Alnilam Balls

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! 

The piercing sound of the smartphone's alarm clock rang through the air, stirring Norm Beta from his light slumber. Norm groggily reached for his pills pouch, rummaging around until he felt the smooth, cylindrical shape of a morning pill. He took the pill, and was greeted by the familiar plasticky taste and the accompanying surge of energy. Now he was in a position where he could turn off the alarm. And more importantly, check how little sleep he got. A grin crept upon Norm's face as he did the maths. 2 hours! That was an all-time low for him! He couldn't wait to brag to all his friends about this. 

Norm opened up GoyBot, his trusty government-mandated AI, and inserted prompts with glee. Any second now, GoyBot would generate a message explaining Norm's achievement and send it to every social media contact he had. The mere thought of everyone asking their GoyBot to send a congratulatory text in response had Norm over the moon. But there was no time to wait for that to happen. Today was a work day. And Norm decided he would be working overtime today to make the boss proud of him. 

Norm hurriedly ate his soy flakes, adding a speck of nutritional cricket powder for flavour. His stomach sank as he realised his speck turned out a little larger than usual, and thoughts of how much environmental damage he just caused flashed through his head like nightmares. But there was no time to think about that; after all, working overtime wouldn't mean shit if he didn't turn up an hour early. 

To pass the time before work began, Norm swiped and swiped through legions of tiny videos. Each one was about 7 to 15 seconds long, and had some random audio along with a heckin' relatable caption, like "Childhood is better than adulthood." 'OMG THIS IS SO RELATABLE!' Norm typed on each one, swiping and swiping through his explore page like a methodical machine. The videos got more and more random as he continued. Some random girl dancing. News about a celebrity he didn't know about. A member of the Victim Cult spreading his religion's teachings. A random couple kissing and a bunch of edgy teens in the comments saying about how they're going to hang themselves because 2 randos on the internet found love. A cooking video. Another member of the Victim Cult spreading his religion's teachings. The Victim Cult was the only religion goyim were allowed to have, and Norm considered joining them more and more by the second. After all, in his words, they were SO RELATABLE! 

But after a while, the endless content consuming grew boring and it was time to stop. Norm checked his watch. 5 minutes to go. Drat. He felt awful. His brain felt like it was going to split in two. He wanted, no, he NEEDED to consume something quickly otherwise this shit feeling would continue eating away at his mind. If he was a member of the Victim Cult, this would be where he'd start ranting about how life sucks and how *insert pop culture villain who wanted to kill everyone because humans are meanies* was right. He could see himself maxing out his victim card in no time, and becoming some sort of high ranking official in District 67's branch of the Cult. But he wasn't a member of the Cult, he was just an ordinary goy who worked an office job at District 67's branch of Soyberg Industries. For now, at least. 

His brain still aching for amusement, Norm exited the Soyberg tower and swiped a newspaper some homeless guy was using as bedding. It was a while since he'd read a book (or a book-adjacent piece of content), so it felt slightly weird looking at the paper. As if he was walking backwards, or using his weaker hand to hold something. But it was better than nothing. 

The first page of the newspaper talked about how both of the 2 candidates running for District 67's Top Goy were caught diddling little children before sacrificing them to a Moloch statue. He didn't think much of it though, because if you start noticing stuff like that you could become an evil conspiracy theorist. Or even worse, literally Hitler. He quickly swiped past the child slaughter to something a bit more important to his life. Football season was here! The District 67 Dodo Birds were playing against the District 88 Dark Bandits. He couldn't wait to watch the game... although he'd have to wait a while before he could, given his plans for overtime. Anyways, 5 minutes was up and the others were here. Norm took his second pill of the day and prepared to go to work. 

***

The boss didn't really seem to care about Norm announcing his overtime. He just kinda sat there and watched everyone work while swiping on his phone. But Norm wasn't deterred. No matter what, he WOULD gain approval from the boss. He'd announce a whole week of overtime once football season was over to really make his employer smile, and then he'd -

"Norm!" a familiar voice shouted. It was at that point Norm realised someone was waving their hand in front of his face. Peering past the hand, he saw it was his friend Aaron. 

"Norm what the hell man?" Aaron grumbled. "Jeremy here just had a dream, and you're the only one who didn't laugh at it besides Jeremy himself!"

"O-oh," Norm stuttered. "Sorry. Jeremy, that's, uhhh, not normal and I'm judging you now." The other employees (with the exception of Jeremy of course) hooted and roared in approval at the sound of these vital words. "So what's the dream anyway?" Norm asked. 

"I want to apply for golem status," said Jeremy. "Gimme a few years and an exercise permit from the new Top Goy once he's elected, and I'll get a good enough physique for it. I promise you!" Everyone laughed even harder, and Norm joined in with laughing so he wouldn't feel left out. 

"You don't have the right genetics for it," Aaron snorted. "Just accept it dude! Besides, being a golem isn't all fun and games. You don't just get to play sports and star in porn films with girls that are actually hot- not that there's anything wrong with the stunning and brave plus size ladies the reverse eugenics department assigns us, of course! Heh heh." He took a nervous sideways glance at the boss before continuing. 

"Anyways, golems do a lot of dangerous things too. You know, if the drones are having a hard time dealing with criminals, the golems are sent in to help them. You could lose your life, man! And you don't just gain privileges, but a whole new set of restrictions too. I know a guy who's a golem, and he said that he's not allowed to-"

"What life?" breathed Jeremy, his face turning gaunt. 

"Come again?" asked Aaron. Norm took an anxiety pill just in case this conversation turned angry. 

"WHAT? FUCKING? LIIIIIIFE?!" Jeremy howled at the top of his lungs. The entire room went silent. The boss stopped ordering his 27th super yacht and looked up from his phone. 

"I can't keep fucking going on like this!" Jeremy continued. "I can't, I can't, I can't! Something is seriously fucked with this world!"

"Woah, that's so relatable!" another employee exclaimed in awe. "Dude you should totally join the Victim Cult, you're better at this than some of the High Bitch Priestesses I've seen-" 

"I'm not saying this just to complain about it, dammit!" roared Jeremy, slamming his hands down on the table. "I wanna do something about it! I want change, for crying out loud! And I've figured out how to do it. We need to-"

"Jeremy, Jeremy, you're being a bit of a conspiracy theorist here," the boss said in a tone like he was trying to calm down a toddler. He hurried over to where his employees were sitting and placed a hand on Jeremy's shoulder. "Your brain is playing tricks on you. You see, the human mind has a tendency to see itself as the centre of the universe. Just look at social media." He let out a nervous chuckle before continuing. "Because you are not satisfied with your life, you've conjured this fake narrative where the government is out to get you-"

"FUCK YES I'M DISSATISFIED!" Jeremy shook off the boss' hand and slapped him across the face. Everyone else gasped in shock. Norm took 4 more anxiety pills. 

"You're being a bad goy, Jeremy." The boss gritted his teeth and clenched his fists. "For this, I'm docking your pay to only 1 soybuck a month, and I'll apply for a one year ban of you converting your soybux to shekels."

"You think I care?" Jeremy raised his hands, adopting a stance used by the latest action hero on the streaming service Circusbread+. 

"Maybe this will make you care." The boss pulled out a laser gun and flicked the on switch. 

Suddenly the red alert alarm sounded. Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked around worriedly. 

"Uh, Norm?" Aaron whimpered. "Isn't this particular alarm the one that sounds when the most dangerous kind of threat is around?" 

"Shut up, man!" Norm retorted. "Don't say shit like that when I've used up all my anxiety pills!" 

"Everyone, stay calm," said the boss in a voice that didn't sound that calm in all honesty. "I have a laser gun. A-and this building is guarded heavily by drones. If anything tries to attack us, I'll let it kill Jeremy. But as for the rest of you-"

SMASH! The red alert was cut off by the sound of breaking glass and then a deafening silence. Looking up, Norm could see a smoking object lodged into the wall where the alarm once was, surrounded by a giant impact crater. 

It was a tennis ball. 

A man walked into the room, with short dark brown hair and the beginnings of a chaddy beard. His oval shaped head denoted him as a Croat, and his muscular physique combined with his lack of a golem wristband showed he was in serious breach of the anti-fatphobia laws. In his hand was a tennis racket coated with the scattered remains of destroyed drones. 

"Who's the boss of this branch of Soyberg Industries?" he asked, shaking the debris off his tennis racket with a flick of the wrist. 

"I am," said the boss. "W-would you like a job here?"

The man said nothing, instead opting to pull down his pants and trousers. Everyone screamed in shock and covered their eyes... and then opened them again just to check they were seeing things correctly.

That man's testicles were made of metal. 

He aimed his cybernetic nuts at the boss and uttered one word:

"Pozdrav." 

The testicles opened fire, tearing the boss apart in a volley of missiles.