“Stop boiling the ocean and give me something actionable! I need quick wins, dammit—not a complete paradigm shift!”
Cipher blinked and rubbed his eyes.
Did I drift off in a meeting?
“What do you mean, why? We can’t keep reinventing the wheel every quarter, Smith! We have KPIs to hit—shareholders breathing down our necks. If we don’t offer some deliverables soon, this little tiger team is going to find itself on the chopping block!”
No, I—He lowered his hands from his face and stared blearily at his empty palms. I haven’t made it to work—hell, I don’t even have my coffee yet.
“Crisp execution, Smith—crisp execution!”
Cipher let his arms fall to his sides and raised his eyes.
He stood in an empty parking lot, just beyond the shade of a red-and-green striped canvas awning. Overhead, a neon red chili pepper glowed faintly beside oversized white letters that spelled Chili’s in bold italics.
Beneath the awning, a man paced frantically in front of glass doors set into a brick wall. He was short and paunchy with thinning hair and a thick mustache. His white button-down shirt had come untucked from a pair of khaki chinos, and a roll of pale, flabby flesh spilled over his belt buckle. Flecks of spittle flew from his mouth as he raged into his wireless earbuds, each fiery comment punctuated by wild, sweeping hand gestures.
“Own the outcome, Smith! Operational discipline isn’t just a pretty phrase on a slide deck! It’s about continuous improvement.”
Coffee... I was on my way to the coffee shop when—
“Dude, I’ve been doing this longer than Plutus here has been spouting sweet corporate nothings to his phantom work husband—and I’ve never seen anyone so rattled by fast casual dining.”
Cipher turned with a start.
A young woman leaned against the wall, a lit cigarette held loosely at her side. She wore black pants and a black shirt, with a red apron tied at her waist. She brushed a lock of long, auburn hair from her eyes as she lifted the cigarette to her lips, exhaling a cloud of smoke into Plutus’s face as he stalked by.
He passed through it without breaking stride.
“Omnichannel? Omnichannel? I’m talking effective, integrated, upstream, multichannel consolidation, Smith!”
The woman sighed.
“I asked for an assignment in the Third Circle, you know,” she muttered, pushing off from the wall and making her way towards Cipher. “Cerberus may be a bit trigger-happy, but at least the mutt’s never seen a balance sheet.”
As the woman drew near, she pulled a pen and notepad from her apron pocket and began scribbling on the first page.
“Anyways, if you’re done gawking, I’m gonna need you to—son of a—” the woman cursed, stabbing her pen at the notepad. “Can’t even get nice pens in this hellhole. You’d think my superiors would be a bit more prepared for late-stage capitalism. Hey, Plutus—catch!”
Without a backward glance, she tossed the inkless pen over her shoulder. It ricocheted off Plutus’s forehead, clattering to the ground amidst an uninterrupted stream of corporate vitriol.
“Multichannel! Multichannel!”
“You tell ‘em, champ,” the woman grumbled, fishing in her apron for a second pen. “Right, as I was saying—hey now, where are you getting off to, friend?”
In the commotion, Cipher had begun backpedaling through the parking lot, eyes wide and hands raised as if to ward off a feral animal.
I don’t know how in God’s name I got here, but I’m getting the hell out of Dodge. He lowered a hand and reached into his pocket. I’ll just call an Uber, and everything will—
His thoughts were cut short as the woman rushed forward, the air around her blurred and crackling. She had only taken a single step, but that was all she needed to close the gap between them.
“None of that now,” she laughed, grabbing his wrist to stop him from falling flat on his backside. “Besides, you really don’t want to go back that way. See, I may have been underselling Cerberus a bit—dude’s more than just trigger-happy. I swear, you should have seen what he did to that Florentine pig.”
“I—I’m just trying to get to work,” Cipher stammered, struggling in vain to pull his wrist from the woman’s grasp. Her fingers were like cold iron, and their grip tightened with every attempt he made to free himself. “Please, just let me get to work.”
“Work!” the woman exclaimed, wrapping her other arm around Cipher’s shoulder as she marched him back towards the door. “That’s kind of why you’re here, silly! Isn’t that ironic?”
That’s why I’m here?
Cipher glanced nervously towards the woman. Her eyes were large and vermillion, with irises that churned and swirled around deep, dilated pupils. Pressed up against her shoulder, he noted five leathery flaps running down her neck—blood-red and thin like a set of gills.
She turned towards him and smiled, a pair of sharp canines glistening menacingly from a too-pink mouth.
He shivered.
“W—what do you mean?” he finally managed as they stepped beneath the striped awning. “I don’t work here.”
“Well of course not, dummy. You’re d—”
“Multichannel! Consolidation! Change agent! Optimize. Optimize! OPTIMIZE!”
The woman paused in front of Plutus with an exasperated huff. As Cipher examined the man, he noted that what he originally took for wireless earbuds was, in fact, a pair of earplugs.
Who the hell is he talking to then?
“Oh, shut your trap, you cursed pencil-pusher!” the woman snapped. “If you'd spent half as much time with your wife as you do babbling to your imaginary boy toy, maybe you could’ve dodged that divorce.”
She nodded towards the glass doors.
“Now, we’re going in. So, either go choke on your rage in the parking lot, or on some nachos at the bar—whichever you think will taste better.”
Plutus snapped his mouth shut, eyes smoldering with hate. Then, with a petulant sigh, he crossed his arms and sat down hard on the pavement, muttering under his breath while the woman guided Cipher past the entrance.
“...effective integrated upstream...”
Cipher looked over his shoulder as he was marched into the restaurant. He shook his head, bewildered, as Plutus rolled onto his side, curling into the fetal position and rocking himself back and forth.
“What did you do to him?” he asked as they entered a cramped vestibule, the doors swinging shut behind them.
The woman dropped her arm from his shoulders and rolled her eyes. “I didn’t do anything to that soup-stained windbag. He knows those words don’t mean anything. He just doesn’t like to be reminded of it. And certainly not by a simple waitress.”
The moment she released him, Cipher spun and hurled himself at the closed doors—yanking on the handle and ramming his shoulder repeatedly into the glass.
They didn’t budge.
“I’d tell you not to hurt yourself, but hey—go nuts. You can’t die twice, and my shift doesn’t end for another hour.”
You can’t die twice.
“I haven’t died once!” Cipher growled, gasping for breath as he started losing steam.
“Tell that to the old woman whose CR-V is splattered with bits of Cipher. In her defense, you did cross the street without a signal.”
She walked back to the glass doors and grabbed his hand, hauling him back towards the restaurant.
“But look at it this way—you lived a good life!”
“I’m thirty-six!” Cipher snapped.
“You were thirty-six,” the waitress corrected. “And besides, I said a good life—not a great life. Now, listen up.”
She turned and seized him by the shoulders, looking intently into his eyes. Cipher tried not to notice the flaps on her neck fluttering in the stale air, nor her pupils widening within a sea of shifting vermillion flame.
“My name is Virgil—and you, my friend, are the newest citizen of the Fourth Circle. The full welcoming committee is through this second set of doors. My notes tell me you were a middle manager, so I’ll take you over to the high-tops—that’s where the High Command of the Squanderers has set up their command tent.”
“Squanderer?” Cipher spat. “I’ll have you know that I’ve saved our finance department at least—”
“Yeah, yeah—return on this, gross profit that,” Virgil interrupted. “The Hoarders over at the bar all say the same things. Think fast, friend.”
She turned with a sly grin and kicked open the doors to the main restaurant, shoving Cipher roughly across the threshold.
He stumbled, slamming his knee into the host stand before catching himself against it.
Who the hell does she think—
“Duck, soldier!”
Cipher barely had time to glance up before a mug whizzed past his ear and smashed against the wall. He flinched at the impact, hunching his shoulders and throwing his arms over his head as a startled yelp escaped his lips.
“Excellent job, private! Delayed response, poor vision, stumbling recklessly into the unknown—you must be one of us!”
“Sorry, Brad—this one’s heading to the Squanderers. Another battle drone for the MMB.”
Cipher slowly lowered his arms. Virgil had joined him at the host stand, leaning casually against the wall—one hand on her hip, the other holding a cigarette to her lips. She cocked an eyebrow at a man standing atop a bar stool across the aisle.
“Nonsense!” the man shouted back. “I know an executive when I see one—bring him over! We need some more overhead in Human Resources.”
The man wore a dark Patagonia vest over a powder-blue dress shirt, neatly tucked into crisp khaki pants—a pristine pair of white New Balances completing the ensemble.
And his face—well, Cipher couldn’t quite make out his face. His features were blurry and shifting, and every time Cipher tried to focus on them, his eyes would slide away like water skimming over oil.
“Keep it in your pants, Brad—I’m sure you’ll get a new recruit soon,” Virgil shouted back, grabbing Cipher by the arm and hauling him past the host stand.
Brad gave her a rude hand gesture before turning to shout down the bar. “Brad! Get the Synergy Squadron ready to attack their right flank. No, not you, Brad—I need Corporate Strategy Brad. Yes, you—hop to it!”
“Who was that?” Cipher asked, stumbling over his feet as Virgil dragged him down the aisle.
“That was Brad, dummy. Jesus, do you pay attention to anything but yourself? Hell, maybe Brad was right—you should have been assigned to the executive team. Ah well—orders are orders.”
“Whose orders? And what the hell is the MMB? And why—”
Cipher’s breath caught as they entered the main dining room.
“You’re gonna want to move fast, friend. Steve will expect you to check in at the command tent before joining the battlefield.”
Battlefield…
That was certainly a word for it.
To their right, near a cluster of red, vinyl booths, a group of men in dark Patagonia vests hunkered down beneath a makeshift barricade of stacked dining chairs and overturned tables. They tossed projectiles over their shoulders—mugs, staplers, a particularly ambitious pair of desktop printers—as they shouted insults at their enemies across the battlefield.
“Why squander resources, you overpriced lot of bureaucratic deadweight? Did you really need a second pizza party to keep your ungrateful lackeys happy?”
To their left, a group of men and women gathered behind a fortification of high-top tables and chairs. The men wore blue, short-sleeve polos and dark pants, with polyester lanyards hanging from their necks; the women, dark jeans and beige cardigans. Like their Patagonia-wearing brethren, they hurled office paraphernalia over their blockade while returning their enemies’ insults with equal gusto.
“Why hoard resources, you puffed-up pack of soulless revenue whores? Do we really need those extra twenty bucks to keep the shareholders off your backs?”
Suddenly, a member of each clan left the safety of their respective barricades—a man in a Patagonia vest brandishing a bar stool, and a woman in a beige cardigan wielding a high-top chair. They faced each other from across the dining room, shouting a battle cry as their teammates cheered them on.
“Why squander!” the man yelled.
“Why hoard!” the woman screamed.
Then, with a final wordless roar, the two combatants lowered their IKEA-branded spears and charged. The distance between the two jousters closed quickly, and in moments, they crashed together in a brutal frenzy of splinters and broken chair legs.
“Oh, sick—that was a good one,” Virgil said, dropping her cigarette to give the jousters a proper round of applause. “Did you see Brad’s barstool take Steve right in the jugular? That right there takes millennia of practice. You’re years away from a performance like that.”
“Anyways,” she continued, stamping out her cigarette and grabbing Cipher’s hand. “I did say to move fast—not gawk at the entertainment. Time to move.”
“A—and who are those people?” Cipher managed as Virgil dragged him towards the barricade of high-top tables and chairs.
“Hmm? Don’t you recognize them? The two squadrons of corporate bureaucracy—the executives and the managers, the Brads and the Steves. C’mon, Steve, I’m only gonna say it one more time—pay attention.”
“My name’s not Steve, it’s—”
“Howdy, Steve!” Virgil interrupted. They had made it to the left end of the dining room where a man in a blue, short-sleeve polo stood issuing orders. Like Brad, his face was blurry and out of focus, and Steve found it impossible to hold onto his features for more than a split second.
“Ho there, Virgil,” Steve replied. “New recruit?”
“Yessir,” she replied with a mock salute. “Steve, this is Steve—be gentle, he’s a bit green around the gills.”
“Oh? Well, welcome to the fight, kid,” he said, offering his hand to Steve. “We need every Steve we can get.”
“I’m not a kid! I’m thirty-six! And my name’s not Steve!”
“Were thirty-six,” Steve replied, looking the new recruit up and down. “Glad to see you’re already in uniform, Steve.”
What? I’m not—
Steve glanced down in disbelief to see a short-sleeve polo and dark pants. With trembling fingers, he grabbed the badge attached to the lanyard around his neck.
Lifting it towards his face, he read:
Pvt. Steve
Squanderer
Middle Management Brigade (MMB)
Above it, his own face stared back at him—blue polo and all.
“Welp, this is where I leave you, friend,” Virgil said, slapping him on the back. “Good luck! Remember—eternity is really more of a mental construct. Admittedly, in this case, a very literal one. Toodle-oo!”
“Wait!” Steve called after her.
She turned with a final wave, sharp canines glistening in her too-pink mouth as she waltzed towards the host stand.
Then, with a sly wink—she vanished.
Eternity...
Steve flinched as a second, larger hand clapped down on his back.
“It’s okay, kid,” Steve said, stepping up beside him. “You’re among friends now. Steve! Got a new one for the MMB. I want him combat ready as soon as possible—preferably before Brad launches that flanking maneuver he thinks I don’t know about.”
“Yes sir!”
“On it, SIR!”
“And kid,” Steve continued, handing him a large ceramic mug and a high-top chair. “You’re gonna need these.”
“Why squander resources, you salary-shaped sinkholes?
“Why hoard resources, you heartless KPI jockeys?”
“Wasteful parasites!”
“Miserly ghouls!”
Virgil shook her head in amusement as Steve and Brad charged forward, leveling their makeshift lances at each other under a steady barrage of insults and office supplies.
“Rookies,” she muttered. “I swear, they come in faster than they can train ‘em. Ruining the quality of the sport, if you ask me.”
She rolled her eyes and sauntered back towards the entrance.
“Brad—a group of Steves are launching a frontal assault on the bar! Take Brad and shore up the line! We can’t give up our command center without a fight.”
“Sir! Yes, Brad, sir!”
Oh, to care so much to accomplish so little.
Still shaking her head, she retreated from the battlefield and found herself outside, leaning against the wall and smoking a cigarette beneath a striped awning.
Holding her cigarette between her lips, she reached into her apron and pulled out a pen and notepad.
“Almost forgot,” she said, flipping the pad open to scribble on the first empty page:
Date: October 1st, 2025
Soul: Steve (Formerly: Cipher)
Cause of Death: Inattentive Honda driver
Designation: Squanderer (MMB)
Jousting Level: Beginner (Pvt.)
Sentence: Eternity
When she was done, she pressed her lips to the bottom of the page, a faint trail of smoke rising from the impression her kiss had left behind.
“That doesn’t scale, Smith! I want adaptable solutions—we need long-term, strategic vision!”
With a sigh, she slammed the notepad shut and slipped it back into her apron.
At least that poor sap wouldn’t have to listen to Plutus for all eternity.
“Effective, integrated, upstream, multichannel consolidation, Smith!”
Virgil took a drag on her cigarette.
“You know, Plutus, we’re not so unlike those greedy blokes in there. But at least they get to smash furniture over each other’s heads.”
“We can’t just get caught in an endless feedback loop, Smith—we need to innovate.”
“I hear ya, friend—Fortune’s a bitch. And her wheel just keeps on turning. Nation unto nation and all that jazz.”
Up ahead, the air in the parking lot began to crackle and swirl as a new soul arrived at the Fourth Circle.
Virgil stepped out from under the awning, drawing her pen and pad from her apron once more.
“Did I mention I asked for an assignment in the Third Circle.”
I thoroughly enjoyed this! I love hell as a corporate work place.
I loved this. I’m a sucker for alternate takes on mythology and this did not disappoint. Your take on corporate life within a ring of hell? Chef kiss.