--jump out of my skin,

November 12, 2026

I take a deep breath.

I'm ready for anything. More or less. I've boned up on what I can- home repairs, IT, first aid, conflict de-escalation, the works. Enough to not embarrass myself, at least. I have my earpiece in, I've got the backpack and the work boots and the gloves and the mask, I've got the toolbelt with the collapsible umbrella and the lockpicks and the perfume and the lighter and the extinguisher and the flashlight and the GPS. Medical kit is sparse, obviously, but at least there's peroxide and disinfectant wipes.

This is gonna be great. I'm really, really going to make a difference.

I wonder when they're going to hit the button. Are they going to count me down, or something? I scratch my head, letting the silence of the prep room linger- and all of a sudden there's a loud BEEP from behind me and I startle and--

--jump out of my skin, because jeez that beep was louder than I thought it would be. The room is unchanged- little couch, shelves empty of the equipment I'm carrying, cameras and what-all. Pretty much exactly the same.

"Alright, we're all set," the PA says. "Should be good to go."

...Wait, what? "Hang on- is it done?"

"Roger that," says the speaker. "You can leave the way you came in."

"...Just like that?"

"Mm-hm."

That's... a little disappointing. And hard to believe, given the odds. I'd been braced for... I mean, anything. Something! Now I have to figure out what I was going to do with the rest of my life.

I'm kind of in a daze as I walk over to the door, grab the handle, and...

--jump out of my skin, as my surroundings change. It's a cramped living room, covered in newspapers no one's bothered to discard. The walls are covered in clippings I can't make out in the dim- the only light is a television, blaring Wheel of Fortune at a painful volume. The startle and the jump as I was scratching made me scrape my scalp with my fingernail a bit, and it comes away slightly bloody. I wipe it on my pants.

"Can you find them?" someone asks.

I didn't see her at first- she was wedged between stacks of newspapers on the couch. A little old lady, shriveled almost to nothing, almost hidden behind her walker.

"I- sorry?"

"Can you find them? My glasses," she says.

Oh. Is that it? Little old lady lost her glasses? That's... kind of funny.

"Absolutely, ma'am," I say, and I don't even need to get my flashlight out, because by the light of Pat Sajak I can see they've tumbled onto the floor right by her feet. I bend over, pick them up, and hand them to her.

She says "Thank you, dear," and I give a salute that I'm not sure she can see even with the glasses. Her eyes are on Vanna White adding a G to "TH_ M_AN_N_ _F L_F_", and she doesn't even look at her hands as they clip something out of a newspaper seemingly at random.

So that's it, then. I did it.

I take a deep breath, and--

--jump out of my skin, as my surroundings change. It's the parking lot of a Wal-Mart, and the summer heat ambushes me without warning. It'd been freezing out when I suited up- was this months later, or just another hemisphere? It's Wal-Mart- it could be literally anywhere. I think. Are they just an American thing, actually?

There's no chirp from my earpiece, and the guy in the tank top in front of me taps his foot impatiently before shoving a massive bag of dog food into my arms. (My hand comes away from my head wet, probably because I'm already sweating, so I balance the dog food on my knee and wipe my hand on my pants briefly.)

"There's no more room under the cart," he says, in what's definitely a southern US accent. "Help me carry this to the car, will ya?"

"I- yes sir," I say, almost fumbling it. (That's no good- if I almost fumbled it, there's a decent chance I do fumble it if the conditions are a little different.) "Your car is...?"

He points at the back of the parking lot, and I'm not sure his is the giant black pickup truck in vaguely that direction, but I start moving anyway, and he follows with his cart full of even more dog food. And as I'm walking down the rows, I spot... me.

He's at the back of a minivan, unloading groceries from a cart. Gallons of milk, boxes of cereal, some diapers. There's some kids inside the minivan shrieking with laughter, and a mom at the wheel playing Candy Crush on her phone. I see a little blood smeared on the top of his head- did one of those kids claw him, or something? I guess it doesn't matter.

He looks up at me in silence, some kind of surprise evident on his face. He doesn't say anything, and neither do I, because... why would we? What's there to say that I'm not already thinking? I keep walking.

Several pitbulls smoosh their faces against the pickup truck's rear window, tiny paws scrabbling towards the truck bed as the guy and I unload bag after back of the stuff. The windows are rolled up.

"Shouldn't those be--"

"--fuckin' open, I know, it's fine. I keep telling you, Pantstain, I'm in there for ten minutes, it's not the end of the world. God you're such a boy scout."

...Not the first time, then. Maybe he knows I don't actually fumble the bag.

Also, what did he just call me?

I hear the CLUNK of the minivan's trunk closing in the distance behind me. "All set, ma'am," my voice says, cart rattling as he wheels it to the nearby dropoff.

Looking over the parking lot, he's not the only one. I'm wheeling groceries out for a little old lady, I'm returning carts to the front, I'm... is that me in the front as the greeter? Did they fire the greeter and just start requesting me over and over?

"That's the last of 'em," tank top guy says as he shuts the pickup's hatch- and I spot the minivan me wink out of existence. Something tightens in my chest, even though it's not supposed to. Tank top guy smirks at me with a look of pity.

It's fine. It's just a little twinge. I know what I'm about. It doesn't bother me at all, really. Maybe if I sat with it for ages, but... it's fine.

Job done. I take the cart back to the dropoff, give tank top guy and his poor dogs a salute as they drive off, and... that's it. I did it.

I take a deep breath, and--

--jump out of my skin, as my surroundings change. It's a hallway made of those paper sliding door wall things, with one of the walls slid aside to reveal a sort of closet with a washing machine but no dryer. A small middle-aged asian man slides a full laundry hamper over to me. Whole place smells like vinegar.

"これらを洗濯機に入れてもらえますか?" he asks. Huh? What was that about a... centacky?

The earpiece crackles. "He's asking you to load the laundry machine," someone says. That must be the interpreter image.

"それでは, 実行してみてください."

"And then run it."

...Right. Okay. Laundry. I can do laundry. It's a pretty full hamper, that guy's kinda short, and the washing machine seems too tall for him, so like... that's helping people. Obviously most of these were going to be like this.

It all ends like this. I dump the laundry into the machine, and I can see some rumpled suits that probably weren't supposed to be treated this way, some shirts with a faded lizard-print pattern, socks, underwear. The interpreter reads off the labels on the detergent stuff, though I've already grabbed the right one. It's not hard.

It's not hard and I finish and there's an empty hallway. Corners at either end, so I can't see the rest of the house. And I'm not supposed to do anything else, not supposed to snoop around and satisfy my curiosity. I'm just done now! That's it! I helped, I justified my existence! I am officially a good person!

I agreed to this, you know. I believed I'd be fine with it. Happy with it. And like... I am! I'm good. I'm done. Like I did it and forgot. Total anticlimax, that's what I signed up for.

I take a deep breath, and--

--jump out of my skin, as my surroundings change. It's an oddly empty apartment, conspicuously missing some furniture, with beer cans lying around the floor and a sink full of unwashed dishes. The startle and the jump as I was scratching made me scrape my scalp with my fingernail a bit, and it comes away slightly bloody. I wipe it on my pants.

There's a young woman with a nose ring standing in front of me, makeup smeared and eyes watering. Her face is red and I can smell alcohol already.

"Uh, hi!" I say. "How can I--"

"You're him right now," she sniffles, and then she swings a fist straight into my solar plexus.

She's not large, and she's not strong, but she's not holding back, and I'm not expecting it. She knocks the wind out of me and something cracks. What just--

Another blow to- I can't even tell right away, I'm on the floor and my head is spinning and the pain is somewhere, I need to figure it out and get to my feet and--

OH there is zero question where the next blow just hit me, the pain rockets up through my whole body and alarm bells go off. I yell something, I don't know what- and she growls "YOU, YOU, YOU" and I can't even make her out through the- blow to the head, maybe, am I concussed?

"I hate you, I hate you, how could you do this to me, you said, you said," and I don't catch the words after that because she's gone hoarse and is choking them through tears.

"what," I try, because I can still just about speak even though the rest of my body is a blur of pain signals and I can't tell where my arms and legs are.

"Shut up. Shut UP you're HIM for me okay? Okay?!?"

She- what? I'm who? I'm-

-no, I'm literally a punching bag right now, that's the job. She maybe got dumped by her boyfriend or something, she's taking it out on me, I'm so smart for figuring it out and I'm doing a good job at what she needs me for, and that's- I'm doing it, I'm doing it right. She's hitting me, not someone else, and I don't even count. I don't know if this is psychologically healthy for her, but I also don't know if I could even stand right now if I tried, so-

-she's stopped, she's getting something from the kitchen. I don't know what-- iiiiiiit is a knife. Hold on now. Hang on. That's- she wouldn't-

--jump out of my skin, as my surroundings change. I'm at a bar, Tubthumping is blaring, there's Christmas decorations all over the walls, and I can't tell who asked for me because there's like eight people in nearly identical Grinch costumes lined up along the bar. The startle and the jump as I was scratching made me scrape my scalp with my fingernail a bit, and it comes away slightly bloody. I wipe it on my pants.

Immediately, there is a chorus of groans.

"Danny, no."

"Come the fuck on Danny."

"I just need him to--"

"Danny you fucking bootlicker."

"Get out of here, Pantstain," someone says. They're glaring directly at me.

"Sorry, Pantstain?" I ask, and as I'm asking it three of the other grinches echo "Sorry, Pantstain?" in eerie chorus, matching my exact intonation modulo a mocking nerd voice.

"Yeah, Pantstain!"

"Fuck off out of here, Pantstain!"

"Die already!"

"Guys, I just need to see if I left my keys in my car-"

"Then get up and walk, you lazy fuck! Don't bring Pantstain in here! It's Christmas you dipshit!!!"

"No one's getting paid to check the car for my keys, man, it's-"

"Pantstain isn't gonna fuck you, dude."

This is awkward. He wants me to go check his car for keys, right? I can just go do that, uh, as long as...

"Your car is...?"

There's a howl of fuck-yous that drowns out whatever Danny was trying to say. He looks crushed, and finally I hear him say "...never mind, man. You can go."

I can... go? Like- he doesn't need my help?

That's... I mean, I was supposed to... be useful. And like, he clearly still wants me to do it, but he's just being... pressured to... uh...

"Look man I'll do it, it's legal," someone says, and entirely without warning there's a Swiss Army knife in my throat and I can't breathe and I can't scream and I don't even know if Danny's locked his keys in his car and wasn't I supposed to be helping peop

"I dropped them again," a voice says. I didn't see her at first- she was wedged between stacks of newspapers on the couch. A little old lady, shriveled almost to nothing, almost hidden behind her walker.

"Oh- those?" I ask, looking down by her feet and seeing a pair of horn-rimmed glasses on the ground.

"Yes, dear, if you wouldn't mind..."

That's it? Little old lady dropped her glasses? That's... kind of funny.

She says "Thank you, dear," and I give a salute that I'm not sure she can see even with the glasses. Her eyes are on Vanna White filling out some letters in "TH_ M_ANING _F LIF_", and she doesn't even look at her hands as they clip something out of a newspaper seemingly at random.

So that's it, then. I did it.

I take a deep breath, and--

--jump out of my skin and right into the arms of a number of large men, who very quickly catch me and right me. "Thanks," I start to say, before I realize they're tying me up, putting a gag in my mouth, and holding a blowtorch to my face.

"You're going to tell us where the imaging facility is," someone says through a voice filter. I can't see their face, or anything in the darkness beyond the blowtorch approaching my eyeball. "Exact address. I know you know."

Oh! I'm trained for this one. These guys didn't think this through. I take a deep breath, and--

There's a young woman with a nose ring kneeling on the floor and weeping. She's holding- something, she hides it behind her, she looks up at me.

"Do you want to fuck?" she asks.

I stagger back. "Uh- I'm sorry?"

"Fuck," she repeats, her voice hollow. Something is wrong. She's not in a good headspace right now, that's absolutely not a request I can comply with... and honestly, I kinda don't want to. She's... uh, not... very good looking, I'll say, without giving specifics. Not my type. Even if she weren't obviously having some kind of episode in an altered state of mind- I can smell the alcohol, actually-

"No, I, uh- sorry, that's not- I'm not allowed to--"

"Liar," she says. "You lie every time. I know, everyone knows, if she's pretty enough you say yes. You're allowed. You say yes."

UH. NO??? No I'm not supposed to do that??? And I wouldn't, this is an important job, I'm supposed to be someone everyone can trust. Like, I would never--

"You say yes, you're a slut, she doesn't even have to be that pretty! She just needs to not be me, she needs to not be a human pig, she just needs to not be a hideous drunken femcel nothing, I knew it, everyone knows you!"

"Are... you okay?" I ask, stupidly, because really obviously she's not okay, someone needs to call...

...what, me? I'm supposed to deal with this? I can't deal with this, no way, this wasn't in the manual this is mission failure, the best way for me to help here is to not be here. I take a deep breath, and--

--jump out of my skin, as my surroundings change. It's an oddly empty ap--

--I'm on the floor, something hit me, someone is screaming- a woman?

"--BACK here, you COWARD you're HIM why won't you LISTEN you're HIM and I KNOW you hate me everyone hates me it's science I proved it don't you DARE leave me AGAIN-"

Oh god. Oh god, what is this? Who is this?

"I'm sorry, ma'am, can I help you with something? If you need-"

"AAAAAAAAGH" she interrupts, and oh god that's a knife--