Progress, Incorporated

“Welcome, everybody, to Progress,” a man’s enthusiastic voice chimed from a wall speaker.

The large conference room was bathed in blue light reflecting off a canvas screen. A murmur swept through the crowd as music swelled through speakers. They were clearly meant to be seeing something, but the screen stayed blank.

Simon shifted in his folding chair—had he made a mistake? He was putting his life in the hands of a company that couldn’t work a projector. Luckily, the screen flickered on before his thoughts spiraled out of control.

“Before we start our safety guidelines presentation, Progress would first like to acknowledge that this building sits on the native land of the Miwok people.”

Two cartoon Natives appeared next to a roundhouse, smiling and waving at the audience. A few in the room nodded contemplatively, and there was even a smattering of applause from a large white family who wore matching T-shirts reading “Jackson Family Sleepover 2030–TBD”.

“We are sure you’re eager to learn how to operate your state-of-the-art Progress Pods,” the video continued. It shifted to a more detailed animation of what looked like a mechanical coffin with a tiny window. It reminded Simon of an action figure box, complete with a Progress™ logo slapped on the front.

“These pods will be your home for the next several years as you wait for the world to accept you for who you are, be that the color of your skin, sexual orientation, or political beliefs.”

Each descriptor was accompanied by another cartoon appearing: A black woman with a large afro, a shirtless blond man with rainbow suspenders, and a woman with blue hair wearing a “Coexist” shirt.

“Our process couldn’t be easier. Our attendants will help you inside and then you only need to fall asleep before waking up in an enlightened world!”

The three cartoon people joined hands as others appeared beside them. The diverse group of animated figures created a chain of hands that circled the globe.

“Your Progress Pod comes with a safety guarantee. In the event of an emergency, there is a yellow lever on the bottom of the inner door. If you wake up from stasis and there are no attendants to help you, make sure to pull it up with both hands so the door releases and you can safely exit.

“If you have any questions, please ask your attendant when they show you to your new home. Make sure to change into your hibernation suit while you wait. We thank you for joining Progress in our mission to stand by for a better future.”

As the lights in the conference room came back on, Simon examined his fellow hibernators. Most didn’t seem as put off by the video as he was, and he wondered if he was paranoid. Still, an emergency release lever wasn’t particularly comforting. Simon didn’t like the idea that he might suddenly wake from stasis, or that nobody would be there to help him get out.

Simon shuffled along with the group of excited strangers into a small locker room and slipped into a stall for privacy. He stripped off his clothes and began squeezing inside a sterile white jumpsuit. Nearby, he heard a few Jackson family members making small talk from inside their own stalls, their voices echoing off tile walls.

“Did you hear that Gans Corp. is lobbying to extend stand-your-ground laws to include companies?”

“No, I don’t read the news. It’s too depressing.”

* * *

Back in the waiting room, Simon drummed on his leg as he waited to hear his name. He’d thought his nerves were shot when he arrived, but at least then he’d been in comfortable clothes. His jumpsuit clung tight to his body as though squeezing the breath out of him. His throat began to tighten, the world around him starting to spin.

“Mind if I sit here?” a woman asked in a slow drawl, lowering herself slowly into the chair next to Simon with her cane. “The rest of my family got called in.”

Simon recognized her voice, but his brain fog made it hard to place. That was, until she started to say “Did you hear that Gans—”

“Is trying to extend corporate personhood?” Simon finished, cutting her off. He hadn’t meant to, but the wait was making him so anxious that even the seconds she would have taken to finish felt like an eternity.

“Yes! Those bastards. And they’ll probably get everything they want if the Republicans win again in 2032. You’ve heard how Harry Burkett talks about protestors.”

“‘I’d shoot them all myself if I wasn’t busy single-handedly saving this country,’” Simon quoted, slurring his voice in a half-decent impression.

The woman laughed so loudly and unabashedly that Simon couldn’t help but be impressed. Her boldness made him feel a little more at ease.

“So why are you here?” she asked once she stopped laughing. “You don’t seem afraid of talking politics like my family.”

“I don’t mind talking politics,” Simon said. “I just didn’t know how to fix anything. I’m from Alabama, and Burkett is going to win even if I vote. I don’t want to stick around to see what he does once in office.”

A few minutes later, a man with a clipboard called out for Macy Jackson and the woman got to her feet. As Simon waved goodbye, he wondered if he’d ever see her again.

* * *

An attendant with a white lab coat emblazoned with a blue P and a nametag that read “Stella” appeared to bring Simon to his pod. She led Simon down a bright white hallway lined on either side with doors, each labeled for a particular intersection of identities. The labels were accompanied by a range of numbers.

“What is that exactly?” Simon asked, pointing at a door that read “straight, white cisgender female, 30–50.”

“Our research team predicts when individuals of certain groups will gain mainstream acceptance and get to wake up,” Stella explained.

Simon noted some doors had numbers in the triple digits. “50–110. Are those weeks? Months?”

Stella simply shrugged. “That’s not my department.”

Simon avoided looking at the number on the “white-presenting, gay, cisgender male” room as his attendant gestured him inside. An empty Progress Pod loomed over them as Stella took Simon’s heart rate and blood pressure.

“So, will I be in here until I wake up?” Simon asked as Stella recorded his vitals.

“Nope,” Stella said. She reached for a thermometer and stuck it under his tongue. “The pods are on a track. Once I have you all set, you’ll be sent off to one of those silos you saw from outside. The track goes up and around so we can cycle through all of you, kind of like a dry cleaner.”

Simon sat in silence, imagining himself snaking his way up a massive shirt rack. The thermometer beeped. Stella did one last scan of her clipboard once his temperature was recorded.

“I see you forgot to sign over your voting rights to Progress. If you could just give us your signature, you’ll be all set.”

“Oh, I didn’t know that was mandatory,” Simon said hesitantly.

“Well, it’s not,” Stella said. “But you care about making progress, right? You need to vote if you want anything to get better.”

“Okay . . . sure,” Simon said. He grabbed the clipboard and signed.

Simon climbed into his pod and Stella affixed a cuff around his arm. It looked like a blood pressure machine with a series of holes in it. Through the holes, Stella stuck several colorful IV tubes.

Simon closed his eyes as the needles were driven into his arm. He always hated giving blood, the feeling of a foreign object stuck inside his skin. He hoped the rest of the process didn’t take long.

After attaching some smart stickers to his skin to monitor his vitals, Stella finally pulled a mask down over his face.

“All right, Simon, we’re going to need you to count backwards from one hundred. Sound good?”

He nodded, then began counting. Everything was dark by the time he hit ninety-four.

* * *

Simon woke up gasping for air in the pitch-black of his pod. Remembering the training video, Simon fumbled for the release lever, but his fingers were stiff from lack of use. Simon could see colors behind his eyes pulsing at the edges of his vision, closing in tighter as he gasped for air.

Simon managed to grip the handle and pull up. The pod hissed as it was unsealed, and Simon breathed in large, grateful gulps.

Though his eyes adjusted, he still couldn’t see the floor below him—he could barely see past the tops of others. About ten feet ahead was another pod, but he couldn’t see much around it. Simon leaned as far out of his pod as he dared. It squeaked precariously on rusty hinges.

Rows of pods snaked their way up further than Simon could see.

The room hissed as others began freeing themselves. Shouts rang out as everyone tried to figure out where they were. Simon felt a terrible sense of dread. The storage silos were dark and industrial, nothing like the brightly lit hallways of the main building.

Simon pulled the needles from his arm one at a time, wincing with each. His pod lurched and he was nearly thrown out of it. With relief, he realized his pod was automatically heading toward the floor. Simon saw others in white jumpsuits as he lowered, already out of their pods. They looked around wildly hoping for assistance.

Simon’s pod creaked to a stop before making it to ground level, but he didn’t care; he was anxious to get out of it. There was only a three-foot drop, but Simon’s legs buckled with the shock of the impact. He shakily got to his feet and wondered how long it had been since he last used them.

Simon could see five pods ahead of him on the track, most of their occupants still inside. One man glanced back and shook his head like he had done something wrong. For a moment, Simon worried he had. The track above whirled, sending the pods forward into an unknown tunnel. He wondered if they were meant to be let out. And how many years it had been.

This thought was interrupted by a frantic burst of light and sound erupting from a long dark tunnel further down. Simon froze. Was he being paranoid, or did he hear gunshots? The pods began moving again, and several more people climbed uneasily out of their pods.

A scream echoed out from the tunnel, followed by another thundering burst of now unmistakable gunfire.

Bouncing beams of light appeared as Simon tried to find anywhere in the room he could hide. The man who’d disapproved of Simon leaving his pod now jumped from his own and ran forward. He fell as another burst of gunfire punched crimson holes into his white jumpsuit. Dark pools flooded under his chest, obscuring the carefully embroidered Progress logo.

More screams echoed from all around. Simon tried to find the will to move, but even with adrenaline coursing through his veins, his legs hadn’t fully woken yet. Shrieks rang out from above just before a body hit the ground with a sickening crunch. Two more followed in short succession.

Simon couldn’t run and he couldn’t fight. The only thing he could think to do was hide. He forced his legs to move toward the body of a jumper, their blood slowly pooling from the open compound fractures in their legs.

If Simon thought about what he was about to do, he’d never get it done. So he threw his face down onto the floor, soaking his cheeks in blood. He wanted to cry. He wanted to throw up, but he forced himself to lie as still as possible.

Two figures in riot gear emerged from further down the silo, flashlights fixed to the bottoms of their assault rifles, faces obscured by balaclavas. Simon shut his eyes tight as the room exploded with noise. It lasted only a few seconds. When he dared to open his eyes again, nobody in a jumpsuit was standing anymore.

Slowly, the pods began reversing course as the ones that were ahead of Simon’s re-entered the room. Most of the occupants hadn’t made it out, their bodies slumped lifelessly inside. The rest of the pods would be too high to safely get down, leaving two choices: wait forever and starve, or jump.

Simon’s ears rang from more gunfire, and his heart beat so loud he was surprised he hadn’t been discovered. The two soldiers said something to one another that he couldn’t make out. One began walking back out of the tunnel, while the other slung his assault rifle across his back and began inspecting corpses.

He made his way between bodies, kicking them and pointing his gun at them, watching for a reaction. Simon wouldn’t be able to hide any longer, and he didn’t want to die. If he wanted to live, he had to act.

Simon saw the black combat boots approaching, their steel-toed tips stained red. It drew back, aiming a kick at Simon’s head. That’s when he grabbed the soldier’s other ankle and pulled quickly.

The gunman’s foot slid through the blood as he toppled to the ground, helmet bouncing off the concrete floor with a dull thunk.

Concussed, the gunman rolled slowly from side to side, making no motion to stand. Simon saw his chance and set eyes on the rifle. He unclipped the carabiner from the rear end of the gun’s strap and pulled it free.

It shook in Simon’s hands. Only when the gunman lunged at him did he find the strength to pull the trigger. The gun struggled violently in Simon’s hands, pounding into his shoulder. The soldier lay still.

There was no time to think about what he had done. The other soldiers might be coming back. Pulling the body into a dark corner, Simon changed into his uniform. He was glad the helmet and balaclava hid his face. He jumped as a walky-talky tucked into the vest crackled to life.

“All right everybody, finish what you’re doing and meet out front. Gans only sprung for the hour, so their people are going to handle cleanup. If you’re not out in ten, we’re leaving you.”

Simon hoped that was true, because he had no intention of leaving. He needed to find a way to get the rest of the pods down. He made his way into the dim tunnel, following the pod tracks suspended overhead. He could see light pouring out of a rectangular slot in the wall. And he heard sobbing.

Approaching cautiously, rifle in hand, Simon peered through the rectangular slot. Inside was the exam room he used before entering his pod. He saw Stella, tears streaming down her face as she operated the pod track. Simon was appalled to see she’d barely aged a day. The only difference was her lab coat’s blue Progress Inc. logo and nametag replaced by a red Gans symbol. Beside her stood the other soldier who had entered the storage silo. His mask was off and he was wiping sweat from his brow.

“They got the votes they needed when they bought the company,” Stella said, her voice thick. “Burkett won and they got what they wanted. Why couldn’t we just let them out safely?”

“Just do your job,” the soldier said. “You’re sure there’s no way for the rest of them to get down without—”

He made a splatting noise with his mouth, then snorted at his twisted joke. It ignited an anger inside Simon that he’d never felt before.

He stepped into the light. The soldier looked at him, his face splitting into a smile, mistaking Simon for his fellow mercenary. A burst of gunfire from Simon’s rifle disabused him of this illusion.

Simon was ready for its violent kick this time. When it stopped, the soldier was slumped against the opposite wall, his shit-eating grin barely faded from his face.

Stella screamed as Simon moved further into the room. Quickly, he pulled off his mask, hoping she would recognize him. Her eyes grew wider, but her screaming stopped.

“Is there anyone left?” Simon asked in low tones. He rushed to the door and peered into the brightly lit hallway. No more soldiers were coming for now. Looking back, he saw Stella nodding.

“They only killed the bottom few rows. The ones that could safely jump,” Stella explained. “They left the rest up there to starve. Said they weren’t worth the bullets.”

“Help me get them down,” Simon said, adding “please” when she hesitated.

Stella made her way to the controls. As she cycled through the pods, freeing those who were left, Simon moved to the door. He held his gun ready to fire, but nobody entered. It seemed the mercenaries were as miserly with their time as they were their bullets.

Only a dozen of the pod’s denizens were left, but they hesitantly agreed to help check the other storage silos for more survivors.

* * *

The survivors congregated in the mostly unchanged conference room. Simon was elated to see Macy Jackson being helped inside by two surviving family members, their matching T-shirts visible beneath unzipped jumpsuits. The large number of empty seats weighed heavy on Simon’s heart. Their absence was a reminder that they couldn’t just go to sleep and avoid their problems. It was time to act. Time for real progress.