SL Chapter 2 Work

The moment Eric made it down the flight of stairs and into the dark street, he gazed upwards into the sky and sighed. How he wished he could lay eyes upon the sky of his world. This was the problem with progress. Only those who were well off had the privilege of owning a piece of land that allowed view of the sky, unless of course you lived in those desolate regions, where you could see the sky all you wanted.

He wanted to one day also be able to see the clear skies instead of always having to look at the lights at the bottom of the floating construct above.

After a sigh, he turned his attention back towards the street before him only to pause as his eyes fell upon a dog, one which had raised its leg in manner where it was about to pee upon the foundations of his apartment complex.

The lights from the street lamps highlighted its gaudy coloring, a result of its owner having been extatic to jump upon the fad of genetic editing. There were spots of orange and blue on an otherwise white coat. His eyes narrowed down at the mutt, with it too having paused to gaze up at him.

"It looks like this isn't your lucky day, huh, Mismatch." he said before taking a single leap towards it only for it to scurry away with its tail between its legs. He didn't chase after it, yet he felt satisfaction in the knowledge that this time, he had come out on top, preventing it from performing its duties this morning. It didn't matter whether it returned when he was at work. All that mattered was the fact that he had stopped it this morning. There were mornings were it beat him to the punch, but today, he had come out the winner. This, was one of the few ways he could entertain himself.

After that small Interlude, he started his trek towards work, feeling his feet sinking minutely with each step he took. Each step added a single credit to his account. Someone had proposed that the citizens be paid more, but that had been vetoed. Eric was happy that they were even paid at all. The tiles beneath his feet captured the mechanical energy created upon stepping on them, converting it into electrical energy that powered the critical areas of the city. There were many such contraptions that made it so no one could truly fail to survive in the city.

He winced as an autonomous vehicle passed by him, one with an arm that was picking up any piece of trash upon the road. It's sound was horrendous, a reason it was only used in this part of the city. It was one of the glaring signs that there was no true equality in the world. Those who lived in well off areas were the ones who got access to the newer models, while these old things were dumped here. Even though they were all under the purview of the city's AI system, someone had still found a way to embezzle the funds of the people. Eric gave it one last glance before continuing on his journey. There was no point in deeply delving down that rabbit hole.

After a few minutes of walking, Eric arrived at his workplace, right before the building itself. It was a dark thing that glinted in the multitude of lights from other things in the vicinity. Like trees in a forest, the skyscrapers were close together, making it so that his workplace was also squeezed in the middle of two others on the street. Upon a pedestal in the middle of the main entrance stood a hologram. One in the likeness of his boss. A man with a large face, chiseled jawline, chocolate colored skin, blue eyes, and blonde hair. It was a gaudy look that lacked charm. Everyone knew that, and he had heard one of the managers had even insulted the man to his face only to vanish the next day, which prompted everyone to avoid bringing up that particular topic anywhere, since you could never know when you were being spied on.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

But, it was still weird that the man, in order to satisfy his vanity, had opted to place his Visage right infront of the building, as if wanting to declare to the world that he was rich.

Before he could enter through the energy fields that doubled as security measures, a hover car, one sleek in nature and of a vibrant red color, stopped just outside the building. Through the grapevine, Eric had heard that it was the newest iteration of the vehicle, meaning that it's pricing had to be exorbitant enough that he couldn't even dream of owning it in his current financial state.

The door floated upwards and a figure stepped out, one who almost caused Eric to grind his teeth with his expression turning ugly, yet, he reigned it in. After those dark feelings were curbed, puzzlement was birthed within him.

Senney wasn't a person of this hour. You could even say that he was a man of noon, when the day was already in its later half. He was a spoilt rich kid who only got a cushy position within the company because of his father, the CEO.

He had the same exact features as his father except that he was thin and lean. Jewel studded earpins were within his ears, coupled with a glittering chain around his neck. A wine red suit was loosely draped around his shoulders, exposing the white shirt beneath, which wasn't buttoned at the collar.

Eric wasn't the only one who was staring at the man, as many other worker bees like him, who were in the middle of arriving, had stopped, or were walking while gazing at him.

A grin, one which radiated smug satisfaction lit up his features before he lazily sauntered over to the main entrance.

When he passed by him, Eric felt a faint shift, as if there was something strange and dangerous about him, causing his skin to break out in goosebumps, a sensation that only abated when the man vanished into the building.

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Arriving within the huge room that served as his workplace, coupled with another thousand worker drones like him, he hurried over to his station. The room was a uniform white that was glowing, eliminating the need for lighting fixtures of any sort. Though, that light wasn't glaring to the eye, but gentle.

Thousands of personal cubicles filled this entire floor of the building, with the conference and meeting rooms taking up another floor. The department heads, middle managers and others like team leaders, were mostly located in another floor entirely to themselves, using AIs as their proxies if they wanted anything done, or sent to them.

After reaching his own cubicle, he hung his coat on the back of his seat before sitting down and gazing at the holographic screen that had materialized before him.

What was his job? Programming. AI could do many tasks. It was simply that convenient. Yet, there was something missing within it, something only a human could possess, and it couldn't. The human touch was one that could imbue emotions into things. Take games as an example. Any AI could program characters, the map, the terrain, but there were always some things that couldn't resonate with humans. Like character speeches in cinematic scenes, character reactions to some things they could see, well, mostly the NPCs. For the avatars, they were made to mimic every facial expression a character could think of.

It was grueling work that required social and empathic skills to pull off. Sometimes you could submit an animation with the reaction you think to be suitable, only for your superior to ask you to redo the whole thing, and most of the times, it wasn't in a nice, smiley way.

A few hours into his work, familiar humming entered his ears, getting louder with each second. The person was surely coming his way, but Eric had gotten to a part where he didn't want any distractions, so he continued working his floating keyboard. These were one of those times he wished these people could provide a neural interface, yet this company, as he had come to learn, loved to skim everything off their budgets.

"Eric, breakfast time has arrived. Why are you still glued to your damn chair?" a man's voice entered his ears.

"Can't you be any quieter, Jerry? I am trying to finish this."

"Come on! I have something juicy that's burning a hole within my throat! If I don't reveal it to you, I might go nuclear!"

"Well... I am pretty sure you can survive for a few more seconds then, considering you are up and jumping around." commented Eric, eyes still glued to his screen.

"Man! You are a hard person to befriend."

"I wouldn't call us friends at this point in time. More like... You are a service provider to me. One who delivers news to me." chuckled Eric at his own joke.