Insider X (4 page)

Well, that answered that question.  Work began at 3 AM.  And apparently, if two days ago was any indication of the schedule, work stopped twelve hours later.  Okay.  She worked through what she was seeing in her head.  Things appeared normal.  If ‘normal’ was the right word.  It was definitely odd, but it didn’t appear to be a trap.  It appeared to be some sort of business.  Or a group of similar businesses that all operated during the same bizarre hours. 

But what type of businesses?  What were they doing and selling?  Why was writing English important?  And why do it during such odd hours?  She noodled on it, but couldn’t figure it out.

At this point there was only one way to find out.  The next day she showed up at 8 AM.  She walked up to the double doors of the building.  Up close she could see the glass on the doors was opaque.  There was no seeing inside.  Her face was reflected in the glass.

Na was not one for makeup, unless she was disguising herself.  Judging by the workers she’d seen, makeup would only draw attention to herself.  Na was going “natural”.  Which was “buck naked” in hillbilly language, Na seemed to recall.  Her face was scrubbed and clean.  At first glance, she appeared young.  Perhaps late teens.  Only if someone looked in her eyes might they see she wasn’t as young as she appeared to be.  Her hair, which could be quite lustrous, was tucked away and wrapped by a scarf.  She was dressed just like the people she’d seen going into the buildings.  Simple and plain.  A shapeless frock hid any and all of her feminine contours.

She knocked.

And that was when she first met bossman.

Bossman.  He opened the door.  Na remembered her first impression.  If anything, that impression was not much different then, as it was now.  He was vile.

She inquired about the job.  He’d grunted, and told her to wait.  Half a minute later he came back and handed her a clipboard with a blank piece of paper and a sticky disgusting pen.

He told her to write in English.  She was to make something up.  Pretend she was a person that lived in America and that she was writing to a friend.  She had ten minutes.

“Here?” she’d asked, wondering what in the world was on the pen. 
Was it soy sauce?
 
Icky.  She held the pen with just the tips of her fingers.

He’d pointed at the curb.  She’d been a little taken aback, as it was an unusual request what she was supposed to do.  But it seemed simple enough. 
But what was this on the pen?  Was it syrup?
 
She took a discrete sniff as she sat down on the curb.  It smelled like B.O. 
Oh, this was just disgusting.
 
Tacky and sticky… and dirty… and it smelled like B.O!  She wanted to “ralph in her pants”.  Fighting off the heebie-jeebies, she steeled herself, and began to write.  He’d stood at the doorway and watched her the entire time.

“Stop!” he’d said after what seemed like two hours, instead of ten minutes.

She’d stopped writing and quickly handed him the pen and the clipboard.  She’d wanted to scrub her hands with dirt right then and there, but she’d held it together.  He’d barely looked at what she had written.  He grunted and told her to come back tomorrow, same time, to see if she had a job.

So, against all better hygienic judgment (
yes, she was a dummy
), she came back the next day and knocked.  She could hear him unlocking the doors.  He opened one of them, but didn’t step out.

“Can you type?  English keyboard?” he said.

“Yes.”  It was a lie, but not a big one.  She could type, but she used her thumbs, as her smartphone was usually her main hacker tool of choice.

“You got job,” he said.

“What is the job?”

“I show you,” bossman said.  “Come tomorrow.  Three AM.”

He closed the door.

Na wouldn’t have to wonder anymore.  She was going to find out what the business was.  She also realized another question was answered.  Why she hadn’t seen anyone inquiring about the job during her stakeout.  Word probably got around.  Who in their right mind would come at 3 AM?  If she hadn’t already scoped the place out, and seen the others, seen that they looked okay, she would be running so fast.  As it was, she was still hearing plenty of alarming cries from the others in her head.

Stay away.  Are you crazy?  Wasn’t that sticky pen scary enough?!  What are you thinking?  Run, Na.  Run!  They will put you in a vat full of vile sticky syrupy stuff!  Run!!!!

That was what she should be doing.  Running.  Running far away.  But she didn’t.  She was like ‘Kitty Kat’.  >^,,^<  Nine lives.

Like a big dummy, she showed up.  Bossman was waiting.  He didn’t seem surprised she’d come.  He handed her a pen and a piece of paper to sign for payroll purposes. 
Oh no!  The sticky pen again!

He explained what she would be paid.  She was only listening with one ear.  The other ear was too grossed out by the sticky pen.  The first month was half what was quoted on the wall; after that she would get paid the full amount.  Payment was at the end of each month.  Na didn’t quibble.  She wanted to get rid of the sticky pen.  She signed on the dotted line and handed the pen back quickly.  She figured she could always leave, once she saw how the operation worked.  She was more interested in what type of business this was than the money, anyway.  What made writing English a useful, valuable skill?

Little did she know.

“Training,” he said.

Sans pen (
thank goodness!
)—she wiped her hand on her frock and followed him.  He escorted her down a dark hallway into a poorly-lit room with fifty-two computers.  It was full of people already working.  They were hunched over keyboards typing away.  Only one workstation was empty, and it was near the middle.  Bossman squeezed behind those typing and told her to follow.  He sat down in the open chair and told her to watch him.

“I show one time,” he said.  “Then you do.”

He turned on the computer.  Showed her how to log in and set her password.  Then for the next few minutes he did a couple of examples for her.  The main thing she needed to know, according to him, was how to move her chits out of the queue.  To do that, she had to take a screen shot of what she wrote.  Once that was done she was to drop it in a folder.  Then submit the post.

“Don’t forget.  One warning.  Happen second time, you face me,” bossman said.

Na had nodded.  Seemed simple enough.  While he’d been showing her what to do, she’d taken a furtive look at the others in the room.  She noticed that some of them took furtive glances at her, as well.

 “Now, you try,” bossman said.

He got up.  It was tight quarters, but it seemed to Na that he made no attempt to avoid brushing up against her.  She was repulsed (
oh gross, ick, disgusting!
), and thankful when she could sit down.  She tried to ignore the fact he was now behind her breathing on her neck.

She repeated the log in procedure, using just her index fingers to type.  She sensed, rather than saw, the expression on bossman’s face.  He wasn’t happy she couldn’t type with all her fingers.  But because she did it relatively fast, he only grunted.  She used the same password that he had used.  She didn’t need to ask him what it was.  It was almost as if she could sense his approval.  Fast learner, he was probably thinking.   She navigated the screen to get the chits.  She didn’t ask him anything, but did exactly what he had done.

“Good,” bossman said.  “Now write something.”

She did.  Once she completed her first one, she followed the same steps he had.  Took a screen shot, put it in a folder, and submitted the post.

After that, he walked away.  “Now work,” he said.

One of his comments he’d said as he did his first example was really all there was to it. 
Make people buy product and not buy other product.

That was the business model.  Summed up in one not so pretty sentence.  She’d done the math.  Not right then, but over the next several weeks.  The overhead for this operation consisted of these computers, renting a small room with enough power to run the computers, and then paying almost nothing to the employees for them to type and post comments on various websites.  No other investment needed.

She’d done more digging.  Found out things about this business that surprised her.  The list of clients.  Some of the fees charged.  She’d peeked into some accounting folders that she wasn’t supposed to access.  Or, to be more precise, didn’t have the ability to access.  But she was a little more savvy than the typical employee here, and had figured a way into the system.  She’d tricked the interface into believing she was an online administrator, and it gave her access to every drive and file on the system.  It was more complicated than that, but not by much.

She was shocked at the lack of security on the network.  It was pitiful.  No one in here, aside from her, seemed to have a clue about computers.  Bossman, she quickly figured out, was completely illiterate in regards to the back of house setup.  Any problem that arose, and he’d make a call.  He didn’t know how to fix even the simplest network issue.  And from what she could tell, the outside group that kept things running wasn’t any hotshot tech support team either.

Usually it was a young tech who’d arrive to fix things.  He’d go to the next room, which was where the servers were.  She’d seen the room on two occasions.  Once, when she got up to ask a question, and another time when she arrived a little early.  The first time, when she’d asked the question, she’d gotten in trouble for getting up, but it was worth it to find out where the tech went.  What she saw was a room not much bigger than a closet.  The tech stayed for an hour and left.  Problem solved.  He came back about every two or three weeks to fix other problems.  Usually it was an internet connectivity issue, which he resolved.

There was no pricey technical infrastructure.  Just the two servers in the closet, and fifty-two desktops.  That was the sum total of the gear.  The software on the computers was bare bones.  The operating systems and graphical user interface could all be copped for free from the Internet, if you knew where to download it from, and Na did know.  Everything about this setup was cheap. 

Cheap, cheap, cheap.  Went the little birdy.

With a minimal investment she could replicate this entire operation.  She took plenty of notes in her head.  And during her downtime at home she changed her routine.  Her reading habit went on the backburner.  Or at least the free romance ebooks she normally consumed.  Instead, she filled her waking hours reading technical manuals and teaching herself how to type using all her fingers.  She’d never bothered to learn the correct way, but it was worth it to know now, and it made her much more efficient.

Efficiency was the key to this gig.  Not that bossman had a clue how to make this business more efficient.  In some ways, it was almost like he didn’t care.  He never gave instructions, or shared best practices that would help the others.  It was everyone for themselves.  Employees were left to figure out the best system that worked for them.

In the first month on the job, Na had a breakthrough.  Learning to type the conventional way was one thing, but she learned another trick that was infinitely more valuable.  It just took a little more investment of time in the beginning, but once that was done it was a snap.

Like the post she just left from Bubba on ‘Game Zone’. 

Best damn game hands down.  I pulled it from the box and two days later I came up for air.  This game F-ing rocks!!!!

Taking a second look at it, she realized she could do even better.  She decided to add a second post beneath, also from Bubba.

Days of War and Resident Evil ain’t got notin’ on this!!!!!  You want balls to the wall, full on action, ralph in your pants it feels so real… then get this game.  GEETTT ITTT!  It F-ing rocks!!!!

She took a screen shot, put it in the chit folder, and tapped enter.  Her post appeared beneath Bubba’s last post.  Technically, she’d get credit for two posts now, not just one, which was a bonus.

Not that she was getting paid today.  Or this week for that matter, due to bossman being a Class A unmentionable.  But she tried to ignore that part.  She didn’t want that garbage cluttering her head.

Bossman was a ‘bad guy’ (big understatement there), and very soon he was going to get what was coming to him.  She just wasn’t ready, yet.  There were still a few remaining pieces she needed before she could say
adios
,
sayonara, see ya later sucka
.  She focused on the chits.  She needed to get through them.  And it was a good thing she had her system.  It made things go very quickly.

What used to take five or seven minutes, now took less than twenty seconds.  To leave a post on Game Zone she had to be a member, and to do that she needed to set up an account.  Normally, that involved a time consuming process where she would have to fill out an online form, input a working email address, actual physical address, and other information that she’d have to make up on the spot, all of which took time.  Time to set up the fake email address, time to fill out the other information, which all had to be done before she could do her post.  The other employees didn’t even bother going to these sites because of that hassle.

Which was a mistake, in her opinion.  These types of sites were the best ones to use.  It was a target audience for this particular product.  Bubba had even picked up a following here.  Other gamers sometimes responded to his posts.  He was what she liked to call an “influence leader”.  Big marketing term; she’d picked that up from a freebie ebook.  Anyway… Na had figured out she could bypass all that registering nonsense by doing one simple thing.  To leave a post she just had to go to the site and log on using a Facebook profile.