What happens if you rename the workers, experimentees, gnomes, etc
     to
     offline people of not greatly low, but a little low, brand equity?
     Also

   That's for the second draft I guess. I guess we could try it!

     what do these tasked people do for fun when Boss isn't looking, and
     how
     does Boss know or not know? Just ideas.

   I've been struggling a little to convey that it is all sorts of things.
   Many people work for Boss 24/7 both for-pay and without-pay. Some
   people, like the experimentees, have been automatically encouraged to
   work so strongly that they are mostly doing random things to meet
   details of the automated productivity and political protocols, rather
   than anything actually productive. Other people do basically nothing
   for Boss, and have relations with the control patterns so as to do and
   cause arbitrary things they prefer themselves. Some people aren't mind
   controlled any more than most people, and live roughly normal lives.
   But in the story, people go to the rebel cafe of spies, rescue workers,
   etc, for fun, and make fun of Boss or plan to cause great good in the
   world. It's probably an analogy for internet lists like this one used
   to be.

     And maybe write it in a style
     that isn't simply experimentation with cliches. Even some rigid and

     arbitrary formal constraint, e.g., only use two syllable words.

   I don't totally follow you here. I think it might take me some slow
   practice to do this. It's hard for me to summarise the idea as a short
   phrase to move it through my amnesia.
   Which parts are cliches?