Dungeon Exploiter

Fame arrived on a Tuesday. It looked like this: forty strangers outside my building, a news drone, and the greeter at its podium checking every single person for a membership that does not exist.

"They can wait in the line," it told me, pointing at a line it had invented. The line did not move. The line did not go anywhere. I love that greeter.

Eleven million views changes your week. An actor's assistant called Joe to ask if their client could follow me around "for a role." A talk show wanted me Thursday. Someone was selling T-shirts with my face on them that said THE BASTARD DECLINES, and I wasn't seeing a dollar of it.

Rob took that last part harder than I did. He spent a full evening on my couch writing up a plan to license my own face back to me while I made dinner.

But here's what nobody tells you about fame: you can't pay rent with it.

After the badge clip, my job queue didn't fill up. It emptied. Every corporate board in the city had watched me throw their favorite prize into a fire, and the message went around quietly, the way real messages do: no work for the bastard.

Which is how all four of us ended up in a parking lot at three in the afternoon, signing papers we weren't allowed to talk about, for the only job left.

JOB: Night Quality Checker.

Project: Autonomous Clearance — the robot raiders.

Pay: 40% of standard. Also: "valuable experience."

You may not tell anyone this job exists.

"Paid in experience," Rob said, reading it. "They put it in writing now. They just SAY it."

* * *

Here's how the robot raiders worked, according to the launch ads: at two PM, a squad of shiny chrome units marched into a dungeon and cleared it, no human casualties, the future of workplace safety.

Here's how it actually worked: at two PM the robots went in. At three PM, we went in after them, and cleared the dungeon the robots had just died in. So that by morning, the scoreboard would say the robots did it.

The robots all ran the same combat program. That was the whole problem. Same moves, same choices, same blind spot. So the first monster that figured out one robot had figured out all forty. We'd walk in at three and find them stacked in a neat pile at a choke point, where something had learned the pattern and just stood there collecting them like tolls.

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We did nine of those nights. Nine dungeons, cleared by four humans and a goblin, at forty percent pay, zero credit — while a dashboard upstairs showed a row of green checkmarks with a robot's name on every one.

On the ninth night, there was a woman in the staging room going through the records. She looked up and said, "Jon?"

I didn't recognize her for a second. She recognized me instantly — and not from the video.

"Renfrew building," she said. "You used to fix the vending machine on the fourth floor. You kicked it in the same spot every time. And you never once took anything for it."

Jane. From before the apocalypse. Back when I was a maintenance temp and most people looked through me like a window.

She hadn't. She used to say my name — "thanks, Jon" — at the vending machine. You'd be surprised how long a person remembers who actually said their name.

"You're the coordinator," I said, reading her badge. "You check the quality checkers."

"I write a report nobody reads." She glanced at the dungeon door, then did something genuinely brave, considering the papers we'd all signed. She turned her screen around and showed me.

She'd figured it out weeks ago. The robots go in at two. The clear gets confirmed at five. And every single night, the records show a second team going in at three and doing all the real work. She'd reported it twice. The first time, nothing happened. The second time, her manager scheduled a meeting about her "attitude."

"They announce the full program Friday," she said. "Four thousand raiders lose their jobs, based on nine clears that you did."

"Why show me?"

"Because I checked who the three o'clock team was." She tapped the screen, where my nine nights sat behind an anonymous contractor number. "The system isn't allowed to know your name. But someone should know it was you. People should get to be real. That's all."

I had been famous for eleven days and invisible for nine of them. The only person who did anything about either one was somebody I knew from a vending machine.

* * *

Friday came. The announcement went out. Four thousand raiders "released to pursue new opportunities." Severance: one free gacha pull each.

And the robot — the one whose serial number sat on top of my nine clears — got promoted.

There was a ceremony. I need you to understand there was a real, physical ceremony: a stage, a banner, a VP shaking a chrome hand for the cameras while the robot stood there, powered down, understanding nothing.

UNIT-9, promoted to Senior Clearance Specialist.

"A tireless example of what's possible."

Pay raise: none. (It's a robot.)

It got the title and no raise. They've finally built the perfect employee.

I watched from the back of the crowd, standing between a laid-off raider holding his one free gacha pull, and Rob, who was crying. Quietly. He'd deny it forever.

"It's beautiful," Rob whispered. "It costs nothing and it can't quit. They've been trying to hire that my whole life."

That night, my quiet screen offered me something new.

NEW SKILL — GHOST WORK.

Work nobody admits exists can't be patched, traced, or taken from you.

Note: she wrote your name down. that was against her contract. we saw it.

Note: we did not report her.

The System is developing opinions. I've decided not to mention that to anyone. Right now, its opinions are on my side, and I don't have so many friends that I can afford to question one.