Failing these Deckers won’t help earn the public’s trust.
Naya won’t admit it out loud, but should Joaquin be forced to shutter the company, she will mourn what Death-Cast could have done for the world while celebrating her family’s return to normalcy.
That’s her purpose in this life.
Even if it sadly isn’t her husband’s.
Joaquin Rosa
5:00 a.m.
Death-Cast’s inaugural End Day calls have come to a close in the continental US.
Joaquin is upset he isn’t present with his team to commemorate this moment, but he’s still investigating the issue. If he can’t solve it by the time the heralds are released from group counseling, offering overtime to those who stay, he will simply have to work the call center alone upon his return.
No more Deckers will die unwarned on his watch.
Naya Rosa
5:11 a.m.
Once a herald finishes their call, there’s a stillness in the air.
That was the last End Day call for the night.
Naya is about to encourage everyone to take deep breaths when the very lovely customer success engineer Aster Gomez comes out of nowhere and attempts to start a round of applause for jobs well done. The heralds remain frozen in their seats. All but one. Andrea Donahue is a woman who wastes no time as she goes straight to the wellness room. She will have to wait for the rest of the group, since it is indeed group counseling, but Naya trusts everyone to know their own needs. For Andrea that could have been removing herself from the station where she just spent the past five hours telling people they were about to die. For the other nineteen heralds it appears they need a minute or two or five.
“This job isn’t easy, but it’s important work,” Naya says from the top of a chair where she can be seen. “We thank you for being the voices of this company.”
Still, none of them speak.
Not even as they finally file into the wellness room, shaking Naya’s hand as she looks each of them in the eye and thanks them by name. Everyone seems so haunted, as if they’re being followed by the ghosts of all the Deckers they called tonight. Perhaps it’s a good thing they don’t know about the Deckers who died and will die without warning today.
Each and every one will be Death-Cast’s ghosts.
Frankie Dario
5:16 a.m.
Frankie is back in bed, watching the news.
He’s clutching the TV remote in one hand and his phone in the other. He finds holding other objects prevents him from punching walls and people when he’s upset. And he’s far past upset—he is pissed off. Rolando has ignored all seventeen of his phone calls. If he’s dead, Frankie won’t mourn him. He never liked the guy, but if Rolando is alive and couldn’t even bother to respond to one of his texts, then Frankie is going to punch his teeth in, he swears. A night in jail would be worth it for the fortunes and awards Rolando has cost him.
The news is reporting on a shooting that happened earlier tonight in Times Square, shortly after midnight. It takes a special kind of idiot to be in that crowd, and while the world is apparently down many idiots, Frankie wishes he’d been smart enough to attend the Death-Cast festivities. Of course something explosive was going to happen! If he’d been on the scene he could have scored some brutal, devastating photographs that would have improved his life.
Gloria stirs under the blanket and looks between Frankie and the TV. “Can you lower that?”
“I could if Rolando answered my calls.”
“You’re calling him now? He started working at Death-Cast,” she drowsily says.
How stupid does she think he is? “No shit. But I needed his help.”