White light flickers ($4). The worker is conscious now, pinprick pupils, sanpaku eyes. Notifications. Pings. System alerts. The ceiling of the pod blurs into color ($5). Stimjections ($14.50) pepper his thigh, the inside of his wrist, behind his ear. The worker is still. Stares. No reaction.
Nutrient dense fluid, purple-pink, insinuates itself through tubes, meets the permanent cannula embedded in his left shoulder ($2). The system shudders as the fluids join the internal network. The pod soothes the worked, micro-temperate adjustments, pressure point pads. The system settles.
The worker coughs. More system alerts. He clears notifications.
A plastic facemask descends, clamps his nose, mouth, eyes, forms a seal. The pod fills with steam ($7.75), the system is cleaned, flushed through, scrubbed raw pink, wrapped in underclothes, then over ($10). The feet are wrapped, the hands coated in synthrub, the head shaved fresh and bound ($5). The mask retracts.
Throughout, the worker scans his screens, clears, replies, organizes. Pupil swipes, micro-gestures, ingrained facial twitches, nods, winks. Working, working, working. The worker must and shall work.
And so.
Pneumatic exhalation. Machine breath. Cushioned clamps hold the worker in place as the pod rotates vertical ($4). The ceiling of the pod, now the door, clears, dilates. The pod performs final pre-flight system checks.
Urino-hydration balance. Centrifugal hemotographical flowrate. Chemistratical calculations. Personality matrices. Psychological locks. Refresh rates. Tethers.
Clamps release. The worker is ejected into the fold. The cycle begins again.
It is 05:00, second rotation, third watch, 230 PEB. The worker’s deficit stands at -$720,462.45. He is forty-two years old.
He is 66.35 years from system failure, fold rejection, recycle patterning.
The work continues.
— Rob Power is a writer, musician, reader. He lives near Oxford, UK. He has family, cat, car. Many books. He wear no shoeshine. He got toe jam football.