He opened his eyes and glanced at his wristwatch. It was 6:32 PM, which meant he had just under half an hour before his twelve hour shift ended. Arthur felt like his work days were far too long, but in reality, he was lucky to land a 12/6 job (that is: 12 hours a day, 6 days a week). Many people, especially service workers, had 14/6 or 16/6 jobs. There were a lucky few with 14/5 jobs. "Imagine that," Arthur mused, "two days off per week!" A voice inside him attempted to quell his fantasy by saying "but what would you do with all that extra time?" He didn't know. All he knew was that he wanted it, but not enough to quit his job and be forced, by government law, into shared housing and lose access to the entertainment data streams.

Arthur let out a sigh and decided he had better focus on finishing more of his tasks before the day was up. He looked down again at his paper. Across the top it was dated "10/13/30". Arthur thought, "has it really been eight years since 2/22/2222?" But he quickly shook this thought from his head and attempted to focus on being productive.

Arthur was productive for exactly 17 more minutes and 32 seconds, before all hell broke loose.