Sunlight hit his face through the windows. The room he walked into was similar in style to the entrance but didn’t have the opulent decorations and all the gaming memorabilia. A glass front let the light through and he spotted the door marked Exit. He pushed out of the door and stepped onto a large sidewalk. A small sign on a supporting concrete column told him the parking structure was to the right, so he followed the indicated direction.
It didn’t take him long to spot the six story parking garages. Atlas had parked in the one closest to his current position. He rose to the 5th floor in the elevator and sunk into the driver’s seat of his beat up Honda Civic. The car had gone through hell, but it was as reliable as ever and got great mileage. A twist of the key caused the tiny engine to fire right up and he put it in gear.
The trip back to his apartment studio was less than twenty minutes and he walked through the door. He passed the tiny couch and TV in his living room and the small kitchenette. He rarely cooked anything more extensive than Ramen noodles, anyway. Down the hall, he ignored his bedroom on the right and ducked straight into the bathroom on the left. After a quick wash down, he donned his scrubs and snatched his badge from his dresser. A glance at his phone told him he had a little less than an hour until work.
Traveling back to his car, he hopped in and fired it up. The local Mexican food restaurant drew his attention, and he got a quick burrito before work. The spice hit his stomach, and it grumbled in satisfaction. That might come back to haunt me later.
Atlas pulled up to the front of the medical clinic. He worked in a small urgent care facility. They combined it with an emergency room, but it wasn’t a full size hospital. As a nurse, he spent his time helping with the never ending ailments of those who entered. Most days it was just people coming in for standard coughs and colds. The occasional UTI or flu would drop in as well. Occasionally you would see a laceration or something equally fun.
“Good Morning Atlas!” Kathryn said in a cheery tone. Her strawberry blonde hair bouncing in a ring of curls. Abundant eye shadow drew far more attention to her face than it should have. Guess the boss can do whatever she wants and doesn’t need to worry about the dress code.
“Morning Kat. Quentin going to be okay?”
“Hope so. He didn’t sound too hot on the phone but let’s be honest, this is Quentin, it’s possible he’s just hung over and didn’t want to come to work.”
“That’s true,” Atlas grumbled, “The man has a bit of a lazy streak in him.”
“Sorry I had to call you in early. I know you were hyped up about playing that new game. Did you have time to play?” Kathryn asked.
Atlas’ eyes lit up at the mention of Divine Genesis, “Yeah. It was amazing. Had to leave a little earlier than I intended, but it was a great time while it lasted. I was almost due to get out of the game anyway, so no big deal. You do anything interesting while I was out?”
“Not really. I actually got called into a few meetings over my days off. The company is concerned with the numbers for the clinic. We aren’t getting as many patients as they’d like daily.”
“Can’t exactly walk around and make people get sick, now can we?” Atlas said with a chuckle.
Kathryn took on a pensive look as her brow creased. She seemed to wrestle with herself for a few moments before she nodded slowly.
“Atlas, you didn’t hear any of this from me but you may want to polish up your résumé. The grumbling from the higher ups sounds like they may consider shutting down the clinic.”
“Close this place? Where will the people go? The main hospital is an hour from here depending on traffic. Hell, there isn’t another clinic closer to the hospital that offers half the services we can. I think you may be stressing about this too much.”
Kathryn seemed to turn that idea over in her head for a while before she smiled, “Maybe you’re right. I might be worried for no reason. I hadn’t considered the problem with access to healthcare around here.”
She looked to the clock on the wall and quickly nodded. Rising to her feet, she lifted her bag and slung it over her shoulder, “My time’s done. I’ll catch ya later. Kevin is due to take over after your shift. You’re working tomorrow as well, right? If so, I think I’m working with you.”
“Yep, see ya tomorrow. Have fun,” Atlas told her with a wave.
She walked out, and he turned his attention to the computer screen. Their program didn’t show anyone waiting in the lobby, so he had some free time to spare. He pulled out his phone and swiped the screen to unlock it. A tap on Keenan’s name and the phone started ringing. It wasn’t long before it went straight to voicemail.
Damn. Guess he’s still in game. He must be playing the full two days’ worth so he won’t get out for at least another few hours.
Atlas looked through his phone and a couple of news announcements caught his attention. He followed a few gaming blogs and news sites and got push notifications on major articles. Every one of them had massive articles talking about Divine Genesis. Now that they officially announced the name, the NDA protecting the details no longer applied. News sites flooded everything with articles talking about how impressive the game was. He skimmed through most of them and couldn’t disagree with their points. A few of the sites complained about the lack of guidance and whined about the difficulty because of that, but that was the part Atlas enjoyed the most. He
