Chapter 5. #2
“Is it really cheating if you guys were in a shorttermship?” Chanel made an unimpressed face.
“It was not a shorttermship!” Elyssa yelled out – so loudly, it startled me. “God, will everyone stop saying that?!”
“The entire thing lasted less than three months!”
“Elyssa Jacobs. Chanel Smith.” The door flew open. Arya’s dagger-shooting eyes quickly turned our attention back to our screens.
She slowly closed the door, not keeping her glare off us.
“Hey, Morgan.” I flinched instinctively when I heard my name, then sighed when I recognized John’s voice.
“John.” I forced a smile as I turned to look up at him, ignoring the girls’ prying eyes. I hated when someone drew eyes to me at work.
“Just curious if you, ehm, ever tried that app Gavin mentioned yesterday? Qonexis?” John was leaning on the wall of Joey’s cubicle while completely ignoring him. Joey rolled his eyes to me where John couldn’t see.
I closed my eyes for a moment, praying to whatever God was listening that John would just shut up. The only thing worse than my creepy coworker talking to me in front of everyone was him mentioning Qonexis, of all things. “No, John, I didn’t.”
“Hello, John. How are you doing today?” To my horror, Joey turned his chair to raise his eyebrows at John demonstratively. He thought he was helping me, but I feared he would only make things worse. “What in the name of our good Lord is Qonexis?”
“Gavin says it’s a beta-phase app that lets you talk to AI companions – but more human-like and intelligent than any of those other apps.
Unbound by AI laws. Experimental AGI.” John quickly let go of the wall.
Stepping back, his dull grey eyes remained on me.
It made me uncomfortable. “They are currently looking for freelance testers, but… I don’t know.
I looked up the app in one of those encrypted chat groups, and it looked a bit sketchy to me, so I didn’t sign up.
” He flashed me one of his slimy smiles that made my skin crawl.
“So I was wondering, Morgan, if you tried it… but I guess not.”
“Qonexis? That doesn’t sound sketchy at all – especially coming from Gavin.” Joey looked from one to the other, his eyes narrowing. “Why don’t I try to see what I can find about this great freelance opportunity?”
I sighed out through clenched teeth. “Or maybe we should just leave it. Who cares how Gavin spends his free time?”
But Joey had already turned on his wristware, casting a cautious glance in the direction of Arya’s office. His round face contorted into a frown as he scrolled.
The internet in 2055 didn’t exist in the way it had decades ago.
Public websites and social media channels were replaced by private servers and encrypted, fragmented cyberspaces.
Surveillance capitalism, algorithmic manipulation, corporate data farming, misinformation and cancel culture had slowly made every corner of society lose faith in the public internet as it was.
The infrastructure was still there, but other than governments, corporations and state media, no one used it anymore.
Like an abandoned mall with security cameras and propaganda billboards.
Instead of browsing, people navigated via trusted links, emotional fingerprints, and encrypted keys, with data flowing horizontally rather than top-down.
It made no real difference, of course. Most of us knew our data was never really ours, and online privacy was the biggest myth of our time. The fragmentation of the internet only added another layer to the illusion.
“Ah, found it.” I sighed internally when Joey’s loud voice tore me out from my thoughts, drawing our co-workers’ attention. Of course, he’d found it – he was in many of the same groups I was. His frown deepened as his eyes skimmed the limited information in Qonexis’ job description.
“That is weird,” he mumbled, seemingly more to himself than us.
“They pay in TORQ.” He glanced up. “Why are they paying in TORQ, and not in UCC? I don’t want to make assumptions, but generally speaking, companies that pay in TORQ or ZENQ rather than the global, central cryptocurrency are up to no good. ”
“So?” I rolled my eyes. “Many organizations these days prefer payment in alt tokens, attempting to break free from governments’ and corporations’ control. As if you never order something off the dark web.”
I immediately regretted my words when his face fell. To manage his ADHD, Joey relied on heavy medication that couldn’t be bought at regular pharmacies.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” I said quickly, but Joey’s annoyance seemed already forgotten as his eyes turned back to the screen.
“Oh, wow. It gets weirder.” He raised his eyebrows.
“Not only do they pay in TORQ, but they pay good money, too. 2389 TORQ per hour…” He closed his eyes, doing the math in his head.
“That would be an hourly rate of almost seven hundred dollars, if we measured it against the old monetary system. Strange… even with the batshit inflation we’ve been through, freelancers in tech rarely make over three hundred dollars per hour.
” He lowered his arm, looking from John to me.
“Why are they paying so much if they’re just another botfucker company?
Are they expecting to make so much money just from those bots? ”
“Maybe we can have a drink after work and discuss this together, Morgan?” John’s hopeful gray eyes behind his thick glasses pierced into mine. I almost choked on my spit.
“I’m… busy after work,” I forced out, feeling my face burn. God, there was not a single thing I hated more than being put on the spot like this.
Chanel giggled behind me. Was she making fun of me?
“Tomorrow, maybe?” John raised his eyebrow.
“Jesus Christ on a snowscooter.” Joey spun his chair to face the other guy, now visibly irritated. “Will you take a hint, my dude? She wants nothing to do with you.”
John straightened his posture, briefly caught off guard before his glassy eyes focused back on me. I deliberately turned my gaze away from him, refusing to let him see whatever he was trying to read on me so badly.
“I’ll talk to you another time, Morgan.”
I said nothing. When I finally heard his footsteps walk off, I breathed out a sigh of relief, internally cursing myself.
Why couldn’t I just stand up for myself? But also, why couldn’t the damn guy just leave me alone?
Chanel snickered behind me. “He’s determined.”
Elyssa snorted. “That guy gives me the creeps.”
I let my held breath escape. Maybe they weren’t making fun of me, but of him.
Hands loudly clapped together. Joey yelped, and Chanel cursed softly. My body jerked forward, coffee spilling all over my keyboard.
“Ladies, is this job a tea party to you?!” I didn’t have to look up to know Arya was fuming. “This is your final warning. Next time, I will fire one of you to set an example.”
Muffled excuses around me as we all turned back to our screens. The tension in my body – and worse, the awful sticky coffee on my fingers and sleeves – fogged my head, but I didn’t dare take a bathroom break now.