𝔸𝕟𝕕 𝕀𝕗 𝕀 𝔻𝕚𝕖 [ℂ𝕠𝕞𝕡𝕝𝕖𝕥𝕖𝕕]

꧁ ℂ𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝟻 ℙ𝚊𝚛𝚝 𝟷 - 𝔸𝚗𝚍 𝙸𝚏 𝙸 𝙴𝚊𝚛𝚗 ꧂

꧁ 𝔸𝕕𝕒'𝕤 ℙ.𝕆.𝕍 ꧂

"Wake up," is the first thing that I hear, the bright lights are the first thing I see, and the sun rays are the first thing I feel. After a few moments my vision focuses and I manage to make out the time on the wall clock. 8:30 am. Oh no, just half an hour to get to work. I get up and see that Min is sitting by my counter, explaining the voice I heard calling me to wake up. "So you let yourself in huh?", I croak. "It's not my fault you leave your door unlocked," Min shrugs, lighting a cigarette, "Now hurry, if you don't want to be late for work, again." "Rush hour is in an hour, thirty minutes," I add, flustered and rushing to the bathroom. I take the quickest shower of my life, throw on some clothes and run through my routine of brushing my teeth faster than ever. I hear Min's voice over the running tap, "Today's destruction day."

"Wha?", I mumble, my voice stuffy with toothpaste. "We have to post the evidence," Min's voice rings across the hall. My heart drops to my feet. Oh. I rinse my mouth and go to sit by Min at the counter, "What if- what if they don't care? What if the government just kills us all?" Min waters a small potted plant I bought since she started visiting me regularly. I wait for a reassuring answer of some sort, but Min just takes a shovel and pats down the soil in the pot and she raises her eyebrow, "You're the one who suggested we risk our lives for people to feel again." I writhe in slight frustration and struggle with my next words, "Don't you have anything better to say? Thank you very much for confirming our doom, but I'm in no high spirits now, especially because of yesterday." I grimace, arms crossed.

Min's face is blank when she answers, "Well I'm sorry for what your dad said, but I'm not sorry that I can't tell you every one of your ideas are brilliant. They're not, our lives are at stake and it could all be for nothing if nobody gets our message and the government gets rid of it, but I'm not good at sugarcoating things, alright?" I am exasperated, maybe she's right, maybe all our work will go down the dump faster than we thought. It's so easy, they'll just kill us, remove our message and all will be well again. For now, I'm too angry to agree with her, and I'm exhausted by the idea of going to work. "Do we have to go to the café?" Min groans as she stretches, "Do we have a choice?" Exactly. "Fine, but only if we take your bicycle." Min pauses mid-stretch and ponders it, "Then you promise to give your all during rush-hour?" I harumph at this, "What? I never slack off!" Min looks like she wants to snort, "Yeah, yeah, let's go. We've wasted ten minutes talking, now we have ten minutes to get to the café." I sigh under my breath, "What a great start to the day."

When we arrive at the café, rush-hour has started and there's no time to tidy my wind-rustled hair. We get about nine orders a minute and I can barely keep up. The seating areas are all full, and the workers are drowning in the workload. I watch the pastry chefs and bakers hurry around the back kitchen, where the air is hot from the many ovens. I'm grateful to be placed in the front kitchen, where I work at my coffee machine, do a lot of serving and help at the cashier when Min helps to arrange the freshly baked goods. Sam has to deliver coffee beans thrice today, and I sign the papers with our company logo. There's a terrible flurry of customers between ten thirty to eleven, and from eleven thirty to twelve. Breakfast and lunch times. We work until four, then the later shifts take over. Early shift is from nine am to four pm and late shift is from four pm to nine pm. Five hours each shift. Doesn't seem like a lot, until you realise we have to do this everyday, for the rest of our lives until we retire. No breaks, no holidays, no leaves unless your deathly sick.

At home I let Min use my shower, but in a warning tone I tell her, "Don't use all of my shampoo, I'll make you buy a replacement." Meanwhile, I sort out all the important things on my computer, starting by adding subtitles to the voice recording of Officer Gray. Suddenly I hear a bang. It came from the bathroom. "Min? Min!" I start running, there, I see a soaking and towelled Min, sprawled on the floor, clutching her head and wincing. "Ah, sorry the floor was slippery, and I realised something genius, so I was running to tell you, then I uh... fell." I scoff, "Fell?! Min I thought that was a gunshot!" "Sorry." "No need to be. Are you okay?" "Yep, now may I tell you?" I sit down on the closed toilet bowl, "Okay, but switch off the shower, I'm the one who pays the water bills." Min sheepishly switches off the shower, then starts,

"Do you know the program which the government publishes international announcements? Where their report is shared globally? You know that, when they share something, the whole world sees it, and it repeats itself again and again for two weeks?" "Uh huh." "Well, if we found some way to post our evidence there, the whole world would see it, and they can't remove things off that program, so it would be there for two whole weeks." "Holy cow you're absolutely right. If one of us could find a way to get into the president's office, we could publish that, oh my God it's all coming together now." Min starts frittering in excitement, "And we could change the standard period of time from two weeks to much longer." I laugh, it's all perfect. "We could post it anonymously, and there must be some way to get into the Zenith and sneak into his office." Now our plan is fitting perfectly, but it can only fully succeed if I work. And if I deserve.

And If I Earn.

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