Chapter 2 of cyberpunk story

Blue light showered from the window across my bedroom. Laying on my back, I bent my right arm and stared at my hand to the point where it appeared alien to me. I thought of my body as a separate entity, as this thing trying to rob me of my life. I turned my hand side to side, imagining tiny cancer cells flowing through veins, passing beneath the knuckles, swirling and pooling at the ends of my fingers. My fingers. My body. This disease, I reasoned, my enemy, and yet it is me. Cancer is a part of me, I thought. It's not just that the disease was in my body, I wondered if instead the cancer was my body. My entire existence, wrapped up in a parasite. I laid there in silent contemplation. I tried to push my mind to focus on the constant whir of drones outside my window. Again I drifted back toward my plight. I narrowed in on my fragility. My hand looked more withered by the second. The flesh dried, wrinkled and peeled from the bone. The cancer ate through me like moths through a sweater. My headache was back. A slight twinge in my shoulder. Was that a normal 'everyday' pain or was it the disease? What constituted normal anymore? Who could tell in the face of a terminal illness bent on emaciating you and rotting you down to nothing within days? Enough. I had to get up.

I had one of those moments. The kind you see in every film. The bathroom sink moment. I stood in front of the mirror, engaged the faucet, filled my palms with cold water and splashed it onto my face. I did that thing that every actor does. The after-splash glare at your reflection. The introspective inspection of one's visage, examining every crevasse and crease on one's face, searching for existential relief. Hoping for a glint of some inner resolve. Usually in the movies this is the moment our hero finds that gumption, the wherewithal to push through interminable opposition toward ultimate redemption and out-and-out victory. I am no hero. Whatever gumption I had was beaten out of me at an early age, just as this dystopian hell we call our world does to every child unfortunate enough to be born on the barren side of the river. There would be no music montage for me, no scenes of training or arming up to face down the enemy. Instead, I looked at myself in the mirror and saw the face of death. I saw 27 years of brutal oppression meeting its logical end. Maybe that's the redemption people on my side of the megacity can hope for: the merciful contraction of a lethal disease to preemptively end a life almost guaranteed to be filled with suffering until the body wears out on its own. Perhaps that was my glint. To view cancer as my savior. The idea no sooner passed through my mind when the corners of my lips curled into a slight grin as I peered at myself like one does at a CEO who speaks in greenwashing phrases and carefully honed platitudes. I wasn't buying my own bullshit.

Liver cancer. Of course, my mind went immediately back to focusing on my illness. It was everything. I was dying. My liver, plagued by cancerous growths. The thought of it gave me an ache in my abdomen. I couldn't tell if the ache was psychosomatic. Did I impart that ache, or was the ache real? Was my liver inflamed? Was it okay to eat?

I saw the time displayed in digital green above the stove. 5:34. I was behind my normal routine. I had to be to work by 7. I had to catch the 5:54 train in order to make every other connection on time. It was a ten minute walk to the subway. Normally, to be safe, I caught the 5:22 and arrived at my workstation early. I thought about not going to work at all. No, my terminal illness would not be accepted as a reasonable excuse, but I wanted to revolt anyway. My bold final act. To hold up a middle finger to Rivetech. But, as good as that would feel in the moment, I would lose my apartment. I would run out of food and water and die in the street. Then again, I was going to die anyway, did it matter?

I opened the fridge grabbed my last bagel and emptied the last of my water supply. I threw on the same clothes I wore the day before. One good thing about being a faceless drone for Rivetech is there was no dress code. They didn't care what you wore so long as you completed your daily quota. Eighty pieces. You had to work fast and steady for twelve hours to take apart existing components and fashion new ones with that given time, but over the years you learn little tricks and efficiencies to the point where you can do more than eighty and still have moments to yourself at your bench. Of course, you could not be seen not working, but there too you could fudge it, make yourself look busy while really you're taking a break. Rivetech didn't want to pay to employ as many supervisors as it would take to effectively police the floor and that was just fine by us.

I ran out the door at 5:42. Piece of cake. But then, I wondered as I walked briskly along the damp sidewalk under the overcast sky, what if I suddenly had an attack, a shock of pain so severe I would be nearly hobbled, my pace would be slowed and I wouldn't make the 5:54? This is what happens with me. Was it narcissism? It didn't matter if it was a minor injury or a bout of influenza. My ailment consumed me. Every concern revolved around this gaping pit. The most mundane of actions wound up under the microscope. I could still walk, but for how long? Enough! I picked up my pace. Every breath in and out became a small victory. A slight cough. Coincidence? Would the cough have happened anyway without cancer? I was a prisoner in my own mind.

That's when you look to your left at the fortunate sons and privileged daughters gliding past in their automated vehicles. Every single one of them outfitted with an enhancer, without a doubt. They sit in these rolling chambers, eyes glued to a screen, passing through neighborhoods they'd never dare to walk. Where do their cars take them? One could only speculate. They didn't sign papers during the Transition, their bodies don't belong to any company, they'd never had to trade their labor for capital. Their savings and inheritances from generations previous enabled them to sail through the change and keep up with their expenses. Right away they got their Purplecards and once the Transition was through they were put on the Universal Basic Income. For those of us racked with debt, we couldn't coast and meet our expenses. We couldn't qualify for a Purplecard and so we had to work, if we were able-bodied enough. But the only work left didn't pay enough to get out from under already accumulated debt. We were stuck. Too bad, so sad say the gliders in the street. Work harder. Save more. Pull yourself up by the bootstraps. Stop accumulating debt. Personal responsibility. So very easy for them to say.

No matter, I'd reached the first long stairway down from the street to a concourse bathed in white light. The contrast from the darkness above causes you to squint every morning. Sparks flamed behind my eyeballs. No doubt the cancer cells glowed red like embers exacerbating the pain. I blamed every tweak and twitch on the cancer. I was consumed.

The 5:54 arrived at 5:55. We the dead-eyed zombie workforce of the megacity crushed into one another, forced ourselves like congealed meat through the sliding doors. Forced ourselves onto one another, endured the spots of foreign warmth pressed up against us. You could name every breakfast meal of every subway rider around you. Coffee and eggs. Garlic toast. Onion bagel. Maple oatmeal. Liver. There it is. It leaves your mind then comes roaring back. Liver cancer. Stage IV. The worst stage. Why do they name the stages? Can you ever climb from one stage back to a lesser one? Had I been able to afford the Plus plan, would I have been able to claw back to Stage III? With the Enhanced plan would I have been able to work for Rivetech for another ten years at Stage I? Did anyone on the subway car have a nano enhancer implanted? If they did, why were they in this crunch of humanity? Why work? Sure, you still need to eat even with an enhancer, it won't save you from starving, but it does buy you time. And that's what the rest of us sold along with our bodies. Time. I imagined finding someone on that train who had the implant, taking a dagger and carving it out for myself. That's striving, isn't it? Come on all you uber-capitalist shits, isn't my revolutionary act of forcibly removing an enhancer from someone else pulling myself up by the bootstraps? Am I not planting my personal flag and going to war for my freedom in that instance?

I was tired. Sick and tired. The bagel would have to sustain me for roughly six hours. Jose promised to bring me some of his quinoa salad. He called it salad anyway even though it contained no vegetables or fruit of any kind. We would each sneak some at different intervals. Usually we timed these things toward the middle of the day. That's when the corporate offices would often lay off the surveillance. It's a pattern learned over years of careful observation. I'd never seen any worker fired and thrown out around midday. Plus, we had enough detritus scattered across our stations to capably hide small bits of nourishment, and like I'd said we became masters at appearing to do a lot while doing little.

I walked through the heavy doors at the back of the hangar at 6:57, most were already at their stations and as I quickly marched between the rows I nearly fainted in place. Bluehead. Not in Berlin. Jose heard wrong. There he was, tall, pacing, judging. He was the worst of the supervisors. The most cruel. The most critical and worst of all, the most observant. In other words he was competent and also, unfortunately, a psychopath. We called him Bluehead because he kept his neatly coiffed do a brightly dyed blue, but whether or not he realized the dye job wasn't always so neat and often he would dye his own scalp. A line of blue dye would run along his hair line making him look like an eccentric fool.

I slid onto my stool. Bluehead stood a few rows ahead. He glared down at the workers and none dared return his gaze. I did my best to avert my eyes. I grabbed the first components of the day from the large wooden bin beside my bench and got to work. As expected, Bluehead came marching over. I glanced left and my eyes met with Jose's, we both shared a worried puzzlement as the tall supervisor approached.

“It's 6:59,” he said.

“Yes.” I kept working and did not look up. That's a mistake you make only once.

“Is it customary that you arrive so close to your start time?”

“Not my usual habit. No sir. I'd taken a later train.”

“I don't entertain excuses. I am making an observation.”

“Yes, sir.”

“It is acceptable to arrive early.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Rivetech expects commitment.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Show commitment.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you know how many poor lost souls ache to have your job?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Have a little pride for once in your life.”

“Yes, sir.”

With that he folded his hands behind his back and continued past my station down the row to harass someone else. Jose and I shared a knowing smirk. The only way to deal with a psychopath like Bluehead was to placate. To obliquely acquiesce to whatever was being put forward. Sometimes it meant swallowing a raging rapid of shit, but it was survival.

Survival. Now there's a word.