Why He Built Up Instead of Out

first published in Short, Fast & Deadly, issue 19

68 words

Everyone wondered about their privacy, at first: the company edict to wear a tracking chip while on the premises at all times. A few were punished for not wearing them; a few quit over them; but over time, pretty much everyone wore them and forgot about them otherwise.

Jones just liked to watch the lights dance on his floor: thirty floors of employees, overlapping like God's disco party.

First published in Short, Fast & Deadly, issue 19, 2010-04-18. Reprinted here by the author.