Something hard hits me in the gut and I fly back into the wall with a loud thud. I start to slide down toward the ground, numb, giving up, but somebody grabs my shirt and pulls me back up. They hit me in my face again, my head flopping to the side limply. I'm semi-conscious of blood trickling out of somewhere and trailing itself across my body, but the truth is I don't even really feel it.

Blow after blow has no effect on me. After all the metaphorical ones, real ones can't do a thing.

I'm just waiting for either the beating of the fists or the beating of my heart to stop. Which one will come sooner, I'm not sure. I'm not sure which one I'd prefer either, anymore.

I'm sitting in my cubicle writing code. I hate this job.

A light flashes on the wired phone sitting on my desk. I turned the sound off when I first got this job. The ringing was deafening. It pierced through my head and beat into my skull. I have to cover my ears when other cubicles' phones go off or else I end up practically draining the water cooler.

I pick up the receiver. I can't remember the name of my department or the greeting I'm supposed to give when I pick up the phone. I can't remember if the public will ever be transferred to my line or not. I can hardly even remember what my job title is. Somebody just gives me a memo that says "We need program that does this." I write the code in about an hour and then kill time for the rest of the day.

This job is not about the job. It's about a chance to infiltrate the system for the underground. It doesn't matter that they need a snippet of code added to a program that locates faces from public security camera feeds. It doesn't matter they need something that can break through the firewall on airplane computers.

It doesn't matter.