Classless Ascension

This was already Josh's second day here. Well, according to this realm's time. He was still in his boring cubicle filled with the pictures of a dead man as he typed away relentlessly.

Anyone would have agreed that he fitted incredibly well in the office. The supervisor had praised him a few times, saying that he was totally born for this. The leader had also agreed that he was killing it.

Their only judging criteria were characters per minute. Compared to the monkeys, Josh's CPM was off the chart! But every time he got praised for such a meaningless thing, he couldn't help but be annoyed.

While typing, he would subtly share messages with the old man next door. To do so, he had drilled a hole in the cubicle wall to let the sound pass easily between the two of them.

At first, the old man had been completely opposed to it, but Josh had finally managed to convince him. The trick was to position the hole in a way that made it indiscernible from the cubicle entrance.

The bosses were way too proud to enter the gray prisons themselves, and they would prefer to shout orders from the hall angrily. This played to Josh's advantage. His information gathering was going exceedingly well.

He finally understood why there were monkeys even working here at MonkeyEdition: they were desperate. Either they had debts that the company had acquired, or they had families that required the money.

The place was very much like a prison, and the only one that could leave was the Boss. Josh was surprised at how small the management team was considering the 100 or so typing monkeys.

1. There was the supervisor that was a total piece of shit. He would mostly be spending his days toward the cubicles of the female monkeys. He was a pervert that had used family connections to get the job.

2. Then there was the leader. He treated people better than the supervisor, but he had no tolerance for anyone failing to be efficient. As long as one was "productive" he wouldn't annoy them. His only other hobby was consuming drugs in moderation—Probably to handle the stress.

3. Then there was the Boss. This guy was very rarely seen and was a man with big dreams and an even bigger ego. He was the genius that had come up with the random typing method. Apparently, it had worked for him once, and he was trying to reproduce it.

These were the three that they had to be careful of. Meanwhile, these superiors were all trying to kiss the ass of a higher entity: the almighty Literary Association. The company's end goal was to submit a masterpiece that would leave them in awe.

Instead of slowly working on the craft of writing, they preferred to use this method. How ridiculous! Many had tried changing how things worked over the years, but all had failed. The old man had personally seen many of them have pitiful endings.

Many had ended up getting thrown away with none of their hard work recognized for inciting trouble and insubordination. He kept sighing heavily as he told the story.

He was a treasure trove of knowledge as he was the oldest employee. Somehow, he knew a lot about the rest of the building, even if they didn't have access to it. The passage was blocked by futuristic-looking technology capable of shooting lasers.

In fact, everything in the building was old-school except the security system. It had been especially paid for by the Boss using the profits from his first success. He was hoping for a second success soon to recoup the investment.

Anyway, there were three central departments besides theirs:

1. There was the food department in charge of providing their daily meals. It was always some kind of tasteless paste that was 100% absorbed by one's digestive system, leaving no waste whatsoever.

2. There was also the medical department that served to prove that the current work conditions were 'healthy'. It doubled as the legal department.

3. There was finally the paper department. They took care of the ink and paper along with handling the mail that went in and out of the building.

Both the paper and the food department would send someone daily to make sure the typing monkeys had everything they needed.

The old man talked a lot once he became comfortable. He talked about everything but himself. All that Josh knew was that the man kept calling out to his 'honey' in his sleep.

At some point, Josh lost track of time. He would spend the whole day listening to the old man's stories and recklessly typing away. He wanted to write something that actually made sense but soon realized an issue.

For the job, he had to move his hands way faster than he could coherently construct meaningful sentences. It didn't help that he had to carefully press every key, for there was no undo button.

At the beginning of every shift, the supervisor or the leader would pass by to collect their previous work. Every time, Josh would hand over a dummy manuscript that was complete nonsense.

Whenever they had time to sleep, he wrote for real instead. Even that had been troublesome. It turned out that the machines were that noisy to keep the monkeys awake since they all lacked sleep.

Josh had to beg the leader for a silent typing machine. The man accepted on one condition: Josh would have to turn up even more characters than the other monkeys. Of course, its cost had to be subtracted from his decade-end bonus.

This was such bullshit! The life expectancy of a monkey went from anywhere from 15 years to 45 years, but on average, 20 years was the average given the lack of sleep. This meant that a monkey could expect to collect it once at best in its life.

They were all earning as best as they could for the people that they loved or all in preparation for the wonderful four days off they had every year. This wasn't a life at all!

Ironically, Josh was living the best amongst all of them, even if he had to type more every day. He was able to type while sleeping, thus making him well-rested. If he wasn't sleeping, he was thinking about what to write for his true story.

He smiled every time he looked at what he was writing. It was a tale about a man that had nothing but determination who was Climbing a magical Tower. His own life inspired it, but who cared! The monkeys wouldn't know anyway.

Eventually, he did finish it with the most satisfying ending he could think of. He had made the novel very short, using the first 10 Floors as a reference, and made sure to leave it an open ending. This would leave room for a sequel with more Floors.

It was time to test the waters. As the day began, he handed out his novel manuscript instead of the usual nonsense. He had no clue if this would clear the mission or how the bosses would react if it didn't.

A few hours later, the leader arrived in a rush. "Hurry up and come along. The Boss wants to meet you!"

It seemed like the mission was progressing…

Creator's Thought

The more I learned about this place and the more I felt that this was all nonsensical. But, even then, they had some very clear organization. This was pure slavery disguised as employment. It's quite ironic how sometimes necessity and responsabilities can force someone more than actual restraints.