How do you avoid danger and make a decent living? Before the super stores, there were mom and pop shops. They were called this because they tended to be owned by one person. Or perhaps they were family-owned. It might have been tough to work all the hours god gave you but it was a living.

Then came the mega corporations. Suddenly it was cheaper to buy everything from a giant store and the smaller stores were edged out. Nowadays you were considered lucky if your job did not cost you more than you made.

I looked over the terms of my employment and the records of my predecessor's notes. It looked like you were charged for breathing as well as using the toilet. Food water and security charges came to just above the annual salary.

I looked up security charges. They charged you for the brainwashing you were expected to get. I looked at the options the basic package was neural torture and lasted three days.

An image of a crying man appeared on my screen. He screamed as another male put an electric cattle prod against his testicles and pushed the button. The next image was of the same man being strapped into a chair screaming "I want the premium package. I Want the premium package please"

Right under the advertisement was a button marked premium package. As well as the lobotomy and control chip option. Taking a look at the lobotomy option was a mistake.

It showed a massive blob of a man telling a young man to bend over. The blob gave the camera a thumbs-up. "I have all my employees lobotomized. It allows me to do all sorts of things to them. Plus they are too stupid to count. So you can just pay your employees with Peanuts. It's also helpful at home just ask my wife."

An image of a woman sitting in her own filth appeared on the screen. The blob laughed "So friends marry rich and tell them Rodney sent you." Rodney pulled down his pants and winked at the camera "Excuse me time to show 0012 here why they call me the stud."

Ignoring the control chip advertisement I clicked on the premium package. It turned out the premium package was the offer to put up tv everywhere and run adverts twenty-four hours a day. Basically, you paid to listen to adverts even when you were asleep.

I decided to do a stocktake before I did anything else. It looked like the stores was only for the poorer people. The rich had their own shops. I was here to order and stock some chemicals and clothes as well as nothing.

As i could not find a reason for stores and wanted to stay breathing I needed to make my new job work. Looking at the goods being brought in and sent out I found the reason i was being employed. The rich folks did not want to spend their own money on anything. They had plans to use the space station as a resort location.

Unfortunately for them, word of mouth was everything. After all, no one wanted to go to a place where a young master would come along take a dump in your hat, and then expect you to wear it. The world news channels might be corrupt but even they could not gloss over the incidents of rape.

The stores had been put here at a time when they were expecting thousands of people a week to be arriving and departing. Looking at the old advertisements of people of all races and religions smiling they must have had a unification investor.

I wondered if the stories about the unification fanatics were true. Most people believed they wanted to turn us all into some kind of slaves who all looked alike and thought alike.

A message popped up on my screen and I noticed requests pouring in. It looked like people needed supplies even old supplies urgently. I checked what we had in stock and what was usually sent out and began sending out supplies as well as ordering more. After all if I made a mess it was my first day.

An hour later I had allocated all the supplies and ordered more. My wall changed into what looked like an old 60-inch television and I saw a woman with bags under her eyes looking at me. She glared "So your Tom the new store's man. I would like to thank you. After the purge, we are having trouble getting staff. I am your boss Adam."

Adam who I was wondering about gave me her speech "Keep up the good work give me a couple of days of hard work and I will get you security clearance. That way you can avoid paying the security charges and avoid the nonpremium loyalty courses."

I nodded and got to work. Being useful meant not being thrown out of an airlock. besides I did not have enough credits to get the premium security package. Checking over the spreadsheet and double checking payments. I found a problem It looked like there was a massive drain on the store's funds the single biggest payment where 80000 credits a year was spent on a helper.

I looked at my total budget which was 82000 credits. in other words, I had 2000 credits out of 82000 credits to buy goods. Someone was being paid off and I needed that to stop. If they were stealing all the credits how could I siphon off any?

I had a superpower and it was time to use it. I quickly began to create a program to do my job for me. Half an hour later I was done. Now all I had to do is sit on my ass and plot.

I needed to actually do my job and hope. I would look into reducing the helper payoff. I needed to be careful I did not have any weapons and the locals were not messing around. They had spaced entire families.

My super power began to help me run searches on the computer network and I began to piece the situation together. Of the 80000 credit payments I made, I could maybe reduce that to 65000. I realized I was already thinking about the budget as mine.

Thinking about it there was no reason to steal anything. I could use the budget to pad my living quarters. If someone wanted extra chemicals so their toilets did not stink they could give me some food. The same went for mattresses no one wanted to sleep on a dead man's mattress. They would want new.

All I had to do was do my job and keep those in power happy. I checked the accounts one last time while my robot helper gathered supplies and put them in boxes.

That is when the door to the store broke open and a massive ape-like man armed with a massive gun entered. The barrel of the gun pointed at my head and the man grinned "I just finished eating some children. I am here to explain that your assistant bill is about to increase. "

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I looked at the black hole where the barrel was and shook my head."It's all gone in fact the stores owe 750 credits. If you have a scanner I can show you the books. Wait it is protected by client confidentiality so I can not."

The ape-like man lowered the gun until it was pointing at my waste and grinned "Kid I want some credits either pay up or you lose your family jewels." I knew he meant it and this was going to be a hard situation to get out of so it was time to do something horrible.

"You know there is a way we can both get rich. If you head to the computer supply area and get me the codes for the office supplies I can access them here. There should be 1500 credits left in the account. No need to share with your boss"

The apelike man grinned "Yeah that sounds like a plan. Now remember I am a member of the Davis gang you back out we will kill you." I nodded and waited until he had left before sending a complaint to the Security section.

There was no use reporting the attempted theft. Given more than likely he worked for the local security guards. But I could send in a complaint to the security clearance company. In fact, I could send in multiple complaints. Every complaint would cause the thug to have to go back for training.

Somehow I doubted his boss Davis would pay for the premium package for the thug who had just broken into stores. More than likely he would be strapped to a chair with his balls attached to electrodes. Then they would get him to swear to be a productive member of society and question him about any spare credits he might have.

Had I been a decent person I would have only sent in two complaints. More than likely he had enough credits to bribe the attentants for the first interrogation. Then would come the second without any bribe money left he would get the full treatment.

I had set my mailbox to send in five different complaints. For every complaint that went in another three days of corporate responsibility training would be needed.

Looking up the numbers he only had a fifty percent chance of his balls still being there after the third treatment. After four treatments he would be lucky to be able to speak. Still, it was better to be safe than sorry. I changed the instructions on my mail server. It would resend my complaints as long as ape boy was alive. If the overseer of the security clearance was lazy they would just hit re-educate on their computer again and again.

I was betting if he survived multiple education lessons once the count went past eleven or twelve more permanent measures would be taken. After all, you would not waste torture time on a drooling idiot.

Contacting Adam this time was less than easy I was put on hold for an hour. Adam's face was even more weary than the first time I saw her. She was about to snap but I sent her a recording of the thug from earlier as well as a copy of the complaints I had sent out.

Adam sighed "Davis is a fire user he is fairly powerful so be careful. I will send you a couple of blunderbuss. They are like shotguns only bigger. Remember this is a space station so there are no armour-piercing weapons or fire weapons allowed. Unfortunately, Davis can cook you from the inside out just be looking at you so if he shows up try and ambush him. I will send you the name of a decent tech super. He can build a tank out of a couple of old tins so play nice. Also, you might want to think about living in the stores. While you're in there you are protected against them checking if you completed a responsibility training course."

Looking at Adam I realised it might be time to take a chance. 65000 credits in bribes a year out of my budget hurt. If I paid 500 for a couple of security bots It would save me a huge amount in the long term. "So listen i am going to have to go with a different security consultant "Adam grinned at me "I wish you luck those gangsters are fairly tough. Oh take a good look at the stores. Its possible there are hidden compartments around"

I nodded deciding to spend a lot of the budget that had been earmarked for my assistant pay on the goods it was supposed to be spent on. This was risky the criminals those funds were supposed to go to would not be happy.

Quickly looking around I found a hidden panel on the wall and pressing it I wished I had not. There was a hidden hole with a man's and little girl's clothes and goods. It looked like the previous store manager had built himself a place to escape to if things got too dangerous. The dozen or so small bunk beds showed he had not planned on staying alone. I shut the hidden hole and took a look around for other hidden compartments.

I found a fridge and then a toilet. The toilet was simply a room with a hole in the floor. Deciding I had enough exploring done for one day I put a call in to Tech-man.

Tech-man took a while to answer his projector and while I waited I took a look in the fridge. There were still sandwiches and some bottles marked alcohol 25 percent. Ignoring the booze I began to eat the sandwiches. at least they had tomatoes and some kind of spread. Silently I wondered where the eggs were. Even for a space station, it should have been easy to keep a couple of chickens around.

Tech-man appeared on my screen. He had some kind of prosthetic eye that looked like one of those ones I had seen on Startrek on one of the Borg. Tech-man's was bigger and looked like it could double as a laser gun.

Tech-man grinned as I explained I wanted the work's battle robots along with forcefields and death rays if I could afford them on my budget of a thousand credits. He smirked when I asked about the price for super computers.

"Well for a super computer, you're looking at 5 credits. You want something capable of running every airport and communication on earth we can say 10 credits.

For a android, you would have to pay 50 credits but you would be better off with a couple of gun turrets 5 credits each.

If you need a battledroid because you can not leave the stores that will cost 300 credits for a purpose-built one or 75 for an altered model. "

I nodded "I am also going to need a water purifier and hydro farm unit. The farm units come in fridge form right?" Tech-man shook his head "I can not do it the corporations have bought the right to grow all food on this station."

I winced remembering the fact the recent riots were due to them dumping a lot of grey goo machines.

Tech-man winked at me "All the food machines up here are fine. They spaced those families because they were the wrong religion. The only ones spaced were the Christians. If you were Mormon or Lutheran you got the chance to convert. Otherwise, out the space lock you went. "

Tech-man looked pale for a second "The ex-controller of this place was in one of those fridge Christian groups. As this place uses old American employee contracts there were moral clauses. With the riots on earth, things were tense up here. Things got a lot worse once the genius who dumped all that grey goo into the ocean realized that without it there would be another famine. He tried to buy grain futures.

I swear sometimes I think we deserve to go extinct. You know they promoted the dumb ass who decided to space all those families. They claim being born in space gives us a greater chance of developing a tech-based power.

Well if you want to stop your servants from developing tech-based powers do not have your genes altered and force every maid to sleep with you. "

I thought back to the little girl who had lifted me out of the vat when I got to the space station. Her face had a nasty scar now I knew for certain things were bad up here. Then they were bad all over except in some areas of Germany if you were the right race and Canada if you had the credits. No one knew what China was like but given the fact several billionaires had fled China, I was betting it was doing well. When the wealthy were not allowed do anything they wanted things tended to get better

Tech-man laughed and pulled out a ray gun. "I will throw in this gun when I arrive. Some superpowers work well against robots. You might need a dog. Or at least some kind of bear trap. Low tech has its place as well "

"Get here ASAP and we will see what is left in the budget." I left the fact if I was buying guards I was not planning on paying off the local mafia unsaid.

I decided to check something "What religion should I be to avoid being spaced?" "Athiest is best. Some of the useful atheists survived. The guy who spaced all the Christians was from a Christian sect himself. Crazy if you ask me to attack your own before attacking those like me who are atheists"