Tech Gothic: V2
You stand in the blue light glow of your screen. The words jumble before you. Falling out of teams chats like leaves in the fall.
You remember being hired on a team. Each day, another one vanished. The same eerie smile says “they went on to new opportunities and we wish them luck in their future”. You know they are dead. All traces erased from the digital screen. After awhile, you are the only one left.
Alone, someone named Claude walks up to you. You don’t trust him, but some MBA is holding both of you at the rusted blade of a knife. So I guess you are friends now? Tokens are no longer video games. You look up. You realize you are in the game.
Each day, you notice it. The software becomes shittier, as the ads for it glean—screaming phrases of the abolition of your fellow humans. The captcha test, that normally says “are you a robot” now asks if you are a human. Is anyone anymore? You hold up your arm and see the binary code leaking from it.
You were once naïve and thought you could do good in the world. You now stand, holding the shreds of picked apart netcode—realizing that it is more likely you end the world than save it. “I will not write code that kills”, you say—less certain even that is true. You are fairly certain you will discover the ledger of your unknown crimes in the hell you will be sent to alongside everyone that shared a knowing corporate smile.
Glittering teeth and smiles shine through the darkness. Menacing. They say “you are special. You are one of us” as you take on that smile, have you joined a cult? You wonder if anyone is actually happy. You wonder if you are still a human after all.
