Story by Brooke

"Ow, ow, ow, ow", Susan abruptly lowered her voice, "ow."


Rubbing her knee, she looked around to make sure that none of the Monitors had heard her. Raising one's voice to that level could be cause for correction.

After a few moments, the sharp pain in her kneecap faded to a dull throb, and Susan turned back to her desk. A neat stack of paper sat to her left, bound by a thick industrial staple. As she reached to get the staple remover, her chain snagged on the lip of the supply drawer. She turned in the base of her chair, carefully maneuvering her knees around the edge of the desk, and untangled the chain with her free hand. She wheeled back to her computer to continue working, then heard the ominous thump of a printer cartridge slapping against an open palm. She froze.

"Su-u-s-a-a-n", the voice crooned from behind her, "what was all that noise?"

Susan tried not to flinch, expecting the blow at any time.

"I'm sorry." She worked to keep her voice controlled and smooth. People who showed fear to the Monitors had a way of disappearing. "I accidentally bumped my knee on the desk. It won't happen again."

"Be sure that it doesn't."

Instead of the blow she had been expecting, the twelve inch, heavy duty printer cartridge, which was reinforced with lightweight steel, tapped lightly against her ear, a not-so-gentle warning. The Monitor moved on.

Susan breathed a sigh of relief and resumed her work with shaking hands. The stack of papers showed today's deadline. Each contained orders for prototypes. As she entered the orders, she noticed the differences on each. Some had blonde hair, some black. Eyes of blue and green were entered into the appropriate field, each trim waist size and perfect height recorded fastidiously. Nowhere on the forms did she see gray hair, or hazel eyes, or any measurements that would indicate obesity. The replacements would all look like something out of a fashion magazine. They would also be the perfect workers, never questioning management, or making decisions that could harm the company. Long years of programming had assured that.

As Susan finished entering the orders, she heard two meaty thumps and quiet sobbing a few cubicles over. The cries were shortly silenced with one more loud thump. She hated herself for the way she felt when these incidents took place: a little sympathy for the victim, but mostly relief that she wasn't the one being "corrected."

When Susan was halfway through her next stack of orders, a soft, soothing voice came over the intercom. It was the voice of one of the first prototypes, and sounded to Susan like the woman's voice that told you that you have dialed a number that is no longer in service.

"All employees, please log off of your computers for lunch. Return to your stations in forty-five minutes."

Susan finished the order and logged off, waiting patiently for a monitor to unlock her silver bracelet, which was attached to the chain on her desk. Shortly, one of the Monitors came by and slid a key into the lock. The Monitor walked behind Susan, and Susan stopped dutifully with the Monitor at each cubicle, whose occupant joined Susan and the others in front of the Monitor. They continued down the row this way until they reached the end. There, Susan's group joined the Admins that were heading single file to the cafeteria.

Susan was able to find a seat with her friend, Carol, at a corner table. After they unwrapped their sandwiches and began to eat, Carol leaned over conspiratorially.

"You'll never believe what I heard last night."

Susan swallowed, hope welling up within her. "What?"

Carol looked around to make sure no one was listening. "I was almost asleep when I heard some of the Monitors talking outside our room. They were complaining about having to use the toner cartridges to 'keep us in line'." I heard one of them-I think it was Roger-say that he couldn't believe that they had to use the cartridges instead of tazers. I couldn't hear the whole thing, but he said something about management forgetting to budget for real weapons, and that's why they had to use the toner cartridges. That there was surplus steel the company needed to dump, so they melted it down to line the empty cartridges some idiot Admin had never returned to Xerox. They figured that the heavier cartridges would keep us on good behavior without actually killing us. After all, we are somewhat valuable." This last was said bitterly. Carol hesitated for a moment.

"But he also said that the tazers are supposed to be coming in next week. Tazers? My god..."

Carol leaned back and started to take a bite of her sandwich, but then thought better of it. Susan also lost what little appetite she had.

Shortly after this exchange, one of the Monitors moved over to their area, so the conversation quickly switched to a safer topic.

They spoke of their recreation plans for the evening. Annie was showing in conference room B, and they decided to watch that. All the Monitors ever showed in the evenings were musicals and reruns of Full House. Susan assumed that the Nazis (as they privately called the monitors) were afraid that the Admins would revolt if any violent shows were aired.

Susan was a realist, and therefore knew that there was no chance of ever escaping. The Monitor to Admin ratio was five to one, and their remote space station wasn't equipped with suits for the Admins in case of emergency. They had been sure to explain that first thing during the rollout. As Carol began chatting about her grandchildren, and how much they had probably grown in her absence, Susan thought back to the day when she woke up to find herself so far from home.

---

She had been leaving the mall to head back to work after running some errands on her lunch hour. Susan liked her job as an Admin at one of Detroit's top advertising firms, but hoped to someday make a living doing something more creative. She was thinking of this as she walked to her car. Maybe she could do something with crafts...sell candles, or start an online gift basket company. She considered the possibilities as she retrieved her car keys from her purse, so deep in thought that she didn't notice when the door of the van next to hers slid open quietly. There was only a moment to be shocked when a damp, sharp-smelling cloth was shoved against her mouth and nose, and everything want black.

She woke in a small dormitory. A man standing at the door of the room ushered her and a group of others into a conference room. The people around Susan all looked as confused as she felt. Susan was disoriented and angry. She tried to ask what in the world was going on, but a hard blow to the ear settled her down quickly. Tears formed in her eyes, and she pressed a hand to her ear and walked meekly into the room, head down. She was forced to step over a man who had apparently put up more resistance than she had. Sticky blood matted his hair, and he was lying doubled over on the floor, holding his ribs and trying to breathe. Susan felt a sick rush of fear as she took a seat at the large table. There were Monitors posted at regular intervals around the room. The dress code was apparently business casual, and the Monitors looked like the average office employees, except for the ring of keys and walkie talkie on their belts, and of course, the ever present toner cartridge in their fist.

A distinguished gentleman stood at the front of the room. He had gray hair and a trim mustache. The expensive business suit he wore was a perfect fit. When he began speaking, Susan could detect what she thought was a Mediterranean accent.

"Good morning. I am George Williams. Welcome to the WFT Replacement Center. You have all been recruited because of your administrative skills, and exemplary work records. The office workforce of my country is scheduled to be replaced with androids by the end of the year. We need a new game plan, and have decided that replacing humans with a mechanized workforce will work wonders for our bottom line. The initial start-up cost is rather robust, but will save us a lot of money at the end of the day. Using androids will add value for our customers, as our metrics will show, and our goal is to work proactively to make this happen ASAP.

"Production is scheduled to start in two weeks, and orders need to be entered immediately. You will each be assigned to a desk, where you will work until all of the orders are entered."

A diagram appeared on a screen at the front of the room. It showed a picture of the earth with some fuzzy blobs around it. Mr. Williams apologized for the poor projection, took a laser pointer from his pocket, and circled one of the blobs.

"You are here. Our station lies just outside of the earth's atmosphere. We are not equipped with safety suits, so if you manage to breach the walls and escape, you will...decompress...within moments. I might mention that attempting to do this will also put your co-workers at considerable risk."

He returned to his laptop on the front of the table, pushed a button, and another incomprehensible diagram appeared.

"The restrooms are here, here and here-" He circled each area with the pointer. "And the cafeteria is in Section B." Another circle.

George then put the laser pointer back in his pocket and pressed some keys on his laptop. The screen went blank.

"Once the orders are entered, you will be retired." A small smile played across his thin lips.

"The Monitors will escort you to your assigned stations. Once you are settled in, please proceed to the cafeteria for the evening meal. You will then have 2 hours of recreation, followed by lights out at 10 PM. The workday will start at 7 AM. Do not be late."

The people around Susan showed different reactions: some were crying, others murmuring in dismay. One man pushed his chair back from the table and stood up.

"Okay, where are the cameras?" He looked around the table and gave a nervous laugh. "This has to be a reality show, right?"

"I assure you, it is not." George nodded to one of the Monitors. The woman walked up behind the man who had just spoken, and swung the cartridge like a baseball bat. It connected squarely with the back of the man s head. A few droplets of blood splattered onto the cheap, imitation oak table, and the man slumped to the floor. The room was dead silent.

George waved his hand in casual dismissal. "Thank you for coming."

A buzzer sounded, signifying the end of the lunch period and jolting Susan back to reality. Carol was staring at her, as if waiting for a reply. Susan looked down and noticed that her white-knuckled hands were gripping the lunch tray.

"Sorry." She managed a weak smile.

As little orphan Annie sang about tomorrow on the screen that evening, Susan thought hopelessly about her own future. She would never see her husband or children again. Tears slid down her cheeks as she thought about them. She wasn't sure how long she had been here. They weren't allowed calendars. If she had to guess, it had been six months, or more. It seemed like an eternity. She sometimes wondered if she was in hell. Most of the time, the days blurred together like a quiet nightmare. Get up, eat lukewarm oatmeal, drink a glass of watery juice. Be chained to the desk to enter orders and check production schedules until lunch, cold cut sandwiches and vegetables if they were lucky, then back to work. Dinner was generally soup and wilted salad. Then more work, a couple of hours of bad media, and bed. Get up the next day and start all over. Susan was beginning to feel like one of the robots that she was helping to create. She noticed that the other "employees" were acting as if they felt the same way. Susan pressed her face into the pillow that evening and sobbed as quietly as she could, so as not to alert the night Monitor.

A rumbling sound filled the dormitory. Susan awoke and jerked upright. Other people were sitting on their cots. Some were getting up, wondering what was going on. Was the station losing pressure? Susan stumbled from the bed towards the small window on the wall. A group of her roommates were crowded around it.

"It's American ships!" one of them crowed. The Monitors, who had been watching with as much fascination as the rest of them, suddenly turned and ran from the room, probably going for escape pods. The station shuddered as the ships began to fire. Susan felt a moment of cold panic as she realized that this may not be a rescue mission, but seek and destroy.

She ran into the hallway, looking for an interior room in which to hide. Outside, all was chaos. Monitors and captives ran in all directions. Susan searched for an empty room to hide in, beginning to panic. Small groups of people were forming in the hallway. As she approached the bathroom where she had decided to hide, she saw that one of the groups nearby consisted of a bunch of Admins surrounding Roger, the Monitor that had the reputation for being the most cruel. The Admins had wrestled the cartridge from Roger's hands, and Frank, the man that occupied the cubicle next to Susan, was beating Roger viciously on the head. Roger threw his hands up, trying to protect himself, but the Admins had found hope in the sight of American ships, and were relentless. Roger soon went limp. As Susan made her way towards the restroom, she saw similar scenarios throughout the hallway. She paused by one group of Admins that had two Monitors cowering in fear. Should she help the Admins? She had always been an advocate for peace, but rage had built up within her these past months, spawned by the Monitors cruelty to their fellow human beings. She fought her way into the group and drew her foot back. Her heel caught the Monitor squarely in the ear. Another Admin slammed a cartridge down on his temple. She felt a brief moment of elated satisfaction. Then the Monitor convulsed, and made a noise that would come to haunt her nightmares. Susan fled to the restroom, where she hid in a stall and prayed desperately that the station wouldn't lose pressure.

---

Susan woke with a start, banging her head on the toilet paper holder. She listened closely for any noise that would indicate what was going on, but all was quiet. She stood and cautiously left the bathroom, looking for signs of life. Bodies lined the hall. Terror coursed through her, but she was calm enough to note with some satisfaction that most of the bodies were Monitors. Sadly, some were also her fellow captives. Her foot bumped something, and she looked down to see an arm protruding from a corridor. As she passed, she saw that it was Carol, never to see her grandchildren again. Susan continued down the hall, filled with grief.

A door stood ajar at the end of the hall. She stepped to the crack and looked through. Large gray machines stood in a row. She moved over to the nearest of them for a closer look. Several steps led up to a flat platform on one side of the machine. A rectangular opening in the middle exposed a wicked array of circular blades positioned directly over a canister. They looked like paper shredders, but were bigger than any shredder Susan had ever seen. It took her a moment to realize that they were intended for retirement. What she could not understand was why, with the simple convenience of an airlock so close at hand, would they resort to such a crude, vicious, and messy form of disposal? When it dawned on her, she returned to the hallway and vomited.

As she retched up the last of her stomach acid, still on hands and knees, something cold touched the back of her neck. She screamed and tried to run. A firm hand closed around her upper arm.

"It's OK, Ma'am. You're OK."

She looked up to see a man in a spacesuit, with the bubble face plate flipped back. An American flag was emblazoned on his chest. Susan began sobbing uncontrollably, and fell into his arms.

---

“BZZZZZZT”

Susan jumped, startled. The signal on the dryer ended the reverie about her days chained to a desk. She rose and walked towards the laundry room to get the last load out of the dryer.

She lifted a small T-shirt to her face, inhaling the sweet scent of fabric softener, treasuring even the small chore of doing laundry. The drone of the TV in the background was comforting. As she finished folding her daughters clothes, she listened to the news and wondered for the thousandth time why the story of her plight had taken months to be publicly announced.

Hundreds of people have been rescued from a commercial space station. The number of dead is still not determined. The president has scheduled a press conference this evening at six to discuss the intent of the government of Madiea. There is speculation that this clear violation of human rights could lead to war..."

Susan sat her daughter down at her little Barney table, putting a pile of goldfish crackers and a juice box in front of her. She kissed the top of her sweet blonde head before returning to the kitchen. She knew after her experiences that she would never take anything for granted again. She dialed the phone in the kitchen to call the IRS about a problem with her tax return. After minutes on the touch tone system, she reached a live person, who asked her to explain the nature of her call. After Susan finished speaking, the woman on the other end said in her melodic voice that she just had a few more questions.

"What is your date of birth-date of birth-date of birth-date of birth-"

The voice that had been so pleasant to listen to just moments before became a mechanical whine, repeating itself like a broken record.