“So, how did it go today?” Johnny took another swig of the Corona before carefully landing the bottle back between the bowls of chips and dips on the coffee table. He dipped a stale Dorito into a dangerously dark quac. “Any luck?”
A satisfying cymbal crash drew his attention back to the large screen TV in front of them, where Mike’s orc was writhing on the ground, felled by an enemy’s sword, said enemy performing a triumphant dance, no doubt to be shared on TikTok.
“Ugh!” Dejected, Mike dropped the controller and threw himself back on their living room couch. “Nothing is fucken working today.” He pretended not to hear Johnny’s question. “Let’s just watch something.”
Johnny used the remote to flip to their ad-supported Netflix account. “WIN EVERY FIGHT IN YOUR GAME” glared across the screen. “They caught you? How?” He wouldn’t let go. “I thought the game chat moderator gig was a shoo-in.” He couldn’t quite hide the irritation in his voice at his unemployed roommate. “I told you, come work with me at Uber Eats.”
Mike made a face. “Like you’re so safe. Amazon drones are taking a share, and you know it. Plus, wait until Optimus finally launches, Tesla is going to be making these door-to-door.”
“Dude, at least I’m working!” Seeing Mike’s face, Johnny immediately regretted saying it. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it, honest. I know you’re trying. So what happened? How did they catch you? Was it the volume?”
The gig had said “Chat Moderator AI agent wanted.” Mike, who’d play on multiple screens and his phone, and maintain a half dozen chats simultaneously, thought he could handle it.
Mike shook his head. “It was sooo stupid. I thought I was doing great, but they kicked me off after an hour.” He grabbed his own Corona, drinking half the bottle before putting it back down. “Said that I wasn’t the first one attempting it, but their AI figured me out… It was the stupid dash.”
“What?” Johnny didn’t understand. “What do you mean?”
“The stupid em dash,” Mike said. “I guess I’ll know better next time. But they said in an hour’s worth of chats, I hadn’t used it once. That’s how they knew, fuckers… What are we going to watch?”
Johnny shrugged, looking back at the screen, which was showing the last of a three-minute ad stint.
“Learn to write like an AI — at Udemy!”
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