“Hey Tenney, you hanging in there?” Three peeked his head into the Vid-Jail.

  Tenney’s back was still killing him, he glowered at Three, “You!” He looked around in a panic, “You! Honored Supervisor!”

  “Relax Ten, it’s just you and me, I wanted to see how you’re doing.”

  “You…” He needed to know, “You did that, didn’t you?”

  Three stared at him for long moments. “No Tenney… I see you don’t get it. You thought you’d have more freedom when you reached Assistant Supervisor huh?”

  Tenney squinted his eyes but finally nodded.

  “Well sorry, but you couldn’t be more wrong. You thought you’d have more freedom the higher you go but it’s the opposite. I know you think I called you because of Three but I wasn’t even the one who summoned it, your Assistant Supe file was autoflagged and then that’s when I saw what you were doing.”

  “Autoflagged… I don’t believe you. Can’t you get in trouble for interrupting one of these?”

  “I could actually get myself one of those Probationary-Reprimands if I’m found talking to you here, you’d also probably get another one for daring to report on a Supervisor as well if I’m being honest.”

  Tenney looked to close the door, “Don’t worry this is offline, I’ve scheduled maintenance on this unit.”

  It was beyond rare to have an informal conversation with a Supervisor, it just didn’t happen. So, he had to ask, “So you didn’t get me in trouble because of Free?”

  Three shook his head, “Come on you remember, ‘Three and Ten’, you and I go way back.”

  “You’re telling me you were ok with me bullying Free?”

  His eyes hardened, “You know I like her and you know I like you. You were both my friends. I didn’t even know you were fighting. I’m not going to lie I didn’t like seeing how much you were messing with her but I would have just talked to you about it, not brought you into something as dangerous as a Supervisor Review.”

  “Yeah, she’s just. She just pisses me off, she’s so arrogant, she thinks she’s better than everyone else and she doesn’t even write that much Code! I don’t know why you were even friends with her.”

  “She was on my team, now she’s not. Do you think I visit her like I am with you? Seriously?”

  Tenney looked at the Video-Training Monitor, it read “Lesson Paused, Supervisor Maintenance.”

  Well, he did kind of feel silly. He smiled at Three. Three smiled back then his face turned serious once again.

  “I’m serious though Ten. Those things aren’t a joke. I’m only a Junior Supervisor, I went out on a limb for you today so don’t screw me over. If your Code isn’t clean and by the CorporateBook, they won’t hesitate to liquidate you and I’ll be put through a Review Panel just for trying to protect you back there. You have to be smarter about this stuff.”

  Tenney looked depressed, Three couldn’t help but try to cheer him up, “Listen, I’m counting on you. I’m not supposed to tell you this but if you make it past your Fourth Quarterly Review you’ll be able to live the high-life, at least a little bit. It’s not going to be easy but if you keep messing around with other Employees then you’re not going to make it.”

  Give him fear and give him a goal, at least that’s what Grandpa used to say.

  Tenney’s gaze solidified, “Alright. Thanks, Three. I thought you were trying to screw me there for a minute.”

  “Come on Ten. You know how good I am, I’d have a million other ways to do that if I wanted to. Do you remember Lee?”

  He didn’t know why Three brought up Lee, “Didn’t he fry in an accide…”

  Tenney looked into Three’s eyes, he had said it with a smile so it sounded like he was joking, but he wasn’t. Not at all and Tenney knew that. Three kind of scared Tenney, if he was being honest.

  “Yeah it was tragic, who could have seen the platform's antivirals reacting so strongly to just a few lines of his Code. Alright, anyways I’ll let you get back to it,” Three checked his tablet after a painful chime sounded out, “Ah! I just got dinged for taking too long to fix the Vid-Jail! I gotta go.”

  “Th… thanks Three.”

  “No problem Ten.”

  Three closed the Pod’s door and the Lesson resumed.

  Vid-Jail? Three doesn’t use slang like that…

  Tenney’s mouth turned slightly downwards as he resumed his Video-Training Lesson. He needed to think.

  She peeled herself out of the Vid-Jail, her head was pounding. She clutched either side of her skull to try and keep the information from leaking out. That was proving difficult as her brain had already been struggling with Three’s earlier lesson. Now that it was all in there she had to organize the crush of data from the double-stacked lesson. The lesson from Three had been brutal, they always were whenever he tricked her into a lesson. Even worse, his program had refused to start up in Vid-Jail. The lesson inside had been a continuation of their time on the platform.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Still, she guessed it was good to know and she did learn a lot from it. She absolutely had been underestimating the CodeSea. Even she could begrudgingly admit that it was top-tier stuff.

  She still groaned, I’d still rather get liquidated early than have to go through that again.

  There was Tenney getting out of a Pod. She couldn’t help herself.

  “Why were you in Vid-Jail?” She cracked a wide smile, “They have you brushing up on Baby’s First Code again?”

  Tenney looked taken aback by her zinger. She smiled as he frowned and walked away without a word.

  Nothing to say, eh?

  It felt good to get one over on him.

  T-4 to Employee #3,357,921’s Liquidation

  “I knew it! Three was gunning for me!”

  “Didn’t you say that he helped you out in the Review?”

  “Well yes… but still! I’m going to get him back!”

  “Do… do you think that’s a good idea? You remember what happened when Gregor tried messing with Three, don’t you?”

  “He didn’t have anything to do with Gregor? It was Lee that he squared with.”

  “Don’t you remember? Gregor kept failing his submissions no matter how many times he checked and resubmitted it? I remember seeing Three’s smile… it was scary, I saw his eyes afterwards.”

  “Hey are you guys talking about ‘Yawn?’?”

  Jules shook her head, “No, I was talking about Gregor. You know, the one that Three… messed with.”

  Davi shook his head, “No no, it was Yawn that he got transferred onto that other rig right before it came under attack.”

  “What happened to that other rig?”

  Davi shook his head, “I don’t think anyone else got fried on that, they said the mask that the virus used was top-tier.”

  Jules turned back to Tenney and saw his head in his hands, she rubbed his back, “Tenney just forget about Three and Free. She’ll be gone soon anyways.”

  Davi laughed, “Seriously Tenney? You were going to try and mess with Three?!”

  Tenney’s eyes were wide as Jules loudly shushed him.

  Three: Heeeyyyyyyyy, how’s that big brain of yours? Still smarting from all that knowledge I dropped on you?

  Free: Brutal! I did learn a lot though.

  Free: I overheard something from Tenney, apparently he’s going to try and mess with you.

  Three: LOL. Yawn…

  Three: Alright Free I gotta go, do you need me to answer any questions before I do?

  Free: No, I think I got it today, thanks Three.

  Three: No problem :P just close the partition before you log.

  Free read over the conversation again like she normally did and paused at ‘Yawn.’ Free wasn’t sure if Three was talking about Yawn or if he was ‘yawning’. She had overheard more than just that. Three seemed so… by the book, it was uncomfortable thinking of him as anything else. She convinced herself that the others were just talking rubbish now that Three was Mr. Supervisor.

  She continued her work in the partition Three had set up. She logged, sat in Vid-Jail again. Did Corpo-Evil have no boundaries? She figured they could have excused her from Vid-Jail if they were going to liquidate her anyways. Bureaucracy knows no bounds. She probably had Vid-Jail stored up for weeks at this point.

  This night was… a BugBurg? Her face dropped until she bit into it. It wasn’t just a BugBurg, it was bug and synthsteak mixed together with some sort of tart-sweet sauce on it.

  Glorious. Absolutely Glorious. It made Vid-Jail all worth it.

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

  Three: Those BugBurgs are something else, yeah?

  Free: I ate the bun!

  Three: A ringing endorsement, I will give your compliments to the chef.

  Free: I wonder what I’ll get tonight… ;)

  Three: Oh man, I’m glad I didn’t start doing this earlier otherwise I’d have been dropping those off for months!

  She knew Three hadn’t meant anything by it but all that did was send a spike of anxiety into her. She was getting liquidated. It had been easy to not think about it before but it was coming. Coming for her. Soon. She had two more days and then she’d get one shot at this. She felt like she was racing to the edge of the abyss. Off the platform, to where? It was all uncharted waters as far as she knew. Maybe Three knew more. He’d tell her, wouldn’t he?

  Three: You still there Free?

  Free: Ah yeah, sorry just… I’m just. I don’t know.

  Three: Feeling the pressure yeah? I don’t blame you Free. It’s alright, I would be even more nervous.

  Free: Yeah?

  Three: Yeah. Seriously I would.

  He knew Free, she always worked better under pressure. Well, the right kind of pressure.

  Three: Don’t worry I’ll have you covered when you make the run.

  Free: What’s out there Three?

  Three: …show me your progress first. If you’re not ready then no amount of knowing will do you any good.

  Free: Well maybe I need to know what to prepare for?

  That’s what Three had been doing, helping her build tools that would help her. He knew Free, she was better thinking on her feet, too much information and she’d overfocus on that.

  He knew of things she wasn’t ready for, couldn’t ever be ready for, hopefully she wouldn’t run into any of them. That had to be good enough.

  Three: I will tell you before you go. We have to get to work.

  Free paused then nodded to herself.

  Free had somehow lucked out, her Vid-Jail session was a short one. She wandered into the Caf and looked inside it. She debated getting something to eat but at the thought of what Three would be dropping off she darted to her Pod to look for what was there.She waited and waited. Then waited some more as other Employees drudged their way to their Pods. Eventually the automatic lights in the room clicked off. Still nothing.

  Her stomach gurgled as she tried to go to sleep. Tossing and turning, her stomach empty and her mind full of worst-case scenarios she pulled out her tablet and started to work.