The consumption of one-thousand genetically altered specimens would be a hefty task for anyone, but Howie was always hungry. With the remaining corpses cleared away for analysis, an amount of ease returned to Howard’s body. It was done. No matter what happened next, it was out of his hands from here. Ping came the comforting clockwork ending to his work. An enormous yellow mass of pus, one larger and more viscous than any he had ever seen before arose from Howie’s central tubing. The data from these subjects must be greater than accounted for. But this was what he wanted wasn’t it? More data to work with, soothing his fears, he revealed his red sealed diary from the interior of his lab coat, soon to stuffed back into oblivion, nearly to the brim with entries, like his newest: he had his Rubicon, there was no going back now.

The tram ride home felt to inch along the tracks. The walk through the rain having ate away his last vestiges of adrenaline, leaving only the telltale gray powder of a working class stiff. His awareness zoning in and out, Howard began frantically patting out a white cloud from his shoulders to his chest before someone could clock it. He was more concerned with his performance and attire than the particles wafting into his lungs, once members of a greater system, now just dust in the wind. One way or the other, his world would come to an end by the breaching of the morning light. He was sure of it.

Howard awoke to the aftermath of what he was certain was a particularly gruesome nightmare. The tossed, sweat-covered sheets, the bruises without explanation, they were all unmistakable evidence. Yawning a familiar exhaustion, “too many ill-defined data to reach a conclusion worth the time to address so leave it be Howard.”

It could be his nightmares, the heat of his apartment bloc, or something worse. He pushed it out of his mind, he would manage these symptoms like Hans managed him, with an iron fist. In truth, the cause was of little consequence to him. Soon he would talk with Hans.

History is the platform upon which the works of man may be scaffolded with risky decisions, it was in this exchange that Howard could find his value, to the bold sometimes go the spoils. If he was proven right, Hans must come around to the way of things, he was certain.

The morning light carried with it harsh ultraviolet light to sear all beneath its gaze. Stress and erosion mar especially the most beautiful of surfaces, and with the radiation came wrinkles, freckles, and much worse. Like many peoples before theirs, youth and beauty were prized commodities. As insurance for this long-term investment, the science-industrial process naturally included skincare among its priorities to survive the ending of the world.

The reflective metal of the angled tram walls reflected each rider in their own portrait. To see themselves and the shoulder-height area around them was a matter of pride in one’s appearance as much as safety. But the city’s constant rumble did little to drown out the silence between people. Interactions between strangers in public usually predicated ill tidings or crime, aside from the hours spent in transit, the mere sight of one alone was cause for alarm, but his heart had never been so reserved in even this, the most populous space he found himself.

Trams like these could hold ten to fifteen people but rarely if ever did. The city was built for the tram just as surely as the tram was constructed to hold together the city.

Howard’s eyes met the growing lines on his face with indifference. To him, beauty was a fool’s errand. A quest with a conditional and tenuous victory. Only those deemed worthy may pass, but upon whose authority. Yet, he would not deny the material benefits such a quality gave an individual. To Howard, to flower in the desert is to be observed and revered. He wondered how much easier they had it, the beauties. But he knew his place among the sands, and he thrived in his critical habitat.

His intestines were not so fortunate, his meal replacement shake sat in his stomach almost in protest of the very notion of either digestion or expulsion. His tram was one stop away from its final destination. As the car slowed to a halt, Howard could see a comme-bot, one of hundreds of thousands just like it that roamed this section of the ring-city alone. Each one was a mobile platform for commercial goods purchases, and an essential means of goods delivery though the city. But this unit’s behavior was unlike anything he’d ever seen before. Most bots seek out potential buyers, but this one wasn’t even trying to level its prosthetic eyes with the gaze of a human, almost like it was trying to blend in.

Eagar to depart the tram and begin a closer investigation into what was a convenience store on wheels, his search revealed a small layer of tape in the middle of its body with large red ink, a product called ‘Zoner Cream.’ Howard never used the stuff, but from what he did know, it was a cheap knockoff brand of the skincare giant Tresbelliene’s ‘Toner Cream,’ a compound advertised to contain minerals that invigorated nanoparticles in the skin, increasing the hold the shape of the face in 82% of surveyed respondents. Without such protection, the skin would be needlessly exposed to dangerous particles dancing through the wind, so in the end Howard considered it harmless marketing. It was a small comfort but even the small luxuries seemed to make things worth it for some people, who was to judge?

Of course, he did. As a WorldNet regular, he was very familiar with the operations of most scams. But the gimmick behind this operation eluded him, and that made him all the more suspicious. He quickly walked away before a customs-bot acquired evidence of his involvement in a black-market smuggling operation, or something, probably drugs.

A single topic was rarely enough to occupy his mind, but now it was more than enough. For layered within this one subject were so many different concerns. Howard funneled his nervousness into his legs for a short-lived speed boost. Arriving just before his legs could transmute to jelly, like they always seemed to, he made it on time. Not that Hans remarked on it.

The gun grey metal door slid open, walking through with his heart in his throat, he prepared himself before his screen, straightened his back, confidence was key after all. The cold black screen radiated nothing; yet his mind, drawing upon the neurological familiarity of this moment his body had experienced, by his count, five-thousand and eight-hundred and thirty-nine to date and entropy took the screen accordingly. A familiar face blinked into being before him.

"Good afternoon distinguished scientist of GenCo. Welcome to our regularly scheduled check-in. Please let me know how you are feeling by marking one of the faces on the happy to not scale.”

Howard quickly indicated his desperation to keep his job with a beaming green smiling face.

Hans’ expressionless face washed away revealing a deeper unknowable man, one capable of great violence. Howard’s prey responses had never felt so vindicated. “Now. What have you done?”

“I” his voice died in his throat, replaced by an utterance, “I made a modification to my process, it was meant to improve the quality of my return.”

“No, Howard. What you have done is to create more than 99 times the usual amount of data for me to examine, do you think you are the only scientist that matters here? Do you know how many others just like you aspire to occupy the exact same lab you soil with your ill-preparation of such simple tasks as coffee making? Howard, you have demonstrated a poor display of judgment, character, and worse scientific aptitude. Your sample was discarded before anything was drawn or analyzed from it. this is worse than failure, this is waste. You have been assigned to draft a process improvement plan, pending future reassessment of the value of your labor. Do you have any questions before our meeting concludes?”

By way of involuntary request of his limbic system, time slowed to accommodate him as the words sunk into his awareness, cutting his world to match against a realer one. He would never reach the heights he dreamed of. His career, no matter where he took it, would be forever marred by the presence of a process improvement requirement on his labor history. No sensible employer would ever hire someone with a spotty track record, not in this market. Many of these people were known to resort to monetizing their own lives, people owing value to the wrong people would wake to find family members whisked away in the night, never to be seen again. Unanswered questions assumedly finalized the clearing out of their debt. Would Howard now become like them? No, it was impossible. He was too erudite, too capable. And yet, the evidence.

Snapped back to reality by a tap over the sound system, a notification intended to prod his awareness, Howard replied with the willpower of a broken machine “can I tap into my vacation time? I need at least two weeks to clear my head, at least according to Howie.”

Whether out of contempt for his presence or irritation at a new name he did not care to learn, Hans probed no further.

“You have one week. Consider your request approved. But when you return, you will submit to an improvement plan and to any further evaluation deemed necessary. If that is understood, please register your ocular data into the biometric scanner to your left, smile to confirm the facial recognition of this encounter and exchange, and depart in silence.”

Howard did so without question or protest. He was still processing everything he had just heard. He walked up to the camera lens in the wall. It was perfectly his height. A fanned scarlet light covered his retina in a quick scan before turning off and looking like nothing more than an obsidian decoration on the wall. He curled his face into a rictus grin.

Walking out of the meeting room was like swimming past the wakes on a beach, striving out to get to deeper water only to have been exhausted by the effort. The walls were closing in now. The city that was once the keyhole to a future beyond the deprivations of his youth was now a cement tomb, eager to add him as a new addition to an unremembered layer.

With the speed and soul of a specter, Howard floated through the transit walkways, to take one last look at his lab, maybe say goodbye to Howie. He could barely stomach the thought of it. The opening of his lab door was met with the wafting scent of stale coffee, a reminder of his many failings.

Without warning, from out of his lab shredder came a fully formed document, no, not a document. Gently removing the soft paper revealed its nature, it was a geocode, a secure link to a GPS token. The back side read.

“Enjoy your retirement, your oasis awaits”

-H

It was Howie. Somehow, he came through for him! He was certain of it. It was the only logical explanation. He had no time, no time to pack no time to tell, no one to tell. It no longer mattered. Howard kissed the tank that held the machine that gave his life new meaning and sprinted outside to find the means to a new way in life.

Running out to the courtyard his spirit soared. “I knew it, this is providence.” Before him, a parked exomobile, it’s door vertically flipped, its engine warm from recent use. This was impossible, Howard scanned the courtyard he could see trails of footprints in the ash along the grounds, but this was his moment, his journey, his legacy.

There was no time to plan, no time to think. Howard sprinted towards his salvation. He was certain of it.