Writing a book need feedback

Posting excerpts from a novel in progress titled "Nightshift: 39 Hours a Week"

This is from chapter 1, titled "The Serious Moonlight"

As he walked through the bathroom door The Wagies Employee Monitering Collar blipped, "You are now clocked out. You have. Five. Minutes. To excrete xer waste." It was ten last week, central control must have cut down the time again. Of all the weeks to run out of artificial gut fauna. Hed just have to get used to it until next payay. Maybe he would save up for some permenant real fauna, not the Monsanto stuff programmed to die in a few days. The battery pack heated and he was suddenly very aware of the electric prongs resting against his neck.

"You have. Two. Minutes. To excrete xer waste."

He would have to buy more gut fauna supplements. The monsanto kind programmed to die after a few weeks. He wished he could afford the real stuff. "You have. One. Minutes. To excrete your waste." He tried not to think about the time. This was the only bathroom break of his 12 hour shift, it would have to be enough. Sweat beaded on his forehead and veins bulged as he shat with all his might. PLOP. Before he could even breath a sight of relief he ripped a massive wad of toilet paper right off the roll. If he exceeded his maxium daily bathroom time of 5 minutes he would get a shock. But if the collar detected any trace amounts of fecal matter he would also be shocked. It was a delicate balancing act of speed and efficiency, but he had it down to a T. Pulling up his pants as he ran out of the stall he flung open the door and leaped through, the toilet still in mid flush as he jumped. Instantly he heard an "EHH EHH EHH EHH" as every muscle in his body painfully spasmed and convulsed. His collar beeped,

"You have been disciplined for. Health Code Violation. Failure to wash hands."

It beeped again.

"You are now clocked back in."

He got back up, took a brief 5.9 second break (the time that numerous studies had determined was the minimal amount of time a human being needed to recover from a disciplinary shock) then washed his hands and went back to work. Charlie was a 5 foot 2 wage-worker human bio-model or a "wagie". Genetically, hormonally and cybernetically designed to be the best of the best in the competative job market of the future, even if his short stature didnt immediately give away his bio-model his late 20s male pattern baldness and shallow weak jawline did. Wagies were the creme de la creme of the manufacturing, janitorial and food service industries. His body produced the absolute bare minimum of testosterone to survive, ensuring that no toxic masculinity would interfere with his job duties. Instead of test his testicles had being modified to produce a natural stimulant simliar to caffeine to offset any lethargy and improve general work performance. His narrow boney shoulders hunched over in a permenant slouch, a cybernetic modification to the spine to prevent the productivity reducing effects of "proper" posture such as lowered cortisol and increased assertiveness.

But the piece de resistance of the wagie was the prostate stimulator cybernetic. The absolute cutting edge of behavior optimization technology, ZuccTech patented, some say old man Zuck himself designed it. An electric prod rested against his prostate gland. Every two weeks if he was never late for a shift, rude to a customer or got written up the stimulator would trigger for a few brief glorious moments of pleasure. Wagies were incapable of orgasm in the traditional sense, instead his prostate triggered a massive dose of stimulants and opiods in sublimation(They could reduce sexuality, modify it, but despite trillions of ameros in research no one had managed to engineer a Human with no sexual drive). The wagies tiny shriveled genitals were flacid and nonfunctional at all times, the stimulator was his only release. And today was the day.
Charlie shivvered as he scraped the caked cricket flour on the floor from the days baking. His boss wouldnt hold the little incident in the bathroom against him hopefully. No, he knew he wouldnt. He was a good wagie. Always on time. Never ragey. What was one small mistake? After an hour of scraping he was only about a fourth of the way done. He got up to turn on the radio in the next room for some motivation.

"...they all say shes crazy. Locking rhythms to the beat of her heart..." Sitting in that same room playing games on their phones were his two co-workers. Rey and Circe. Genuine womb grown IVF both of them. They had perfect, almost identical bodies. A common sight in the age of genetic standardization. Round firm breasts the size of soccerballs, once rare comical proportions before gene splicing, and bronze post-racial skin signified their high class origins. Charlies own pale pink complexion was an intentional feature of the Wagie design to cast a nonthreatening low status aura. He carefully avoided looking at any erogenous zones lest his disciplinary collar's anti-sexual harrassment protocols go off. Not that he had any sexual desires to harrass them with, but it was company policy. They all giggled at something on their phones. Charlie shuffled back to his chores at a high speed. "It can cut you like a knife. If the gift becomes the fire. On the wire..."
Somedays he wished they would help him, just a little. But then he remembered how much more he was payed than them. They woudlnt be around much longer anyways. They never were. This was just a starter job for a pair of rich kids like them. In 15 years of working there he never had any co-workers stay longer than 6 months. For some reason they were always young and female.

"never danced before. Shes a..."

Then he heard a word. THAT word. Spoken in a low volume that wasnt at all a whisper but gave the impression of trying not to be heard. The audible tone adopted by young and old alike in workplaces accross the country for centuries that universally meant they were gossiping about another employee. At the ZuccTech Wage Unit Academy he was taught about the word. Coined by early Gamer Extremists, popularized by 2150's UnidosUS anti-wage unit propaganda, one of of the 2 million federally recognized Hatewords. Spoken by the other Wagies with a solemn seriousness like the name of someone freshly deceased. It followed him and his bretheren their entire lives. In the punchlines of jokes. In bathroom graffiti. Or maybe just shouted outloud by passersby as they spat. Keyed into their cars. Carved into their murdered bodies by Undocumented Workers and Labor Unions alike. It was the one abuse he could not abide.

"Wagecuck."

He was still as a statue. A hot pulsing feeling built up in his belly and traveled toward his chest. It stopped at the point in between and he saw flashes of his training. The children playing a game where they took turns being the "coworker" and the "wage unit." One tried their best to enrage the other with insults, degradation and violence. The other endured. A boy smearing rotten tomatoes in Charlies face. The teacher tells Charlie he did a good job.

"Dont be a Ragey Wagie"

Every day they repeat it together as a class. Once at the start of the day, once at the end. Its painted on the walls, on milk cartons and posters. Amazon Alexa reads them a childrens book, "Dont be a Ragey Wagie" as they drift off to sleep. He felt the heat slowly be forced back down.

"Dont be a Ragey Wagie. Dont be a Ragey Wagie." He just then realized hed been repeating it.

"Oh my god do you see what hes doing?" Rey snickered to Circe. "And shes dancin..." Circe whispered back, "I think its a wagecuck thing."
The heat shot back up all the way to his chest pulsing uncomfortably through his arms all the way to his fingertips. He held his head as high as his neck implant would allow and turned around. "NOW JUST YOU LISTEN HERE. I AM A HUMAN BEING. A HUMAN BEING, WITH RIGHTS. WITH RIGHTS AND DIGNITY. AND I EXPECT IT. DIGNITY. AND I EXPECT RESPECT. NOW WHAT YOU JUST SA-" He was walking forward, waving his arms with frantic energy. "...ice blue line of..." "THAT IS A HATE WORD YOU JUST SPOKE MA'AM. IT IS A HORRIBLE AWFUL WORD WITH OVER 300 YEARS OF-" Both of the girls looked up at him like deer at headlights. They had never seen an angry wagie before. "...You work all your life for that moment in time..." Froth and spittle flew from his mouth as his face started to turn beet red. "I EXPECT. NO. I DEMAND AN APOLOGY THIS INSTANT!" A pause. Then laughter. Shrieking howling laughter like this was the funniest thing the two of them had ever seen. It WAS the funniest thing the two of them had ever seen. Circe threw her arm around Rey for support as they both doubled over in uncontrollable laughter. Circe began to point at him. "Did you see the look on his face!?" He wanted to die. His disciplinary collar beeped twice. He winced expecting another shock, instead it spoke up: "EMPLOYEE 5A-7Z PLEASE REPORT TO YOUR SUPERIOR FOR VALUE REALIGNMENT." He wished it had been a shock. "Shes a maniac, maniac...."

Anyone reading this? Pls rspnd

We have containme... critique threads for this stuff

rip

this is so gay lol

MORE please

Cannot deny trips

The managers office door loomed over the wagies small frame. To him it seemed like a door for giants. Red lacquer on thick sturdy genuine wood, either grown on one of the very few wood farms or an antique from before the bee die off, it stood out from the cheap drywall and salvaged heavy plastics the rest of the building was made of. The knob too, simple unassuming round design, but real meticulously polished metal. It was cold to the touch in a way that was alien to the wagie after a lifetime of opening plastic doors. The office was dark, so dark he couldnt make out anything farther than the light from outside traveled. He got down on his knees and then his hands and began to crawl.

Farther and farther he crawled, deep into the bowels of Panera Bread. Over bundles of esoteric cables and wires that made up the resturaunts internal network his hands desperately groped along the hard vinyl floor. The sensation of blinking was the only way he knew his eyes were open in the blackness until finally he saw two blinking blue lights. The power lights of a VR headset. He stayed prostrated. The humm of computer fans filled the void. He heard the creak of a swivel chair followed by the buzz of flourescent lights. He dove his head down as far to the ground as he could in response to the light. No one, especially someone as lowly as a wagie, dared gaze upon the face of a member of the master caste.

"Am I not... a fair boss?"

"Yes sir Mr. Bergenstein-" his faced rubbed against the floor as he nodded emphatically, "Absolutely!" Wu Bergenstein tapped his steppled fingertips against each other and gazed down with narrow almond shaped eyes over his strong Roman nose at Charlie. He was a Jewasian. Once he would have been considered multiracial, but in the year 2776 Asian and Jewish Americans had long ago interbred into one indistinguishable race. "Then tell me Charles, Charlies-do you mind if I call you Charles?" The Wagie continued to nodd, "You may call me whatever you wish Sir." "TELL ME THEN!" Charlie squirmed at the sound of his raised voice. "WHY DO YOU TAKE ADVANTAGE OF MY KINDNESS? HMMMMM?"

"I-I didnt mean to sir I-"

"You didnt mean to? You DIDNT MEAN TO?" Wu had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. "Why just an hour after I so graciously overlooked your EGREGIOUS and unsanitary violation of the health code you SPIT IN MY FACE by doing-by doing," The hardest part was not laughing. "THIS!"

"NOW JUST YOU LISTEN HERE. I AM A HUMAN BEING-" A recording of the incident played through the speakers of the managers computer. Charlie had never felt so ashamed. "Sir please. Forgive me I-" "-RIGHTS AND DIGNITY. AND I EXPECT-" "Forgive you?" He turned off the recording. "Is that all you have to say for yourself after you just EMOTIONALLY ASSAULTED two of your co-workers?"

"But they-"

"OH! Here it comes! They what? What could those two sweet innocent teenage girls have possibly done to deserve this-this, ONSLAUGHT of unchecked verbal toxicity?"

Charlie was whispering now, "They called me... a... uh..."

"SPIT IT OUT!"

"Wagecuck. Sir."

"Oh I see. REVERSE-discrimination? I thought they taught you better at the academy-"

"No its not like th-"

"I know exactly what it is. You were only thinking about YOURSELF. You never once stopped to think about those poor girls, about their feelings. What if you were a sexy young strong independent woman trying to get by in the male dominated workforce? Hmmm?"

"Sir I dont know what Id do if I was a sexy-"

"Wouldnt you be pretty steamed? From having, day in and day out to deal with all that OPPRESSION?"

"Yes Sir. Of course."

"Wouldnt you want an... outlet. Something to take it out on?"

He was smiling openly now. The Wagie spotted him, just for a moment out of the corner of his eye, before looking back down at the floor.

"Yes Sir."

"You should be glad, GRATEFUL even, to boost your fellow employees self esteem." The Manager sighed. "You were such a good wagie once Charles. I had high hopes for you. Deputy Assistant Kitchen Worker hopes..." Deputy Assistant Kitchen Worker was the promotion he had spent the last five years climbing towards. It came with a five cent raise, two vacation days a year and an extra minute in the bathroom. Five years of work, wasted in a single moment of bad judgement. He was absolutely crushed.

"...And dont expect your... special, treat this week either." That was the final straw.

He stuttered.
"I-I-I-IM-"
Snot started to dribble out his nostrils. His face turned red.
"S-S-S-"
Tears welled in his eyes. A thread of snot bobbed up and down with his breath.
"SOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRYYYYY"
His whole face tightened and contorted. Every crease on his forehead was visible. The manager rolled his eyes,
"There. There. Its alright. We all make mistakes Charles." The wagie was uncomforted. He continued to wheeze and slobber all over the floor. The manager was irritated now. What started out as funny was now just sad. He pulled out his smartphone.

"Charlie youre a good worker-"

"N-No Im nooot...."

"Yes you are and thats why Ive decided on a compromise."

Charlie looked up. His lips still quivered but his read teary eyes gleamed with hope.

"Yes! Compromise! Anything! Ill do anything! Im a good wagie."

The manager tapped an icon of a dog superimposed on a bell. He made a few more swipes and taps and then turned the screen towards Charlie. It was a picture of him when he was still a young fresh hire next to his employee number. Underneath, a big red button.

"Im going to give you a choice. Either I press this button and give you your release..."

Charlie dug his face into the ground, somehow lower than before,
"Please please please please..."

"Or."

Charlie looked up keeping his chin flat on the floor. "...or?" The manager smiled a big smile that crinkled his almond shaped eyes and flared his gigantic semetic nostrils. "Or you dont get your paycheck for this week."

"But sir, I need to make my loan payment. If I miss another-"

The manager didnt miss a beat, "Very well. Paycheck it is." He put the phone away in his front shirt pocket and spun around to his desk. "Glad we could have this talk see you tomorrow. "

"No!" He reached out his hand. The manager bit his lip. "So you... dont, want your paycheck this week?" He spun back around, rubbing his hands slowly.

"Its not-I just-My Bills-"

"If you dont say it I cannot legally withhold your wages."

Charlies body went limp. Defeated. "I consent to my wages being withheld."

The manager pulled out his phone again. "Good wagie." Then tapped the screen. Wagves of pleasure washed over his body. His muscles tensed and relaxed in time with the pulsing of his electrocuted prostate. All thought, all worry, all sense of time washed away. It was a solid half a minute before he realized that he had been crying out. He looked up but the manager had already turned around and gotten back to his work. "T-Thank you." He mumbled out before crawling back the way he came.

"Oh one more thing before you go." The exhausted worker turned around while still crawling on all fours to see his bosses gold Star of David signet pinky ring just an inch from his face. He puckered his lips and gave it a soft kiss. The manager smiled. It was a ritual they had performed many times before. He spent the next two hours finishing up closing. By the time he was done his boss and the two waitresses had all silently left. His only company was the greatest hits of the 1980s. He locked up, turned off the lights and then the radio. For a moment in the darkness, without the constant distraction of work and music, he looked down at the ground and wondered in secret what his life was about. He remembered his carefree childhood at the City 47 Zucctech Wage Unit Manufacturing and Training Facility. Nothing seemed to have worked out the way they did in the VR sims. He was a good wagie, all his life. He did everything he was told and then some. He went the extra mile but he never seemed to be going anywhere. No matter how much he gave to Panera Bread Holding Co it never seemed to give anything back. He drove the thought from his mind. "A hard days work is its own reward." He mumbled to himself in the dark before setting off on his daily hour long foot commute home.

The path home was long and tedius. Just a few blocks of empty dead stripmall without a single one of the colorful holoadverts that danced and kissed and exploded during the day. Then an agonizing stretch of identical concrete rectangle offices and labratories. Each with underground parking garage doors that opened automatically for approved self driving cars so that it wasnt uncommong for people to come and go to work without ever interacting with another human being. Not that anyone on foot was in much better shape. Smart traffic signals made sure no one was ever stuck on a street corner waiting to cross. Stuck where they might have an unplanned meeting with a stranger. The whole city was like that. Efficient. Never a time without a place a be or pre-determined people to be with. Everyone was happier that way. You never knew, afterall, when someone you just met was some kind of psycho killer. Maybe he isnt a psycho killer, but maybe a street corner camera gets facial scans of you and him smiling, laughing together and you get your name added to a secret police list. Meeting new people was dangerous.

He thought about those poor folks trapped in shuffling high tech fully automated traffic jams every morning and evening and was grateful he at least got some fresh air. Fresh air and time to reflect. But all he could think of now was his day at work. He had really screwed up, maybe irreversably. He might have destroyed his chances for promotion in the future. Worse, how was he supposed to pay his student loans this month without his check? His whole life seemed to be over. There was no point, no point in going on, no point in even taking another step. He stopped and stood silently on the empty sidewalk. The flaming heat in his belly had returned but this time came with fear. "Dont be a ragey wagey." He pushed it back down. "Dont be a ragey wagey" All the way back down. "Dont be a ragey wagey. Dont be a..." He repeated over and over again like a mantra, calming him. He needed to get his head straight, and he knew exactly where to go. 20 more blocks and he would take a left instead of going straight to his house. That would take it him to a place where everybody knew his name. TGI Fridays.

one guy whos still reading, like it so far?

>excrete

what maymay is this

Neat

ill post more if thread still here in morning

You do know if you post this here it can't be use in your novel right?

Dat ain't true, it only can't be published in Creator Space

I read just about all I can stomach, it was complete shit. if you want a more detailed critique I can provide you one, but I would honestly scrap this project.

Too bad there isn't a market for non-normies

I hope you enjoy self-publishing, because I can't think of one company that would buy this.

Reeks too much of virginity and poltardation. I recommend you take a 20-minute walk outside every morning, instead of pushing on with this inanity.

Sure.

The shriveled liverspotted old man at the bar sucked hard through his mouth on the plastic breathing mask. Each rasping wheezing desperate inhale sounded like a death rattle, yet somehow at the grand old age of 41 he was still alive. The 24/7 TGI Fridays was packed every night with loud talking wagies getting off long shifts. Looking to get loose. And Paul was the wise elder of their tribe. He had lived long enough to earn a reward no wagie in City 47 before or after him lived to see, reitrement. Now him and Charlie sat and sipped matching appletinis, talking about the young mans problems. In front of them a big screen TV was playing a CNN documentary.

"Remembering the 80s month is a tradition over 600 years old. But its roots stretch back even further, to the dawn of the 21st century."

The narrator speaks in clear crisp tones over a silent montage of VH1s I love the 80s.

"Even then.." Now its a slideshow. Kiss poses in full costume and makeup.
"...people recognized them as a special time." It fades to a photo of Billy Idol screaming his lungs out as he slams the strings of a guitar.
"A time of trend setters..." Steve Jobs stands in front of an early apple two. "... and visionaries"
A slide of Alf the alien humorously burning food while wearing a chefs hat. "It was the cultural apex of human civilization. But what was the REAL story? We talked to some of the people who were there." Now its an interview with Bret Michaels of Poison. "There was just so much cocaine it was just mountains-"

"Do you ever feel like-" Charlie paused, looked into his half drank appletini, stirred the novelty umbrella toothpick it came with and took a moment to find the right words, "like being a wagie isnt as great as they told you it would be?"

The old man, with considerable effort lifted the oxygen mask and took a deep, agonizing breath. He slowly, deliberately, with great effort to avoid exerting himself crackling wheezed out, "All the time kid. All the time. We all do-" He put the mask back on. "But it is what it is. When life gives you lemongoats-" He jerked the mask back on, faster this time, and took a much longer breath. "-so Im fucking like six bints a day. Just loaded on speed, on heroin on-" Each word seemed to take superhuman effort to get out, "you make lemonaid." He lightly tapped his hand on the wagies arm. He was uncomforted.

"-Pamela Andersons a crazy bitch. But she gives amazing, AMAZING head."

"The 80s: The Untold Story. will return after a short commercial break." Commercial breaks were not short back then. They were 25 minutes long. An attractive pregnant mullato brunette stares at her swollen stomach in the mirror to soft flute music. On either side is a series of softly glowing blue lights. Three of descending size towards a black metal plug where her belly button would be. "Choosing your fertility implant can be hard-"

Charlie downed the last half of his appletini in one depressed gulped, then quickly scrunched his face in disgusted and reached for his ice water chaser. "Easy kid. Ive seen wagies die before drinkin these too fast." He tucked his face into his hands and cried out in exasperation, then turned to face the old wagie. "Thats what Im talking about. My sobriety implant means I cant drink. My sleep implant keeps me awake during night shifts. I cant-I cant-I cant-" He stuttered and motioned towards his crotch. The older ones eyes widened and he motioned his hands accross his neck. "Icksnay on the ecksay. This is a family resturaunt." He croak whispered to the young man. "This is a wagie resturaunt. Nobody here even has a family." He stared the young one straight in the eyes, tears lightly misting the rims of his own eyes and said, "Thats where youre wrong kiddo. Thats where youre wrong." The TV is flashing red and white and playing a heavy metal riff. "ARE YOU READY FOR THE SPORTS EVENT OF THE CENTURY-" He pointed his finger down and tapped it on the bar table. "This. This right here. This is family. Now those people out there who werent grown in vats will never understand the bond we share."

The young wagie was still uncomforted by the wizened elders rich wisdom. "I guess... its just-" "THE SEVENTH CENTENIAL SUUUUPERRRRBOOWWWWLLL...." Wagies throughout the fridays covered their ears as hard as they could. Observant ones already had their ears plugged. Charlie and Paul were so entranced in conversation that they were caught blindsided. From hatches in the ceiling all over dropped industrial airhorns blaring on and off in quick bursts so loud they shook the silverware. And whith each blare a tiny millitary grade flashbulb embeded in the horn went off, blinding everyone with their eyes open. Cameras instantly assessed the number of subjects exposed and deposited .03 Ameros in the owners account for each one as part of a new experimental Traumadvertising affiliate program. There were seven blares and seven flashes. With each one Charlie flet a sharp pain in his ears and then a whine that grew higher in pitch and volume with each blast. The swan song of the feelers in his inner ear. He would never hear those frequencies again. He held his head in quiet blinded agony while the old man took fast nervous breaths from the mask. No one in that room would forget to watch the Superbowl.

When it was finally over, the next commercial was a car roaring at high speeds down a desloate desert dirt road. Solid shiny black paint and dark tinted windows the match it. A big muscle car with an eye catching "ZT" decal on the carbon fiber honeycomb grill. It kicks up a cloud of dust behind it towards the setting sun. "Speed." It cuts to inside the car. The drivers seat is empty. The wheel spins itself. A three dimensional holographic interface surrounds the seat, transparent to not blind the driver. It gives detailed information about the car in the form of graphs, gauges and CLI feeds. "The last surviving freedom..." Charlie swirled the ice in his water around and looked up at the TV. He could barely hear it between the tinnitus and the chatter of the resturuant, but for the moment it fascinated him. "Boy I wish I could afford a car like that." The old man, still shaking with adrenaline from the previous commercial, rolled his eyes. "Stop thinking like that kid. Stop thinking about all the things you dont have and start thinking about the things you DO have." He pointed his index finger at his forehead, and then back towards Charlie. It just made him sulk more, "What I DO have is a five figure student loan that Ill be paying off for the rest of my life."

"Hey. ZuccTech spent a lot of money training you. Dont you think they deserve a little bit back?"

"I guess... but I didnt even ask for it. I was GROWN at the institute. Im barely making enough to make my payments as it is, Ill never be able to save up for the training licenses or the training Id need to get a better paying job." He took a second to think. His eyes widened in revelation, "Its almost like the whole thing is just a sca-"

"Look. I agree. Mass producing genetically engineered workers and then shackling them with debt at birth isnt a perfect system-" He took a big breath of oxygen. On the TV the car has finally reached its destination. Its a well dressed tall handsome man with a sharp haircut and just a tiny bit of meticulously groomed stubble. He holds out the electronic key and presses the autopilot button. "...And it can be all yours..." The car drives towards him at a blistering speed. He is undaunted. Its nearly a foot away from him when it swerves, the gust flutters his hair. An aerial shot shows both consumed by the massive plume of dust that stretches for miles behind them. The dust subsides. The man is standing exactly where he was before, miraculously undusty, and the back door of the car is right in front of him. "...with the press of a button." It opens itself. He gets in. "The all new ZT-500 from ZuccT-" Paul took off the mask. "-But its the BEST system there is." The young one looked down and then nodded his head. "Well I guess you got me there." The old man smiled and patted him on the back as hard as his old atrophied muscles could patt. "Yer gonna be alright kid. Yer gonna be alright."

The Wagie finished his water, bid Paul and the rest of his friends at TGI Fridays goodbye and stumbled off into the cold starless night.

As he was walking down the litterless, lifeless streets he stopped. He took a moment, and for the first time in years, looked up at the sky. There were no stars. Not in the city. Not in the desert. Not anywhere. The light of mankinds nightlife had drowned all but the strongest stars that lived on as pale dim ghosts of the old sky. Even those reminders, of mankinds place, of the worlds beyond this earth and its place in the universe were eventually snuffed out along with the Sun and Moon by smog, and the nanite cloud that combated it and made the air safe to breath. The Cloud was never still. It was like a giant thick swarm of bees, swirling and pulsating, reflecting the lights from bellow like a shimmering black velvet blanket flowing in the wind. A new sky, with new stars to match the new Sun and the new Moon. He didnt know any of this. He was never lied to about it. He was simply never told and neither was anyone he knew. But he knew that the sky wasnt always like this and tonight he wondered what it was like before. Was it always black and brown and grey? When he realized how much time he had wasted he quickly shook the the thought from his mind and kept walking.

The great artificial light in the sky which during the day was called Sun and at night the Moon increased in brightness, just a hair. The beginning of dawn. There would be little time for sleep, the price of his weekly socialization at Fridays, luckily his scalp was still tingling from the stimulants of his earlier payday orgasm. He felt wide awake, chipper in fact. He turned the corner into the dark grimy alleyway that connected Peter Thiel Blvrd to Low Income Residence Cube Complex #16 with a smile on his face and a song in his heart. He wasnt going to let one bad day get him down, he was going to go in there more determined than ever to be the very best worker he could be. He started to hum, quietly, beneath his breath. The tune to the song on the radio at work. It had been stuck in his head all day.

"Work all your life for this moment in hmmm..."

Amidst the humming and the ambience of night, the sirens in the distance that served as a constant subliminal reminder that city 47 had one of the highest crimerates in the English Speaking NAU, was a mechanical whirring. He started to turn to look at what was coming, but it was too late. Something hard and cold and flat pressed against the back of his head. He froze.

A low hoarse voice spoke behind him.

"What are your pronouns?"

"I-I-I-" Terror swept over him. If the person with the gun was a GamerGanger theyd kill him for being trans, if they were Anti-Gender theyd kill him for being cis. There was no right answer. The gun left his head. There was a loud click and then it returned. "Did I stutter wagecuck? PRoNOUNS. NOW."

"P-Please. Dont kill m-" CRACK. The grip of the pistol came down hard against the side of his skull sending him face first into the filth and grime of the alley. A boot pushed his face into the ground. "Youve got five seconds to answer before I blow your fucking brains out Wagecuck." Without thinking he shouted, "HIM! HIS! HE!"

The boot lifted. "Right answer homie." A hand twice the size of his gripped his arm and pulled him up off the ground. Standing in front of him, seven feet tall, was a musclebound GamerGanger. In each hand he held a gold Desert Eagle. The words "ETHICS" and "JOURNALISM" were spelled out in diamond studs on each. On his face was a black and white clown makeup pattern, but it wasnt makeup, it was a tattoo. He had another tattoo too, "#GG" on his neck. Some obscure gamerganger lingo Charlie didnt get. The Wagie didnt have a chance to say anything before his assailant tactically holstered his Deagles, threw up the handsigns J and G, shouted "Juggalo Gamer Squad!" and then parkoured up the fireescape. His milspec leg augmentations whirring as he leaped.

By the time the adrenaline wore off Charlie was already at the Cubes. It was then that he noticed that he had pissed himself. Broken, defeated and smelling like onion tanglers, urine and shame Charlie stumbled through the self opening door of his cube. A Camera on the wall, his cubes helper AIs glass eye, whirred as it followed him accross the living cube to the bathroom cube, where another whirring following eye was there to watch him drunkenly take off half his clothes on the floor before giving up and just crawling into the shower and accidentally turning on the cold water. Previous models of cubes only had one eye, but those had been phased out several years ago by cubes with a convenient four eyes, one for each room. Never was a resident outside of the watchful benevolant gaze of his electric caretaker. Without a word it turned up the heat of the water, Charlie was so tired he might fall asleep in it. It watched him cry for an hour, curled up in a ball, shivering in warm water. Then turned it off for him when his skin got too red and wrinkly. It waited until he completed the comforting human ritual of drying off, combing his hair, brushing his teeth and getting dressed again to speak,

"Charlie. You have been delinquent on your payments to Zucctech for. Three. Months. If you do not make a minimum payment of. 500 Ameros. By the end of the month corporate police will act." He walked through the door into his sleeping cube and dug his face into a reclaimed ocean plastic fiber pillow. His cube spoke, "Charlie. Might I suggest plasma merchants in your area?"
"Nooooo." He moaned through the plastic.

"Might I suggest organ harvesters in your area?" He got up and walked a few steps over to his entertainment module. He needed a distraction. News articles. Cat videos. Anything. "Might I suggest organ-" "No." He powered on the module. Besides the power button it had no keyboard, no mouse, trackpad or any other means of user input. Just a box with a bulb at the top that projected a three dimensional hologram into the air. The spinning letters "ZT." "Alexa. Bring up Reddit dot com." Reddit wasnt part of the default subscription package. It cost an extra 5 ameros a month to subscribe but it was worth it. Already he was laughing at imagemacros of the latest cutting edge memes. It would be weeks until they were allowed on Facebook.

It wasnt long until even this dim flickering flame of joy in his miserable hellish existence was snuffed out, by a commercial break. He had hit his meme limit. Now it was 10 minutes of interactive advertisement. Ronald McDonald tells him to throw pickles on a soyburger. He flailed his hands in the air like a complete jackass and the cube AI picked up on it and sent digitally rendered 3d pickles flying. Hes given a dozen similiar demeaning short menial tasks to complete. Frying french fries, filling drinks, mopping floors, cleaning liposuction tubes. All while Ronald orders him and congratulates him. At the end he has to shout at the top of his lungs,
"McDonalds!"

To which the grotesque clown mascott responds in a patronizing tone, "WHAT? I CANT HEEEARRRR YOUUUUU-"

"MCDONALDS!"

The holograph leans in towards him and tilts his ear. "I STILL CANT HEAAAARRRR-"

He clenched his fists and screamed, "MCDONALDS! MCDONALDS! MCDONALDS! MCDONALDS!"

"Great Job! If you think youve got what it takes to be a member of the MickyDees Family. Apply at-"

Now he couldnt ignore his situation. Should he ge a second job? No. Moonlighting was strictly verboten by Panera Bread Holding Co. He could lose the job he still had. The Organ Bank maybe? He pulled up his shirt and felt the long jagged scar where the Organ Bank surgeon had taken a Kidney to make up a missed payment on his cube. They were too cheap for cellular reconstruction. Maybe they could take a lung? No. He couldnt afford to walk any slower during his daily commute. He hung his head and accepted that he would have to go a few weeks without any plasma. He had made it to work on time, just barely, without any before. He knew he could do it. But then he had the money from his job and the plasma, would just the plasma be enough to pay all his loans?

Another AD came up, but this time with no sounds, no prompts, no bells and whistles. Just a single still hyperlinked 2D image that read:

$$$ EARN CASH ONLINE! $$$

$$$ BE YOUR OWN BOSS! $$$

It worked for the Turner diaries.

Poltard virgins are my main audience. Ive cyncially designed this to appeal to isolated weirdos.

bump to take my time and read it and also because it seems good
but a bit too exaggerated. calm ur tits

late reply. seems like a good satire

Genuinely funny. Don't see it getting published.

Dont plan on it. Im going to serialize it via patreon.

Please give detailed critique