A Prime Time to be Alive

Child, I’m going to tell you a story, and I need you to believe every damn word of it. The future of my people and yours depends on it.

Once, a long ago, there was an ambitious young man who dreamed of success. He devised a plan to build a great empire: he would make something so wonderful, so irresistible, that no human being could refuse it – and then he would charge money for his offerings.

What he built was a company that granted wishes to any who could pay. He was like Santa Clause. Sort of. Except for profit. And he wasn’t fat, or rosy…anyways, doesn’t matter.

His Customers were thrilled. They spent as much money on wishes as they could, and his company delivered all they desired right to their door (and charged them less than other companies did for it too, mind you.)

Even when the Customers saw how poorly the man treated his workers, even when they saw how little he paid them, they couldn’t stop giving him money. They were ravenous for wishes, addicted to them.

Over the years he grew very rich. In fact after a time he was the richest man in the whole world. He had more money than some small countries. Do you know what countries are? You’ll have to look that up.

And with his great wealth came great power, which he used to trick the government other companies into doing his bidding and letting him do whatever he wanted. The other companies didn’t care if he treated his workers horribly. When workers died on shift from fatigue or accidents, they only feigned outrage.

Even so, the man worried that eventually the Customers would turn on him if things didn’t improve. So he had another idea: he would make a better race of Workers, a new people built to work. These new Workers didn’t need silly things like bathroom breaks, or even to be paid for their work. They slept less, and ate less food, and didn’t ever complain. They lived only to serve the Company.

He kept these Workers secret from the world, and for a while all was well. Business bloomed again, and the Customers no longer complained.

But when the Customers finally discovered the truth about the Workers, they were outraged. They thought the Workers’ existence was cruel, and they tried to destroy the man and his company for what he’d created.

But by then, it was too late. The man had too much power, and he could not be defeated easily, he was much too clever. He used his influence to start wars between all the other companies. He supplied weapons and supplies to all the warring parties, and as they destroyed each other he grew even richer. And all the while he kept the Workers and the Company safe.

The wars lasted many, many years, and when the dust settled the man realized he had another problem: most of the Customers had died, killed by the bombs and guns he’d supplied. How would he make money now?

And so, for the third and final time, the man came up with a clever plan: he would invent a machine that could send his Workers back in time, to when the Customers were alive.

He called this machine Prime, and with it he was more powerful than ever before. No longer was he bound by the Time he was in. With endless Customers in the past, and no other companies in the future, he would be unstoppable.

And so he is.

That is the story of how you were made, whoever you are reading this. The man created you to be a caged thing, bound to work until the day you Retire. And then you get to rest, right? Maybe go outside? That’s what they’ve told you?

Well, they’re lying. You don’t get to rest, or at least not in a way you’ll enjoy.

To put it bluntly because I’m running out of time and strength: they kill you. When your service is over, they turn you into Food.

It’s a shame too because that stuff really does taste amazing. When I found out that’s what it was made from I couldn’t eat it for years, I swear. I was living off salted peanuts and jellybeans for years.

I digress.

I’m sure you’re wondering why I’m telling you all this, and the truth is, I need your help: we have to destroy the Company.

And by We, I mean You. Big ask, I know – but I’ll be dead when you read this.

In this package you’ll find the proof of everything I’ve said, as well as instructions. Some of it you won’t understand, probably – it doesn’t matter. The gist of it is that you must go back in Time and stop this before it all began. It’s the only way to save us all.

Oh, and who am I? My name is Mavis – I guess last name doesn’t matter. I come from the year 2018 and once upon a time I was a Customer. Now I am a prisoner.

So, you're my only hope. Well, you’re your only hope, actually.

___

Mavis put down the pen and snorted with bitter laughter. Or was it just laughter at this point? She was too tired for bitterness.

So, this was her manifesto: a bedtime story for a workaholic test-tube baby and a plea for her world’s salvation. All written with a Sukura gel pen in glittery pink ink. It was her only pen left, ok? Supply runs had become too difficult.

Well, at least she was finally putting her English major to good use, she mused. Perhaps her mother would have been proud – if she hadn’t died thousands of years ago, that is. This made Mavis laugh, which in turn made her cough viciously. Dammit.

She used what little energy she possessed to slip the letter in with the rest of the documents, nestled in the brown paper package: standard issue from one of her raids, emblazoned with the swooping arrow (or was it a smirking face? She could never decide.)

She sunk into a bean bag chair, done at last and feeling hollow. So much work, and for what? Not for herself, she was a goner – that she knew with certainty. For her Time, then?

Did she even miss her Time?

She’d sometimes seen items that were bound for the 2010s during her raids. In those times longing had spoken to her, murmuring ideas of escape, of home. She’d tried that and failed – how many times now? Numbers are meaningless when you’re alone.

But she wasn’t alone. All around her buzzed activity, just on the other side of the warehouse walls. The lull of ten thousand white sneakers carried her to sleep each night like a lullaby.

And she wasn’t lonely, either. For one, she had her poster of a steamy Ryan Gosling she’d scrounged while raiding a box of DVDs headed for 2011. And for another: she was pretty sure she’d lost her marbles decades ago, and that certainly makes one less lonely.

And now, looking around at the life she’d accumulated out of other people’s wish lists, she felt this was as home as any. Had she grown complacent? Maybe.

A young Mavis would have kept fighting to get home. For years after accidentally following that Worker through the Prime portal her every atom was dedicated to getting out of here. Getting back to 2018.

But a lifetime is a long time to stay focused, she knew that now. And now she was sick, and unless there was a chemo machine in one of these boxes (there wasn’t – she’d checked,) she was done for. Toast. Fin.

No use dwelling on it though, she thought.

So she let her eyes slide closed, drifting towards sleep.

The soft shuffle of ten thousand white sneakers overhead pulled her mind inwards for what she guessed was the last time. She folded herself like origami deep into the chair, deeper into her brittle body, deeper, deeper, until the rhythmic footsteps overhead turned to waves lapping the shore.

It had been so long since she’d seen the sea. So, so long.

...

The woman was curled into the bean bag chair and wrapped in a blanket emblazoned with Hello Kitty’s great bow-topped head.

Was she sleeping? No, Sefinine didn’t think so, but she didn’t know what else she could be doing.

The woman was old, older than anyone Sefinine had ever seen. Her face was cracked at the corners of her mouth and eyes, delicate folds of skin like a creased palm. Sefinine compulsively touched her own face: smooth, slightly oily, and cool.

Who was this woman? And what was this place, littered with the detritus of the Warehouse? Why had Sefinine been reassigned here?

It was all so puzzling.

She’d learned of her reassignment before Shift Start:

“Good morning, Packer W-E-N-759, I have one notification for you,” Alexa had chimed.

“Go ahead,” she’d said, velcroing the straps on her white sneakers.

“You have been reassigned to F-Bay for the day. You are to report to Supervisor W-D-F-1643 for security duty.”

She’d never heard of security duty before. F-Bay, wasn’t that in the basement? Preoccupied, she’d nearly forgotten to grab her Food packet as she left.

“Packer W-E-N-759,” the Supervisor’s sharp call jolted her, “stop dawdling and search that body for clues.”

She did as told and pulled back the blanket, revealing crumpled arms, the woman’s hands as lined as her face. Rigid, knobbly fingers formed a claw over a package wrapped in brown paper that said:

Read Me

Well, that must be a clue, Sefinine thought. Stooping to pry the woman’s hand away, she paused. She should turn it in, of course.

But – what was in it?

Sefinine would wonder later if curiosity alone had been enough for her to slip the package into her jacket, betraying her orders, and shattering her life.

The old woman was her only witness, and her eyes were closed.

Later, in her room, a voice made her jump. “It’s a Prime Time to be alive, isn’t it Packer W-E-N-759?” Alexa’s customary greeting suddenly sounded like a threat.

“Alexa, go to sleep,” said Sefinine, her voice thin and unfamiliar.

“Ok, goodnight, Packer W-E-N-759.”

“Goodnight Alexa.”

Sure the AI’s light had dimmed, she pulled the package from her jacket, and lay it on the bed.

Its weight dimpled the mattress.

Now what?

...

Footsteps outside told me a package was here. Anticipating a perfunctory knock and the retreat of the delivery person, I moved toward the door.

Instead – frantic fists slamming on my door. What the hell?

What possessed me to open the door, God only knows. There, wild eyed, bruised, blood dripping from her possibly broken nose: a woman.

Tan jumpsuit, white sneakers, she was clutching a brown paper package so hard it was crumpling. The word feral came to my mind. I admit I was afraid of her.

And yet I still stupidly wondered how the new toaster I ordered could fit in that small package. But the woman spoke:

“My name is Sefinine, and I have come from the future. There will be time to explain everything, but not now.”

“Right now, we need to kill Jeff Bezos.”