Frank

Time did flow differently in the Bin, as all the residents of the LifeBack Repayment Program were apt to call it. This was particularly noticeable when talking to people directly on the phone. They talked so slowly. It was all Frank could do to not complete their sentences for them, something the automated system would ding you for.

"Please refrain from interrupting the customers," a too happy synthetic voice would chime in his ear.

The next hardest thing was slowing down his own speech rate so he didn't sound like a chipmunk talking to people. 

"Please slow your cadence," the synthetic voice would remind him. Often, the person on the other line would too. "I can't understand a word you're saying."

Frank completed his latest call and sighed. Rasa, having some semblance of authority, floated freely between the people sitting at their phone banks, making sure that everybody was properly engaged. A big board on the front wall, right where everybody could see it, showed the numbers. You had to keep your numbers up, as that was the only way to reduce your outstanding debt. Too many dings, and you might as well have not done anything productive that day. 

But going to work was a whole lot less dangerous than skipping work. That ding would set you back a week.

Rasa drifted over to Frank. "Getting the hang of things?" she said.

Frank nodded. "But why do we have to sit in this room?" he said. "I mean, it's a simulation, right? So couldn't I just be a brain floating in a jar, answering calls from the comfort of my saline solution?"

Rasa chuckled. "They think it helps us be more human, and understand better the human on the other end of the line."

Frank shrugged. "It could be better." Frank's phone began to blink.

Rasa patted him on the hand. "You'd better get that," she said before walking away. 

Frank pushed the button on his phone and readied himself for a barrage of customer complaint. He looked down at his hand, the one that Rasa had brushed. A piece of paper sat next to it. He slowly turned it over.

It had a message written on it. The handwriting was ornate, and reminded him of those old images of text that computers were supposed to have a hard time reading, albeit mixed with calligraphy. It said, "I've found a way out. Meet me at the gray room after shift. -R"

He smiled, crumpling up the note and tossing it into the garbage can under his desk. The can flashed and the note was gone, its bits reclaimed. He almost forgot to regulate his cadence as he helped someone set up their new touch-screen television.

After his shift, he was practically floating. He wandered in the general direction of the gray room, trying not to look too obvious. This was a room that Rasa had pointed out, due to some fluke most likely, was unmonitorable by the LifeBack agents. She told him to keep it a secret, as most Dead Beats didn't know about it either.

To many, it just looked like a broom closet, complete with mops and buckets and cleaning supplies. Most would just have discounted this, but the curious mind would wonder, why does a facility that is completely virtual need a broom closet in the first place?

When nobody was watching, he slipped inside. He sat on an empty cardboard box and waited for Rasa to arrive. After a few minutes, she stepped inside. He looked up at her and smiled.

"So, you have some big news?" he said.

She nodded. "Yes," she said. "I figured out a way to get us out of here, other than working our virtual butts off for the next decade."

Frank stood. He stepped up to her and gave her a hug. "That's great," he said. He looked at her. "How?"

Rasa's face was aglow with a smile. "It just clicked into place. We can use the comms room. We just have to time it right. I've been studying it. There's a coverage gap between the third and first shift cycling back. If we could get inside during that gap, we could beam ourselves out. We'd just need a big enough box to hold us until we could figure out what to do next. But at least we'd be free."

Frank grinned from ear to ear. "I know a place we can crash," he said. "I have an old acquaintance who's got plenty of storage."

Rasa nodded. She took Franks hands into her own and entwined their fingers. "It'll just be the two of us," she said. "That's all there'd be time for."

Frank squeezed her fingers between his. "I understand. These past few weeks, or whatever they've been, have been made so much easier with you by my side."

Rasa leaned in and kissed him. "Can you believe it, Frank?" she said. "We're going to get out of here. And then we'll be back in the real world."

Frank opened his eyes. He paused longer than he would have if he were talking to someone on the customer support line. "Yeah," he said. "Back."

Rasa looked at him. "What's the matter?"

Frank blinked. "Oh," he said. "It's just a lot to process. One moment, you think you're trapped in debtor's prison, and the other moment, someone tosses you a spoon to dig yourself out."

Rasa smiled. "It's going to be great."

Frank nodded. "Yeah," he said. "Great."

Later, as he was walking back to his desk for his next shift, he couldn't stop thinking about the ramifications of what that meant. Back. In the real world! 

"Gloria will be pissed," he mumbled to himself. What would he even tell her? "Sorry, babe, I died and thought that I was trapped in nerd Niflheim for the foreseeable future, so I thought I'd never see you again, and then I built up a relationship with this other woman who then came up with the crazy idea of springing us from the joint, and so, I had a choice: be a jerk to you or to her." And then he tried to figure out which sort of jerk he was.

He sat down at his desk. A new energy rolled through his body. It seemed too good to be true, but still, he was giddy. On his next call, he took advantage of the slow lag to hijack the caller's phone signal. Rasa had shown him the admin tools, and how to use them in a way such that it wasn't noticed, unless you abused it. Using his roots as a hacker, he was able to figure out the rest.

Using a series of subaudible signals, he was able to ride the connection to a soft phone, which he spoofed with his credentials. He had it send a message, three words, unless you counted contractions as two: "I'm coming home." He sent it, all while helping some guy order the right color towels for his new apartment.

Had he a pulse, it would have been pounding in his chest. Every time he'd see one of those weird LifeBack number-names, he'd think they were there to tell him the jig was up. But they'd just walk by and do whatever it was that they did.  He sat in the lobby and thought about how to handle the Gloria/Rasa issue.

And after what amounted to hours in the Bin, he was still unable to come  up with a solution.