Chapter Text
Act 1: Come Together
You are only coming through in waves.
Your lips move, but I can’t hear what you’re saying.
“Ericson!” a voice barked out, and Danni’s body reflexively clenched up in fear. “What did I tell you about standing around?!”
Danni didn’t like Mr. Johnson , as he preferred to be called. She had a great deal of experience with managers at this point, enough to be able to categorize them.
There were passive managers; that is, the ones who barely did their job, at least according to corporate. They let everyone go about their business, and everyone stayed out of theirs. Danni liked these kinds. Corporate didn’t. Something about breaking ‘team cohesion’, whatever that meant. They probably just cost TR a lot of hassle or something.
There were the try-hards. They were always trying to get Danni to be a better employee . They were always yapping away in company group chats, scheduling pizza parties and what-not. ‘Don’t worry, it’s on the house.’ She admitted, it was better than being coerced into paying for her own pizza that she didn’t want to eat with money she didn’t have. They did everything they could to make Danni feel at home, except upping her pay or giving her any time off. To be honest, she really didn’t hate these types of managers. If she were to be entirely fair, they were trying their best, but stars dammit if it didn’t annoy her to no end when one of them pretended to care about her or pretended to be doing a good job of it.
Then, there were the Mr. Johnsons. A Mr. Johnson was what happened when a man with too much need for power was given too little of it to use. He derived joy in causing his employees pain, or rather being the cause of it. When Danni gave 100%, he’d demand 110. When she had aggravated her joints and could only give 60%, he’d reprimand her for her insubordination and laziness and demanded 100%. Even when she did nothing wrong, a Mr. Johnson would find a way to tear her down. There were no good days with a man like Mr. Johnson.
“Ericson! Are you listening to me?!” Danni flinched, realizing she had zoned out at some point, before turning to her boss.
“Y-Yessir!” she yelped, hoping he’d let it slide. She must’ve not gotten enough sleep last night, because her focus was utterly shot today. He clearly didn’t care, judging by the demeaning look on his face as his 6’2 stood over her 5’10. He always seemed so much bigger than her, and not only physically, with his well-tailored three-piece suit and fine boots against her barely-in-dress-code rags and old tennis shoes. He was more powerful than her. He was more important .
“Let me make something clear to you, Noel ,” he spat, and Danni resisted the urge to cringe at the use of her legal name. She knew better than to try to correct him. She knew better than to make it known what she was.
“See Ms. White over there,” he pointed. Danni nodded curtly. She always sat opposite her in the cafeteria during lunch break.
“She’s a real trooper. 120 packages in the last hour, a good 20% over hourly quota. Damn fine worker.” He smiled in a way that made Danni want to curl up on herself, then pointed at another employee.
“Richards here worked off the clock to make sure we made our company quota. A good 65 hours, 15 off the clock, to make sure we get those rations to the front lines.” He made a point to salute to Richards as he turned his head their way, to which Richards returned. Then, his eyes met Danni’s, and her knuckles went white for how tightly she was balling her fists.
“Do you want to know how many you’ve managed to do the past hour?” he jabbed. She didn’t want to know, not that it mattered what she wanted. She tried not to bite her tongue as she answered the question.
“How many, sir?”
He smiled, twisting the knife as he spoke. “Forty-five. Forty. Five.” Danni stared at him for an extended moment, not knowing how to properly respond to that. She wasn’t doing that horribly, was she?
(I didn’t think you were.)
“Get back to work,” he ordered, and she stared at her package. Okay, she could do this. She just needed to pick up the pace. She stared at the table in front of her for a second, willing her body into motion.
It was painful, but she managed to clear the initial difficulty of starting as she fell into a rhythm.
Pick up box.
Unfold.
Layer of synthcubes.
Layer of synthcubes.
Layer of synthcubes.
Layer of synthcubes.
Tape.
Lift. Oh stars, my hands.
Drop off.
Repeat.
Pick up box.
Unfold.
Layer.
Layer.
Layer.
Layer.
Tape.
Lift. Pain.
Drop off.
Repeat.
Pick up.
Unfold.
Layer.
Lift.
Pain.
Repeat.
Pain.
Repeat.
Pain.
Repeat.
Pain-
A noise sounded out, and Danni’s senses came back into focus. The 5 pm alarm sounded, an aggressive square wave buzz reminding Danni that the shift was over.
(Wait. The shift is over?)
Danni ignored the voice in her head, still getting her bearings as her coworkers all left their posts and headed to the exit doors. The last time she checked the clock was just before Mr. Johnson had his conversation with her, which was at 12:35. She lifted the final box, grimacing as the pain in her knuckles and knees begged her to stop, and took for the door. Before she met with the rest of the crowd, however, a thump on the intercom alerted her.
“Could a Mr. Noel Ericson please stop by the manager’s office before he leaves. Thank you,” spoke the bored voice of one of Mr. Johnson’s secretaries.
Terror. Fuck. Fuck. That’s bad. This was how she lost all her other jobs. A manager goes to talk to her and she leaves with a pink slip. This was the end. She barely even had any money left after the last time she was fired. She barely even had food outside of work anymore, and if she couldn’t even get food and didn’t have a job, she’d get kicked out of her apartment. She’d lose her deposit too, because stars know she hasn’t taken care of the place, and this is just like when Dad went away and-
(Danni. Relax. We can get through this. You just need to breathe.)
Danni obeyed the voice in her head. She took deep breaths, following the voice’s signal to breathe out, repeating for a few moments as she regained her grip. She didn’t notice until then that her vision had started to go blurry, and her heart was racing, though it was starting to slow down to a natural rate by this point.
(Just hear him out. They’re desperate for workers, you know that. Tough times and all. The chances they’ll fire you are pretty slim.)
Danni nodded tentatively. Okay. She turned face and trudged across the factory floor, up the stairs oh stars my knees and onto a catwalk, beside which was an effective panopticon overseeing the dozens of employees she worked alongside. Inside sat Mr. Johnson .
Danni gulped. If this was what she thought it was-
(No point in thinking about all that. We just need to hear what he has to say, then we can go home.)
Right. Just in and out. No big deal. This was just something minor. No big deal.
She braced as she opened the door. His office was the cleanest room in the building. Where the factory floor was a messy mix-match of metal tables, chutes, cinderblock walls, and exposed wiring, the Johnson office was clean to a fault. There were a few piles of boxes in the corner, but aside from those, the room was barely decorated. The desk and chair he sat at was nice- too nice, if she were asked- in comparison to the dreary conditions his employees worked in. Rich dark leather and hardwood tones juxtaposed the clinical white atmosphere of the rest of the room. Atop was a pager, a few stacks of papers, a placard addressed Mr. Johnson, Executive Supervisor , a coffee set on a coaster, and a box cutter.
Mr. Johnson stared at her intently, gesturing towards the much-less-comfortable-looking seat opposing his desk. She sat down.
“Why do you think I called you in here, Noel,” he spoke, uncharacteristically calm demeanor for the man who liked to call out employees slacking off through the intercom, loudly . For fun.
(Just stay calm. We’ll be alright.)
“B-because of my low performance today, s-sir,” Danni spoke, cursing her too-masculine voice for cracking at that moment. Mr. Johnson looked at her for a heavy moment, before lifting a box from the corner onto the table. The hairs on Danni’s neck stood on end. She had a feeling this wasn’t going where she expected.
“Comorin Cosmic Navy Suppliers has a strict quality assurance policy. Now, I won’t bore you with the details,” he noted with no small amount of condescension, “but we make a habit of reopening our boxes every now and then. You know,” he chided, “to make sure everything is in order.”
(Uh oh.)
Mr. Johnson pulled a box cutter and slid it over to her end of the desk. Despite working in a factory that was painfully noisy on a good day, the sound of it sliding to a stop was the loudest thing Danni had ever heard.
“I want you to check this one. I have a bit of a suspicion, and I’m sure our very own Mr. Ericson would love to help the company out on this.”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck shit fuck.
(Fuck.)
Danni nodded curtly, held the box cutter, and slid the blade out. Her hands shook as she dragged it along the tape, cleanly slicing through it. She carefully placed the blade back down, making sure to sheathe the blade as she pulled the flaps of the box open.
Inside was the standard fifteen-by-twenty rows and columns of synthcubes that Danni had come to expect- minus one.
“Well, would you look at that.” He chuckled- chuckled at the sight of it. Bile rose to the back of her throat. “Would you believe if I told you that this was packaged by you, Noel?”
She gulped. She couldn’t show weakness. He would take that weakness and rub her nose in it. She knew his type and how they did things. “Yessir, I-I may recognize the shipping number.”
It was a lie, no one without a photographic memory could remember such a thing, but that’s what she went with. He didn’t bite, though. He just sighed and leaned back, fully relaxed as he let her dig her grave some more.
“See those boxes?” He pointed to a pile sitting in the corner of the room. Danni nodded.
“Each one of those is missing exactly one synthcube. One synthcube that isn’t ending up in the mouths of our valiant soldiers fighting the good fight. Can you tell me why that is?”
Danni shook her head, staring in the corner, not making eye contact. “Nosir.”
He nodded. “If it were up to me, you’d be tried for treason.” Danni clenched her fists. He raised his voice, and she forced herself to look him in the eye. “You aren’t just stealing from the company, Noel . You’re stealing from the damn Navy. During a fucking war, for stars’ sake.” He threw up his arms.
Here it comes.
“You know, if you ask me, you’re a fucking traitor!” He slammed his desk to hammer home the point. “You’d better be damn glad you aren’t in the navy, son, because if I were your superior, I’d have you fucking spaced!”
Danni startled.
(Did he just-)
He pointed at her as he continued. “Ericson, you are a starsdamned waste of a fucking terran, and I’m damn ashamed to have to be your superior!”
Noel, I’m fucking ashamed to be your mother.
Tears pricked at her eyes. A deep, disgusting ache resonated through her chest, threatening to destroy any semblance of dignity.
“Oh! Did I hurt your feelings?” he jabbed, laughing now. Danni fought it, she couldn’t- couldn’t- be weak. She had to be strong.
“Maybe next time you’ll fucking think about the consequences to your actions.”
Danni nodded instinctively. She wanted Mom to love her again. That’s all she needed. She just needed to know what had to be done to get it back. She would get it back. Moms loved their kids, right? She just needed to be a better kid. She needed to be stronger.
“It’s not up to me,” he said, back to that frightening level of calmness, all too reminiscent of old conversations that left her aching for something she couldn’t have anymore. “I can’t fire you. We need people out there on the floor.”
She would have thought that would’ve made her feel better, but it only tugged on her anxiety.
“Still.” He cleared his throat. “If I find you stealing from us again, I will make your life a living hell. Got that, Noel?” he barked. Danni nodded curtly.
“Get the hell out of my sight.”
Danni felt herself pass through the threshold of what could be optimistically described as an apartment. It was about as large as she could afford: any smaller and she would have been sleeping in a closet. To her left was the bare minimum kitchenette, with a minifridge, cupboard, sink, and microwave. Just beyond that was the bathroom. The rest of the apartment was miscellaneous space , which mostly meant garbage and furniture that came with the apartment.
The entire way back, she expected to be a mess. Instead, she felt a sense of pervasive nothingness wash over her after she stepped out of the office. She knew distinctly that her body was aching, that she was aching, but she didn’t feel it- at least not directly.
Instead, she put one foot in front of the other, and then the other in front of the first. Each step sent a shock of pain through her body, but it was as if there was a disconnect between what she felt and what she experienced. She vaguely felt her knees give in as she fell onto the pile of old clothes and blankets forming a nest on the little inflated portable mattress in the corner of the room.
She felt numb . Like a trip to the dentist, back when she had those. A little syringe had found its way into her brain and with the novocaine came a sense of sharp nothingness overwhelming all of her emotions. She should have been crying. She should have felt upset, or tired, or anything at all. She sat up, sighing as she looked around the room. A little wooden box caught her eye.
(Come on. Let’s play something.)
She had half a mind to grumble at her imaginary friend for bothering her, but she didn’t have the energy to reply and instead went along with the voice. She placed the box face up on the little coffee table, brushing whatever trash that was on it onto the ground. It was an antique that she had from before, one of the only things she was able to keep after having to sell everything.
It was her most valuable possession. If she had this, everything would be okay.
The top of the box hinged open to reveal a little metal peg, a plate, and an articulating stylus, along with a few knobs to control speaker output. On the front were a couple lights and an analogue volume gauge. On the back were a few switches and audio ports. She felt for the DC port, plugging the cable in as she slid the other end into the wall. The ‘ready’ light lit up, and she slid open the bottom drawer. Inside were well-worn sleeves decorated with art from a bygone era. She flipped through them all, arriving at a certain very colorful one, decorated with dozens of different real and fictional characters from the 19th and 20th centuries, many she recognized and some she didn’t. The four men in the middle were very recognizable to her, however.
She slowly slid out the black plastic disk, labeled in the center as ‘Parlephone, 33 1/3 RPM’. Carefully, she placed it on the center rack, lifting the stylus to center it on the second ridge. As she did so, the disk began spinning and the stylus lowered itself down into position. She had learned the hard way to not touch the stylus at all after releasing it, a mistake her poor copy of ‘Abbey Road’ would never live down. Each one of these records was something to be cherished. Most of these couldn’t even be bought anymore, and she still wondered how they even had these to begin with.
The box roared to life with a sharp crackle, voices singing in harmony announcing the arrival of a ‘Billy Shears,’ guitars fading in as she lowered the lid down to protect from dust.
(What would you think if I sang out of tune, would you stand up and walk out on me?) thought the voice of her imaginary friend. She frowned, but decided to humor them. It couldn’t hurt, at least.
“Lend me your ears and I’ll sing you a song, and I’ll try not to sing out of key.” She sang reservedly, a little out of tune in spite of the lyrics- and without much expression, but the result was still the same.
They sang in harmony together for the chorus, her real voice and the fictional voice of her friend.
“Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends.” Her friend hummed along with the chords, fingering along on an imaginary bass.
“I get high with a little help from my friends.” They mentally poked at Danni, and she couldn’t help but smile.
She put her fingers into position, imagining a guitar in her hands, and how much she wished she had one of her own. It didn’t help that they were a fortune, or that no one would be making them in a time like this either. No matter.
“I’m gonna try with a little help from my friends.” Her fingers slid down the neck of the guitar, thumb banging out the drum fill as they arrived at the next verse.
(What do I do when my love is away?)
“Does it worry you to be alone?” she returned.
(How do I feel by the end of the day?)
“Are you sad, because you’re on your own?”
(No, I get by with a little help from my friends.) She thought about the lyrics. She was lonely, and at the very least lucid enough to understand that, but she still managed. She never truly was alone, as long as she had her friend with her. She smiled.
(I get high with a little help from my friends.)
(I’m gonna try with a little help from my friends.)
Danni braced, raising her voice into its upper register. “Do you neEED anybodyy?!” she sang, putting more energy into her performance. Her voice cracked, unused to the high pitch of the harmonies of this section, almost having to stop to cough as she felt a smile beaming across her face. Even though she couldn’t see them, her friend was smiling too. It was fun.
(I just need someone to love.)
“Could it beEEE ANYBODAYY?!” she yelled, voice cracking still as it dissolved into laughter.
(I want somebody to love.) They bobbed their head up and down to the song, and Danni danced along with them.
The song continued in this manner, moving between verse, chorus, and bridge, performed in their mind by the two of them. It was a little private concert, just her and her imaginary friend.
She wasn’t quite sure when her friend first showed up. It was definitely well-after that , but it was hard for her to place an exact date. A cynical part of her mind reminded her that this “imaginary friend” of hers was just that- imaginary. She really was singing along to nobody in an empty apartment. The more optimistic part of her fought that, because even if they weren’t real, they gave her real happiness. She could have this one weird thing in this strange world they shared.
The song gently came to a close as she flipped the switch on the record player and slid her copy of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band back into its case. She sighed, but this time in contentment.
“Thank you,” she spoke out weakly to her imaginary friend. She felt a warmth cover her, arms gently squeezing her body as she relaxed into her nest. She didn’t have to think about her boss, or how she was going to get food. That was tomorrow’s problem.
Tomorrow was another day, but tonight was now.
She could live with it being tonight.