Joe is desperate for a job. After applying for positions and getting nowhere, he gets a strange job offer for a company called Ponos. Having never heard of the company, he is surprised at the speed at which they choose to hire him. Having always had a “great deal of potential,” Joe is both intrigued and unnerved when he steps into the Ponos building. For one, there is no one there. He navigates with a series of guesses to his computer before being greeted by a Wellness AI Bot that gives him tasks and monitors him. Unsettling, but having worked in corporate this is not outside believability. Joe quickly finds the terms of his contract changed and those individuals he does encounter either can’t hear him or give him seemingly impossible tasks that can’t be completed. The Wellness bot even downloads onto his phone without him adding it. Soon, he encounters a fellow coworker and resistance fighter who tries to warn Joe that he must escape or he will die at Ponos. Joe discovers that not only is he a slave to his wages, but his potential might be feeding an Eldritch horror in the basement.
Abyss feels a bit like going into the office on a delayed response hallucinogen. Author Nicholas Binge does set up the unsettling nature of Ponos from the start, but the reader may find themselves attempting to justify Joe’s employment, not unlike many of us do each day when getting up to go to our day jobs. Binge doesn’t shy away from blatant commentary on Capitalism, how cellphones have become a necessity to function in the modern world, or how easy it becomes to grow engrossed in day-to-day tasks and lose track of a world outside the office. Fans of things like the show Severance or the video game Control will enjoy this book. Abyss is perfect for those who like to combine the horror of the working day with the unhinged horrors of the unknown.
Abyss is now available from Tor Publishing.
