Caleb Porter, a 31-year-old survey-taker

It flipped on like a switch in the universe, something that converted forever the energies and atoms that moved the human brain, all to affect one, single organism in existence. All the world changed and morphed, erasing from the collective mind of humanity any notion of agency by the entity known only as…

… Caleb. Or Cal, to his friends, so only by two names. And a social security number. So yes, three, three means of the entity being known to all as-

“Porter!” Four, if you include teachers, rude neighbors, and the flustered boss woman ruling Caleb’s work life as he walked up to the print station.

Caleb and his many forms of identification were not eager to begin the day. He was late for the latest dead-end job: being a survey-taker adorned in ugly yellows shirts and baggy blue shorts. Officially he was an “action representative” for SurveYou, a dying company still clinging to street-level survey barkers in a world of online data harvesting. But for someone with barely a high school education, this was the best job he could manage to avoid being kicked out of his family's apartment.

The furious boss-lady, meanwhile, was Cheryl something-or-other--Caleb forgot her last name one week into this job--and was a chubby woman three years his younger. She was cute and chesty, but that didn’t change her shitty attitude with the underlings, much less with Caleb who barely wanted the job. “Hey, sorry for being late.” His voice lacked sincerity; he had meant to pack that in but couldn’t muster the will for it. Maybe today would be when he quit or got fired? It would be the twelfth job he lost to apathy or dereliction.

“Don’t be sorry for finally doing what you’re told,” she scolded, “now get your damn clipboard and get to work!”

She was particularly nasty today… though what she said was confusing. It was ambiguous enough for Caleb to quit questioning it, though, and he took the laden clipboard with a quiet sigh before running back out.

The print station was setup in one of the many fields on the campus of Biggs University, a new tech school in quiet Fernville, Georgia. The yellow and blue eyesore was a glorified tent with plugs running through the grass back to the overloaded power grid of the campus, but it was the headquarters for all the survey-takers scattered through the campus. Caleb’s own hunting ground was in front of the library: a beautiful, brown fortress of knowledge and, in practice, a survey dead zone. The foot traffic there was exclusively people eager to study in peace or people fleeing those studies to escape back to their lives. In short, Caleb’s job was to be told “no,” “no thank you,” or “fuck off” in silent and non-silent ways for the next four hours.

Caleb was amazed at how many hand gestures there were to decline another human's questions. Nonetheless, he dutifully took his place at the library and began his post with the first tech nerd to pass near: a skinny, petite girl with freckles and two laptops in her arms. Who needs two laptops?! Caleb did not greet her with his first question. “Good morning! Could I have a moment of your time?”

The nerd glanced at him in shock, then in dismay as she realized who he was. Crap, did he ask her this yesterday? The student faces all blurred together, these days, but now he was fairly certain he had... though she only had one laptop that time. “You… did good,” she muttered, seemingly confused.

“Eh… thanks?” Praise was rare enough, confusing as it was here. But she hadn't said "no," not yet, so he was to continue. “I just have a few quick questions for you about the political and global climate, and what you think about the job our government is doing.” This oughta be the kiss of . He hoped it was, because a way-hotter blonde student was approaching and Caleb would skip the two male mouth-breathers between to make sure he got a chance with the hottie.

“Well, of course you do, so hurry up, please, I have too much to do today!” Her voice was almost , despite her seeming to agree to take the survey.

Shrugging, Caleb went into it, grumbling that he would miss the chance to talk to the bombshell about to walk by. “Fine- ehm, I mean... great. So, what do you know about greenhouse gases?” The survey was a slog now that he had to get through it, and it was not a quick and easy process as the burdened student hoped. All the while she gave her hurried answers, growing more agitated as he went on, but she never quit, not so long as he had questions left to ask. With twenty complex questions to get through, each with 1-10 ratings and some with attached promotions to sneak into the questioning, neither the action representative nor the victim were happy about the scenario.

The bombshell blonde was a distant memory by the time Caleb was wrapping up the fifteen-minute encounter with Gina Yukes, a junior undergrad and his hostage in the middle of a library pavilion. His every question was met with a derisive sigh followed by a defeated, but thorough answer. This continued until he got the nineteenth query where, exasperated, she finally interrupted, “I can't believe I asked for this.”

Caleb paused to chew on that. “I'm... really grateful, we're almost done.” Don't make me turn in an incomplete survey now, you goddamn troll! You made me lose my shot! Caleb had no shot with the blonde, of course, but fantasies were all he had these days.

“What was I even thinking? I'm sorry for making you do this,” she grumbled, “I don't know what I was thinking.”

Weird way to look at it... No, that was too weird, too specific. “W-Well, I'm uh... sorry I bothered you? It's just two more-”

“You have nothing to be sorry for, I can't believe I roped you into wasting this time with me, that's all.”

Couldn't agree more. There was something oddly satisfying about someone elsetaking ownership of his dead-end job, silly as that was. Maybe she's just a weird depressive who blames herself for everything? Caleb shrugged it off. “Hey, it's on me for approaching, right? Haha.”

“Don't pretend you had any hand in this for my sake,” she sighed, “this wouldn't have happened if I didn't make you do it.”

Caleb's laugh died down... and pure confusion locked into place. “What do you mean?”

Frowning, she continued, “And now I'm making you waste more time asking obvious, stupid questions! God, I'm an idiot, but alright: so what I mean of course is that I made you dress up in that ugly uniform and wait here for me to take this stupid, trashy political survey just to sabotage my own work.”

Caleb agreed the uniform was ugly, but it didn't make it less embarrassing to hear her burn him on them. The rest was just lunacy, though. The impression that she manipulated him into doing this wasn't just silly, it was a bit insulting. “H-How... how would that even work? This is my job, and... I mean you never met me before!” She wasn't like... some secret owner of SurveYou, right? Wasn't there a candid camera show like that? That more ludicrous scenario was hard to shake for poor Caleb, now.

“I can't believe I'm keeping you on this!”

“That's... I mean you're not, I'm asking you?”

“And I'm making you doubt the reason for it... I don't know why I want this, but it can't be helped.” She sighed again, shaking frustration in her voice. “I really must not want to complete this OS shell, but... but why?”

This bitch is crazy, Caleb decided. “I think you need to get some help.”

“I... wow.” She blinked in open-mouthed shock. “If I made you tell me that, then... then I think I need help? I never want to lean on anyone, so... so why now?”

This was the stupidest prank, but Caleb couldn't be sure yet if it was just a prank or if he was watching a student's sanity meltdown from stress. He had nary a clue of what an "OS shell" might be, but it sounded hard... hard enough to justify two laptops, he guessed. Maybe hard enough to drive this chick insane. “I meant like... nevermind. Can we just finish the survey?”

“Of course, it's what I wanted, clearly... I just wish I knew why.”

Annoyed, Caleb ignored her mad ramblings and just kept on with the survey. He looked her over better as he did, now fully alert and cautious of the crazy woman. Petite and skinny, she seemed unhealthy with skin that was variably freckled or farmer-tanned when she adjusted her turtleneck enough for him to spot the pale skin underneath. Her hair was curly and pinned up to strongly frame a cute, small-featured face that was masked only slightly by black, thick-rimmed glasses. The purple turtleneck was her nicest article of clothing; her plaid skirt over black stockings, the bomber jacket over the turtleneck, and the big ugly backpack were otherwise in ragged condition each, including a tear on her right shin along the black surface. A leg slightly dotted with hair peeked through the gap in the nylon.

When at last the survey was complete, he put the kiss-of- question out there, knowing he was sending it out to die. “Would you like to provide your e-mail to receive more information on these global concerns?”

“Oh God, why would I ever ask you to ask me that?”

Back to the bit, then. Might as well play along. “Well if you asked me to get the e-mail address, then I guess you better give it to me,” he sarcastically replied, exasperated already with this futile-

“Obviously, I just hate that I'm signing up for spam.” She promptly reported her e-mail, stunning Caleb as he scribbled her reply.

It must be fake, he decided, though it was very obviously not: the address was just her name followed by @biggsuniversity.net, precisely what every student's e-mail was. Maybe she gave a fake name right at the start? Narrowing his eyes, he decided to test how far she would take this prank, madwoman's rant, Undercover Boss episode, or whatever else this exchange would prove to be. “I need to see your I.D. or driver's license.”

“I... made you need that? Since when do surveys need that?!”

“Just need to verify your identification. So, give it to me, please.” He barely managed the please. She was clearly guarded about her I.D., lending credence to the whole thing being a fraud.

But, grumbling, she put her laptops down on a nearby stone bench and fished through her backpack, supposedly to get her I.D. out. A moment later, Caleb was staring, dumbfounded, at her driver's license. Gina Yukes was, in fact, a real name. “God, what else?”

“I... hmm.” He filled out the last information for the survey and, seeing the checkboxes at the bottom, followed-up. “You want me to sign you up for our newsletter at your physical address too, right?”

“As if you had to ask,” she groaned in despair.

How far would the bit go? He was authorized to collect donations for the super PAC that funded his company, but he never got this far before. “And... you're making a donation, since I'm collecting those too, right?”

“I wanted you to take my money too? I live on student loans, I barely make it already--God, I'm such an--ugh.” Her frustration was only barely contained at the end... but sure enough, she opened her wallet back up to reveal a fat load of twenty-dollar-bills inside.

At this point, Caleb shook his head in disbelief. She was going to pay to keep this up, and he believed her when she claimed she was a broke student... so was this a prank? Or was she just crazy? “That's alright, you don't have to give me any money,” he hastily answered.

“Then... then I just made you ask for a donation for... for what? What did I want to donate?”

A bewildering question, one he had no answer for. “That's... that's for you to decide?”

Her brow furrowed in irritation. “I know that, but I... I don't know what else I would've wanted to donate. I wouldn't want to give you anything really, but I must've wanted to donate something if not money...”

Donate me a fucking beer or a handy, crazy lady. He didn't verbalize that, but he suppressed a smirk at imagining actually pressuring her in such a way. She was nothing to look at twice, but Caleb hadn't had a girlfriend in almost a decade. He was horny enough to like the idea. “Well, you'd probably donate whatever you think I'd like.” He immediately felt stupid for letting his perverted thought creep onto his tongue, cryptic as it was.

“Anything... you would like? So I wasn't even trying to donate to your phony company, just to you. Then... I need to know what I'd want you to you like so I can finally donate it and get back to work. So please, tell me!”

It was here... this moment. The universe had changed, because it was always changing, but here and now was when Caleb finally felt it in his conscious mind, the gentle shrug of reality that knocked him away from the human experience. Her desperation, sincere and begging, and the mad allusions to the idea that anything he would say would, somehow, have been her desire or idea, finally struck Caleb with a sinister thought, a terrible revelation:

What if this is real? What if she would really believe that of anything he said?