Severance

From her confinement in the L’Occitane store, Candace observes the daily rituals of the other survivors. They work on weekdays and take weekends off; a cadence Candace is excluded from. The lack of a set schedule is tortuous, warping her perception of time. She drifts in and out of memories and dreams of the people she’s lost: her mother, her father, Jonathan. At night, she can sometimes hear Evan crying but feels no sympathy for him. The vision of her mother warns Candace that she needs to take better care of her mind and body and tells her to figure out a plan of action.

To keep her sanity, Candace creates a daily routine, dividing her time into chunks. She witnesses Evan and Bob fighting about something. A woman named Rachel brings Candace her meals, sometimes slipping in small extras and treats. Time passes in swathes. Winter arrives, and Candace names her unborn baby Luna because she is most active at night. She memorizes Bob’s nighttime pacing habit, listening to the jingling of his keys as he walks around the Facility. Candace begins to fixate on the thought of stealing Bob’s car key and escaping with Luna.

One morning, Rachel arrives to tell Candace that Bob wants her to come downstairs with the others to celebrate the Facility’s one-month anniversary. There she finds everyone but Evan gathered around an elaborate breakfast. Todd goes to fetch Evan while Bob informs her that her group privileges will be restored one by one leading up to her labor and delivery. As she begins to eat, Todd runs back downstairs and informs them that Evan is dead.

As the Shen Fever pandemic worsens, people continue to leave the Spectra offices. Chinese printers are closing rapidly, and customers are hesitant to place orders from the remaining suppliers, so there’s very little work left for Candace. She compulsively emails Balthasar requesting that Phoenix Ltd. reprint the Daily Grace Bible.

Candace spends most of her time at Spectra shut up in her office. One day she emerges to find that everyone has quit except for Blythe and another employee named Delilah. The trio discusses the conditions of the office and the city; with busses shut down, their morning commute takes two hours, and they haven’t heard from senior management in two weeks. Blythe and Delilah are planning to leave New York the next day and head for Connecticut. They invite Candace to join them, but she declines, not wanting to break her contract.

Returning home, Candace finds an email from Balthasar informing her that most of the workers at Phoenix Ltd. are fevered, as is Balthasar’s young daughter. He implores Candace to leave New York and be with her family.

Rachel reveals that Evan died by intentionally overdosing on the Xanax he hoarded. She tells Candace that he was imprisoned in the Facility just like her, not allowed to join the group on stalks.

Later, Candace is visited by a vision of her mother. Ruifang points out that all her allies within the group are dead and urges her to escape immediately. When Rachel brings her next dinner, Candace asks her to tell Bob that she is concerned about her baby’s health.

That night, Bob comes up to the L’Occitane store. Candace fakes flu symptoms and requests the freedom to move around the Facility. Bob tells her that he chose the Facility because, in addition to its abundant resources, it holds sentimental value—he used to visit it as a child, using it as an escape from his parents’ constant arguing. He doesn’t think Candace respects the space or the group.

Candace continues to work at Spectra, now the only office employee attending in person. One morning, she looks out of her window and notices that Times Square is completely empty. A lone horse wanders through the square—on a whim, Candace snaps a picture and uploads it to the NY Ghost.

She persists in her routine, but in the absence of any work to do she focuses on updating the NY Ghost two times a day, taking long walks during her self-dictated lunch hour to gather new material. Sometimes she contacts the few remaining in-person employees working in the building.

As major news publications close, traffic to the NY Ghost increases. She “[has] always lived in the myth of New York,” (257), staying for the idea of the city rather than its reality. Documenting its breakdown allows her to know the city for the first time. She takes pleasure in fulfilling readers’ requests for photos of certain neighborhoods or landmarks, but refrains from posting images of the fevered. The only time she breaks this rule is to upload a video of a Juicy Couture saleswoman, dutifully folding shirts as half of her jaw rots away.

After the shuttle buses shut down, Candace moves into her office at Spectra, setting up her new bedroom in Michael’s office. Lying on his couch, she looks at the ceiling sees a skylight which has escaped her notice in all her time at Spectra. She feels the baby move.