38 Monster (1/2)
”How one person should solve a problem is completely different from how one million people should solve a problem.”
- The Darkness
----------------
1 Day Later
----------------
Wake.Captain Industry.Sleep.Shower, fuck, eat.Hit the club.
It's pandemonium.I've never seen it this busy.I grab a brew and a joint.They go quickly.I get more.
Omicron comes downstairs.A man and a woman are with him.He kisses both passionately.They leave.
”The fuck?”asks Brian.”When did you become Dick Lightning?I was with you all night.How the fuck did you pick up two people without me noticing?”
Omicron smiles.Shrugs.”They're friends from work.”He grabs utensils and a napkin, heads out to the patio.A pizza drone follows him.So do I.
Omicron wipes off a table and two chairs.I lay out a couple brew.Pizzabot serves a few slices.THWACK!!It's hit by a paintball.Loses a rotor.Slams off a wall, nearly hits us, and barely gets back inside.
We look over at the sidewalk.There's a heavy woman with a paintball gun.She's covered in pizza guts.She stares at us, then slumps and shuffles off.She pulls a wad of cheese from her hair and eats it.
Damn.
We eat and drink quietly.Giving the death of normalcy a moment of silence.Eventually, I have to ask.
”Dick Lightning, eh?”
He nods.”Not sure if I like that or not.It's derogatory, but powerful.”
I grunt.”He called me Pussy Hawk once.I was also ambivalent.”
”Ha!Dick Lightning and Pussy Hawk.We should become vigilantes.”
I laugh.What does he think we do here?
”But yeah, there's a place on the Optimal Job application for your greatest sexual fantasy.I filled it out, and randos started showing up to do it with me.”He shrugs.”I guess it's a dating service.Or magic.I haven't really questioned it.”
”Fair enough.”
He's describing a pretty slick system.Most people never tell anyone their sexual fantasies.It's the number one reason they stay fantasies.Shame really.97% of people just want one of the big seven fantasies.There's a good chance that any given partner is down to clown.Communication is so important.
Looks like the Optimals are subcontracting the shitty parts of being human.No more rejection.No more boredom.No more worrying about money.Or the future.All you need to do is stare at your phone.It's like they've monetized social anxiety.Goddamn.That's how we could've saved the club.So obvious in retrospect.
Fuck.The Optimal Job Experiment is far more sophisticated than Old Money's usual bribery and intimidation.It's more like the schemes The Darkness used to pull.The Universal Chatbot.Project Octopus.Goofy little ideas that ”inexplicably” took off and destroyed massive chunks of Old Money's power base.Weaponized self perpetuating madness.