That was the thing I had most needed and most lacked in my hardest years, not just the four hundred dollars but the sense that my hardship registered anywhere in the world beyond my own exhausted body.

And now I got to be the one who registered it for other people, who said, in effect, I see you, I have been where you are, you are not alone in the dark.

There is no amount of money that could buy the feeling of being able to say that.

Chapter 25 — Especially Your Old Job

There was one more thing the foundation did that I had not planned and did not expect, and it is the closest thing to justice, in the ordinary earthly sense, that this story contains.

Because a relief fund that keeps reimbursing servers for illegal walkout charges eventually starts asking why so many servers are being charged for walkouts in the first place, and Arthur, who had spent his whole career taking apart people who abused their power, was more than happy to help me ask.