Soon, this chip became a regular part of life. Some companies even started giving it out for free to employees. It was a win-win: the companies got more efficient workers, and the employees no longer had the stress of a job. You could hardly even tell a person was unconscious, the chip recognises patterns and could converse just like its user would. For a while, this seemed like the perfect system.

3 years after the implementation of the Workday chip, the disease broke out. Nicknamed the Red Flame Disease, it caused a terrible combination of coughing up blood and intense burning pain. It spread like wildfire, and soon the majority of the population was affected. Even though most people were in no state to work, the chips forced them to automatically. There was no off switch, and it was able to pick locks or break down doors in order to get its user to work.

In the end, it didn’t matter if a person had the chip or not: everyone ended up dead. From the moment you first coughed up blood, you had mere days left to live. The disease didn’t discriminate between the old and the young, every single person eventually succumbed. It all happened so quickly that most bodies never even got taken care of, they were just left in their homes to rot away.

Now roaming the streets are corpses, doing nothing but going through the motions as if they were ghosts. Dead baristas try to ask customers that don’t exist for their order, but some no longer have tongues. Shriveled hands work in factories to produce gadgets for nobody. Businessmen look before crossing the street on their way to work, but no longer have any eyes. These ghost-like beings are stuck in a strange purgatory; they are dead but not at peace.

Watching over these ghosts are the CEOs, the top 1%. They live in elaborate bunkers and clink glasses, laughing about how they will never have to pay another worker again. The WorkDay Chip has no off switch, and that's exactly how it was meant to be.