We all expected it to come. The way things work, there was no way we could know when. Anyone who actually knew would be sworn to secrecy. For about the last nine increasingly lunatic lunar cycles we had been ready for it to happen. Ready to not be surprised at all at the surprise announcement that the doors were closing and we were all fired. Friday turned out to be the day when we found out that the not so secret meetings that nobody would talk about were in fact the bloody business at last. We were all fired, all run in reverse through the conveyor belt that brought us in here to try and change the world. We signed papers, turned in our keys and laptops, shook hands and walked out the door. Except for the essential people, those people got a secret second envelope, and would be welcome back on Monday to try and make something of value from the remnants of our shiny technology. I had spent several years attempting to do useful work while avoiding essentiality since this place had a way of grinding essential into dust, so I was not shocked or hurt when I did not get the special envelope. In fact, I was strangely happy that day. It was the day that the war was over, the day that the impending doom would impend no longer. We had lost a lot of good people, but we had fought hard, and fought well. It was the last day this unique collection of souls would sit together, and I just wanted to enjoy it. There was drinking and laughter and mocking our own foolishness at believing something which turned out not to be true, a glorious sort of punctuation mark before the last drive home. At home, I unloaded the moving boxes, filled with technical manuals and strange little toys, shoving them in a corner of the garage, to acquire enough age to be thrown away. The next morning, I did not have to drive in traffic, or park, or attend another mind melting meeting of meaninglessness. This was great for a couple of days, but gradually the realization that Doctor and Dentist would be expecting me to have a plan, and the next electricity bill was coming out of savings, began to gnaw and it was time time to write a fantasy novel. This story is loosely based on the life I have lived. It unrolls the scrolls of a saga of a hero, so wise, so productive, so generally amazing, that even if you disbelieved half of it you would still want to offer me a job just to get the lesser half. On that Monday, when I walk in, shake hands, pick up a card key and a laptop, sign the invention disclosure form sit down in my new chair, the clocks starts ticking on a new nine months, full of lunatic terror trying to prove it was no mistake to hire me.