The electric engine sucked power from the third rail, clicked into action and whirred inoffensively into the dripping blackness of the city’s subway tunnels. In that moment, triggered by the sound, Noon reminisced, longing for the industrial roar of a diesel electric train.

He was aboard the last one, the last train to stop at the ZCorp Towers station.

Everything was changing, and he’d been stupid to think he was somehow immune.

As the weak lead unit adequately pulled the carriages along on their journey, Reyslon began to wonder about his first step into his apartment. She’d ask, of course, HOW WAS WORK? with a super, duper big smile. He wondered and wondered: what the fuck is the answer to that awful fucking question. Work was work on the best of days—but on that day, work was a deluxe giga-charged shit fest.

"How am I going to tell her?" he whimpered, pressing his tie over his mouth.