WORKING FOR THE WEB 3.0
He waxed the marble spic and span because developers had coded in grime and dust. Every 24 hours the mansion dirtied by 1/17th of its total square footage. The Bezos III mansion was the size of downtown Manhattan. He clicked the portrait of a Zany Ape and the minigame popped up in a new window. He pressed the arrow keys as prompted—←, ↓, →, ↑, ←, ↓, →, ↑—until the glass sparkled: “100% Clean!” Fireworks. Smiley faces.
The labor market within Web 3.0 was dubbed a revolution, “the emancipation of the working class.”
The Master of the house, a decaying chimp in a tophat, phased through the Cleaner, as she and her husband moved from room to room in a permanence of redecoration, changing visual wallpapers, rotating this or that couch there, moving NFT portraits they wanted to sell closer to the portal entrance, their lives beyond the screen preoccupied with suing anyone who dared to copy and paste their wealth—without success. Cleaners were invisible to Masters. He spit on a photo of a 64-pixel punk and polished until the $750,000 valuation shined gold.
This was the Cleaner’s life. When he finished minigaming filth from the Bezos III estate he brought up the contractor interface and clicked, “Complete Milestone: Request Payment.” Then he walked to the next job site within the metaverse. Portals were reserved for Masters. Transportation time made him nervous because he earned no money, but the loading screens did afford him space to feed his physical body. He spooned out a wad of Beyond Spam™ and sucked on the spoon. The metal felt reassuring.
The blockchain created real accountability. If he missed a single arrow key the entire network registered his mistake, resulting in a deduction of 10 Likes. Lose enough Likes and no more jobs. But he never missed, even while the comedy podcast he listened to yelled about the state of the world through his air pods. He was gifted with the ability to work and laugh simultaneously.
His next cleaning job was a special request. There was an auction at the $GME Estate. Getting there required seven loading screens and a 64-bit hex decoder to enter. The event was a minting party for select invitees only. New NFTs, all usable in the top secret Gamestop NFT Project—which had yet to be revealed but all agreed would be lucrative—were to be auctioned to the rich and famous. At the end of that day’s trading GameStop’s stock had stonked to $10,000 a share. Bidding began at $20,000.
Invisible, he cleaned, phasing through avatars of stupid wealth. A scorpion riding the back of a frog stood on top of him as he wiped the portrait of a sombrero'd slime. The portraits hung on marble walls: Vomiting Fascist Apes, Booger Buddy Bunnies, 100,000 Slimes—variations pumped out by invisible programs.
Though unseen he was privy to conversations—though the NDA meant he would never repeat them:
“It’s totally derivative, I love it, darling. Please, you must get this one.”
“Do you think Ryan Cohen is here?”
"It's not meant to be fun."
“Any day now the shorts are going to collapse on $AMC.”
He gripped the microfiber cloth and polished the filigree of algorithmic splotches.
The auctioneer, a bonobo wearing a monocle, tapped his microphone and said, “We’re excited to announce the minting of a brand new, never before seen collection. You, my dear friends, are the first to have access to this remunerative investment that’s going to revolutionize NFTs.” The curtain behind the primate fell to the floor, revealing an enormous frame. “The 100 Cleaners Collection!”
He missed an arrow key.
Displayed for all was his Cleaner ID: Contractor #19705. In the photo his hair was white because hard work had made him skip grey.
“$25,000!” A lemur yelled. An orangutan matched and raised. The price for the rights to him doubled, quadrupled, octupled.
“He’s my CryptoLand cleaner,” a Raving Baboon said. “The best. I need him.” Another arrow key missed, another ten Likes lost.
With their noncustodial wallets they were fighting to own him.
“I’ll trade all of my apes for Contractor #19705.”
He was dumbfounded. He never imagined—not that he imagined anything at all anymore—that he was so valuable. What palpitated in his heart was a surge of pride. He almost felt visible.
The job ended. At the end of the auction he had been sold for $1.2 million. He collected his payment in the form of NFTs—.jpgs of wacky fruits and nutty vegetables—and exited the VR pod. He held his hand in front of his face as his eyes adjusted to the light, the gaudy primary colors of the shared workspace numbed his vision. At the reception desk he scanned the QR code on his wrist and from the dispenser received bread and powdered milk.
It was dark and the air smelled of ash as he steered his bicycle around potholes, and then over a rusted bridge that groaned from his scant weight. Any day the bridge would fall to the mud below. Inside his apartment he laid out the spread before his parents, his in-laws, both sets of grandparents, and his only child. A little butter chased away the staleness of the bread. They all swallowed lactate pills and his family said how proud they were of all his hard work. They owed him everything. That evening, even the expired taste of the powdered milk tasted rich.
He owned nothing and he was happy.
by Sean M.F Sullivan
Sean M.F. Sullivan writes from Colorado. His fiction has appeared online and offline. His website is https://seanmfsullivan.com and he can be found on Twitter @seanmfsullivan.