Score

Your Contributor Score determines everything in your life. Most people do whatever gig work the apps assign just to keep their number from dropping. The pay is shit but you do it anyway because the alternative is worse.

Then you get assigned a Special Task. High pay. Middle of the night. Industrial facility. No description of what you'll actually be doing. Just an address, a time, and money you desperately need.

The decline button is grayed out.

These stories follow people who've been assigned. The ones waiting outside concrete buildings at 2:00 AM. The ones who signed NDAs they didn't read. The ones who took the money because their score was too low to refuse.

Nobody talks about what happens inside those rooms. The people who've been don't explain. Can't explain. Or won't.

You just know that everyone who accepts comes back. Eventually. And that should be reassuring.

It isn't.

Your score determines everything. Your housing. Your healthcare. Whether your kid gets into a decent school. In the gig economy, you do what it takes to keep that number up.

Most assignments are simple. Deliver packages. Drive people around. Process data. Then you get the notification for a Special Task.

2:00 AM. Industrial park on the edge of town. Pay is four times your usual rate. Instructions will be provided on site. Confidentiality agreement required.

You go because you need the money. Because your score needs the boost. Because the decline button is grayed out.

This is a collection of stories about what happens in those rooms. About ordinary people trapped in a system they can't escape, doing things they won't remember, for reasons nobody will explain.

The gig economy evolved. You either keep up or you disappear.

Some people do both.