"Heya, Clementine, could you be a peach and review these reports? Oh, and file them when you're done. And don't forget to write summaries for the meeting later. Thanks, love you!"

Clementine barely had time to put down her third cup of coffee that day, adjust her glasses, and peer over her computer before Supervisor Roth, a strange tentacled alien in a suit, laid a disheveled stack of papers and folders on her desk and whisked himself away. ""B-but sir," Clementine said, raising her voice slightly, just enough so he could hear despite how far he had already gotten.

"Yeeeeeees?" Roth said slowly and sarcastically.

"I-I'm still going over the department's finances; there've been some...questionable purchases made...and it's taking a lot of time to sort through, and Bill from IT also wants me to help with some networking bugs he's been experiencing and..." Clementine listed off items on her to-do list in order to demonstrate how busy she was, but the more Roth just stared at her with his glassy fish eyes, the quieter she became, until she simply muttered "I-I'll get to it sir."

"Absolutely fabulous, Clem," Roth said joyfully, figuratively and literally bubbling, "It's hard workers like you that earn swift promotions."

"Do you mean that sir?" Clementine lit up a slightly.

"Yes, we'll discuss it at your next review...when was it again?"

"This Friday, sir."

"Ooooooohhhh, drat. I have another meeting on Friday, just came up. We'll have to postpone the review, my dear, so sorry. But I will remember, don't you worry," Roth said as he walk-slithered away.

"B-but, sir!" Clementine urged, but the oozing being had already slipped away. She looked down at the stack Roth had just deposited. As if to add insult to injury, the unbalanced stack suddenly fell, blowing papers all over the cubicle. Clementine spent an unnecessarily long time gathering everything that was originally from the stack and grouped them together, sitting back down at her computer. She took off her glasses, rubbed her eyes, put her glasses back on, and went back to balancing the department finances. A small instant message popped up in the lower right corner of her screen with the following message, "Can you come over yet? - Bill"

Clementine cringed, and looked away. "Sorry, Bill," she muttered under her breath as she continued working

---

It was 10:30PM and Clementine was making her way out of the office building. She had gotten as much work done as she could, but had to leave a lot unfinished to be added to tomorrow's workload. She had done enough to not miss any deadlines or inconvenience middle and upper management, but had to let go of some work which would have made her peers or those who worked below her happy. Everyday she was playing catch-up, never truly able to finish what she needed to do. She would have worked longer just to get some stuff finished and out of the way, but then Roth pooped his bulbous head in and chided her for working overtime, time that he couldn't pay her for because Galatec's policy was 'not to overwork their employees', so any overtime work she did was 'not condoned'. She passed by a Githkin security guard and habitually read the name plate it wore on its left breast. The same serial number as always, this same Githkin stood here, no matter what time, no matter what day. It just stood there, blank and immobile. Clementine was used to it by now. She didn't understand why Galatec manufactured robot security guards to look so organic. Maybe Galatec came to the conclusion that organic looked less threatening than mechanical. Of course, Galatec provided their own security by manufacturing the Githkin, and wouldn't hire humans for such menial, and sometimes dangerous jobs. Galatec needed humans for their intelligence, that was what she was appreciated for, she told herself.

---

Back in her apartment in a crowded highrise, Clementine popped a Galatec Readi-meal into the heater; she was too tired to cook. She instead plopped down on the sofa and turned on the television. She flipped through shows to take her mind off of this impending sense of frustration and emptiness. Shows of vacant fantasies and banal distractions, she mindlessly consumed the media with her eyes and mind, and mindlessly consumed the Readi-meal with her hands and mouth. Yet something was off. She needed to stay informed, to educate herself. Feeling proud of this revelation, she turned to the news and was fed pretty much the same garbage, only this time, she felt better about herself. They told her who to trust, who to hate, what to want, what to buy. Reassured that her existence wasn't empty and meaningless, Clementine made ready to bed, laying down, pulling her covers over herself, and turned off the light on her nightstand. For a moment, the darkness that surrounded her was oppressive and choking, but her exhaustion overtook her and she fell into a fitful slumber because her Galatec manufactured bed, the Galatec manufactured walls, and various other Galatec manufactured items scattered around the room and throughout the building made sure that in sleep, she would find minimal solace.