I had been Vibe Guarding for a few days now. I noticed that people were walking out and about too hard today. It felt nice. At first. Until they were staring too hard and listening too hard at the same sounds over and over.
I play videogames. It's a sound puzzle they're all trying to solve. I observe them and the sound patterns. I know they're all machines. They know better, I assume. Cause I think they're all trying to steal something or break something.
The first to pop off is a crime. Which is funny. Cause I solve it with ease. First, I be friendly with him. We theorize together that there's a car shop nearby. I realize what's going on eventually. He's listening for a specific sound, like torquing a car tire, so he can go steal it.
I walk over to the fence, past a shipping container. There is a ladder. I laugh and throw it over the fence. Nothing happens at first. For a few days actually. I'll spoil he gets a few free hits on me and I have to buy him a new ladder cause the car shop stole his ladder.
Next, someone is trying to figure out something wrong with the machine. Repo. I theorize based on the sound of sparks it's wet. We go investigate, and find Tifa cutting into a wire with garden sheers while having a seizure. I just watch cause it's funny. Repo actually saves them with a front kick and rips the garden sheers off with minor pain.
Then he lectures him about it, I'm told to walk off, and somehow he isn't fired. He gets Capitalism Debt Jail instead. Ugh.
Now a unique hack happens at this point. I'm walking around the plant, when I decide to smoke my vape to test air hacks again. The wind snatches my vape, and smashes it against a wall. I already knew the hacks were powerful, but still. I smirk. I was in the middle of an enclosed aisle. It'll freak people out at the gunshow. The guns being the hacks. And these hands! Heh heh heehhhh.
Anyway, there's also heat hacks. I decided to test for temperature hacks by walking around with an ice cream sandwich. A vent pulses on, burning me slightly and melting my sandwich immediately. Then an old man chuckles and tells me to fuck myself. I walk by, annoyed. He is lectured for sabotaging a machine to pull that off.
I discover lasers on people's machines. That can be removed manually. They start removing it cause they're paranoid with me. Their aura speaks of death threats so I power walk away. He ends up getting Capitalism Jail too. And he ends up in my work area with me afterwards cause he tried to turn a piece of a machine into a raygun. Lol.
Somebody is bored enough to try something based. It's me. Gun barrel theory land. Can I pressurize oil through a pipe we have lying around? We have oil pumps here for the machines. I try it. It kind of works. But not well. It only flies a few feet. But it's funny. I just press the oil hose into the pipe, by the way.
Alright, so as I'm walking around, a computer screen just turns into Boss Crawford's face. I stare dumbfounded with a sheepish smirk. She glares amusedly at me.
"Get to work." she says sternly.
I get to work. I walk past a steel maintenance fence. Someone booms me with air into it, and it's electrified for some reason. For two seconds. Then someone went to jail for that. And I was fine otherwise. To the point someone cried about me being immortal. I told them to go fuck themselves, I'm based.
What else can a business do? Ice? No, our workplace is too hot. Hmm… we do sound booms sometimes. But I've been through that. I feel like I've been through everything this place has to offer, even the android. And poison. It's got every weapon on the map except for slashers, unless you count some shitty pairs of scissors. And no thrust weapons. Melee weapons are just blunt.
Which is fine to me, I don't want a murder charge anyway. But I like variety. And all the variety lies in advanced builds. Technology wins. The Brutalist, aka ME! I am boring and lame. I get wood and metal sticks. The Hackers and Owners of the Plant get technology. I just live through it cause I'm based.
Unfortunately while I was testing everything, schemes were breaking down in everyone's heads. Which is apparently a pattern of life with this place. Which was sprinkled with the sadness of me not dying ever. Or ever being fired.
"We were supposed to rob the place! Not be workers! I quit!" Dogster says angrily.
That guy walks out the job that shift, along with his bros. I think they were a gang trying to rob the place, then they just give up cause it's too OP. They get arrested robbing a bank next week.
It's amusing watching the criminals break down. They even try to use metaphors and movie apocalypses to trick people into helping them bring back the Stone Age.
It began in the break room. With Tifa and all the usual people in our area in the same break room. At the same time. For some reason. NOT! It was organized except for me. They all followed in after me. To corner our whole shift and argue about technology and the company's abilities to fuck with us.
"We are in a fucking dystopia! We need to disable the security of this place so we can live better!" Tifa says furiously.
"I like it though. The business is perfectly safe as long as you're a good employee." I say happily.
Everyone glares.
"Shut up, douchebag. This is why you're a f@#$%^." Government Dan says angrily.
"Dan, why don't you like it?" I say confusedly.
"Cause it doesn't work with me. I should control it all." Government Dan pouts.
This is the one red flag I ever have about this dude besides well, everything else. He's a Control Freak. He wants it gone or in his control.
"Kick Dan and Jacob out! They're Cops! They want the dystopia!" Felicia yells angrily.
They start screeching and throwing food at us. I just walk out angrily. Government Dan leaves for twenty minutes. Then comes back with his beaters and does beatings. Then Capitalism Slavery happens for two hours over the food they threw at us. Then it was over.
Next, a funny event is spread around the Plant. Apparently someone stole a part from our job successfully. Shocking. Even more shocking? It has a capitalism hack. If it's stolen, it has a wi-fi chip that triggers stop gaps that lock up the part, and ruin your car. So she went to jail after taking it to a mechanic shop.
Finally, a build of forbidden life meets me, another forbidden build. It's Tyler, a man who admits we have a nuclear plant beneath the plant. That he lives on. The conversation is weird and funny.
"So you're saying radioactive energy from the nuclear plant gets us high and gives us too much energy?" I say like a jaded jester.
He nods while staring into the sun with wise determination.
"Yes. It's pure energy. Also I'm a ghost." Tyler says seriously.
"What?" I say, shocked and amused.
He's insane. He wasn't insane. He walks through me. Then explains it.
"I am what your videogames would call an Unsent. Because my soul synergized with nuclear energy. I live as a personality of the nuclear energy of this plant. As long as the nuclear engine is on, I am alive. I even have a physical presence as long as I eat enough iron and meat." Tyler says seriously.
"Why tell me this?" I ask, confused and amused.
"Because now tell me your build. So we can make it work best with the plant." Tyler says intensely.
I laugh amusedly.
"It's gonna sound fucking r@#$%^&. Lucy figured it out by licking my skin. I'm a Car Engine build basically. I build energy with my body. I even did the fly salt hack to perfect the car engine." I say happily.
Fly Salt was bullshit. It's pure vitamin C. To make the acid of your stomach truly conduct electricity, it needs supercharged with vitamin C. I actually didn't need to do Fly Salt, my Mother's mechanic friend is just a funny douche.
Tyler looks at me like I'm dumb and smacks me upside the head.
"Bad, eat oranges instead. Anyway, that's fine. You'll do as is, you're like the CEO." Tyler says nervously.
"HA! Another way I'm like the original CEO. The more ya know!" I say like an amused jester.
I literally do have the same personality as the original CEO here. We are both the Journalist Personality. There's only 13 Personalities, and at best it's mirrored in 4 ways. The first two ways are obvious. Gender. Male and female. The other two is karma. Good and Evil. There is a fifth and sixth answer, which is neutrality in these aspects. Being trans or having a strange morality that is a balance of good and evil, known as Necessary Evil.
This pattern in my mind led to a lot of bullshit things I know about this job. Because I thought about myself as an Owner to an extent. I never tried to own things too hard, but I tried to understand the business as an Owner that doesn't trust anyone. Even his workers and the machines. And I realize eventually.
Everyone is just criminally lazy, that's why there's so many hacks and inventions just to make sure people work. They'd rather rob their boss or stand around, getting paid to do nothing at all. It's a sad fact of life. Especially cause this job at my level is cake. And that's the problem. That's where all the douches are at. Cause too much autonomy with easy work, means more crime can happen. Or it's heaven. If you're willing to workout and do the work.
It's a sad, lame scenario to watch through. Cause it's all just a waste of their time in so many ways. It also just says to me more and more.
"Hey Dan, you think we'll ever get basic income?" I say calmly.
Government Dan glares sternly.
"Quit being lazy, you don't need unemployment. Just do your job." Government Dan says.
It's bullshit in hard worker land. We can't stop working. We can't be too lazy. We need something to ground us at all times. Or else we are screwed. Because people are tracked with work the hardest. A lack of work means a wealth of crimes that can be traced if people snitch. Or else you're leeching off of your loved ones. Either one is douchey. Get a job!
Too much crime means we'll never get basic income. Cause the World of Automation says it! We're taking your jobs! Work hard until your job is obsolete! Then I don't know what to do from there.
Cause my soul craves solving adventures and crimes. Automation says I'll figure out how to make crimes obsolete. And then I'm stuck figuring out a job. Again. That I will stick out and be happy. It's bullshit, everything I want is elitist or an oligarchy. Writing is a joke. You have to have contacts to be famous. Spend money to make money. You need the right parents and the right companies in your parents' pockets to win. Otherwise, fuck off!
Creativity is just out of the question unless I work hard to make money to make the project myself. Cause otherwise, I need to be a spoiled brat of a company to be in a creative company. For twenty minutes. Games don't even take too long to make besides processing the graphics. I can design a game on paper within a day's work. It's not hard. Besides the story. And the dozens and dozens of monster encounters to make.
But Game Design is still fun and essential. I highly recommend Game Design. Cause it teaches you to Game Design Life! Everything is realistic when you consider life is anime land for rich people with the government or access to government level technology.
To the point it's bullshit. The best route is obvious. Be a worker and don't try to be too important. It's how you survive. Why? Because whoever holds the bag too long gets shot at and possibly robbed. And that's if hacker land doesn't happen, and someone just electronically robs your bank. Better hope the money stays insured, kid. Life's fucked in magic land. Especially when it's real enough to hurt!