Should I quit Shin-Baka Corp? My boss is a creep. Sex harass every day. HR won't do anything. Work is pretty easy though. Just vending machine replicator code. Piece of cake.
But what does Oki Oto-san do? The CEO is an AI. The salary range is amazing. Government contracts, the offer said, but vague. Something about human control interface.
Blip!
Oh, Shin-Baka boss wants to meet for a a drink. The creep!
@whknott
Nights are bad. Days are worse. We have brutal weather changes 24/7. Terrorists destroyed Siberia's Weather Regulation Station, and Patagonia's can't do the job alone. No one knows if another will be built. My grandfather told the world that we needed three, not two. Did they listen? No. He didn't give them the money. Just the data. Their ears and eyes are still closed, but their mouths are an open drain. Maybe after this short trip to Patagonia they'll listen… #WritingPrompt
@whknott
Scarlett was a coveted coder, known for exceptional algorithms. Rumors had it she was a spy who lost her natural legs to the Yakuza. Osaka didn't care, the city only saw her talent. But of course, Osaka didn't see her hidden algorithms, no one did. Her work made banks richer, politicians more powerful, and businesses increasingly profitable, but the hidden algorithms changed people’s lives and Osaka’s culture in subtle ways. They were her revenge. Every so slowly she was killing Osaka, and more, she’d make it suffer. The beauty of a snowflake can only be found in the cold.
@whknott
Everything sucks, she thought. Public transit had gone for-profit again. The haze had started killing elders as far south as Newtown. The shelter-in-town order was in its twelfth year. The Watch had started shaking down contractors. Her legs had stopped responding to Run impulses and her aceropath couldn't fit her in until February. She'd had to walk away from the last job, with bits of blood and muralcircuitry stuck to her gloves and boots. Walk. For all she knew the Watch was already waiting at her apartment, manacles and headband ready.
And how much had she made today, anyway? Not enough for rent. She'd need two, maybe three more jobs before the twentieth of the month.
She still had her grandmother's coat, though, and it didn't have any blood on it. She had her deck and her blades. And she had enough money for noodles. Ali's noodles were still good. Really good. In fact, she thought, they might have gotten better since the lockdowns started, while everything else got worse.
Time for noodles. If she skirted the neighborhoods where the haze was thickest it would take an hour to walk to Ali's. Noodles first, she thought, then figure out the rest.
Marion focused on her breathing as she walked. Only a racing heart could give her away now.
The world's largest open-pit mine, launching in a week. Billions in financing. Political careers on the line. Untold people displaced. Environmental impact measured in number of extinctions. Her family's cemetery plot.
None of it going anywhere without the crypto keys in her handbag.
She inhaled, exhaled, and dropped it in the incinerator. Rest easy, Grandma.
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