The Corporate Apocalypse: Jakarta's Survival Guide to Cosmic

Chapter 5: Contacting Customer Service, Who Already Resigned

The dawn light crept shyly through the gaps in the dented rolling door, casting a cold, bluish-gray hue inside the "CLEARANCE SALE" shop. Jakarta in the morning was usually a symphony of honking horns and the roar of bus engines, but now, the only thing audible was a faint, raspy sound from a distance—the sound of a few zombies who seemed to still have the hiccups after "laughing" all night.

Rendy woke up with a stiff neck. He had been sleeping on a pile of five-dollar "I Love Jakarta" t-shirts that were now worth absolutely nothing. He blinked, adjusting his vision behind glasses that were getting blurrier from grease and dust.

The first thing he saw was the glint of an arrowhead, exactly three centimeters from his nose.

"Explain it again," Alana’s voice sounded raspy, cold, and dead serious. She had been awake since who-knows-when, sitting cross-legged with her bow still drawn.

Her eyes, puffy from a lack of sleep, stared daggers at the book Rendy was still clutching like a security blanket. "Explain to me why the words in that book keep changing like a digital departure board at a train station."

Rendy let out a massive yawn, completely unfazed by the potential death wish standing right in front of him. "Coach Udin always says in the Basics chapter: 'Don't ask how the sausage is made, just enjoy the flavor.' You're way too high-strung, Al. Just take a deep breath, catch the scent of... actually, scratch that, it smells like damp gym socks in here."

Alana lowered her bow abruptly, her hands shaking not from exhaustion, but from a frustration that had finally hit its boiling point. "Ren, listen to me. This isn't funny anymore. I saw it with my own two eyes last night. The text just appeared out of nowhere. That’s not 'Quantum Printing.' That’s magic. Or a simulation. Or we’ve both finally lost it and we’re actually in a coma in some hospital somewhere."

Rendy sat up straight and tried to smooth out his mess of hair. He cracked the book open. Sure enough, the page that had been filled with Stand-Up Comedy instructions the night before had faded away, replaced by fresh, crisp black ink. 

"Check this out," Rendy said, pointing to page 42. "Chapter 12: How to Contact a Customer Service Representative Who Doesn’t Give a Damn."

Alana leaned in, completely disregarding her personal space just to read the script. 'If you spot light signals on a transmission tower, it’s not a ghost. It’s a call from the help center. Use a signal radio or an old cookie tin wrapped in copper wire to reply. Remember: Operators appreciate a tone that is polite yet slightly threatening.'

"A help center?" Alana whispered. Hope, a feeling she had buried under a mountain of trauma a long time ago, suddenly flickered in her chest. "You mean there are other people? The military? The government?"

"Or maybe Coach Udin just needs a chat buddy," Rendy shrugged. He stood up, stretching his muscles until his joints let out a series of loud cracks. "But that tower blinking last night was over toward Kuningan. The TVRI tower or whatever. We have to head there."

"That’s three miles away, Ren. Through open territory crawling with Runners and probably Spitters," Alana pointed out, trying to remain logical. "And you’re planning on going there armed with... what? An old cookie tin?"

"And prayer, Al. Don't forget prayer," Rendy grinned, glancing toward the corner of the shop. 

Over there, the long-haired thug and his one remaining lackey—the cross-eyed guy—were huddling together like stray cats in the rain. The big guy looked pathetic; his knees were wrapped in strips of a floral print nightgown he’d scavenged from a clearance rack. His tough-guy persona had been replaced by a look of sheer, deep-seated trauma. Every time Rendy so much as flinched, the man started shaking.

"Hey, Boss! Wake up!" Rendy shouted cheerfully.

"Mercy, Boss! Mercy!" the man cried out, reflexively throwing his hands up and wiggling his thumbs in a panic. "Eaaaa! Eaaaa! Please don't make me sing again, Boss! I’ve lost my voice!"

"Relax, man. We’re not doing a concert today," Rendy said, stepping closer and making the man cower further into the wall. "We’re heading to the transmission tower. You coming with us, or do you want to wait here until our 'fans' from last night realize my jokes weren't actually that funny?"

The thug glanced at the rolling metal door, which was rattling in the wind. He remembered what it felt like to almost be kissed by a hundred walking corpses. "I’m... I’m coming. But I swear, don’t you dare make me stage-dive again."

The four of them—a ridiculous college kid, a paranoid archer, a traumatized thug, and a cross-eyed lackey—prepared to leave the safety of the shop. Rendy was busy gutting an old radio he’d found in the back storage room, wrapping wires around it at random just like the instructions in Chapter 12 suggested.

"Okay, listen up," Rendy gave his final briefing before they headed out. "According to Tip #15: 'Zombies don't like people who look busy.' So, when we’re walking, everyone needs to carry a piece of paper or a folder and look panicked, like we’re late for a massive corporate meeting. They hate bureaucracy and will probably avoid us because they don’t want to be asked for a progress report."

Alana rolled her eyes so hard she felt like she could see the back of her own brain. "Rendy, for the love of everything... that is the single stupidest thing I have ever heard."

"But?" Rendy prompted, raising an eyebrow.

Alana let out a long sigh and picked up a dirty plastic folder from the floor. "But I’ll do it. Because so far, your stupidity is the only thing those zombies can’t seem to argue with."

They cracked the rolling door open just a bit. The sour, metallic smell of the morning air hit them. Out on the street, a few zombies were standing perfectly still, staring blankly at the sky. Rendy stepped out first, tucking a folder under his arm and checking a watch that had been dead for weeks.

"Come on, people! Move it! The meeting started five minutes ago!" Rendy shouted in the bored, demanding tone of a middle manager. "Where are the tax reports?! God, the Director is going to flip!"

Alana, the thug, and the lackey followed close behind. They walked briskly, wearing expressions of high-level stress that were actually very convincing (mostly because they were, in fact, incredibly stressed). 

Miraculously—or more accurately, insanely—several zombies that had started to drift toward them suddenly stopped. A female zombie in a shredded nurse's uniform stared at the folder in Alana’s hand, let out a low groan that sounded suspiciously like a weary complaint, and then turned around and shuffled away, as if she’d suddenly remembered a mortgage she no longer had to pay.

"It’s working..." the thug whispered in awe. "They’re actually afraid of corporate drones."

"They aren't afraid, man. They just don't want to deal with the paperwork," Rendy said, adjusting his glasses.

They continued their trek through the ruins of the city. They climbed over piles of abandoned cars, stepped around puddles of water that had turned ink-black, and passed the remnants of a civilization that was now just silent history.

After two hours of their "chasing the deadline" charade, they reached the gates of the massive radio complex. The tower loomed overhead, piercing the thin clouds like a giant needle. The gates were padlocked from the inside, and atop the control building, several pairs of eyes watched them through the sights of rifles.

Rendy stopped at the gate. He grabbed the cookie tin he’d wired up and held it high above his head.

"Hello! We’re from Customer Grievance Services!" Rendy yelled toward the building. "We’re here to report that this apocalypse is highly unsatisfactory and we’d like to request a full refund!"

Silence followed. The wind whistled, kicking up dust from the pavement.

"Who are you?!" a gravelly voice boomed from a loudspeaker at the gate. "How did you get past them without getting eaten? We’ve been watching you. You... you were just strolling along with folders?"

"We have a very tight meeting schedule, sir!" Rendy yelled back. "Now open the gate before I leave a one-star review on G****e Maps!"

Alana pinched Rendy’s arm. "Don’t be a jerk, you idiot! They’re going to shoot us!"

"Chapter 12, Al. Operators like it polite but threatening," Rendy whispered.

The heavy iron gate slowly groaned open. A group of men in full military gear, armed with automatic weapons, stepped out. The leader was a middle-aged man with a burn scar running down his left cheek. He stared at Rendy, then at the dirty folder, then at the cookie tin.

"I’m Captain Harris," the man said, unable to hide his utter confusion. "Where are you survivors from? And... what is that thing?"

"I’m Rendy, this is Alana, and these two... uh, they’re my creative team," Rendy introduced them. "This is a prototype communication device by Coach Udin. We picked up a signal from here last night."

Captain Harris frowned. "A signal? This tower has been dead for two months. No power, no transmitters running. We only use this place as an observation post."

Alana’s heart sank. "So... the blinking lights last night?"

"Maybe just a short circuit or the moon reflecting," Harris answered coldly. "There’s no signal out here. The world’s gone dark, kid."

Rendy went quiet. He pulled his guidebook open again, his hands shaking just a bit. Alana glanced at the page, and her eyes nearly popped out of her head.

The text was changing again. Right in the middle of their conversation, fresh ink bled onto the paper, forming a massive sentence:

"THIS ZONE IS A TRAP. CAPTAIN HARRIS DIED THREE DAYS AGO. RUN TO CHAPTER 13 BEFORE HE STARTS ASKING FOR YOUR ID."

Alana snapped her head toward Captain Harris. Under the harsh glare of the morning sun, she finally noticed it. Harris wasn't sweating. And tucked behind his high uniform collar was a rotting bullet hole, yet he was still speaking perfectly fine.

"By the way," Captain Harris smiled, revealing gums that had turned black. "May I see your IDs for our records?"

"Ren..." Alana whispered, her hand fumbling for the bow on her back. "Run?"

Rendy slammed the book shut with a loud thud. "Chapter 13: How to Escape a Boss Who’s a Zombie but Still Wants to Track Attendance. Everyone... RUN!"

This apocalypse wasn’t just insane; apparently, it was also incredibly disciplined when it came to the bureaucracy of the dead.