The Quota

With a slash of frustration, Dabria painted yet another giant red X on the calendar—one that followed countless rows of similar crosses. Only three blank dates were remaining, a nagging reminder that she, the world's most genius virtual reality creator, was going to be fired again. Only this time, it would actually be her last.

In her life, she had been told to pack her bags up and leave. And now, even in her death, she still couldn't escape from the defeat that trailed behind her like a brooding noose.

When the final countdown ended, she would be forced to drink the soup of forgot, and all of her innovations would be utterly lost to the tale of time. From her untimely death, she knew the feeling all too well already—the pain that stabbed through her heart when she realized no one would ever see her brainchild.

Once she woke again in the Underworld and was given another chance to prove her creation, she had never been happier to be dead. Of course, there were terms and conditions.

Her quota was deceptively simple. All she needed were three souls to test out her system, and she would be able to stay in the Underworld as a Soulguider Technician. Only three. Not one more, not one less.

From the bordering unhelpful brochure, there were only two types of souls in the Underworld who didn't immediately pass on to a new lifetime: the stubborn and the incredulous.

As their name suggested, the stubborn were fixated on a past lifetime, never fully reconciled with their fate. Some were genuinely ancient, and when they stood above the River of Helplessness, it looked like they should be kept in a museum exhibit instead.

Then there were the incredulous. Was it really that hard to give in to the fact that they were already gone from the living world? When the Soulguide waved the contract in front of Dabria's face, she virtually jumped at the idea of being dead, so she couldn't quite relate.

They still weren't desperate enough, Dabria decided. Heck, if they were anywhere close to being as hopeless as she once was, they would scream at the idea of being to relive their past life in an alternate reality.

Maybe she would go to the slums tomorrow and test her luck there. Yeah, don't believe any of the stuff that claims equality in death. Especially with the surge of overpopulation and the ever-increasing number of stubborn ones that refused to go on, real estate nowadays in the Underworld was in no way cheap.

If you had no connections, you were bound to end up in a gloomy garage. Dabria cast a grim look at the cobweb dangling from the ceiling. She of all people knew all too well. Well, it was a marginal upgrade from the moldy basement from her lifetime that reeked of sewers.

Casting a long glance at the red crosses piling up on the calendar, she took a deep breath and headed out the door.

Running the program would take a maximum of five hours. She needed three people. Accounting for the time in between, three days should be plenty to keep her precious program from being exterminated.

More than ever, she would do anything to stay dead.