Free Fog City: A Short Story (Voices of the Apocalypse Book 5) by Simone Pond Page A

smiled with hubris, placing my double five on the table to tie the game. I counted my points out loud just to rub it in.
    “Hmm.” He laughed under his breath. “Game’s not over yet.”
    He acted casual, but I sensed a touch of desperation in his voice. Almost as though he didn’t want me to leave him behind to go back to the office. I thought that was strange since he wasn’t the desperate type. I figured he was lonely for company. I don’t think it mattered who it was.
    He got up and went to the bar, carrying the empty pints. He nodded to the scraggly bartender for two more, overriding my decision. The bartender had to be at least a hundred years old. He had a permanent claw hand from pulling so many drafts over the years. It would’ve been interesting to sit at the bar and listen to stories about the good ol’ days of San Francisco, but he looked like he might have trouble remembering some of the details. A lot of years––and alcohol––had passed through his system.
    Crow set the pint down in front of me, and I watched the tan bubbles cascade down into the dark brown beer. I hadn’t eaten lunch and it was almost four o’clock. There was a good chance I’d be wasted by the time I got to the bottom of the glass.
    “Why bother going back? Place is a ghost town,” he said, looking down at the dominoes.
    He had a point. Most people had transited to working remotely during the Career Reshaping phases of the Repatterning. I chose to keep working in the office because I refused to wear one of those wrist straps. I didn’t like the idea of being monitored all day. I’d rather show up to the office and enjoy what was left of my diminishing freedom. Going into work to prove a semblance of freedom sounds ironic, I know, but it made sense at the time. In the office, every second of my day wasn’t being tracked. The Planners were determined to make the Repatterning look like an opportunity for economic growth and independence, but I had been in PR long enough to know a bag of bull. Since the initial phases of the Repatterning, the entire city had been morphing into a police state. Curfews were instated, companies closed their doors, buildings emptied out, and tourists were almost non-existent. Only big-name corporations remained––and the PR firms they had hired to make them look good.
    “Well, if you’re forcing me to stay, I’m at least checking my notifications.” I took a sip of beer.
    “It doesn’t matter if you go back. None of this shit matters.”
    “Sure it does.” I smiled proudly. Crow might’ve blurred my focus, but I still had a strong work ethic and cared about my job. I was also concerned about losing it. Like real cigarettes, work was hard to come by. Crow didn’t seem worried—part of his nothing-ruffles-me attitude.
    I stood up, trying not to wobble. “Be back in a few.” I stepped outside to get some fresh air and sober up a bit. The combination of beer on an empty stomach and Crow’s overpowering presence had a dizzying effect. Sitting on the curb, sandwiched between two beat up sedans that looked like they’d been there since the turn of the century, I scrolled through the notifications. Most were threads related to the big launch our clandestine clients called “the game changer.” Our firm had been working on the PR for months. The kick off would be in Los Angeles that very evening, and roll out to other major metropolitan areas. We didn’t have the actual details of the event, but the PR firm was responsible for getting butts in seats.
    I opened the last notification from my company’s CEO and read it a few times to make sure I was reading it correctly. The message stated that as of five o’clock that evening, the firm would be closing its doors for good, and our services were no longer needed. I almost dropped my tablet to the cement. Closing its doors? No longer needed? The information had come out of nowhere, and her callus note about the whole thing made no sense.