’This is... ridiculous...’
As he exhaled the air in his lungs, Dante noticed that he was literally shaking. Alongside the blood boiling in his veins, it was another symptom of the restrained frustration that yearned to break out of his chest and bring destruction to the world he was forced to live in.
[I believe I can see the irony.] Volcan commented.
Who could’ve thought that, after days spent lamenting not having anything to do, he would end up following a suggestion the AI had provided before and get a normal job.
Turns out his chances of getting hired weren’t that small after all. It still required Victor calling in some favors, but at long last, Dante Sokolov was able to join the prestigious Blue Ember hotel staff and work as a full time dishwasher.
’I fucking hate my life...’
Technically speaking, the management had placed him in the cleaning crew. However, since he still lacked the experience and wasn’t trained to work in areas guests can access, he was currently being kept in the back of a kitchen n a restaurant on the twenty fifth floor, forced to wear a pair of rubber gloves and scrub the dirty dishes coming back to him every few minutes.
’Who the hell still washes dishes by hand in this day and age!!?’
[Despite more than a century passing since the invention of the dishwashing machines, to this day, some of the more prestigious establishments still employ people to handle the task.] Volcan explained. [The reasons range from the cutlery provided by such institutions requiring the handling of human hands, customer preference, and the establishment being capable of affording human staff instead of being forced to rely on androids and machines.]
’That doesn’t make it any less ridiculous.’
A notification sound rang in his mind, and a small projection appeared on his OAM, a reminder of his slave like status.
[Ember: I do not see your hands moving!]
Cursing his luck, Dante grabbed another plate from the pile and dipped it into the sink, squeezing the sponge in his right hand a little too much before beginning the soul-crushing routine once again.
The staff at Blue Ember were all required to install a "productivity enhancement" app. Basically, all it does is monitor the activity of the employees’ NIMs, as well as record their work through their OAMs. If anyone were to slack off or take a single unauthorized break, the hotel’s management AI, called Ember, would gracefully provide a reminder to focus on work.
This was the most they could do without putting themselves at risk of a PR disaster. Dante believed that, if they didn’t have to restrain themselves, the hotel management would’ve added mandatory shock collars that would give you a little zap every time you space out for more than a second.
Gritting his teeth, Dante clutched the plate in his hand a bit too hard. He managed to catch himself before snapping it in half, but that only helped fuel his anger.
When the fixer said he needed him to infiltrate the establishment through a different route, he expected a more secretive role that would require him to operate stealthily. In a way, he got exactly that, but somehow it felt entirely different from what he expected.
Dante’s role was very simple: he was there to be the backup. Rose, Mr. Pike, and Kirk were going to handle getting the artifact. All he had to do was sit tight and be ready to provide support in case they needed any.
One would think such an arrangement was preferable, since he would still get paid even if he didn’t do anything. That said, there was no quenching the frustration he felt at being reduced to a passive role.
Every day for the next twenty-eight days, he has to go in and wash the dishes. As the day of the wedding approaches, a few employees will suddenly decide to quit and go on a long vacation, leaving their posts open. Unable to hire a replacement on such short notice, the management would have no choice but to promote some of the lower ranks.
Once that happens, Dante would graduate from being a dishwasher and move on to the more respectable position of a janitor. He would be working with the cleaning bots to swipe the floors, giving him a lot more freedom of movement, though it’s still questionable how much ’a lot’ is in truth.
The plan took into consideration the limited capabilities of the normal nineteen year old Dante, which is why he was left with barely anything to do. He liked to imagine that Victor expected him to use his newfound abilities to contribute more, which is why he was doing his own thing while pretending to follow the plan, even though that risked jeopardizing the entire mission.
’How long will this take?’
[I am afraid it will require some more time.] Volcan replied. [The local AIs seem to be far more sophisticated than the ones handling the city’s surveillance systems. The security system seems to have a large team of human Divers as well.]
A five-star luxury hotel was bound to have a more robust security system, considering that all of its clients are from the upper class. Greg was working on diving into the hotel’s network, too, and since Volcan was struggling to do so while having a direct connection to it, Dante didn’t understand how the Overweight Shark was going to succeed in his infiltration when he’s forced to work from outside.
Volcan was in charge of setting the stage so that his host would have a lot more freedom when the time to move arrived. Dante didn’t intend to go full ghost and try to finish the job on his own, but having more options wouldn’t hurt. Of course, if push came to shove, he planned on doing everything in his power to finish the job. After all, he wasn’t about to let a twenty-million bonus slip from his hand. That was the only thing that would make up for him being stuck with such a frustrating task.