Getting drunk was surprisingly easy. We had leftover Orcish ale and some fine elvish wine. The ale was disgusting, but when mixed with a good amount of energy drinks, it would be a monster of a beverage. The wine, however, tasted like sunlight, yeah, literal sunlight. Probably mixed with a hallucinogen. I would not put it past the elves to do that. Half of them were just high and mighty immortals, lording over the lesser races they so nobly shepherd. The others were just drugged-up, tree-hugging weirdos with advanced herbology degrees.

  You could say they were high elves? Oh my, I am hilarious and totally original. Noone has ever made that joke before. Alas, jokes aside, the hippie elves were very chill dudes and made the best wine, as well as the best weed. Taking my first swig, I could feel it kick in almost immediately. The booze was strong, and I had to shake off the dizziness. That was unwise. The power of sonic flowed within me, and I was ready! Bring it on, baby! Then she arrived.

  "Hey Janice, what is it now?" I spoke to the horror made flesh.

  Okay, to be fair, she wasn't a monster outwardly; in fact, she was, by clerk standards, a beautiful woman.

  "You have a priority task for sector 357," was all the harpy stated before dropping a piece of paper and leaving.

  In reading over the document, I knew already what was coming. The worst part of my job — the dread of which I'd quietly concealed for years. Writing up notifications for the Dread Realm, my personal designation for that place. For a second, I pictured giving her the finger and storming out. But saner heads prevailed. The Dread Realm was a true hive of scum and villainy, with a thin veneer of order.

  Upon the world of Grimgard, this place really lived up to its planet's namesake. Anyone who likes the grimdark fantasy genre would love the realm currently ruled by the triumvirate. Shaking my head, I turned to my computer and brought up Sector 357 on my screen. Glancing over at the faction list, I sighed. So many notifications pending under the three races. Downing a rather prodigious amount of alcohol, I started on the vampires. Yay, I definitely wanted to write up their quest notifications. I swear if I have to write another blood sacrifice success alert, I will throw this computer into the void.

  "Sorry, baby, Daddy didn't mean it," I soothed Jenny. Yes, I named my computer.

  I read over the other two races in the triumvirate. There were the undead, who treated mortals like a resource, and the dark elves, who were just assholes. Apparently, being immortal by birth was something that made them cooler than everyone else. As I was about to finish a slave contract notification, feeling dirty with every word, a creature of dark and terrible power flashed across my screen, stepping over every key as it plopped down for a nap. Jeremy the cat purred as he fell into a slumber not even the gods or a king could pull him from. Of course, I had just the method.

  Taking out a tasty treat from my bag, I unscrewed the cap and let the delicious tuna waft across the table. Jeremy's whiskers rose, and he pounced. Slobbering sounds of a cat feasting followed. Despite the irritating creature constantly waltzing across my keyboard like he owned the place. I loved that cat; I loved him as much as that beefy dude with the feet loved his.

  Smirking, I left him to devour his meal as I glared at the work ahead. It was one of those bad days where everyone dumped crap on poor Joey. First was the downsizing, and now writing up notifications for a truly deplorable society of monsters. Looking up at the poster stuck on the wall. An image of a nondescript man in a nice business suit, arms folded and scowling. Above his head were the words this company lived by. Impartial, fair, exact. They were the rules we lived by: impartiality in perception, fairness in decision and exactitude in action.

  I spent a long time just staring at that poster and the smug face just below the creed. The desire to rip that face off the wall was intense, but I shoved it down. Taking a deep breath didn't work. Eyes bloodshot, we'll assume they were, I prepared to unleash the true power of a system clerk upon these heathens and show them true destruction. Be prepared, triumvirate, be prepared for my wrath. A savage grin stretched across my face as I broke every single rule.

  What I was doing was so illegal, I mean think every white-collar crime bundled together with a nice bow on top. My hands made the keyboard an extension of myself; my will pressed into reality with every keystroke. Even Jeremy was stunned into silence at my brilliance. Or he was just too preoccupied.

  Me and Jenny tore up the rule book and shredded the paper into the mouth of a shark. Would I regret this? Probably, but right now I simply didn't care as I did everything any sane rule-breaking lunatic would do. I did whatever I wanted.

  "This is a bad idea," I muttered as time became a blur.

  Hours or maybe days went by, not sure how long it's been. I had a quick nap and woke up to see the cat purring softly to my right, sleeping soundly on the keyboard. Notepad open on the screen with a garbled novel written by yours truly, the great feline author. Despite the unimaginable pain throbbing in my head. I grinned at the sleeping cat. He was my best friend. Realising that made me sound like a loner, but hey life was weird from the jump.

  I checked the damage. Using the power of more alcohol, I sort of fixed the hangover part. Well, I vomited quite a bit into a nearby bin, and got a scathing look from Greg — at least I think it was. To be honest, I was not sure about that odd duck.

  With some semblance of clarity, I turned back to my computer. Jeremy was still purring, dead asleep, indifferent to this unworthy world. I felt a petty urge to shoo him away. But one look at the adorable sleeping face captured my heart. Or, to be more exact, his taloned paws wrapped around the organ and squeezed until the power of cuteness brought this grown man to his knees.

  Instead of shooing him away, I carefully moved him, cradling him like a newborn baby, desperate not to wake him. The effort failed. He immediately woke up, hissed at me and engaged primary attack protocol. After he got all the biting and scratching out of his system. Finally, he decided mercy was better than mutual destruction, and he relented.

  Sighing and completing my one hundredth internal debate over why I still loved this creature, I got back on my computer. Dismissing the riveting story Jeremy wrote during his slumber. I checked my current queue. What I saw was a bunch of completed tasks. Inhaling a deep breath as the rising tension threatened my calm. I opened the first task and wished I hadn't.

  By the gods, I was a mean drunk. It seems in my inebriated state I took some liberties with the status write-ups for the sector. This included renaming the classes of several top officials in the triumvirate to not-so-nice ones. These included changing the class Dark Sovereign to Edgelord 3000, Warlock Of Blood to Unpaid Intern and Blood Inquisitor to Karen With Fangs. I couldn't help but laugh at the last one.

  This was not a laughing matter. Especially since it seemed that after I was finished with my irreverent notifications, I had spammed the chief officials of the triumvirate. Bunch of scheming vampires, liches and dark elves that have a treaty not to kill each other. Had been dangling by a thread, and I had just cut that bitch with an axe.

  I sent false; broken-treaty notifications to each side. Along with a few other notifications that spelled one thing to these assholes: betrayal. Now, that on its own probably didn't completely cause a civil war; there was likely some tension brewing beforehand.

  But one side got uppity and heads rolled, and now I am screwed three ways from Sunday. I broke every tenet of system clerking. Be impartial, be fair, and be exact. I'd been none of those things and, to be honest, I wasn't sure what the punishment was for this. Peeking over the cubicle, I could see everyone was hard at work, unaware of the transgressions lurking across the thin fabric walls.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  I didn't see any agent-looking dudes coming to grab me. Goddamn shapeshifters with their access to the multiverse media library. But it's alright; I just needed to calm down and think. Thinking was a bad idea because it came back to the same thought. I needed to get the hell out of here. They were already going to fire me. They were going to downsize the entire department, whatever that meant for me. My little fake notification spree be damned.

  "God, I needed to stop drinking." I said out loud as I finished the bottle of whiskey that I'd started sometime between the alliance's collapse and spamming dark elf lords the middle finger.

  "Yes, you do." Greg peeked over the cubicle.

  "Shut up, Greg, no one asked your opinion!"

  The undead slinked away to his dread realm of the next cubicle. My fear paralyzed me, so I couldn't care about his feelings and apologise. The choice was simple. I needed to bail and bail right freaking now. But where could I bail out to? Did this place have exits? We lived and worked here for well, eternity. Then it hit me. The portal room. Yeah, I could totally hop through a portal out of this universe. Hiding out on a new world? Insane, but it just might work. It would need some prep work to swing it, and I had just the right application for the job.

  Cracking my knuckles, petting Jeremy because he was a cutesy-wootsy. The feel of his fur between my fingers as I brushed across helped a bit. Grinning at the cat, I told him everything was going to be fine. He just stared back with cold indifference, but I could sense he was game for the adventure.

  Dismissing the evidence of my crimes and dropping all of it in a shredder program would slow down my inevitable discovery. I turned to an encrypted personal partition. Being an office clerk was my job, but not my passion. I'd created my own coding language: System Sharp. Its derivative, but copyright lawyers can't reach me here... at least I don't think so.

  In opening my passion project, I frantically started coding. As I carefully corrected a line of code with one hand, I withdrew an old, heavily modified smartphone from a drawer with the other. After plugging it into the computer, I turned my full attention back to my program. The stuff I was making was downright diabolical.

  It took me a full hour to patch the code and install the telepathic circuits into the phone. Once done, I triggered the transfer and gawked at the fifteen-minute wait time. For some people, that may have been quick, but for me, it seemed to take forever. Glancing over the cubicle partition, I tracked everyone I could see.

  Greg was doing his job and ignoring the rest of the world. Probably making a list of potential stapler thieves. Janice was glaring down at us all, like a goddess of judgement. The manager and his flunky were pacing around as if that would solve their dilemma. Settling in to wait, I nearly tore off every one of my fingernails as the transfer countdown stooped to a crawl in those last few minutes. It mocked me with its falsehoods as it bounced around between a minute and thirty seconds.

  Every so often, I would cautiously peek over the partition. Performing regular agent checks. The sneaky shapeshifters could be anyone; they could even be your mom. Not that we had mothers and not the Jon Snow backstory, we literally didn't have mothers.

  Tapping my foot frantically, I saw the countdown descend and, with one final push, the progress bar completed and the countdown ended. Elated, I grinned like I had just got a prom date. Pulling the cable without pomp or ceremony, I pocketed the smartphone and looked up. Performing an agent check, the coast was clear. Time for phase two. Let's rob this joint.

  Rising from my seat, I grabbed a small briefcase, unclipped the latch and opened the case. Shaking my head to get rid of the nausea at directly looking into an extended spatial storage, I quickly dumped in everything that I could get my hands on. I couldn't remove the computer because they bolted it down to the desk, but I swept in everything that wasn't nailed down.

  Jeremy, my feline friend, must have sensed something. He leapt from the desk and latched onto my shoulder. The casual black business suit I always wore took the strain of his claws as they threatened to tear their way through to fragile flesh. Luckily, the enchantment made the suit as sturdy as Kevlar.

  Closing the case, I made a break for the break room. Once I reached it, the pettiness began in earnest. I ransacked the fridge of food, stole the toaster, some of the cutlery and whatever else I could get my hands on. Dumping my ill-gotten gains into the suitcase, I noticed at a glance a familiar stapler buried at the bottom of the extended spatial realm.

  "Sorry, Greg," was all I could say as I withdrew the item.

  Returning to the labyrinth of cubicles, I headed for the exit. Weaving through the many paths, I crossed Greg and secretly placed his stapler on the edge of his desk. Nodding to the oddball undead, as this was probably the last I would see him.

  I saluted him quickly, remembering fondly the days he had left my brains alone. I had taken a few steps before remembering to perform another agent check. They weren't mountain lions, but they were just as dangerous. Three guys in suits and sunglasses were at my three o'clock.

  "Bloody hells. Where is Morpheus when you need him?" I cursed, ducking into a nearby cubicle.

  Scared out of my mind, my stupid brain decided it was the best time to loop that interrogation scene from the Matrix. They won't shove stuff into this guy's nonexistent belly button. That was not an option. Instead, I tried to come up with a plan. Remembering I had a literal system AI on my phone, I quickly withdrew the device.

  "Come on!" I cursed at the smartphone's loading screen.

  After a few eternities, the phone was merciful. Without ceremony, I tapped the icon labelled Jenny. Yes, I named the AI companion the same thing as my computer, sue me. Jenny came online, and I could feel the telepathic link lock in place. It felt like someone drilling a hole in my skull. Not exactly perfect technology.

  Hello, Jenny, are you there? I projected a greeting and received no response. What the hell was wrong with this thing? Did I screw up the coding? Of all the questions I didn't have time for, a brief glance over determined an agent coming right for me. My confinement felt like a rat trapped in a maze with loose cats.

  I turned to Jeremy and saw the bastard was sleeping on my shoulder. Angered, I shoved the annoying feline into my briefcase and hoped he wouldn't pee on my stuff. Leaning back against the partition, I tried to rack my brain about what was wrong. The problem hit me a second later. I hadn't programmed a language model, so Jenny couldn't talk. She could interpret the data transfers and form complex processes, but not words! I was so bloody screwed. I might as well just give up!

  At that moment of despair, I heard something in the back of my mind. The volume rose an octave, and a grim guitar riff burst its way on the scene. The song's chorus suggesting we get out of this place resonated true. Realisation dawned on me in a moment. Jenny has my playlists.

  "No shit, Jen, are you pulling a Bumblebee on me?" I muttered aloud.

  Another catchy and sharp song came on, and I heard a sassy chorus directing me to the left. I turned in that direction and leapt for the next cubicle, barely missing the agent. Okay, now that I was here, where was next? Another beat dropped as a baritone rapper beckoned me to get low. I ducked under the table, narrowly avoiding the agent's gaze.

  Eventually, the agent passed by, and I could finally catch my breath. Peeking out of the cubicle, I looked to the right and saw freedom just beyond a series of cubicles. Music kicked in as a powerful guitar blazed across the stage of my brain. Runaway by that rockstar told me all I needed to know.

  I prepared to book it as fast as I could, but the rapper came back and told me to keep low. Leaning down, I tried to vacate at a reasonable speed. Fear pumped through my blood like poison. I made four cubicles before Stop in the Name of Love came on. As commanded, I did so, but in the name of survival as an agent crossed in front of me, thankfully looking down the opposite corridor.

  Again she suggested I turn left, and the cubicle next to me sounded like a great haven. I stayed there for a few minutes and the footsteps of the agent faded into the distance. Glancing at the exit just a few cubicles away, I waited for direction. A raspy voice told me to break through to the other side. With no further thought, I made for the door. Silently opened it and slunk away.

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