What? No credit? That’s impossible. I finished that entire Stack today, it was a mess! That should have been worth a lot! At least something!

  She stood in front of the Dispenser in shock. How?

  Someone’s shoulder bumped into her, hard and she barely managed to catch herself from faceplanting into the machine. She whirled.

  “Tenney…” she hissed. He had been right, he was now an Assistant Supervisor.

  “You’ve been doing it! You… you modified my reports! No. You hacked my avatar! You’ve been stealing my Code!”

  He pulled out a juicy slab of Syntho-Steak from a neighboring Dispenser, the line had cleared. No one wanted to get in the way of a petty new Assistant Supervisor. She hated herself for it but her mouth watered despite the anger coursing through her.

  “Is there a problem?” she heard a Security Personnel ask. She whirled toward the voice and her heart dropped. He wasn’t talking to her.

  “Sir?”

  Tenney’s smile could barely contain itself, “No, nothing much. Just an Employee unsatisfied with her subpar work.” He turned away with his giggling entourage.

  “Bas-”

  The warning look from the Security Personnel stopped her short. She looked around to a few angry glares from those waiting behind her to get their own food. Others sat nearby, idly eating their food. Their blank stares were following her.

  Bastard.

  “Employee #3,357,921, if you’d move so other Employees can access the Dispenser… Thank you.”

  Her stomach grumbled as she stomped back to her Pod.

  It had been a little over a year since he’d been promoted and even he’d been run near ragged for most of it. These people were idiots, it was honestly a surprise that some of these Supervisors were even capable of getting into their rigs. So when someone who knew how to actually work with the Code appeared, like him, all the legacy and abandoned projects were dumped on his lap to update and fix. Of course they were all massively behind schedule too. Probably the real reason I got Promo’d.

  His face twisted. They were just riding on the coat-tails of what his great-grandfather had built before.

  He breathed out. Well, whatever. At least it came with a few perks. The new rigs were more responsive and more comfortable too, by far. He didn’t know the Corporation even made rigs with this much cushion in them. They also had a feature that could have him half in the CodeSea and half out in ‘MeatSpace’ as Free called it. It had taken some getting used to.

  He had just made it past his fourth Quarterly Review and now that he’d made it past his first year as Supervisor, he’d be able to relax a bit. He was still a Junior, so not a lot, but more than he had been. He hadn’t had any contact with Free since his Promotion. Now that he was thinking about Free, he pulled up her latest Quarterly on his tablet.

  He couldn’t help but chuckle inwardly, that was actually pretty accurate. He smiled, they got your number Free.

  Quality of Work for Quarterly Review Period 81: Inconsistent. Occasionally brilliant solutions are overshadowed by slow overall pace and non-CorporationCode Compliant Modifications and work that often requires additional revision. Unable or Unwilling to Follow CorporateCode standards. Has submitted 0 (ZERO) Code for the last 2 Periods.

  Quarterly Period 81 Employee Review: #3,357,921 shows little incentive to apply focus to her work. Despite having a low real-rate of rejected Code, that is heavily outweighed by poor production levels, poor general performance, and, worst of all, she seems to distract other Employees from their work on a near-constantly reported basis.

  Assistant Supervisor Notes: Although she does score above average on internal team rankings that cannot make up for her lack of Corporate Spirit, as well as her unwillingness and inability to work on a team. Being incapable of proper teamwork, she is limited to working on projects as an individual and cannot be used for group-Code projects which limits her usefulness.

  Supervisor Notes: Based on Reviews from adjacent Employees as well as Assistant Supervisors, Supervisor #[XXXX] recommends Liquidation to the Supervisor Overseer Group.

  Supervisor Overseer Group G-14: Liquidation has been scheduled for 0200 on T-20 from date of receipt.

  Three sucked in a breath. He scrambled to the top of the document to check the date it was logged. Shit. That’s the end of next week, 8-shifts. They really did have her number.

  “Three? You alright over there? Need help with that Stack? It’s supposed to be a real mindmelter.”

  He cleared his throat and tore his eyes away from the report, “No no, it’s not too bad, it’s all good. Just hit a hiccup.”

  “Well, you’re a wizard. if you couldn’t solve it we might have a problem.”

  He plastered a smile on his face to return the compliment, “Nah that’s why you’re here Jane, you’d breeze through this thing.”

  Free hasn’t eaten in over 12 shifts?

  T-7 to Employee #3,357,921’s Liquidation:

  Free put herself in a corner out of sight of anyone and everyone. She pet a data-packet fish and pretended it was the real thing. She was hungry and she was tired. She didn’t even care to mouth back when Tenney made fun of her anymore. A chime unlike any she had ever heard before sounded inside her skull. A small ancient-looking text-screen popped up in front of her eyes.

  UnKnown: You going to live up to your name one of these days?

  Free: Who’re you?

  UnKnown: I can’t believe you’ve forgotten about me so easily!

  Free: Oh. It’s you.

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  He had to have known how she had been doing.

  Three: I thought you’d be happier to hear from me. Seriously though, what’s going on? You haven’t been writing any Code?

  Free: I have been…

  Three: That’s not what your Employee Review said…

  Free slammed her hand into the deck then looked sheepishly around.

  Free: I have been, I swear. Tenney is trying to run me out.

  Three: So you haven’t eaten in over 12 shifts?

  Free: No…

  She was starting to tear up, she was so hungry and it just wasn’t fair. Corpo-Life sucked enough as it was but hearing from Three had reminded her that she had no friends as well as no food.

  Three: You know they don’t ‘run out’ people here right?

  Three: Free?

  Free: Yeah… yeah I know.

  Three: Well I’m sorry I missed it but I updated your rig’s logs. I’m going to send you a fix, just stitch it into any old data-packet and it should be good for some credit.

  Free: Are they… going to liquidate me?

  Three was silent for a long time.

  Three: ...Yeah Free. There’s nothing I can do, the decision was made above me. Way above.

  Free couldn’t think of anything to say, the impact was lessened by the empty hollow digging into her gut.

  Three: Free, do you still have what I gave you?

  Free: The golde…? Yeah…

  Three: Well? Time to make the run for the Hi-Pri Personnel Stack yeah?

  She couldn’t help but snort a soft laugh.

  Free: Hi-Pri? Slang sounds so bad on you lol.

  Three: I sound hip, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Btw who says ‘lol’ nowadays anyway?

  Free: Me! :^P

  Three: So you’re feeling better?

  Free: Yeah, thanks Three.

  Three: Alright I gotta go. Check your screen I sent a fix, it should be enough for a BugBurg at least. Talk later!

  Free: Hey Three?

  Three: Yeah?

  Free: Tenney’s just going to override access on my rig and steal my work again.

  Three: Nah he will be too busy, I asked him to provide additional technical documentation for his fixes, you never bother putting those in half the time anyways.

  Free: LOOOOOOOOL

  User Three Disconnected.

  Free closed the small chat screen. She put the Code Three sent into the fish she had been petting and sent it out into the CodeSea. She laid her head against the cool metal of the platform until the end of her shift.

  Tenney did, in fact, have time to screw her over. Again. That or one of his little drones did. The Complaint they filed this time had put her in a Video-Training Cell for most of her off-time. They had been considerate enough to have filed complaints for the most time-consuming of the Vid-Jail lessons. By the time she got out of there, there would have only been ‘mysterious grains’ left, that was if the Caf hadn’t already been closed for over an hour by the time she finished. It stripped her of the good mood that Three’s chat had put her in and sunk her even lower for good measure.

  She crawled into bed and felt a wet spot. She was going to cry if someone had done something to her sheets. She looked and saw a serving of ‘mysterious grains’ that had been placed between two plates. She must have knocked them apart when she got in. She hated mysterious grains.

  Who put these here? They probably did something to them.

  She picked up the plates about to bring them to the trash and saw them arranged in a smiley face.

  “You dork.”

  She couldn’t help the tears as she shoveled the salty, terrible-tasting grains into her mouth.

  T-6 to Employee #3,357,921’s Liquidation:

  Three: Feeling better?

  Free: Yeah… thanks for the food last night.

  Three: ...What are you talking about?

  Free: Wai- Seriously that wasn’t you? Oh God everyone else hates me, they probably rubbed themselves all over the grains! Dx

  Three: ;)

  Free: …DDORK AND A JERK! Can’t believe an idiot like you made me cry over mysterious grains.

  Three: LOL sorry I couldn’t help it. Well don’t cry too hard, you’ll like tonight’s dish. You still working on your stuff?

  Free: Some, but Tenney or one of his drones had me in Video-Training for hours yesterday.

  Three: Hmmm, that would probably get us both in trouble if I intervened. You know, I had to go there myself one time.

  Free: Impossible. You? Mr. Perfect?

  Three: I know I know, we all have our sordid pasts. Looks like you’re scheduled again tonight. Use this when you’re in there.

  A Supervisor-level encrypted partition opened on her screen followed by a file.

  Free: What’s this?

  Three: See for yourself when you’re in Vid-Jail.

  Free: You know I’m not sure how I feel about this new slang-using Three.

  Three: Me either, honestly it feels like I’m typing in a foreign language.

  Free: lol well yeah, I think you might explode if you had to say the words in MeatSpace.

  Three: So show me what you’re working on, don’t worry this partition will expire after the session.

  Free: alright…

  She pulled up her CustomCode.

  Three: Yikes, this whole section is basically gibberish. What did you write this in?

  Free: K for Kustom and that part is completely viable

  Attachment: ThankYouVeryMuch.vid

  Three opened the ancient video format, it showed her sticking her tongue out and flipping him her middle finger, then smiling.

  Three: If this actually compiles I will buy you the biggest Syntho-Steak I can get in the Supervisor Caf.

  Free: Deal. That’s easy steak. Heads up, it better be as big as the plate because that section is immaculate. I am having trouble on this section though and its interactions with the Corpo-API…

  Three: You’re not just connecting it, you’re trying to build your own Corporate-API into this part? Oh… that’s what you’re trying to do. No no no! I thought I taught you better.

  She smiled as she watched Three modify the Code in front of her eyes, he really was a wiz with the Corpo stuff.

  She sat in Vid-Jail. Again. It was a small room, smaller than her Pod. You sat in there and plugged in your tablet as the screen in front of you walked you through the Training Program of whatever Corporate Violation you had committed. Tonight’s was “CorporationCode and You. How to Handle CorporateCode Modifications Series 14. Volume 84 - Section 3: Basic Database Compliance and You.”

  She rolled her eyes with a loud groan and the lights in the booth turned red. She groaned again inwardly as she pressed ‘start’ and looked at the Monitor. These were brutal, your eyes had to either be on your tablet’s screen or on the Vid-Jail’s Monitor. Worst of all, it was interactive. She was convinced that this was the way the Corp got Employees to do extra free work.

  Then it hit her like a bolt, Three’s program. She opened the executable that Three had sent and her current workspace cloned and isolated itself in a partition. She looked up at the Monitor, it didn’t detect any changes in her tablet. Damn. Nice Three. She almost wished she had been paying more attention to CorpoCode stuff at this rate. A line blinked for her to input something.

  She wrote the name of the training program and the program started running its own Code. She looked up at the Video Screen. It was answering the questions on its own. Not too fast, not too slow.

  She was smiling as she pulled up her own project and opened a console. This place was kind of cozy when you didn’t have to do the work.

  When she crawled into her bed that night she did it carefully so as to not disturb the plate she suspected was resting there.

  Tatos! She could have almost cried in joy. There were a ton of them on the plate. There was also some kind of thick, congealed liquid in the corner arranged in a smiley face. She dipped a finger into it and her head shot back as it zapped her brain. She tried it with a tater and melted, savoring each bite as she chewed the same piece over and over again.