[The City that Never Wakes] Wageslave

Jtuxyan

Jtuxyan

Senior Member

Stood the man who pays the wage,


stood the dragon,


stood the mage,


“Come step forth,” they each did shout, “to hear what life is all about.”


“For you see we have been paid, to find of what life is made,”


“And of what things from life are wrought,” they added as an afterthought.


“First we spoke with doctors,” said the man in the suit,


“but their patients were all miserable, and we saw the point was moot.”


“Then we spoke with priests,” said man who casts the spells,


“but empty are their churches, and silent are the bells.”


“In the end” said the dragon, “the truth was easy to acquire.


For my friends, it seems that at heart, your lives are made of fire.”


“Shocking yes,” said the man, “but I assure you that it’s true.


And if you look within yourself, you’ll find you know it too.”


“For consider,” said the mage, “what you would do without.


I can restore your body but not a fire that’s gone out.”


“Life is passion, passion life, it seems that it is so,”


the dragon said, and mission done, all three turned to go.


“Wait,” cried out the people, calling to the trio’s back,


“You say that life is made of fire, but it’s fire that we lack.


Your fires scorched the world, have you nothing left to give?


Not a spark to light our way, that we too may live?”


“Very well,” spoke the dragon, “that is a right that you may earn.


Labor well, and I promise, one day you will burn.”




Wageslave

by Willow Peterson
​
 
>Hey! I see you're walking to the elevator. You know, if you walk faster, 1/10th of this time will count off your daily exercise requirements? Moving just a little faster will make your healthier, happier, and more free!


Ash was indeed walking to the elevator, and she did not in fact know that, but at this particular point in time, she does not particularly feel like allowing NeoNET's employee management server to have executive control over her limbs, and so she keeps walking at the pace she wants to walk, thank-you-very-much. Two weeks ago, her discretion in cyberware and bioware was a point of pride. She used only the safest implants, rigorously tested, and then only judiciously. Now, there's very permanent "cutting edge" bioware in her skull, and worse, skillwires. They're a brand for peons whose sole accomplishment is life is being cheaper than a trained monkey, and now she has them.


Though, she does feel remarkably well rested for four in the morning. She barely went to sleep four hours ago, and some part of her brain is chipper already.


Alright! The little alert says, as she climbs into the elevator. A half dozen fast-walking employees crowd in behind her, all of them fiddling with their own glasses. You want to review your schedule for the day?


It's with some reluctance that Ash signals that she does, and the lift starts off on its own. The alerts that come with NeoNET's recommended app package are irritating, but they've proven very helpful in navigating this place's lengthy list of unwritten rules. Two weeks recovering in the hospital, and she's already gotten five Aggro. She still can't believe that's actually what they call their demerit system. Two for "Deck Stacking," when she called her orientation "Indoctrination," and another three for "Confrontational Body Language." It's not a big deal—she has to reach 100 to get even the slap-on-the-wrist punishments—but it's just so galling when that little red +1 Aggro pops up in the corner of her vision. Like the arcology itself is judging her.


Which is the point, of course. That's how behavioral modification works and she knows it. So there's nothing for her to do but put it out of her mind, and review her schedule.


Current Time: 3:58




Schedule of Events:

Move In and Introductions, 4:00-4:15


Orientation, 4:15-4:30


Practical Qualification Exam: Hardware, 4:30-9:00


Breakfast, 9:00-9:15


Practical Qualification Exam: Signal Interception and Encryption, 9:15-13:45


Practical Qualification Exam: Software, 13:45-18:15


Dinner and Teambuilding Exercise, 18:15-19:00


Introduction to Daily Exercise Requirements, 19:00-20:00


New Transfers Orientation Debrief and Q&A, 20:00-21:00


Assignment of Remedial Material, 21:00-21:15


End-of-First-Day Hot Stone Massage, 21:15-21:45

​



Wonderful. A leisurely 18-hour work day—starting with a full fifteen minutes for her to find and move into her company quarters. Not that she has a lot to move, all her things fit into a duffel bag, but all this yanking her around has got to be intentional.


Gradually, Ash realizes she's alone in the elevator. She must have been so absorbed in her AR feed she didn't notice everyone else getting out. There's only a few floors left before—It is now 4:00. Event starting: Move In and Introductions. You are late. +3 Aggro—she arrives.


A few seconds later, the lift doors open.


There's a hallway in front of her, wide and graceful, adorned with blue carpeting and lit by soft lamps in the style of elegant oil lights. An AR Arrow points along the floor, guiding her to her destination. It's not far, and as she walks, she starts to hear laughter and discussion echoing from down the side corridors. It looks like this floor is organized into suites of rooms. The doors out to the main hall are made of glass, so she can peer through and generally see a circle of bedrooms around a large common space. It is to one of these that she is headed, and when she steps inside, she finds she is the last to arrive.


Instantly, her AR feed identifies the other nine people in the room, running left to right. Ashe only has a second to take them all in before they react to her. A male orc. Mark Ashe. A female dwarf with an obvious cybereye. Nora Ardnt. A golden-haired elven... woman? Glen Knott. A woman slumped in the corner, plugged in. Lisa Kramer. A man smoking from a vaporizer. Brett Kendall. A white haired girl wearing a medical arm band. Laura Farris. An older man, late 30's, laughing at a joke. Kyle Lee. An orc sitting in the corner and reading a book. Virginia Wolfe. A man unpacking what appears to be a gun mounted on a wooden display board. Allen Ray.


"Hey, there you are!" calls Mark, rising from where he was sitting cross legged and offering her his hand. "Nice to finally meet you, Ash."


Mark's glasses are transparent, and so she can just see the mirror-flipped image inside them. A little picture, lines of scrolling text, and a name. Ash Peterson.
 
Ashley inclines her head and extends her right hand, an intricate pattern of blue-and-silver mirroring the nervous system and major blood vessels. Her left hand remains where it is, resting on her lower back, pressed lightly against the standard-issue jumpsuit in the matching NeoNET livery. Her head is recently shaved, and her scalp is covered in intricate patterns that match those on her hands, surrounding and highlighting a set of trodes chosen for durability over aesthetics. The blue-on-silver patterns continue down the back of her neck, where they run along several surgical scars before framing and subtly drawing the eye to a discreet red-on-gold datajack, then trailing down under her jumpsuit. Her face, however, is pristine from the collarbone up, and her eyebrows hint at her natural ivory hair color.


"Thank you. It is nice to be out of convalescence." It would have been even nicer to not have needed it in the first place, and to be out of house arrest, but no point in taking out my annoyance on my fellow captives.


Ash proceeds to greet each of the assembled by name and with a firm, measured handshake, except for Lisa who gets a cordial text message and an invitation to two-way chat in either text or video, as she prefers, and Virginia who gets a friendly wave. Ash waits politely for Allen to reach a natural break in his assembly work before introducing herself, in the meantime calling up reports from her sensor package, to determine the levels of radioactive or volatile substances emanating from the firearm.


Greetings completed, she consults the AR overlay to figure out her bunk, and deposits the duffel bag containing all of her tangible possessions - which is to say a couple of spare uniforms and the smartwig and muted purple synthsilk clothes she wore when she arrived - then moves to stand next to her fellow inductees, hands clasped behind her back and feet slightly apart, while she probes their PANs and observes their interactions.
 
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Introductions don't go quite the way Ash might have imagined. Mark does step up to meet her, taking her hand in his and sharing a firm handshake, but the others do not politely wait to be introduced. Instead, Ash finds herself surrounded by a crowd, struggling to read everyone's names as her attention is split between her glasses and all the introductions she's making.


Distantly, she manages to notice some details about the whirl around her. Virginia's head is shaved as well, with even more scars than Ash. Everyone in the room has extensive skillwires except for Brett, who seems to have none. An AR version of Lisa appeared, outlined in purple, offering Ash a wave from beside her actual body. Ash didn't authorize an AR feed. Must be the damn rootkit. Laura is the only one who didn't step forward to greet Ash, instead standing quietly in the corner.


Ash is answering questions as fast as she can—about her life, how she likes the arcology, and more—and is just starting to reach the point of insensibility when a voice cuts through the babble. "Hey, guys!" calls Glen, snapping... their, fingers. A quick check of Glen's profile confirms Male as his listed gender. He gestures at Ash, giving the others a slightly annoyed expression. "Privacy girl. Remember? Give her a bit to breathe?"


"Oh..." Kyle cuts in. "Right, sorry." That starts a chorus of awkward apologies, people backing away and finding something to busy themselves with. A lot of them start to check their AR feeds. Allen goes to unpacking his gun. According to its' RFID chip, it's a neutralized display piece.


Now that she has a moment to herself, Ash can take in the environment around her. It's looks like she's in an extended suite of ten rooms, sharing a common space and a large automated kitchen. The layout is tasteful, mirroring the hall with a mix of art-deco and psuedo-gaslamp themes. Her AR feed is already indicating which room is hers, but she notices something else that's worrying. The doors are made of glass. And they don't seem to have locks.
 
Ash answers verbally and in AR at the same time, while her not-an-agent flags the AR leak and fact that her PAN is broadcasting her name wrong as IT support tickets. The substance of her answers boils down to the fact that the arcology is about what she expected of it. Her main hobby is reading, followed by an eclectic list of recent literature, and comparison of to-read piles, if anyone takes her up on that line of discussion. She has considered taking up writing in her obviously copious spare time. She's requested the dancing classes for her exercise slot, even though she's horrible at it. And she is quite partial to enjoying a quiet evening in the company of good friends and fine spirits.


Questions as to her life outside the arcology are circumnavigated, then brushed off, then rebuffed. Rudely, if that is what is required to get the message across. Her previous acquaintances and friends did not sign over their privacy when she entered the building.
 
Ash's evasion of their questions regarding her outside life isn't taken well. While nobody gets frustrated or angry, her new companions seem moderately confused, or perhaps a little annoyed, and press the point. That comes to an end when Glen reminds them to back off however, and Ash gets some time to unpack.


Her room looks perfectly comfortable, decorated in the same style as the rest of the floor. If she ignores the total lack of privacy and the intrusive roommates, it's actually quite a bit nicer than her old place, and her duffel bag lands on a bed that she can only describe as a gaslamp-style sleeping pod.


She's just unzipped the bag when she spots someone behind her, Lisa's AR-presence stepping through the wall to enter her quarters. Now that Sherman can take a moment to look at her out of the pressing crowd, she can see that Lisa is a bit younger than her—ot at least, her AR presence is, but it seemed to mirror her actual body. Sherman would put Lisa in her early 20's, with a somewhat waifish build, accentuated by the way she holds her hands behind her back. Her hair is a pale white, which matches the color of her skillwires, making her appear almost like she's rendered in just two colors.


"Hey," she greets, raising her hand to wave. Irritatingly, other than the purple glow around her, her presence is not specifically flagged as AR. "You want some help?"
 
"I'd love if you could point me to the drone controls," Ash says, absentmindedly placing AR circles to highlight a couple of the discreet cameras - or, in a few cases, spots where she would put cameras, but can't see any. She turns fully toward Lisa's ARO, more to avoid the appearance of rudeness than because she considers the ARO a valid representation of the other woman. "I'd like to get my old clothes squared away so they don't go musty over the next three months."
 
"Oh, sure!" she replies, reaching back into her pocket to grab what—in AR—appears to be a wooden nickel. She holds it up to Ash with a smile, like they were sharing some small joke, and Ash can see there's a drawing of a housekeeping drone on the back. She tosses it Ash's way, and Ash's commlink beeps when she gets the message.


"I put the official app on there," she explains, with a friendly air, leaning over and gesturing Ash's way. "The one that picks room styles? You know, if you don't dig the whole blown-glass-steampunk thing. I also threw on a personal app I made that checks the feng shui of your room. It always annoyed me that they'd keep coming back in and rearranging the furniture. Oh, and we put up a private chat group if you want in. I don't want to exclude you but I know people from outside sometimes find the constant alerts annoying so..."


She seems to realize she's tumbled into a run-on sentence, wrapping it up with a breath and a smile. "Yeah. Welcome."
 
"Thanks for the warm welcome. And for the assist." Ash's smile is more than a little stiff, and does not reach her eyes. "I think I'll need to fiddle a bit with my commlink settings before joining the chatroom," she continues, more to avoid ending the conversation on a Stepford smile than because she feels any urgent need to share the information. "Perimeter security must have fucked something up during decon. All my screens and filters seem to have gone tits-up, and they refuse to restore properly from off-site backup." She makes an annoyed hand-motion at the Ikon affixed to her belt. "But thanks for the heads-up."
 
"Oh, that sucks," Lisa says, stepping up at once. It's not totally clear what the gesture signifies, or if it's just meant to be a social indicator of closeness, but her tone indicates sympathy. "You want to borrow a commlink? I have a spare. I mean, the room has one too, but I figured you... well. You know."
 
Ash chuckles. "You figured I wouldn't trust anything that came with the room." Duffel dropped off, she wanders back out of her room, using an idle hand to direct the household drones to rack-and-stack her jumpsuits and dry out her civilian clothes for cold storage. "And not that I don't appreciate the gesture, but you're not wrong. That thing you did where you installed apps on my comm, without me getting a system alert? That's super scary." As she talks, Ash walks over toward where Laura and Victoria are hanging out.
 
"Well..." Lisa admits, with a chagrined look, as the drones rack and stack. "That depends. If I tell the privacy girl that I know she's a privacy girl because I did my research on her, is that polite, or creepy?" She doesn't seem to expect a response, nor does it bother her when Ash steps right through her on her way out the door. "Seriously though, it's not that bad. It's not like I installed anything on your commlink. It's all just running on the cloud servers here."


Ash may want to answer that comment, but if she chooses not too, introducing herself to someone else might be a reasonable way to duck the topic. Her nine companions don't seem to be hanging out so much as doing completely different things and ignoring each-other. There's no trace of the conversation she heard on the way in, with everyone having gone off to their own little corner. Most of them are passed out in sim or watching something in AR, though not all of them. Allen seems to be taking great care to unpack his collection personally: a number of guns, a few pieces of dated electronics under glass, and some really weird clothes. Victoria is also still out of sim, flipping through her book.


Oblivious, Victoria doesn't notice Ash's approach until Ash is right on top of her. "Oh, uh. Hi!" she says at once, sharply putting her book away and sitting up. Now that Ash can give her a closer look, she's an odd one. By human standards, she'd be considered very masculine, with her classical square jawline, broad shoulders, and strong upper body. She isn't human though, and Ash is fairly sure she'd be considered pretty for an orc. Her head is criss-crossed by a significant collection of what are obviously recent scars, and one of her eyes is obviously unfocused, and drifting. "Hey, Lisa," she adds, as she quickly affixes her AR glasses.
 
After greeting Victoria, Ash simply sits down next to her, respectful of her personal space, but her body language open and unguarded, trying to let the other woman know that she is available for socialization, should socialization be desired. Meanwhile, Ash calls up the book she is currently reading, Nasser's Legacy: The influence of pan-Arabism on Egyptian entry into the Euro Wars, to her AR glasses.
 
"Um..." Victoria half raises a hand, like she wasn't sure if she was supposed to wave or shake hands or just say hello. She squeezes her drifting eye shut, and seems to be in some discomfort from it, but her attention is mostly on Ash's face. After a moment of silence, she continues, "Well, um. Cool to meet you I guess," and gradually turns back to her own book.


Faster Than The Speed of Love, Ash spots the title. A quick search reveals it's a tawdry romance novel that's very popular right now.
 
"Nice to meet you too," Ash says, eyes resting briefly on the wandering left eye. "Uh..." she begins, then pushes on, "if I'm not out of bounds asking, what happened to your eye?"
 
"Oh, yeah," she says, awkwardly. She seems embarrassed, reaching up to cover her eye with a hand. "That's new. I don't know what it's from specifically. I guess the doctors fucked up when they were rooting around in my head." She removes her hand, and blinks twice, trying to downplay her discomfort with an overly forceful shrug. "I guess I'll have to get cybereyes or... you know. Something."
 
Ash frowns. "You should get it looked at. If the docs screwed up a piece of headware... well, neural scarring can fuck you up real bad."
 
"Oh yeah. I mean, totally. I got it checked out as soon as it happened," she says, quickly. "I mean, I'm not stupid or anything. I mean..." she stumbles, quickly getting tongue tied.


"I mean,"she continues, "the docs already checked me out. And long story short, I'm not going to die or anything, and maybe they could fix it. But cybereyes are probably easier. And it's about time I got a pair anyway." She says, adding. "Right?"


Lisa leans at this point, offering Victoria an encouraging smile. "I think you'd look beautiful with a nice set. The same color as your old ones though. Blue really works for you."
 
Ash nods slowly. "I'm glad to hear it's not dangerous." After a pause she adds "I don't think one gets to be 'overdue' for cybereyes, though."
 
"Oh, yeah," Victoria adds, with a little smile. She's still quite obviously embarrassed, but not crushingly so. "I'm not a huge fan of cyberware. Headware least of all. But, gotta bite that bullet, right?"
 
Ash shakes her head. "I don't see why. Even if you end up losing your eye, almost everything that headware does for you can be accomplished with external peripherals." She taps the lunchbox-sized sensor package affixed to her hip for emphasis. "Typically at a fraction of the cost, much greater flexibility, and the only major inconvenience is that is that you need to protect your external hardware against theft, and tampering becomes a little easier."
 
"Um..." Victoria answers, her mouth drawn into an uncertain line. "I mean, yeah, sure. Externals can do most of that stuff... I guess..."


>Lisa: Raw nerve. Drop the subject.


Lisa's private message comes accompanied by a sidelong glance, and a moment later, someone else chimes in. "So!" Allen interrupts Victoria, calling from across the room where he's still unpacking. His voice is friendly, but his tone is a bit more forceful than would usually be called for. "Ash, you have much of an interest in history? I saw your book there but there was nothing on the Matrix about it."
 
"Sorry if I was being too forward. Wasn't trying to make a sales pitch one way or the other."


> I can see that it's a raw nerve, but I don't see why it would be. What's the new girl missing here? And am I really sure I want to know?


Ash looks up at Allen's question. "I'm surprised. It made quite a splash when it was published, because of its emphasis on the role of the Canal Corporation [suez Canal Corporation - Company Profile] in provoking pan-Arabist [Pseudo-Nationalist ideology, centered on the Nile and Jordan watersheds - Profile - Significant Adherents - History] support for Egyptian war entry. The author's living in ARC [Awakened Republic of Congo - Country Profile] these days, and it's not because she's a fan of spirit-malaria."
 
Allen laughs—a deep sound. He's a bit older than most of the group, maybe in his late 20's, with a broad-shoulder build that makes him look particularly solid and mature. He keeps his hair close cropped, with big, thick AR glasses with a distinctly retro feel to them. They block her view of his eyes, but he frequently pulls them down his nose so his expression can be seen—as he does now to give Ash an amused look.


>Lisa: Oh wow, you didn't... uh.


"I know about the book," Allen says, as Lisa and Victoria listen. Lisa has a poker face, and Victoria looks curious and attentive. "Though I'm not sure about the author being on the run. I meant there was nothing about you being a history buff. You know, background check?"


>Lisa: Nevermind.


>Lisa: It's not my place to say. Just don't talk about implants with Victoria, okay?


>Lisa: She's got enough going on.


"Here," Allen says, reaching into one of his bags to carefully pull something out. "What do you think of this?" he asks, handing her a helmet. It's a huge, bulky thing, with an ugly gaggle of primitive looking sensors stuck to the front on little joints, designed to pull up or swing down over the wearers eyes. A net is stretched over the top, and she spots the old French flag along the side.
 
Ash examines the helmet carefully. "It's impressive. Sixth Republic or Seventh? Either way, it must have set you back a small fortune."
 
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