I awoke the next day and - for the first time in a while, took a proper shower and got dressed. I decided to head over to aiAI's place of business to receive my benefits; all I needed to bring were my credentials, ID, and my debit card. Before going out, I looked at myself in the mirror, having shaven and properly fixed my hair.

Looking striking as ever.

I thought, but I was about as average as it got, and while I donned my usual attire, my eyes looked empty, they lost a certain spark and seemed to miss something, but I had bigger fish to fry. I got out of my house, blinded by the light that wanted to remind me how close I was to becoming a shut-in when I remembered that I hadn't yet brought my ID, I didn't have a driver's license, but I did have the ID I used back in my old job and decided to bring that. I took the bus since it was just near our city, but I had never been to the building before; I never really had a reason to be anyway. I stepped off at the stop and saw it. It was massive. For a company mainly focused on matchmaking, the building was huge. It could pass for a mall from afar and even from outside. I could make out the large workforce it had - from the happily smiling reception, the hard-at-work programmers on the upper floors, or the many meetings the execs were having, it looked like one busy beehive from out here.

They gave me someone to call honey, ha! They really are like bees.

I smirked at that thought and walked inside the building, still wearing said smirk, which seemed to have attracted the reception.

"Good morning, sir. It seems you are in quite a good mood. I assume you are here to inquire about a matchmaking request?"

Girl, that's almost hurtful. From now on, I won't make any more jokes.

"Ah, no, I'm actually here to receive one of my benefits."

"Oh, you must be the one from the original launch? Mr. Bridger Blaithe? Alright, we'll get you that. We just need your ID and debit card."

"Alright, here."

I passed her my cards and decided to make some small talk to kill the silence.

"Busy place you got here, huh."

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"Yep, never a dull day here since there's always so much to do when it comes to people's love lives."

"I see. Wait, I thought you just matched people, and that was it."

"Well, that was quite a long while ago. Nowadays, we try to help blooming couples and guide them to a better relationship."

Hey, then why wasn't I aided? You're getting closer to becoming wasps in my eyes, you know.

As the thought of swatting them and making bzz bzz noises left my head, she perked up.

"If you're wondering when it came to your situation, your wife was the one who told us you were doing fine, so we decided not to intrude."

"Oh, I see. It's fine, really. I wasn't dwelling on it."

I guess in a way she probably did think it was fine. I mean, I sure as hell did too, so no use getting worked up over it now.

"Oh, by the way, how large is the monthly delivery of funds anyway?"

"Ah. It's about the same as an average monthly salary of a blue-collar worker, so enough to sustain you and more."

That's...quite generous, actually,

"So I take it this place is still government-funded then, huh."

"Actually, sir, we're an independent company as of now. The company has grown quite a lot since you were matched all those years ago."

"Well, I can't say I'm not impressed."

I looked at the rest of the workers, going in and out of rooms, steadily tapping away at their PCs as well as the groups of people rushing up and down the elevators to make it to their meetings in time. I smiled a little at the busybodies here and looked back to the receptionist.

"Out of curiosity, how's the pay here?"

She let out a small chuckle "That would be a secret from me, sir, but for the rest of us here, it depends. The janitors and maintenance staff are paid around the same as your benefit, the execs can make thousands of dollars a day, and our programmers make about the same as IT professionals with less taxing hours."

This company is either really generous with its honey when it comes to its bees or I've just ignored the growth of one of the biggest companies in the world.

"Oh, but what about the surveyors?"

She gave me a surprised reaction and followed up with "I'm surprised you know their job title, they have very active jobs moving around and visiting many households and dealing with the troubles of romance, so their pay is about double that of our programmers."

Double? Double?? Did she say...Double?

That word kept resonating in my head over and over again, if I was making around half of the programmers with my benefits, then that meant the girl from before standing around doing nothing the entire time was making four times that.

You've got to be kidding me. Four times that of an already generous amount of cash while I get to travel around the city, no way.

I thought, but there was no way I was throwing away my beliefs and morals regarding this company's artificial relationships just for some cash...

"On second thought."

"Hmm? What is it, sir?"

"I would like to inquire about your third benefit... Regarding becoming a surveyor."