text: Sulley was introverted, non-compliant and non-conformist, he was pretty orderly and organised as compared to most people his age. Since his early childhood years he had never as much as liked large companies of friends, or even smaller groups of people. He stuck with his own ideas and appeared to be conceited to people, but in reality, he was just shy and awkward in social situations, and so it registered in his mind that he was better off being reclusive. Sulley was a teenager who loved technology, he would often watch videos on philosophy and bits of psychology, he enjoyed those because he loved new knowledge and he also fancied variety when it came to music. Since Sulley's childhood he performed fairly well in school, but he knew within himself that he was far better than the grades he scored on tests and in examinations but he just couldn't put his finger to what exactly made him underperform. In his last teenage year, at age 19 he started watching some videos on YouTube that inspired him to think more and helped him to understand his younger self better. He soon understood that his studies weren't as effective as a child because he was always taught in large class sizes (which were uncomfortable to him), also he preferred doing individualist work as compared to group assignments that they often did in basic school. He realised also that he preferred intellectually stimulating conversations and deep conversations to small talk. It happened that on his nineteenth birthday, he started watching this clinical psychologist on YouTube , by this time he had one friend who he could talk to, one who deeply understood his introversion. His name was Tom. Sulley spoke with Tom about anything that bothered him, and so he decided to let him know about an issue he was having with his mind lately, he wasn't sure if he had a mental issue or if it was entirely or partially normal, but he was worried . Sulley suddenly got up from his seat one day when he had Tom over after school and asked Tom " hey, do you think I'm going psycho?... um... uh ... I've been listening to this clinician on YouTube for a while now and I really admired him... but uhh ... mmhh ... lately I dont seem to have a conscience of my own like I used to anymore..." Tom interrupted " wait , wait... how long has this been?". "Well I started listening to him last year, but the voice in my head uh ... it started like last uumm.. maybe two weeks ago... it tells me things like 'clean up your room' or 'lay your bed' and 'pick up a responsibility and shoulder the responsibility of adulthood' ... you know the voice doesn't necessarily say any bad things, it actually helps me to stay productive..." Sulley said. Tom looked on a bit confused, scratching the top of his head , while Sulley continued " but the problem is that... I hate it because I feel like I don't really have a conscience of my own anymore, like I know that voice isn't the Holy Spirit that my sister spoke of , because the voice sounds exactly like the clinician from YouTube" Tom didn't think it was much of a problem, so he quickly replied " I think it's a normal phenomenon and happens to several people and you uhh might... you shouldn't overthink it maybe... yeah?" Sully tried hard not to frown, he wasn't satisfied with Tom's response but decided to keep the rest of his talk to himself, besides, he enjoyed his little moments of soliloquy alone in his room, asking himself questions and switching between alter egos , pretending to interview himself and all that. So Sulley decided he needed time alone so he turned to Tom again and said " well , Tom, you know what?... I don't think I want to talk much anymore, I think I need some alone time to recharge... so maybe you should go home, I'll see you tomorrow" Sulley tried not to make it sound awkward but that only made lt worse. It was always awkward and abrupt the way that Sulley would often call it a day, but Tom was used to all of that and just nodded and shrugged and said " well , okay, and please don't overthink the whole new voice of your conscience... it may come in handy... who knows?" Tom just smiled and waved at Sulley who never even bothered to escort him out of the room to the door leading outside. Once Tom was out , the voice started to instruct Sulley to complete tasks he had left undone, Sulley did it in such a little space of time that he surprised himself. He then reflected and realised that he could have never finished it so soon even if Tom helped out. Besides, Tom just like everyone else was fond of following socially accepted rules for doing things, which for Sulley, was a poor reflection on any human's creativity. Sulley sat a while and thought about things he had to do that he hadn't yet done , he remembered he hadn't done the economics assignment in class that their tutor gave because it was so hard to do, and even with the help of his sitting partner who he obviously struggled to communicate with, it was still near impossible to finish it. The voice of his conscience interrupted "don't reschedule resposiblities when you can do them now" Sulley nodded and agreed, after all, Tom mentioned that it wasn't a big deal that the voice of his conscious seemed to sound like someone else apart from himself , and that it may come in handy ,so he decided to do the assignment that minute. As he started, his thoughts felt lighter, he felt like a more intelligent person, and within five minutes he was halfway through. The clinical psychologist's voice in his head egged him on. Finally he finished it all up and was satisfied. He questioned how he was unable to do it in class but finished it almost effortlessly while at home and on his own. He reflected and introspected and came to a conclusion that he worked way better away from so much noise and that he was more productive being individualistic than as one working in a team. It was obvious to him now that he was one to work in silence. He was excited to find out about this new part of him, which he realised was obvious all along but not didn't have much attention paid to it. As the years went by, Sulley grew to know more about himself. He would often stay indoors, he didn't care whether or not he was invited to parties, he walked through the streets on weekends at the least busy hours in a hoody with his face pointing downwards and loud classical music playing in his ears. He was the type to change routes in a supermarket just to avoid a school colleague and he often did his serious work at midnight in the dark with dead silence and no one around or awake while chewing on a snack like tortilla chips. In school, he took up whole class group project works by himself and presented it on behalf of the team and scored brilliantly on them. He often finished up the work himself and would brief group members on his findings to keep them abreast with what they needed to know concerning the project. He was soon realised to be one who was independent. Sulley sooner than he thought became a young man in his mid twenties, by this time he was out of school and out of touch and contact with many of his peers because of his natural disposition of introversion. Even Tom barely heard from him now. They had begun to work and Sulley really didn't have the time to be hanging out with people. He had grown into a conscientious young man. He was disciplined to a fault and he still had that voice in his conscience spurring him on to do all he needed to. It so happened that his nation came to a state of emergency where government data had been hacked and citizens were at risk of having their personal data fished and misused and their bank accounts being emptied. The newspapers and television news aired the news with headlines like " your personal data may now be public information". Tensions were rising , as personal information of the president had already began to be attacked by this unknown hacker. Everyone was in a frenzy and tensed up, the government called for professional IT personnel to help resolve and reverse the situation but there were no experts found who believed that this could be solved. Sulley was in his room at 12 midnight at his serious thinking and work hours eating snacks, the voice in his conscience hinted that it was about time he stopped with snacks and ate some real food. Sulley sighed and put the snacks away. Sulley hadn't used social media for close to seven years, as he got tired of it and saw it to be a waste of time. He also didn't have much of his data online either. In fact he had almost a hidden identity on the web. He logged on to a news website and saw the national emergency. He sighed, and locked his phone's screen. The voice of his conscience seemed to vibrate in his head, "this could be the adventure of your life, take it up..." for once Sulley was about to shut the voice of his conscience, but the voice kept on " don't run away from things that seem big, start them with small incremental steps, you could get somewhere,... who knows? Life is an adventure, take it and see what happens" Sulley pondered for minutes on end. At 1:45 a.m he decided to tackle the situation. Sulley over the years had in silence and on his own learnt a lot about coding, information technology and cybersecurity during his active midnight hours and was ready to put it to use in an undercover adventure now. Sulley decided to help one of his favourite top IT companies to solve the national issue, so he decided to start sending them emails and post mails anonymously. The first email was a request to help solve the national emergency. The follow up e-mails were step by step solutions on recovery of all the lost and misplaced personal information of citizens on the web. The company was called "weTech" , they agreed to receive his help and asked for his identity, but Sulley insisted on staying anonymous and having no share in any profits made after the recovery was done. WeTech made a public announcement that it was ready to solve the crisis, the president gave the go ahead and stated a huge cash prize to be won , public tensions began to ease as they were assured that the situation would be solved within the month. Meanwhile, Sulley found the hacker online through a series of simulations and checks and witty efforts he made online. He sent e-mails signed with a pseudonym "working in silence". He signed off every letter to weTech and to the hacker with "working in silence" , weTech finally decided to make this strange anonymous guy called "working in silence" a headline by falsely claiming him to be a top secret worker in their organisation . Before long after many nights up, Sulley had worked out the whole puzzle of the hack and weTech was announcing to the public that it was in the final stages of retrieving all the data they needed. Sulley finally sent some mails to the hacker telling him to restore the bank money he drained from accounts or otherwise be turned in to the police. The hacker wrote back saying the money had been used and it would take some time to restore, so Sulley gave him the benefit of the doubt and allowed him time to get back the monies. By the end of the week, all the newspapers and Television news stations were buzzing with headlines like " top secret IT agent AKA "working in silence" solves national emergency" . Sulley saw it all over the news and just sat in his room, meanwhile WeTech had profited from Sulley's effort. The company decided to mail his anonymous email account to have him to receive a job there and be paid. The voice of his conscience came up again " try this and see what adventure may come out of it" but for once , Sulley came against the voice of conscience and said out loud to himself " not this time, I'd rather work in silence... so its back to my life until another emergency" Sulley decided that this midnight could be taken lightly and maybe he should sleep , but before that he decided to use a real email account to mail the hacker , as he realised that he was just a man trying to make ends meet. It happened on one day in that week he suggested they met (he and the hacker) , the hacker agreed , and they met at a coffee shop. Sulley found that he too (the hacker) was introverted and very much like him , he suggested he came to stay over at his place in separate rooms while Sulley helped him clear the debt (without revealing that he was the one who uncovered the hacker's identity). Sulley helped him in various ways and from then onward they both worked separately in silence and met once in a while on the rooftop of their new shared apartment with snacks to talk about their unconventional thoughts at midnight . Sulley then one day said "what do you think about that national hero who they call "working in silence" " the hacker (who was called Shane) replied "well, I think he truly is a hero and considerate, I think he may be just like the two of us" Sulley smiled and said "well, yeah, I guess we are all working in silence" they both laughed and slouched in their chairs and went back to eating their snacks and gazing into the stars in silence. Sulley's phone suddenly rang. He ignored the call since he didn't know who it was that was calling, it rang again and he ignored once more, not long after , a text came through reading " hi, man, it's Tom... following the news lately about this mystery guy called working in silence made me think of you in your childhood days..." Sulley read on and smiled , then got up and threw his phone far and down and said to Shane "it turns out some people know us way too well" he took his chair and attracted making his way back into the house downstairs and said " I'm going to bed now, I hope I dream of new adventures working in silence haha"