Joey collapsed onto one of the seats in the break room right after clocking out on Friday. He stared at the ceiling, vaguely running thoughts through his tired head. Anahi was on her lunch break and she chuckled.
"Tired?" she asked.
"Yeah," Joey replied. "At least I have a day off tomorrow."
"Then back at it on Sunday. Good luck, newbie. But I guess you're not doing too bad so far. Half our applicants would have quit by now."
"Why?" Joey glanced over at her as she chewed a piece of her sandwich.
"Well, for one it's a part time job. Stupid laws say you get paid less for part time work than full time."
Right. Minimum wage varied between the two types of jobs.
"For another, they're working you practically full time. And of course the work's hard and training's almost non-existent. I'm only still here because I don't have any other options." Anahi took a swig of water. "The company uses exploitative work practices, but there's not much we can really do about it. Even if we got a union, I doubt much would change."
"Are your weeks always like this?" Joey asked. He'd counted, and he'd ended up working exactly 39 hours this week.
"Yeah. They work you about 39 each week. If you're lucky you get 35. But you'll never work 40 because that would mean they have to pay you for full time work. Cute little loophole isn't it?"
Joey sighed again. Tomorrow he'd be sleeping in. He'd started work at six every day this week and he was sick of it. At least he had Monday off so he'd make it to the Legion meeting.
Wait. Why was that a priority?
He shook the thoughts away. He could dissect himself later.
"You gonna look for a different job?" Anahi asked, coming to sit beside Joey. "I wouldn't blame you. Pretty much anywhere else would treat you better."
"I had a hard enough time finding this job," Joey replied. "If I quit now, I might not find another job for a while."
"So search while you work. Everyone else does it."
"I think I'm fine actually. I just got to get used to it." His body ached from the lifting and standing, but that just meant he'd get stronger. And if he was going to be Jumper, he needed to be as strong as possible.
"Wow. Your attitude is actually pretty admirable," Anahi said, raising her eyebrows in a rare show of surprise.
"You and Justice and the others manage it. Why can't I?" Joey grinned faintly and Anahi laughed as she punched him lightly in the shoulder.
"You're alright in my book. Good luck, Joey. I gotta finish eating before my lunch break expires on me. Have a good day off. See you Tuesday."
Joey nodded, and got up to get his stuff out of his locker.
After he got home, Joey had flopped onto the couch until Ned convinced him to get up and play some video games. Strangely, it felt like just the thing he needed. Mindlessly hit buttons, smash enemies with his claymore, die a few times and wait for Ned to save him.
"So work seems really busy," Ned said. "Or do you not want to talk about it?"
"It might be nice to vent," Joey replied, somehow executing a perfect combo on five consecutive enemies. "Holy crap. How did I do that?"
"You hit the attack buttons with perfect timing upon landing an attack. Like this." Ned demonstrated by running up a forty-three-hit combo. "Dang. If you get to fifty, your attacks start getting exponentially stronger."
"How are you ever supposed to get to fifty?"
"I've managed it a few times."
"Nuts. Anyway, apparently we're worked just under full time hours so they can still pay us part time wages while getting as much work out of us as possible or something. It's really hard for them to get and keep employees. Anahi said I've made it farther than half the people who start."
"Yikes. I really don't want to go back to school, but if that's my alternative..."
"You might find a better job than me."
"If I can graduate in September. But, like, who wants to hire a guy who failed a grade and had to take summer classes to graduate?"
"You're smarter than you give yourself credit for, Ned."
"Whatever. I guess I'd just need a job to make enough money to live on. And if we moved out together, we might be able to live decently. And play video games on our days off."
"Do you have any desire for social interaction?"
"Isn't that what this is?"
"I was thinking more friends who aren't related to you."
"Never really had those. Had people who were friendly, but nobody I'd hang out with outside of school."
Now that Joey thought about it, Ned hadn't ever really gone to a friend's house or had friends over. Not since he was small enough that birthday parties involved inviting everyone in the class.
"You need a social circle, man."
"I'm fine as long as I have my games. I have a couple of people online I can play with too."
"Crap!" Joey had started up another combo, but then gotten hit by the boss, killing his character instantly.
"Yeah that guy'll do that. Prioritize dodging." Ned zipped between the heavy attacks with precision and revived Joey.
"Couldn't you even play games for a living?" Joey asked. "People make money that way, right?"
"Nah. You'd have to put a lot more time in, and doing it for work would suck the fun out of it. Plus, Mom and Dad would flip their lids."
"Right." Doing things for money generally made them less enjoyable. Especially if you had to put in 40 hours a week on it.
"When's your next day off? You doing anything?" Joey froze for a second, trying to process how to answer. As he was thinking, his character died again.
"Sorry, Ned. I've kind of got plans. My next day off is Monday."
"Right, your early morning social meetup?"
"Actually, it's in the afternoon. Sorry." Ned still had to do schoolwork, so he usually wasn't free until late afternoon. And Joey had no idea how long the Legion meeting would go.
"No worries. Next day off after that?"
Joey's brain went into overdrive as he tried to both remember his schedule and keep his freshly revived character from dying again. "I think it's...Friday?"
"You busy then?"
"No - no no no!"
"Crap!"
Ned's character died and Joey was left on his own to try and both survive, revive him and defeat the boss.
"Joey, Joey, be careful! Dodge roll left - up up up! Don't get hit! Quit worrying about damage and just revive me! No not now! Dodge left again. Again."
Ned coached Joey as he frantically tried to salvage the boss fight. This was the first time he'd seen Ned die in this game and it was terrifying.
"How did you even get yourself killed? Aren't you like perfect at this game?"
"No. We've just been doing easy levels up until now. This one's a medium difficulty."
"How many difficulties are there?"
"Easy, medium, hard, very hard, inferno and hell."
"And we're just getting into medium?" Joey yelped as the boss's attack narrowly missed him.
"Use your second skill! Now revive me." Joey did as Ned said, and before long Ned's ninja was back in action.
"That was way too stressful. How many levels does this game even have?"
"Started out with 300, 100 for each difficulty. Then they added three more difficulties so we've got like 600 total."
"600? Wait, we've already done 100 levels?"
"Yup."
Joey glanced up in the top left corner. Sure enough, they were on level 103.
"If this is medium, what is the hardest one?"
"Hell? Wanna try one?"
After they finally beat the boss, Ned set them on level 501 - the first hell difficulty level.
They were flattened like pancakes in about ten seconds.
