A Chronology of Portland - Tapa blanda

A Chronology of Portland takes a satirical look at the complex relationships between organized labor, big business, and their employees. One hundred years from the present day, in a city pushed to ruin by a collapsed economy, Shonna is a young woman who has lived and worked in the Hawthorne complex since she was a little girl. The story begins in the abandoned lower levels of the complex where she is attempting to run away from this life. Unable to find a way out, she returns to her cell before her day begins. Shonna and her fellow employees spend their lives toiling under the supervision of their managers in service to the Customer. Most of the workers have only vague memories of outside. Shonna works in the Wash department with about fifty of her peers, arduously hand-washing the laundry for the entire complex. One day, she runs into Marten, a young man who asks to meet her secretly in the lower levels. With Marten, she finds others and realizes that she isn't the only person who wants to make changes in their place of work - in particular, their relationship with management. Somebody finds an old union contract, dusty and crumbling with age...