The Pill and the Patsy – Part 6
To say that my life has become a whirlwind of activity is to do a disservice to the whirlwind. My life has exploded in more directions than I can even truly pin down right now. I will attempt to use this space to sum up, for myself if nothing else. Let’s dive in.
My work life had become a form of torture, based on the back of a really robotic, nasty, non-empathetic individual who had made it her mission to see me throw in the towel. She never truly had enough to fire me, and she trumped up literally everything she could find in order to get me out the door. I don’t know why, I still don’t know why, and the things which had me on the hot seat happened to others who were given a free pass. That chapter of my work life is closed. My three hour a day commute has been laid to rest. My daily meetings (again a situation unique to me and me alone) with said individual are cancelled. I once more have daily breaks (which were stolen, once more, by individual above), and I also have a situation where my every single minute at work was being watched resolved. All of these changes are due to new management, which came in, noticed the horrendous list of things I had to deal with for no real reason, and had them all changed at light speed (for an office). My job has gone from something I dread to something that presents me a wealth of opportunities, and allows my commute to be “Walking down the stairs”.
Second, and this is the most important thing, every single manager of the team I work for now (there’s seven of them, it’s big business what I do) has big things in store for me. Please bear in mind, what I make now is the most money I have ever made in my entire life. I’ve had a good job ever since I called it quits with school and got a GED. I’ve worked 40+ hours a week for basically my entire adult life. I’ve managed an entire section of the Kansas DMV, and this is still the most money I’ve ever made. I never managed to graduate from college, mostly due to lack of money and direction. No one in my family, in any direction, has ever graduated from college. So I was pretty lost at staying on task and developing a plan for success. When my job comes to me and offers me pay that is as much as (if not more than) the money my peers with degrees make, and actively seeks me for the position, excitement is an understatement for how I feel. Everyone who reads me knows I’m an open book. I share my struggles. Money has been a significant issue. Part of why I wanted to become a writer was to avoid the constant never ending struggle I have with the dollar bill not going far enough. So when my new boss comes in and flat out tells me that he wants to triple my already highest amount I’ve ever made salary? Yeah, that’s… that’s something extraordinary.
There is a final component to what has happened with my job, and sadly this is a significant drawback to all the wonderfulness. If I get this promotion (and they want me to very much), then I will have to move across the country. I’m in Kansas, and I would be looking at a move to the New York / Mass. / Pennsylvania area. I have essentially zero friends and family out there, so I would be starting over. At 32. A lot of the friends that I have here in Kansas and in Missouri are for all intents and purposes my family. I love them all very much, and I spend as much time with them as I can possibly manage. Leaving them behind will be one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. It would destroy my Dungeons and Dragons group rather thoroughly. Plus, it would destroy a lot of the other things I love to do, which is play board games. My best friend in the entire universe would basically be reduced to an online buddy that I could only interact with a few times a week. He has a nocturnal schedule, and I most distinctly do not. It’s.. It’s just something I don’t want to have to do. The harsh reality is this though: My writing is going so much better that it’s hard to recognize where I began. But that doesn’t mean it’s profitable yet. I’m not making money at it, and my family is struggling. It’s hard for us to pay all the bills. It’s hard for us to have enough to keep food on the table. My wife is a teacher for pete’s sake, and we can hardly afford the car payment on two rather banal entry level vehicles. It’s just a different world that we live in. So when someone comes along and says they will triple my salary, and my wife has flat out stated that she will gladly transfer her certificate to a new state to chase that much money, what can I realistically do?
My life isn’t about me anymore. My life is about providing for my family. When (not if) I can do that by writing, I will gladly roll back the clock. But that could be five years. It could be ten. I have no ability to gauge that timeline, because it all comes down to a combination of luck and timing. Who knows which story will explode when? I can’t, so I just have to keep producing like I’ve been doing, and rely on a stable income until I hit a level of notoriety which will allow me to relinquish the day job. I wish that things would shake out differently, but for now I cannot look this gift horse in the mouth. I’m just going to have to take it, and work for all I’m worth in the meantime.
Without further cliches,
The Pill and the Patsy – Part 6
Patsy sat on the windowsill, the rain pounding down in the alley in front of her, and swore violently. Her only escape route was being expertly blocked by an Andro who was using their body, their pistol, and the very narrow alleyway as an effective plug. There was zero possibility that Patsy could attempt any hijinks without getting a belly full of replo darts for her troubles. Her leg, slowly numbing as a reminder of what the replos could do, was a pointed counter to the counter ticking down in her peripheral vision. She was out of time, and apparently out of options. I have to fight or surrender. Given that I’ve killed half the team, surrender seems like a bad idea. Thoughts like those chased themselves around in Patsy’s mind, as she reloaded a new clip of darts on the sill. She had fifteen minutes until she reached a stage of non-functionality, and she would be severely incapacitated long before that timer reached zero. The calm, calculating thief within her screamed for her to make towards the nearest bolthole and sleep it off. Let her nanos do all the heavy lifting against the replos. That option was corked tight, on the back of an Andro with enough skill and smarts to bottle her up at the first sign that the Wickers were losing their battle against The Duchess.
With a heavy sigh, she came to the only decision that mattered. If she were to go down, it would be swinging for all that she was worth. She hadn’t come as far as she had, suffered as much as she had, nor given up so much working for that disgusting bastard Monty to have it all end here. She drew her graphene blade once more, wielding it with the pistol, and vaulted into the office and whatever fate awaited her. The Andro whom she had pinned down with her furious assault couldn’t have been expecting her to leap directly at them. Their pistol came up with the speed of their implants, and began huffing darts in her direction, but they were simply wild reaction shots. None came close to her. Patsy hit the ground in a tight combat roll only slightly marred by her numb leg, and huffed five darts in the direction of the Andros chest. They were good, clearly expecting the shots to come, but they didn’t have the speed nor the nanos to deal with so many replo darts. After the first struck home, the second and third quickly downed the large Andro. They were left in a twitching, drooling puddle on the office floor. With such a large dose, and no internal self repair, Patsy doubted they would survive the dose. She absentmindedly fired the remainder of the clip into the downed Andros back before ejecting the empty cartridge and detaching the empty comp-gas cylinder. She rummaged in the dying Andros combat vest, coming up with fresh comp-gas and three new clips. Her numb leg had two new darts, but her nanos had long since closed the leg down as a pathway for the replos to advance. The internal timer display hadn’t even bumped upward when the new darts struck home. 10:35 slowly ticked past. Her waist began to tingle now, informing her that ground was slowly being ceded by her hard working nanos.
She had long since drawn her external army into her body to assist her normal contingent in the fight against the replo flachettes. She was down to her wits and her slowing reaction times to deal with the remaining two Andros. She ducked, her neural implant impelling action before her consciousness had caught on to the need. Her headlong tumble brought her up against a desk with a sharp smack on her ribs. She lost her breath, but didn’t lose the battle. Four rapidly fired darts had whacked into the desk exactly where her chest had been a few moments ago. She silently cursed, then thanked, her neural implants for the save. She wasn’t likely to get too many more like that. This Andro, realizing the mess Patsy had made of thier comrades, wouldn’t be likely to close with her. She could hear two sets of huffs. Dual wielding eh? Patsy thought with a grin, I must really have them spooked. She gasped to catch her breath, and her timer dwindled past eight minutes. She had no overlay, no advantage over the Andro any longer. Her chest went cold. The nanos were frantically keeping the replos away from her vital organs and more importantly her sternum reactor. If that went critical…. well, she wouldn’t have to worry about taking out the Andros any longer: the whole city block would become a charnel house. The Wickers must’ve been counting on her nanos to keep disaster at bay, otherwise why risk the flachettes at all? Risky play, even for desperate spooks. More darts flew in at her as she gathered herself and decided on a course of action. She fervently hoped this wouldn’t be her last moments, as she hated to think what would happen to her reputation if this was the last maneuver of The Duchess.
To be continued…
Nanofully,
Justin
