Free Firesign 1 - Wage Slave Rebellion by Stephen W. Gee

Raedren.
    Mazik slapped a hand on the bar, making Raedren jump. As beer dribbled down his beard, Raedren turned to his friend. “Is something wrong?”
    “Rae, we need to talk,” said Mazik.
    “Erh … okay?” Raedren squeezed the liquid out of his beard. “About what?”
    “Probably better if we get a table. Where’s Gavi?”
    “She’s in the back,” said Tielyr from where he was filling a line of drinks.
    “Great, I’ll go get her,” said Mazik.
    “Wait wait wait!” said Derana, hustling over and clutching Mazik’s arm. He looked down at her quizzically.
    “I’ll go get her, all right?” said Derana with a nervous laugh.
    “That’ll work,” said Mazik. He grabbed the beer Tielyr slid toward him, downed a third of it, and waved at Raedren. “Come on. Let’s go.”
    Raedren looked at the Derana and Tielyr as he stood. They shrugged. No one knew what to make of this, including the other regulars who were shamelessly eavesdropping from nearby.
    Mazik selected a table and they sat.
    When Gavi came out a few minutes later, she was treated to a strange sight. She wasn’t sure she had ever seen Mazik and Raedren act awkwardly around one another, but here it was—Raedren was fidgeting, his eyes moving around the room as he tried to find something to occupy his attention, while Mazik sat staring at the table, his eyes unfocused as his lips moved in rehearsal for something only he knew.
    “What’s going on?” asked Gavi.
    “Can you take a break? I want to run something past the two of you,” said Mazik.
    Gavi looked around the bar. It wasn’t crowded, and Derana was nodding to her, but…
    “You know, I can’t always take off just because you want me to,” said Gavi as she sat down and tossed her apron onto the free seat across from her. “All right, what’s up?”
    It’s often thought that pivotal moments should be suitably dramatic, but they rarely are. Life just doesn’t have the finely tuned sense of drama that humans so desire, and only occasionally acquires it in the retelling. There ought to have been a drum roll, a crescendo of music, or perhaps an explosion outside to punctuate the moment. What they got was a crowded bar that was mostly ignoring them.
    Mazik took a deep breath. “I think we should become adventurers.”
    Silence hung over the table while Gavi and Raedren absorbed this.
    “I did not expect that one,” said Gavi.
    “That wasn’t on your job list,” said Raedren.
    “Yeah, but it’s been in the back of my mind for a while now. It took me a while to even admit it to myself,” said Mazik, “but I think we should do it. I really think we could be successful at it.”
    Gavi folded her arms. “Okay, then tell us: why do you think we should become adventurers?”
    Mazik tipped back in his chair, balancing it on two legs as he talked. “I thought long and hard about what I wanted to do, and here’s what I realized—I want control. At AIW, I don’t have any control. I’m subject to all these arbitrary rules set by my bosses and the company, and I have to follow them no matter what. If I feel like crap one day, I have to go to work anyway, because otherwise I’ll get yelled at and possibly fired. What kind of life is that?”
    Mazik’s chair slammed down and he leaned forward. “That kind of shit makes me feel like a child! What I want is freedom, the freedom to take a day off when I want to, to not get yelled at for or worry about stupid things, and to do the work I want to do. I want to live! That kind of freedom comes with a price of course, of not knowing where my money is going to come from next, but you know that? I already have to deal with that! If I don’t sell anything, I don’t make any money. I just don’t get any of the benefits.”
    “We don’t have that problem, you know,” said Gavi. “Well, Raedren doesn’t, and I make at least a little bit even if tips are bad.”
    “True, but technically there are always more sales to be made, as my