[ WP ] A day after losing your job , you find yourself in the one place you swore you would never go , doing the one thing you swore you would never do , to help the one person you never wanted to see again

`` Fired?'' I had asked, my dark suit suddenly sagging on my large frame. I had dedicated twenty years to company service, doing my job with the highest efficiency rating in my entire department, `` Can I ask why, ma'am?'' 
 
 `` Twenty years,'' she told me simply as if that explained it all, `` There is a statute from the old laws that says your pay would increase by ten percent for every year you met your efficiency rating upon your twentieth year. According to your records that is tomorrow. You've met it for twenty years in a row, Jacoby, can you see the problem?'' she stated rhetorically, `` You are fired. Starting now. Have a good life, Jacoby.'' 
 
 The problem is that my job never really paid much. Sure, I had saved but the amount of money I had in my account would last me a year, and that's if I just ate cheap ramen and slept in a slot hotel. A gentle rain had started, washing the city of the filth that had been building on the edges of everything, slowly drifting in swirls of poison into the sewers as I walked an old, familiar road. I stopped in front of the dilapidated building. It had been constructed decades earlier of plastifoam and hope. It was in a strong need of painting. 
 
 I pressed the buzzer on the door frame, accidentally chipping a bit of paint and plastifoam by pressing too hard. I was n't quite sure if the buzzer even worked as I stood there in the small island of dry in the midst of the rain. A few minutes later I had almost decided they were n't going to answer when the door opened. 
 
 `` Israel,'' the old, once-familiar voice, saying my first name that I no longer went by. I had changed my first name to Michael before applying for my old job with collections, `` What do you want?'' 
 
 `` I lost my job, dad,'' I said looking at him, taking stock of the ravages of time that had reeked havoc on my birth father. His face was an ocean of wrinkles and his hair a sea of gray. His eyes, however, were as sharp as ever. 
 
 `` Sleep on the street,'' he said, his smile an angry scowl of a betrayal that had decades of time to stew. He went to close the door only to have it stopped by my foot, `` What are you doing?'' He asked, his face turned white as a sheet as I drew the gun. 
 
 `` Get inside, dad,'' I told him, pointing the gun at him as I herded him past a surprisingly clean foyer area and into the dining room. I could smell the ever-present smell of coffee. It even smelled real, `` Sit.'' I motioned to the sofa. 
 
 `` You are the devil,'' he told me, tears pouring down his face as he sat on the old sofa, `` I should have smothered you with a pillow when you took Becca's life! No, instead I made the mistake of loving you.'' 
 
 Every word he said stung me in a way I could n't have believed after being removed from them for so long. Rebecca had been my mother, she had died because my father could n't afford the medical credits to get her to a hospital. The midwife had tried everything, managing to save me but not my mother. I had turned out to be a disappointment to my father because I became a part of the system rather then fighting it. 
 
 As I sat down I cocked the gun and I saw him wipe madly at the tears on his face. I slid the gun across to him and said, `` You can end the disappointment now.'' The words I said were simple, yet packed with meaning. His aged hand closed around the grip of the government issue pistol. It had belonged to my first partner who had died years ago. I had recorded it stolen even as I had hidden it in the walls of the old warehouse where the body of my only friend lay close by, cooling in the night air. The gun was in surprisingly good condition after I retrieved it upon being fired yesterday. 
 
 `` You son of a bitch'' he lifted the gun and pointed it inches from my face, I could see his palms starting to sweat, his bottom lip quivering in rage. I waited for the darkness. He threw the gun on the sofa beside him and I could see the years of hurt, betrayal, agony, and rage mix together as he gave an almost inhuman howl of emotion. I let him have his time. 
 
 `` Dad,'' I said, standing and picking up the gun as I removed the rounds from it. I pocketed them one by one, `` If ever you need this again, I'll be happy to lend it to you to finish what you could n't do just now.'' 
 
 `` What do you want, monster? Why did the company let you go?'' He was referring to the job I had been fired from as he pointed toward the door. He then asked a question I knew he did not really want an answer for, `` How many people have you murdered for your masters? Innocent people whose only sin was being poor? Get out!'' 
 
 I dropped the paper map onto the table in front of him and I saw his rage replaced by curiosity, `` It's the Debit Tower location, dad.'' You see, the rich now ruled the world. The billions of people who made up the majority of the population kept in check by limited access to resources via money. 
 
 `` You lie!'' He told me but I saw a look in his eyes. It was a look of hope, `` What good is this?'' He asked me then said sarcastically, `` Now we know where they keep the physical records, hooray!'' 
 
 `` And the digital,'' I turned the paper over. Written in old fashioned ink on the back was a system of computer codes that defined the digital location of records of citizen debts incurred. My father's eyes lit up. Before the restructuring my father had been, and I'm sure still was, what they called a `` hacker''. 
 
 `` Is this a trick?'' He asked, looking at me with more than a hint of sorrow, `` Are you here to betray your own father and get him sent to debtor's prison?'' 
 
 `` No,'' I stated flatly, `` I was fired, dad. Fired because they were going to have to pay me more. The salary I got to do the job I was doing would have had me homeless if the company had n't provided food and housing as part of our contracts. They fired me because I was going to have the opportunity, however slim, of getting out of debt.'' 
 
 `` So, you want me to do what, exactly?'' He asked, wiping the tears from his eyes with a handkerchief and blowing his nose yet starting to look a little excited. 
 
 `` I have a bomb dad,'' I told him, `` The building houses all the physical debt records of everyone in the city. It's guarded very well. It's also right on top of one of the biggest power distribution stations in the area. I do n't plan to hit the building but the unguarded power distribution station underneath. When it blows, it should take the whole city block with it. You, I need you to get in touch with your friends and wipe the digital records.'' 
 
 `` So we wipe the electronic records,'' he was smiling at me in way I had n't seen him smile since I was a boy, `` And you wipe out the backups at the same time. How much debt will that free?'' 
 
 `` Five hundred billion dollars,'' I told him, `` If this goes right the entire city will be debt free starting tomorrow morning. The company will have no more power over them. They'll be free.'' 
 
 `` But more importantly this will destroy the company,'' He shot back at me, `` The company that fired you?'' 
 
 `` I do it for revenge, dad,'' I said, putting the gun back into my waistband as I walked toward the front door, `` You do it for freedom. In the end, does n't it come out to the same thing?'' I walked out the front door and stood in the pouring rain. 
 
 `` Israel,'' I heard my father say behind me, barely audible in the downpour, I turned to face him, `` I did not mean any of what I said. I was angry. I love you, son.'' 
 
 `` I know, dad,'' I smiled for the first time in years and said, `` I know.''
