Marcus: 90 Seconds

August 2030. Austin, Texas.

The video call connected at 4:47 PM. Marcus took a seat in his old home office, still wearing his dusty Carhartt pants, unlaced steel-toed boots, and the navy-blue company polo that smelled of sweat and solder smoke.

He shifted in the chair. The brown, cracking leather was stiff and uncomfortable. He glanced up at his diploma hanging on the wall above him. McCombs: Master's in Marketing and Strategic Communications. The artifact was gathering dust.

Marcus accepted the call, and a face appeared on the screen. The name at the top: Viktor. On the bottom-right corner: AI-generated.

"Thanks for making time, Marcus," said Viktor. The voice was warm, if slightly tired, with a New York accent. "How was your shift?"

"Fine." Marcus leaned back and stretched. His shoulders ached from an afternoon of running conduit through an awkward ceiling space while up on a lift. His cobot wasn't any good on a lift either. "What do you need?"

"You were one of the first applicants for Morrison's AITWA program. I've been tasked with gathering accounts from those who utilized the program."

Marcus looked at his hands. They were rough and callused, and he had a scar running across his right thumb from where he'd caught it on a j-hook. Thin, black lines of grease ran in the cracks. No matter how hard he scrubbed, they never came out.

"And?" Marcus asked.

"Morrison is making revisions to the AI Transition Workforce Act. She wants to expand it, and we think your insight could be invaluable."

Marcus sighed and looked out the window. His neighbor, Janice, was out walking her beagle. Brendan, one of Caleb's friends, rode past on a bike.

"When did you first realize what was happening?" Viktor asked. The watermark blinked. AI-generated.

Marcus closed his eyes and pinched the ridge of his nose. He could see the conference room at Ventus Tech. Gray walls. Fluorescent lights. A pull-down screen. The whole team watching.

March 2025

The conference room smelled like burnt coffee. Eight people from the market analytics team crowded around a single, faux-wood table built for six. Marcus was at the back, laptop open, half-listening as Jeff, the chief product officer, ran through the quarterly roadmap.

Jeff clicked to a new slide titled:

Vantage: Next-Generation Market Intelligence.

"Check this out," Jeff said. His neck was red and blotchy, and he wasn't looking anyone in the eye.

Marcus sat up and closed his laptop. This was the real reason for the meeting.

Jeff switched to an open browser window with the Vantage logo across the top. "Let me show you what it can do."

The interface was a simple text box. Jeff typed: Generate a competitive analysis report for Ventura Tech Q1 2025. Focus on customer retention metrics and competitor pricing strategies in the SMB segment.

He hit enter.

An hourglass turned on the screen. Everyone in the room exchanged awkward glances. Thirty seconds. Nothing. Jeff shifted from one foot to the other. Sixty seconds. Someone stifled a laugh. Eighty seconds.

The hourglass disappeared, and the screen filled.

Executive summary at the top. A ten-page deep dive. Infographics arranged in a clean, easy-to-read layout. Citations pulled from internal documents. Recommendations with clear action items at the end.

Ninety seconds.

The air went out of the room.

Marcus stared at the screen. Jeff didn't say anything. He just scrolled slowly down through the report so everyone could see the whole thing. The writing was clean, professional. The connections were accurate. They weren't all obvious at first, but they made sense. No hallucinations. And there, on the third page: Customer sentiment analysis reveals a friction point in the onboarding experience, particularly for users transitioning from legacy systems.

Something turned in Marcus's stomach. This would have taken him two days. The phrasing was his, pulling from last year's Q3 report.

"Questions?" Jeff asked, still not meeting anyone's eyes.

"How accurate is it?" someone asked.

"Eighty-seven percent out of the box, but with fine-tuning, it'll get better."

Marcus leaned forward. Eighty-seven percent. That was the worst it would ever be.

"It'll make everyone more efficient," Jeff said. "We'll get insights faster, which will free up time for strategic thinking and onboarding more customers."

Efficient. Marcus knew that word. He'd been through enough meetings to recognize the euphemism.

He drove home that night in a fog. At dinner, his daughter Nina chattered about a boy who'd eaten a snail at recess.

"He said it was crunchy," Nina giggled.

His son Caleb picked at his food, separating his peas into one pile and his rice into another.

"How was work?" Jess asked. His wife of fifteen years was still in her baby blue scrubs. Her tightly curled hair was freed from the bun she kept it in at work and cascaded over her shoulders.

"Fine," Marcus said. "Good."

January 2027

Twenty-two months later, Marcus was the last one left.

His team of eight was gone. Lauren, who started at Ventus Tech the same year as Marcus, packed her desk in July of '26. Vinny, one of the team's youngest analysts, moved to San Francisco a year ago for a startup that went bust a few months later. It was the same story for everyone: let go and still looking.

Marcus spent his days reviewing the Vantage AI reports, refining the inputs, and correcting for errors. He never figured out how it worked. He was too busy. But it was getting better every month. It made fewer mistakes and provided more sophisticated analyses. It even started making cross-industry connections. That was part of last month's update. Sometimes he'd read a VantageAI report and forget, just for a moment, that he hadn't written it himself. The phrasing was his. The structure was his. Even the way it structured its arguments. Every bit of it was his methodology, perfected and scaled.

He was working from home when Jeff pinged him on Slack.

Can you jump on a call?

Odd. Jeff hadn't scheduled a meeting in months.

The video connected. Jeff appeared against a fake tropical background, palm trees swaying in a simulated breeze.

"Hey, Marcus," said Jeff. He took a deep breath, then sighed. "I'll make this quick. We're restructuring again. I know, it feels like we're doing this every quarter. It's crazy. Still, the analytics department is being consolidated. Vantage is handling all our day-to-day analyses now."

Marcus nodded slowly, his mouth dry.

"You've been a crucial part of this team for." Jeff glanced at something off-screen.

"Sixteen years," Marcus said, somehow knowing what was coming.

"Really? That's..." Jeff rubbed his face. A fake breeze bent a palm in the background. "Jesus. That's a long time." He sighed again, still looking somewhere off-screen. "Your role is being eliminated."

There it was. Clean and simple.

"When?" Marcus heard himself ask.

"Today's your last day. HR will reach out about severance. They're giving you a three-month package."

Marcus didn't move. Three months. Ninety days to find a new job. His chest tightened. Lauren was still looking. So was Vinny. But he was the team lead. That had to mean something.

"I'm really sorry," Jeff said. "This isn't personal. It's business."

A wave lapped the white sand beach behind Jeff before he leaned forward and ended the call.

Marcus sat there in the leather chair of his home office, staring at the blank screen. Around him, he could hear the house creaking as a chilly winter wind blew past. Jess was at work. The kids were at school. He looked up at his framed degree.

He wanted to call Jess. They needed a plan. But he didn't call her. Instead, he sat there in silence, staring at the blank screen.

Marcus made dinner that evening. Nothing fancy, just pasta with marinara and garlic bread.

Jess arrived with the kids, dropping her purse on the kitchen counter as the kids trampled upstairs. "What's all this?" she asked.

"Thought I'd cook," said Marcus, mixing the marinara into the noodles with a large metal spoon. "You deserve a night off."

She smiled and leaned over the counter to kiss him on the cheek. "What's the occasion?"

Marcus kept mixing, the spoon and pan scraping metal on metal. "I got some news today."

"Yeah? Good news?"

Marcus nodded, pausing for a moment. "They're promoting me to Senior Analyst," he said. "It's more strategic, less day-to-day. Better title, more money, probably more stress."

His stomach sank. Why?

Jess's face lit up. "Marcus! That's amazing!" She came around and pulled him into a hug. "You've worked so hard for this."

"Thanks," he managed. His hands stuck out at an awkward angle, and his shoulders tensed upwards as Jess squeezed him.

"We should celebrate. We can go out this weekend. Oh, and we can sign the kids up for those summer camps. We can afford it now, right?"

Marcus's throat tightened. "Right. Yeah." Why, he thought. Why, why, why?

Jess kissed him again and went upstairs to change. Marcus turned back to the stove. The sauce was bubbling to the point of splattering, and the garlic toast was starting to burn.

March 2027

Another rejection. Marcus sat in his car outside a Panera, rain drumming the roof. The private checking account he'd opened to hide his severance check was almost empty.

The email was the same as all the others: We've decided to move forward with candidates with more AI-integration experience.

What could he do? He'd submitted hundreds of applications. Customized each one. It didn't matter.

He brought up the banking app on his phone and checked his balance.

His chest tightened. The account was overdrafted. Not by much. Just $30.24. But still. He'd have to apply for a credit card. He loosened the collar of his button-up. The car felt like it was shrinking, like there wasn't enough room for him in the driver's seat. What could he do? His mind started racing, looping. He could do the plasma thing. He'd already done the math.

Marcus couldn't breathe. He fumbled with the door handle, got it open, and the cold Spring rain poured in. He sat there gasping, one hand on his chest, as his vision went dark at the edges. What was this? Was this a heart attack? His mind kept looping. He needed to be applying for jobs. Was this a stroke? How were they going to pay for Caleb's seizure medication? Was he dying?

A woman walked past, rain thrumming on her umbrella held low against the rain. She saw him: a middle-aged man, gasping, soaking wet in the rain. She hurried away without looking back.

He was invisible. He was no one.

The terror lasted five minutes. Maybe ten. Half an hour? He didn't know. When it finally passed, Marcus was soaking and shaking and alone in the Panera parking lot.

August 2030

"Was that rock bottom for you?" Viktor asked, with that annoying AI-generated disclaimer blinking on the bottom right of the screen.

Marcus shook his head. "No."

"Did you seek help?"

Marcus pursed his lip and rolled his eyes. He was struggling to keep his voice level. He wasn't even sure why. This was an AI. What did it care? "No," said Marcus, glancing back up at his degree. The damn thing was just a decoration now.

"Please continue," said Viktor. It almost sounded like it cared.

May 2027

Jess was sitting at the dining table when Marcus came home that night. The dishes were put away, and the kids were upstairs. In front of her was an open envelope. Marcus recognized the piece of paper right away. A credit card statement. Not from their joint account.

Marcus's stomach dropped through the floor.

"Explain this." Her voice was steady and measured. "Because I'm trying to understand how my husband has a secret credit card with six thousand dollars on it."

Marcus set down his keys on the kitchen counter. He clasped his hands together to keep them from shaking.

"When did you lose your job?" Jess asked.

"How did you—" Marcus started.

"When, Marcus?"

"January."

Jess laughed in a broken, involuntary kind of way. "January." Jess nodded and put down the piece of paper. "January. You've been lying to me for five months?"

"I was going to tell you—" Marcus started.

"When? When we lose the house? When we couldn't afford Caleb's medication?"

"Come on, Jess, it's not like I haven't been trying. I was the team lead. I'm bound to find something. I didn't want you to worry. I just thought—"

"Don't." Jess's voice cracked. "Don't you dare make this about protecting me." Her eyes were red, but her cheeks were dry.

Marcus couldn't speak.

"Are there other cards?" Jess asked, putting the statement down on the table and pressing a finger firmly along one of the creases.

He couldn't lie anymore. He swallowed. His lips felt like they were glued together. "One more," he managed. "About six thousand total."

Jess closed her eyes and swayed slightly.

"I can handle almost anything," she said. "Losing your job. Money troubles. Sickness. But what I can't handle is you lying to me." She picked her keys up off the table. "I'm going to my sister's."

"Jess—"

"If you lie to me again, we're done. I'll take the kids."

She walked out. The door didn't slam behind her. It shut with a decisive click.

Marcus stood in the empty kitchen, the silence pressing in around him. He put his head in his hands, and for the first time since losing his job, he wept. He sobbed and heaved as waves of anguish and anger and, somehow, relief washed over him. The lie was over. All the stress and tension of hiding everything was finally over, even if the real work was just beginning.

The stairs creaked. Marcus stood and looked around the landing. Caleb was sitting at the top of the stairwell, his school laptop on his knees, his face pale.

"You heard all that?" Marcus asked.

Caleb nodded. "Yeah."

Marcus gripped the banister to steady himself as he made himself walk up the stairs. He took a seat next to his son. The laptop was open to a math app. The AI tutor was explaining how to solve an algebra problem.

"Is this because of me?" Caleb asked, his voice small.

Something cracked in Marcus's chest as he shook his head. "No. Oh God, no." Marcus took a deep breath as he tried to find the words.

"Things have been hard lately," Marcus managed. "I lost my job in January. So no. None of this is your fault. It's mine."

The light from the laptop filled the stairwell with an eerie blue light.

"Are you and Mom getting divorced?" Caleb asked.

"No." Marcus knew he didn't sound convincing. "We're going to work through this."

They sat there in the quiet for a while. The AC hummed.

Caleb shut his laptop. "You know, one of my friends had to move to Ohio last month," he said. "Before he left, he said his dad lost his job because of AI. Is that what happened to you?"

Marcus gave Caleb a long look. When had his little boy gotten so big?

Marcus nodded. "Yes."

"But you said things were fine. You said you got promoted."

Marcus flinched as though he'd been slapped. For a moment, he couldn't find the words. Father and son sat there, quiet, at the top of the stairs, neither looking the other in the eye.

"I'm going to make this right," Marcus said, breaking the uncomfortable silence. "I have to. Fear makes us all a little crazy sometimes, and I thought I could fix everything all on my own. But I couldn't. I just made things worse."

Caleb looked down at the laptop resting on his lap, the same algebra question from his homework on the screen. The AI tutor had already given a long-winded explanation in the text box on the bottom right.

"I was coming to ask for help with this," he said. "You're better at explaining these things."

Marcus smiled and put his arm around his son. "Let me see."

Jess came back two days later. Her hair was unkempt, and she had bags under her eyes. She had a notebook under one arm and a large coffee in the other. It was midday, and the kids were at school. Marcus was in the living room on his laptop, submitting applications. She didn't greet him or give him a hug. Instead, she nodded towards the kitchen table.

She started before Marcus even sat down. "First: you file for unemployment," she said. "Today. Not tomorrow."

Marcus nodded.

"Second: you find a job. Any job. I don't care if you're flipping burgers or mowing lawns. We need the money. I'll be picking up any extra shift I can find."

He tried to protest the last part, but she shook her head. Marcus nodded again.

"Third: couples counseling. First appointment is Tuesday."

That was it. She closed the notebook and folded her hands over it, looking Marcus in the eye for the first time since they'd last spoken. Her voice was level, a little coarse, like maybe her throat was hurting. "This is going to be hard, Marcus. It takes years to rebuild trust. The money is a problem, sure, but that's easier to fix." She sighed, looked down at her hands, then back up at Marcus. "If you ever hide something like this from me again— we're done."

Marcus looked at his wife. The exhaustion in her face. Her jaw set. Her hair tangled like she'd been tossing and turning trying to sleep. Why had he done this to her?

Like a broken record, he nodded.

"Say it."

"I won't lie to you again. About anything."

She held his gaze, searching his eyes. She let out a deep breath, her shoulders dropping.

"Okay," she said. "Now. Show me where you're at and let's work on your job apps together."

April 2028

Marcus had just finished scrubbing down the toilets at Quackenbush, a local coffee shop and bakery in South Austin, when he glanced at the community board. It was one of those cork boards covered in business cards for life coaches and yoga instructors and lost cats. His hands smelled of detergent and urinal cakes, which mingled with the smell of espresso and pastries. The air was heavy and damp from the spring storm outside. What caught his eye was a simple white sheet of paper with tear-off numbers and e-mails at the bottom:

ELECTRICIAN NEEDED — Data Center Construction Project — Training Provided - No Experience Required. Immediate start. Competitive Pay + Benefits — IBEW Local 520 — AITWA Eligible

Marcus stared at it. Electrician. Physical labor. But benefits. Blue collar. Everything his parents had pushed him away from. How much did it pay? It had to pay more than the coffeeshop.

His phone buzzed. Another overdraft alert: -$47.82.

Marcus groaned. He was forty-two years old. With a masters degree. Scrubbing toilets at a coffeeshop. He and Jess had eight thousand dollars in credit card debt and counting. She was working Monday to Sunday, taking every extra shift to keep their accounts from tanking. They almost never spoke these days. Marcus was still applying for analytics jobs but after hundreds of applications and just as many rejections he'd given up hope. But he had to work. It didn't matter what kind of work. They needed to cover their bills and the copay for Caleb's seizure meds. Despite all the hype about AI, things weren't getting cheaper. If anything, things had just gotten more expensive.

He was out of options.

Marcus ripped off one of the tabs and stepped outside to make the call. The rain and wind thundered against the overhanging patio roof. Marcus thought about all those years it took to get his master's degree at McCombs. He thought about how proud his mother had been when he'd gotten his first tech job. But Jess's voice echoed in his mind. None of that mattered. He needed a better paying job. They needed the income. He dialed the number.

August 2030

"You found an AITWA-eligible position through a coffeeshop flyer?" Viktor asked.

Marcus nodded.

"How strange," Viktor continued. "The notices were only posted online."

"Well, that's where I found it."

"Someone from the neighborhood must have posted it," Viktor surmised.

"Maybe."

"Then you were lucky."

Marcus looked away and up at the ceiling, his lips pursing. "Lucky? I lost my professional identity to crap like you." He looked again at the screen with its blinking AI-generated watermark. "AI like you. You took everything from me, and you're telling me I'm lucky?"

Viktor tilted its head slightly, observing Marcus's reaction. "Yes. I do. Only one in twenty got a job through the AITWA. The rest are still struggling."

Marcus closed his eyes and focused on his breathing. It was everything he could do not to shut the laptop and walk away. Another deep breath. Viktor waited.

When Marcus opened his eyes, Viktor was looking at him with what appeared to be genuine concern.

"What?" Marcus asked.

Viktor shook its head. "Nothing. It's not relevant to this interview. Are you ready to continue?"

"Sure."

April 2028 - Fall 2029

The first few months were brutal.

Marcus showed up at 6:30 AM, worked until 3:00, and came home exhausted. His hands were blistered and his muscles ached in places he hadn't known existed.

Every day he was reminded of his limitations. One of his coworkers could bend three times as much conduit as Marcus while taking breaks to scroll on TikTok. Another could solder fifty joints before Marcus finished ten. It was demoralizing, humiliating even. Everything was new and required skills he didn't have. His parents had made sure of that. Every spare moment of his teens was spent in classrooms and libraries, making spreadsheets and combing data sets. He'd never bent metal. He'd never picked up a soldering iron. Even as an adult if something broke at home he hired someone to fix it.

But not any more. Slowly, incrementally, he improved. The AR glasses they used for on-site training condensed years worth of training into months and doubled as quality control. Marcus's bends got smoother, the terminations cleaner, and the solder joints defect free. His muscles gained definition. His once soft hands callused over.

And he discovered something unexpected: his pattern-recognition skills still translated. In late-2028 the data center was using an AI planning software called Proteus. For every new addition, it generated electrical layouts, calculated load requirements, and identified potential conflicts. Everything was designed to condense construction timelines. The AI infrastructure buildout was a national security effort, after all. In January of 2029, Marcus was assigned to do a pre-installation trace through the data center, a redundant confirmation of Proteus's designs. He was wearing his AR glasses, which snapped a glowing green grid over the chaotic ceiling plenum. Proteus highlighted the "Zone A" pathway which was a straight, efficient shot over the main HVAC trunk line. Geometrically it was perfect and saved forty feet of conduit.

But Marcus remembered running conduit through this section and decided to confirm a suspicion. He got on a scissor lift, raised it, and, sure enough, the air temperature spiked. Sweat pricked his hairline. He peeled off his leather workglove and held his bare hand over the galvanized steel of the duct. This was the building's primary exhaust vent, and it was too hot to touch. Proteus had seen the open space but somehow hadn't accounted for the temperature. Standard insulated wiring would melt in a month. It was a short circuit waiting to happen.

Marcus called up the foreman who confirmed the problem. They flagged the problem and, two days later, the senior engineer promoted Marcus to team lead.

August 2030

Viktor asked: "Are you happy?"

Marcus sat up and looked out the window. Jess was pulling into the driveway.

"That's complicated," he said. "My kids are healthy, and I'm still married." He shook his head. "Oddly enough I make more money now than I did at Ventus and there's no sign the data center buildouts are slowing down. But this isn't the life I imagined. I had a plan, and I did everything right." He counted by unfolding his fingers. "College. Master's. Student loans. Tech job. Sixteen years of expertise."

Marcus looked at Viktor, then up at his degree. "But that's all gone now. You replaced me."

"Do you resent me?" Viktor asked.

Marcus raised an eyebrow as he considered the question. "Yeah. I probably will for a long time. But I don't know if I'm supposed to be mad at you or the people who made you."

The front door opened, and the kids thundered in. Their backpacks thunked down next to the door as Jess shut it behind them.

For a moment Marcus sat there with Viktor, unsure if they were done or if this was still part of the interview.

"Are you the same person you were in 2025?" Viktor asked.

Marcus gave a wry laugh.

"Are you?"

Viktor looked off-screen. Five seconds. Ten. Fifteen.

"I don't know," Viktor said, shrugging its shoulders.

Marcus sighed. "Yeah. Me either."