NationStates Jolt Archive

Jake Henson sat, his eyes losing focus and staring at a distance beyond the white window-sill before him. A cheap, twencen air conditioner created a bassy, rumbling yet hypnotic purr as it took warmth and turned it into refreshing cool. The artificial breeze brushed the bangs along his forehead, tickling him out of his reverie.

Best not to daze anyway, he thought. The Rat would be around any moment.

Shaking his head, he turned back to the screen. More orders to fill. There were rows and columns on the order-filler, a nonsentient program known affectionately as Shitstar. It was actually Bitstar, version 5.6, but such details were meaningless in the face of the program's idiotic, stubbornly archaic interface and it's limited capability.

Yes, he thought tiredly. Bolden Corp doesn't have the most advanced comps around for us entry workers. Already knew that.

Knowledge didn't make it any better. He began to slave, entering data manually. A task that was outdated two or three centuries ago, surely. A task that could currently be filled out by another archaic software program, or a low intelligence mammal. Like a gorilla, perhaps. Not even chimp-level.

His fingers moved with grace across the keys, the silent clackety-clack accompanied by the reverberations of the air conditioner. It was a good job, for all it's pointlessness, but he knew he couldn't do this forever. Times had to change; the world was changing. Other worlds were being born. He was 18 already, and he didn't want to become just another corporate serf. He suspected his uncle, who also worked at Bolden, also could be replaced any day now by a clever primate. There was nowhere to go from here except down. Angrily, he typed in the entries. Change, he thought.

"Mister Henson!" the pinched, obnoxious voice of the Rat came, heralding his entrance like a fanfare of flatulence. Then he was there, sliding around Jake's desk like a worm or, indeed, a rat. "Sorry to interrupt you," he said, not sounding sorry at all, "But I've got another batch of orders I need you to take care of. I'll be gone from 4 on. You can do this by 6?"

It wasn't really a question. Of course he would. Jake nodded, resigned. More hours, but more pay. That was something, anyway.

"No problem," he said. The pages flopped onto the desk where the Rat laid them.

"Thanks," the Rat said, as if he'd expected nothing else, and left abruptly. At least the Rat was gone for the rest of the day. That was something, too.

And then it was back to the duet of the air conditioner and keyboard.

#tagged. (OOC: Is this open? Would you mind me joining with a computer programmer?)

OOC: Looks could! Could I hop on at some point?

[OOC: Sure, join in! Only rules; no aliens or androids, though enhancements and augments are pretty common. Some psionic possible but probably not for this story. TG me for details if you have something big planned.]

Stimulus... respond. Respond. Stimulus...

The sheer simplicity of his task was, at first, daunting. It was so simple, that the man he'd learned it from - the man who previously held Desk 2245 - had tried to make it seem more complicated than it really was.

Hurvy, his name was. Tall, wiry, always smelling slightly foul. He seemed like he might have lived somewhere in the offices, perhaps in the spaces between the ducts. That was even vaguely possible, though not so much up here as down below, in BoCo Sector of Tyrone-B, Jake's home.

'So you load the new ones in through the Shitstar,' Hurvy had said on his first day, importantly. 'Make sure to revv 'em up first with this module here'- (he gestured at the unassuming lumpy pale EZScan4)- 'and make sure to recharge the battery twice a week, no more, or else the thing will overload and zap your nuts off. For real.'

After the first day on the job, he'd discovered Hurvy had been less than honest. For example, he had yet to charge the battery once, and it had never overloaded or malfunctioned. That was clearly a myth now.

The way it worked was, in reality, a lot more simple. Jake had worked it down very clearly in his mind, the sequence and logic of his actions. It was boiled down eventually to the order of muscular twitching and, like a trained gunner, could 'shoot from the hip' with his eyes, seeking immediately the location of data to be entered without having to waste valuable energy going through the nonapplicable data above or below.

Socially, it was even simpler. Bolden Corporation was the boss; that was obvious. More immediately, Hendrix Somers was the overseer of his division, and even more immediately was the Rat. It wasn't a strict hiearchy, and he didn't have to pay fealty or bow or call his employers 'lord' like in some other organizations. But it was a chain of command, and below Jake was... nothing.

Perhaps the gorilla.

No, he thought. Gorillas? What are you thinking about?

Still, the secret joy of his job, his reason for putting up with it all - or so he told himself, anyway - seemed to give all things possibility. Sure, gorillas were totally extinct in this part of the world, but then supposedly, so was crime. A gorilla was almost possible in this new light. Maybe even a criminal gorilla.

And the light? Yes. The Light.

Jake's PDA told him when, but he knew very well when it was time. The sun was beginning to set, and it was at this time of day also that the great weather-curtains on the side of the building parted, and the Desk was bathed in golden refracted rays of sunshine.

Bliss. He leaned back, his repetetive work forgotten, and he relaxed with a smile. This was the good life. None of that phony light down below. Even with fusion power source behind the artificial light, even with finely tuned frequency ranges to simulate with 99% accuracy the solar glow, it was never the same as the real thing.

Outside, the dense urban Cabrillo landscape was revealed through the thick haze and rays of Sun.

Alan Schmidt walked down the hallways of the Bolden Corporation building, carrying 3 boxs and a baskat with knick-knacks inside. He muttered under his breath as he stopped for the 15th time to re-adjust his grasp of the boxes. Alan continued to walk until his cell-phone went off at an alarmingly loud decible, firghtening him and causing him to slip. His 3 boxes and basket tumbled down to the floor, their contents now scattered across the floor. He grumbled as he picked them up, put them back in the mutilated boxes and paced onward. Finally he arrived at his assigned desk and unloaded the boxes contents slowly but surely...

Wilhelm von Clausewitz was late again. Just another grunt in the "vaunted" Bolden Corporation, Wilhelm was always late and always behind in his work. Today, like any other day, Wilhelm was once again late.

Out of breath, the muscular Wilhelm ran out of the lift at the end of his hall towards his desk, 2246. As he ran haphazardly down the hall, his briefcase open and papers flying out, leaving a trail. Without warning, a short, mouse-like person stepped out from a small office on the side of the corridor. With a yell, Wilhelm practically somersaulted over the small person, who was only Wilhelm's superior.

Screaming and cursing, the Rat glared at the tall, muscular German, his teeth gnashing in anger. His voice rising higher and higher, the Rat began to curse, "You NAZI!?! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING!?! YOU NEARLY KILLED ME, YOU F*CKING CRAZY NAZI!"

Chagrined, Wilhelm swiftly sprinted the rest of the way to his desk and sat down...

Alan, finished unloading his things sat down at his desk and began typing on his computer, eager to impress his superiors. Alan was an ambitious man, always ready to work harder just to get a little farther up the corporate ladder. He glanced up from his work at Wilhelm, running and then settling down at his desk, which was right ahead of Alan's, 2247. Cautiously, hearose from his desk and tapped Wilhelm on the shoulder.

"What happened to you?"

Glancing up oddly, Wilhelm glared at his new coworker. Sighing to himself, he said, "The bastard known as the Boss, aka the Rat, that's who..."

Some minutes passed and he was disturbed out of a reverie by the charming voice of the Rat on his way out.

Jake felt his ear swivel towards the sound, not that he particularly wanted to hear what he said, but to figure out who was getting bitched at now. Damn, terrible misfortune to get on his bad side just before he was gone for the day!

"...nearly KILLED me!... NAZI!"

Jake sighed. The Rat had a thing about nazis. Anything he didn't like was nazi. It was stupid. Besides national socialism being totally archaic and defunct in the country, what was the big deal, anyway? Secretly, he thought the Rat had some serious psychological issues.

Not that he was about to suggest to the Rat to go see the company brainpicker. Jake had seen him once and liked him; he wouldn't wish the Rat's ravings on the poor guy.

His work was nearly finished though, and once he was certain the Rat had vacated, he stood up. Jake heard the timely cracking of his joints, accompanied by some pain from his last magboard jaunt down the main tube. That one was dangerous; he'd mis-timed the schedule somehow, and knowing that had made him nervous and he'd only barely curved out of the tube at BoCo in time not to be hit by the mover.

He stuck his head out the door of his office. It was his neighboring office the Rat had picked. He peered around their door to survey the damage, reflecting for a moment the oddity that they had started in a two-desk office when he had started with only one. Wilhelm was there, and the new guy. Alan? He couldn't remember the name.

(OOC: Wilhelm is not a newbie to the company...)

Alan nodded and returned to his desk. He hummed quietly to himself as he continued typing. He faced his printer as 5 sheets quickly ejected from it. After stapling them together, Alan stood up again and made the long journey to "the Rat's" office. Alan knocked on the ajar door and was ushered in. A mere 5 minutes later, the words "This work is total SHIT! You expect me to use this? Get out of my office! NOW!" Alan rushed out of the office, sweating and his paper in shreds. Finally back at his desk he sat down and gulped, retyping the papers.