Chapter #5Minimum-Wage Madness by: gremp   A glitter-nailed finger danced on the keyboard before Eugene could fully comprehend all the options. The disoriented dork had enough wherewithal to stammer a “H-hey!” before the clunky party-game started to grind and chug once more, LOADING MINIMUM-WAGE MADNESS and a progress bar appearing on its cathode-ray tube.
Eugene managed the best glare he could at Lindsey, which amounted to a slightly hurt wince. “You s-said that I could pick.”
In response, Lindsey perched a regal hand upon her clavicle, fingers splayer, snootily turning up her nose at her friend. “We have decided that you were totally taking too long.” she pronounced before dissolving into giggles.
Eugene couldn’t help but smile. “F-fair enough.”
A hairy arm crossed the air in front of him, turning the CRT screen to its owner, Peter, who immediately frowned at it and rotated the whirring contraption to Judy. “You should stand up for yourself more, Geno. Not least ‘cuz this game sounds like a dumpster fire.”
“Rude,” pouted Lindsey in response. “Are you, like, some kinda elitist, Petey?”
“Hey, only I can call him Petey,” Judy faux-intoned, tugging possessively on her beau’s tanktop. “But you are riding a high horse right now, babe.”
“It’s not that,” moaned Peter. “I’ve worked a bajillion dead-end jobs — Dad said I had to scrape together all th’ team dues myself — it just sucks to work at ‘em, like, ninety percent of the time. You don’t see any board games about shopping, do y—”
“M-mall Madness,” interrupted Eugene. Noting the three pairs of eyeballs on him, he shrank into his suede seat. “Uh, i-I played it as a k-kid. And, uh, further against y-your point, Pete, there’s 1313 Dead-End Drive, a —”
“Someone else remembers that game!” gushed Judy, eyes wide with gleeful validation. “It was the only ‘cool game’ I could play at Sunday School, and I killed at it — literally!”
Now it was Judy’s turn to be stared at. She met their gazes blankly before realization flashed over her face, followed shortly by sheepishness. “Oh, uh, I mean that I killed their pieces, not them. The game’s about murder, so —”
Peter waved a giant hand in light annoyance. “I get it, I get it. Blah-blah, it’s-not-real-life, yadda-yadda it could be fun, and whatever. I’m not gonna be a janitor though, only condition.”
He met the room’s silent questions with a grimace. “It’s not worth the story, guys. All sortsa fluids and actual human s—”
The oven-bell ‘ding’ and cash-register-reminiscent ching from the board game cut off Peter’s sordid tale.
Lindsey was the first to rise, plucking out four pieces from the game’s opened drawer. She gently displayed them to the curious room; a matte silver domed serving tray; purple microphone with brandless flag; a green camera with solid plastic neck strap; and an anachronistically modern yellow keyboard, its USB plugin strewn lazily by it.
Judy was the first to speak what was on the room’s minds, gentle frown upon her face. “I don’t think any of these are minimum-wage.”
Lindsey plopped back down on the couch, gently poking the keyboard in her hands. “I mean, they can be. This could be, like, a super-cool-in-demand coder — like my mega-awesome future — or it could be someone typing up lists for Buzzfeed or whatevs.”
Peter leaned over and grabbed the tray, balancing it on a calloused fingertip. “I worked at the local grill, and we never had these dome-thingies. It’s pretty kitsch.”
Judy pondered the camera. “Is this a photographer or someone who gets photographed? It’s a big difference.” Gently, she plucked the microphone up. “And is this a singer or news reporter?” She drew a tiny circle around the microphone’s flag with a black fingernail. “I don’t think performers have this, uh, box-thing.”
Eugene only spared the semi-debate a distracted glance and a few perfunctory nods; the game’s screen had most of his attention. Whoever programmed this in had a weird sense of humor and excellent timing; a bit after his friends had started to examine the pieces, a ‘I’M TRYING MY BEST, NITPICKING JERKS’ typed itself on the screen before being hastily backspaced out of existence.
Now, another spiel was being inscribed before him, and it looked like...
Eugene gently rapped the table to get everyone’s attention. “H-hey, guys, I think there’s special rules here!”
MINIMUM WAGE MADNESS. SPECIAL RULES:
1: IF YOU DON’T WORK, YOU DON’T EAT: Every roll is accompanied with a SHIFT. Do your best at every task!
2:PAY TO PLAY: Insert the earnings of your SHIFT into the BUXSLOT. If you make less than the amount displayed on the BUXSLOT, your roll is halved.
3:BONUSES AND DEMOTIONS: If you do not meet the BUXSLOT’s quota, you get to choose one out of three DEMOTIONs. If you exceed the BUXSLOT’s fee by 1.5 the amount, you will a BONUS, to make your job easier.
4:NO TAKE-BACKSIES: BONUSES AND DEMOTIONS ARE ONLY UNDONE BY VICTORY OF ONE OR MORE PLAYER(s)
An odd silence hung in the air after Eugene’s had fully rotated the screen and all had finished reading. Sure, it was just a game, but all these Capitalized Terms and weird formatting just seemed so… ominous.
Peter was the first to speak up. “Man, this is weird; whoever heard of choosing demotions? Still, I’m down. Who’s gonna be who?”
The light argument-slash-discussion shooed out all but the smallest scraps of misapprehension in the room.
Heedless of conversation or choices, the metal box sat in the exact center of the lounge.
Waiting.
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