Welcome to Shangri-La: A "Flashforge Station" Universe Adventure

By Natalia Corres

Kevin James just wanted a job. He had no idea that the "interview" he was scheduled for would lead to a discovery about his past, imminent danger of being killed, and a chance for a life he could never have imagined.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Natalia Corres
• Release date: Mar 10, 2022

Book preview

Welcome to Shangri La

Kevin James lived in two by three meter studio apartment with a shared bathroom, in New Cisco along the coastline of the Pacific Ocean on old Earth. New Cisco had been built over the ruins of what had been a suburb of Sacramento in the last century and now that the ocean made its way inland, it took the place of old San Francisco, or tried to anyway.

Kevin had been laid off from his support center job, which had been outsourced to a cheaper venue in the Dexter Colony – just another prison installation turned call center. And now the Productivity Counselor assigned to him had just let him know that a job that met his qualifications was available but required an old-fashioned physical interview – which was apparently all the rage now in Human Resource Departments of all the Megacorps based on Old Earth.

Someone in academia, with no corporate work experience, wrote a paper indicating that meeting people in person and interviewing them gave you the advantage of reading micro-expressions, and body language more fully, as well as subconsciously processing body odors that might indicate adrenal activity activated by a guilty conscious or inappropriate ego. So of course, the Megacorps jumped all over that and made it a trend.

Kevin had no idea how to dress or act in an in-person interview, as he had never done it before and only ever saw it referenced in some of the ancient entertainment reconstructions from the past two centuries. So on the appointed day, he cleaned himself up, put on his least threadbare outfit, and hopped in a public transport vehicle to head to the Megacorps Meeting Center.

Once there, he stepped up to the lobby desk to be scanned and directed to his interview appointment. The security droid had been decorated with a human-like silicone face which only highlighted the plastic armature and skeletal neck. Creepy blue eyes blinked at him, and a stiff smile appeared to be tugging at the silicone cheeks, as it processed his RFID chip info and scanned him for contraband.

Mr. James, you are to proceed to transport bay 191 for shuttle to the station for your interview. The corridor is to your left. Good luck.

Kevin was slightly disgruntled as he headed to the corridor to look for transport bay 191, since his Productivity Counselor had neglected to mention that the in person interview would be taking place on one of the satellite stations in orbit around the planet. And it didn’t help that the lighting in the corridor was low and someone had replaced the digital numbers with crude analog versions – some looked as though they had been crafted by children.

Everything on Old Earth seemed to be falling apart since the migration of the two biggest corporations to the outer planets. But the Megacorps still had vested interest in the resources of Old Earth, and those folks stuck there, were still dependent on the Megacorps for their lives.

Wandering down the hallway, he finally got to the bays that were hand labelled in