiny silver wrench poking out from just under the counter. It seemed almost too good to be true, finding just the thing she needed right here, so accessible to her. She heard footsteps behind her and decided now wasn’t the time to grab it. A quick tap of her toe nudged the wrench further under the counter, safely tucked away for later retrieval.

She grabbed a water, gulping it down before making her way back to her station. The rest of the shift seemed to both fly by and drag on as she mentally rehearsed. Change in the bathroom, grab the wrench, make my way up to the third floor, get into a Manager office… find the schematics? The last step was a bit fuzzy, never mind all the potential for volatility in between. She thought of Mercy, tried to channel the woman’s unwavering bravery to quell the anxiety that had begun to seep through the cracks in her plan. 

By the time she’d reached the end of her shift, she was feeling charged up. Crackling with excitement and a healthy dose of fear, she traced her usual route towards the door, taking a detour at the last minute towards the bathroom. Four other Assemblers had followed her lead, each one filing into a separate stall in unison with her. She retrieved the coveralls from her bag, unfurling them before doing the awkward dance that was changing in a narrow stall. She shoved her bag behind the toilet tank then listened intently. She heard the door to the bathroom swing open then shut a fourth time before she finally emerged. They were unlikely to notice anything beyond the scope of their mental fog, but still – no sense in taking any more chances than needed. 

This is how a Maintenance Worker walks, right? she obsessed to herself as she slowly but assuredly made her way back to the break room. Yeah, this feels right. She approximated the loping, almost-mechanical movements she’d noticed earlier in the day, bridging the distance to the now-empty space. The next shift of Assemblers had begun to file on to the floor behind her as she squatted low, grabbing the silver tool from its hiding place. 

“Hey, you – Maintenance Worker,” a firm voice sounded behind her. She turned around to see a Supervisor standing in the doorway, patent leather lace-ups in a wide and imposing stance. 

“Yes, sir?” she punctuated the question with a quick nod. 

“This coffee machine is broken.” He stabbed a finger at the godawful caffeine dispenser, whose sludge-like leavings she knew all too well. “Fix it.” Not even waiting for a response, he turned on his heel and strode away.

“Fuck,” she cursed softly under her breath. What if he checked back? She didn’t know how to fix a coffee machine, but logic told her it would take more than a wrench to do so. She made her way to the utility closet where she encountered a Maintenance Worker returning a tool cart. 

“Hey, uh,” she approximated a low gravelly voice, “the Supervisor wants you to fix the coffee machine in the break room.” She paused, staring directly into the Worker’s dead-looking eyes. He stalled momentarily before turning in the direction of her command, wheeling the cart with him. 

Barrier overcome, Violet made her way to the staircase that would take her up to the next flight. She could feel her heartbeat thudding through every inch of her being, a slight tremor threatening to make itself visible in her gait. She slowed her breathing as she strode past the Supervisors on the first gangway, eyes fixed dead ahead with the same blank yet focused expression she’d seen on all of her coworkers. Nobody seemed to care she was here, ever concerned with the goings-on on the production floor. 

By the time she reached the Manager’s floor, she had almost convinced herself she was having a heart attack. How she’d made it this far was beyond her, but she knew better than to venture down that slippery anxious slope. She heard a click behind her, turning around just in time to see a suited Manager step out of an office, gaze fixed on a silver tablet clutched between his hands. The Manager rounded the corner to his right and Violet seized the opportunity, crossing the space in one big stride, slipping into the office just before the door clicked shut. 

God, I hope nobody saw me, she thought as her nerves got the best of her. She was leaning against the door, breathing heavily as she took the room in. Dozens of monitors plastered the walls, a main control panel stationed directly across from the entry point where she now stood. There was so much to look at – surveillance footage flicked across one screen, a steady stream of characters ran across another, indistinguishable programs in various states of operation shining from the others. Yet none seemed to show any sort of map or schematic. Of course they don’t, she scoffed internally, that would make it too ea-

Her train of thought was abruptly interrupted by a nearby beep, followed by a click as the door behind her released. Panicked, she threw herself under the desk then shimmied behind a stack of boxes into a space barely large enough to contain her. 

“Yes, I know,” a deep baritone voice sounded above her, “it’s our number one priority right now.” A pause, followed by “I’m not sure how they got out either, but I assure you, the people responsible for this will pay.” 

Violet held her breath as this tense and disembodied conversation played out, terrified that at any moment the person would notice her. She heard shuffling on the desktop above her as they searched for something, a frustrated slap of hand to hardwood suggesting they’d come up blank. A series of mouse clicks, then “Well, have you checked with the Bay-Bloor plant?” Another pause. “Yes, the drug division.” Violet stifled a gasp – was this the confirmation she needed?

“Let’s connect with Level 3 over there, see what they have to say.” She heard a heavy clunk as the person closed some unknown device, followed by the metallic sound of the doorknob turning. The person’s voice and footsteps faded into the distance shortly after, Violet silently counting the seconds that passed.

She made it all the way to 500 before she even dared to move, for fear that they would return once again. When she unfolded herself from her hiding space, the only light source left in the room was a soft glow from the familiar red eye of the camera above, which she hadn’t noticed in her earlier panic. The screens were all dark, computer turned off. 

Violet tried to catch a stealthy glance through the drawn blinds, but all she could see was a tiny sliver of gangway that seemed to be empty. Knowing this to be a false preview, she set a look of unaffected numbness on her face before cracking the door open and stepping out, unsure where she stood on the bravery-stupidity continuum. 

Everything was a blur as she made her way down the two sets of stairs, wrench still clutched tightly in her hand as if it provided a reasonable defense for her unwarranted presence in the upper levels of the plant. Once again she managed to make it through unscathed, reaching the bottom floor and coming once again face to face with the Supervisor from earlier.

“Well, did you fix it?” They all seemed to carry the same air of superiority, a sense of agitated authoritarianism that suggested Supervisors were above the use of Attentrix. Violet nodded, praying to whomever would listen that the Maintenance Worker from earlier had actually finished the coffee machine job. 

“Yes, sir,” she monotoned in deference. He gave a terse and condescending scoff before jerking his head toward the break room. Violet followed him, watching him grab a cup and press the button. A wave of relief washed over her as the spout released a steady stream of steaming amber liquid, a massive improvement over the slimy secretion it had produced earlier in the day. 

The Supervisor drew the drink to his lips and took a sip. Seemingly satisfied, he threw the half-full cup haphazardly at the garbage bin, leaving an arterial spatter of brown droplets across the wall. “Well, at least you aren’t entirely useless. Now clean that up.” 

He strode cockily from the room as Violet held her breath again, this time to prevent herself from reacting to the classist abuse that was commonly hurled from the higher-ups to the lower-rung workers. She grabbed a cloth and began wiping the wall. This wasn’t the first time she’d encountered this sort of debasement, but it was the first time she’d felt this rage in its presence. She channeled her anger into her cleaning, scrubbing at the wall for much longer than was warranted. Elitist FPC asshole, she silently fumed.

She made her way back in the direction of the Maintenance lockers, crossing the threshold to the empty room before stripping out of the musty coveralls. She hit the bathrooms to retrieve her bag, then strode through the foyer, passing the lone guard stationed at the door and retreating into the twilight-filled night.

The whole way home she ran through scenarios, this time more positively hued. Her, telling Mercy about the Bay-Bloor plant. Mercy reacting with delighted pride, sweeping her up into her arms out of uncontained joy. The two of them kissing, absent of any exploding appendages. She let herself dwell in this space, as made up as it may be, as a reward for a job well done. 

By the time she made it to her front stoop, she felt like she was floating, buoyed by fantasies of a utopian future where she and Mercy could be together, living in a lush green paradise. She scanned the front stoop, disappointed to see no scraps of paper.