by Annie Percik
‘Hiya!’ Jonathan said. ‘How was your weekend?’
Abelard thought for a moment before replying. There was a lot he could say – about his fight with Mateo and his date with Jen – but he didn’t want to invite that level of intimacy with Jonathan.
‘Fine. While I remember …’ Abelard reached into his bag and pulled out Jen’s NDA. ‘I’ve got this one but there might be a problem with Mateo’s.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Jonathan said. ‘Legal sent me a message to say it arrived by courier this morning, all properly signed and everything.’
‘Really?’ What could have happened since Abelard left Mateo’s flat on Friday night to make him change his mind? It was one less thing for Abelard to worry about at least. ‘So, what’s on the agenda for today?’
‘We’ll need to drop that off with Legal first.’ Jonathan indicated the NDA. ‘Then it’s on to HR for your placement interview. What happens after that depends on where they decide to put you.’
‘Don’t I get any say in the matter?’ Abelard asked.
‘The interview does have an impact on your department allocation so I guess it depends what answers you give.’
They turned their attention to their food for a while. Abelard let the sounds of clinking cutlery and background chatter from other tables wash over him. The familiarity of the canteen setting soothed his nerves. They both finished their breakfast within a few minutes.
‘Right,’ said Jonathan, standing up. ‘Ready to meet your future?’
Abelard pushed himself to his feet as well. ‘As I’ll ever be. Lead on!’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Abelard’s anticipation grew as they dropped Jen’s NDA off at the Legal department and Jonathan led him to a row of small rooms along the back wall of Human Resources. He knocked on one of the doors and opened it. A young woman seated at the table inside looked up as they entered and favoured them with a bright smile. A mass of curly brown hair framed her face and she was holding a pen with a heavily chewed lid.
‘Hello, Jonathan!’ she said, standing up. ‘And you must be Abelard.’ She held out her hand and he shook it. Her grip was firm but friendly. ‘My name’s Hannah and I’ll be conducting your induction interview today. Welcome to Gadg-E-Tech!’
‘Hannah will take care of you from here,’ Jonathan said. ‘I’ll leave you in her capable hands.’
Once Jonathan had gone Hannah got down to business. She had a smart-e-fact in front of her, which she referred to and entered data into throughout the interview. Her questions were familiar to Abelard. They were the same questions he’d been asked when he applied for his spark to be tested ten years previously. Hannah explained that they were designed to establish personality and psychometric information.
Abelard was confused. ‘Why would you waste time asking people whose spark hasn’t been tested yet and might not qualify?’
Hannah’s smile remained steady. ‘It’s to do with our research into spark levels. We collect this data on everyone who applies so we can analyse whether there are trends in the type of person who has a strong spark.’
That seemed reasonable enough, though Abelard was answering at least some of the questions differently from ten years ago.
‘And have any trends been identified?’
‘The survey’s been running for decades, so I’m sure it’s led to plenty of analysis. It’s not my department, though.’
‘Don’t they release reports? I’m sure lots of people would be interested in the results.’
Now Hannah looked a bit flustered. ‘It’s all based on personal information. There are strict rules about how that can be used and published.’
Abelard didn’t think that would apply to generic results from a sample of thousands, but he didn’t want to ruffle feathers by asking too much too soon, so held back from pushing the issue. Hannah’s smile reappeared as they got back to her questions and they were soon finished.
‘The data from your answers clearly indicates that you would be best suited to a position in our Quality Improvement Department.’
‘Really?’ Abelard couldn’t hide his disappointment.
‘The survey doesn’t lie! Isn’t it true that you often come up with ways that things could be done better and get frustrated when you aren’t in a position to improve them?’
‘Well yes.’ Abelard had lost track of the number of times he’d sent through ideas and complaints to the feedback department at Mana-Calls, despairing of his voice ever being heard.
‘There you go! Now you’ll be able to put your ideas into practice. It’s all very well having tons of artisans designing and manufacturing artefacts but where we really need fresh blood is in analysing their effectiveness and coming up with ways to make them better. It’s an important department and they don’t have enough resources so they’ll be really pleased to have you.’
Her bright enthusiasm and utter conviction in this allocation was starting to bring Abelard around. His mind was already whirring, coming up with ideas for collecting feedback from mundanes and engineers to make user experience better.
‘Fair enough. I’ll give it my best shot. Hey, doesn’t the other engineer who developed artisan abilities like me work in Quality Improvement?’
‘Quality Assurance,’ Hannah corrected him. ‘It’s next door.’
Abelard smiled. That would be close enough to arrange a meeting at some point.
Hannah beamed back at him. ‘Now I’ll take you to meet your new team members.’
‘Um, what’s the salary for this position?’
Hannah checked her smart-e-fact again and named a figure that was only slightly more than he’d been making at Mana-Calls.
Abelard gaped at her. ‘Don’t artisans get paid way more than other people?’
Hannah laughed. ‘What gave you that idea? Just because you have a spark, it doesn’t mean you automatically get tons of money thrown at you. New artisans start at entry level salaries just like engineers and mundanes. You’re actually getting more than the usual starting salary for Gadg-E-Tech. They’ve obviously decided your previous experience is worth the increase so you should count yourself lucky.’
So much for his new speed-e-fact. Abelard folded his arms but didn’t protest further.
‘And don’t forget,’ Hannah said, ‘you’ll get an apartment allocation and a new artisan ID card so you can access all the other artisan perks.’
Abelard hadn’t even thought about other aspects of being an artisan outside of actually working for Gadg-E-Tech. He’d heard artisan housing was really nice and it wouldn’t suffer from random mana surges that blew up wash-e-facts. He would look forward to showing off his new digs to Mateo, assuming they made up soon and also assuming he was even allowed to have an engineer over. But moving house on top of everything else was going to be a hassle.
‘Uh, when do I actually have to move?’ he asked.
Hannah smiled encouragingly at him. ‘It’s really very painless. We have a company that will take care of it all for you. Once I’ve found an appropriate spot for you, we’ll assign you a moving day and it will all be done while you’re at work. You drop the keys to your old flat off at reception when you arrive in the morning and just pick up your new keys as you leave in the evening. Simple!’
It did sound pretty easy. Abelard brightened, though his tatty old furniture wouldn’t look good in a swanky new artisan flat. Perhaps he could start saving to get some new stuff.
* * *
Hannah herded Abelard out of the HR department as if he was a large unruly dog. As they left, several brain-e-facts looked up, their eyes following Abelard’s progress while their hands continued flawlessly with whatever task they were performing.
Hannah led Abelard down a corridor just like all the others he had seen in the building and he tried to pay attention as they proceeded round several corners.
‘You’ll spend the rest of the afternoon with your team, getting to grips with the basics of your role. Here we are!’
>
Hannah stopped in front of a door on the left hand side at the end of the corridor. It had ‘Quality Improvement’ stamped on a plaque on its surface. Abelard glanced at the door opposite and was pleased to see that its plaque identified it as ‘Quality Assurance’.
Hannah produced an ID badge from her pocket and swiped it across a security pad next to the door. The pad glowed blue for a moment and Abelard heard the door lock release.
‘As I said, you’ll have to get one of these, but your line manager can sort that out with security.’
She opened the door and preceded him into the Quality Improvement Department.
Despite Hannah’s protestations that his new role was a vital one, Abelard didn’t see much evidence that the Quality Improvement Department was valued. The room beyond the door was small and dingy with two desks jammed into the restricted space. The walls were lined with filing cabinets and stacks of paperwork littered what little surface space was available. Two men looked up at their entrance.
‘Gentlemen, meet your new team member,’ Hannah said. ‘His name is Abelard Abernathy. I’m sure you’ll be glad of the extra pair of hands.’ She looked around the office. ‘Though I’m not sure where you’ll put him!’
The older of the two men jumped up from his seat, his broad face splitting into a large smile. He was short and portly with an entirely bald head that was counterbalanced by a very bushy handlebar moustache. He stepped forwards, extending his hand towards Abelard.
‘Good to have you on board! It’s true, we could really use the help. Abelard, eh? Well, I’m Malcolm Henderson. And this here is Bei Tan Yi, my trusty minion.’
A slender man with fine dark hair pulled up into a top-knot stood up from the other desk. He grinned at Malcolm’s description.
‘I may be his minion, but you’re now my minion!’ He extended his hand as well and Abelard shook it. ‘Welcome to the team. You can call me Tan, by the way.’
‘Abelard. Glad to be here.’
‘Looks like you guys should get on just fine,’ Hannah said. ‘So I’ll leave you to it. You know where to find me if you have any questions, Abelard. Oh, and Malcolm, don’t forget he’ll need a security pass.’
‘Right-o,’ Malcolm gave a mock salute.
Hannah departed with a smile, leaving Abelard with his new co-workers. They crowded round him in the small space, almost backing him up against the door in their enthusiasm.
‘So you’re the engineer,’ Tan breathed. ‘Everyone heard about your arrival. I can’t believe you’re going to be working with us!’
Malcolm was just as eager. ‘I’ve been trying to get senior management to assign an extra body to this department for years but HR live by their bloody induction questionnaires and won’t send someone where they don’t “fit”. Ridiculous way to run a business if you ask me. You end up with far too many developers and not nearly enough people to do the real work. Those R&D guys’ll be jealous now though. We finally get a new recruit and it’s the famous engineer! That’ll teach them to be all smug and superior!’
Abelard was a bit overwhelmed. He’d been so excited to finally be living his dream, it hadn’t occurred to him that the artisans would be just as fascinated by him as he was by them.
‘I’m really not interested in being famous. I’m just here to work.’
‘Excellent!’ Malcolm said. ‘There’s certainly plenty of that around here. Maybe you can help us tidy the place up a bit so we can actually figure out what we’re doing. I guess we’ll have to clear some space so we can get another desk in here.’
Abelard couldn’t see where they could possibly fit another desk into the room. He also didn’t relish the idea of spending his first few days at Gadg-E-Tech filing.
‘Hannah said you might be able to use my previous experience to make improvements to artefacts based on user feedback,’ he said, trying to steer the conversation round to something he’d be interested in doing.
‘User feedback?’ Malcolm asked. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Um, feedback from the mundanes who buy the artefacts. About their experiences of using them.’
‘You mean you’ve actually spoken to mundanes?’ Tan seemed amazed.
‘Yes. I worked in a call centre, taking calls from mundanes who were having problems with their artefacts. I can tell you all about the most common problems that come up.’
Malcolm and Tan both stared at him.
‘You mean use information from mundanes to make changes to the products?’ Tan asked.
‘Of course. How else would we know what works and what doesn’t and how we can make artefacts easier to use?’
‘Feedback from the mundanes …’ Malcolm breathed. ‘I figured having an engineer join the business might cause some fuss but nothing like this. I think I like it!’
Abelard spent the rest of the morning working with Malcolm and Tan to clear away some of the files lying around the office. A team of brain-e-facts turned up with a desk, a chair and various artefacts to make up his workstation. They kept staring at Abelard while they set everything up for him and they were muttering amongst themselves as they left the room.
Towards lunchtime Malcolm escorted Abelard back to reception on the ground floor and approached the security station where a brain-e-fact sat on duty.
‘New recruit. He’ll be needing a pass.’
‘Yes sir,’ the brain-e-fact said, looking up. Its mouth fell open when it saw Abelard standing before it. ‘Mister Abernathy, sir. An honour, sir. Please allow me to take your picture, sir.’
Malcolm glanced at Abelard, who just shrugged. The brain-e-fact instructed Abelard to stand against the blank white wall to the side of the security station and took a picture of him. It then transferred the picture on to a blank ID pass and handed it to Abelard with exaggerated reverence. Abelard took it and slipped it into his pocket. With just that one small card he would now be able to gain access to exclusive areas at some of the best clubs and restaurants in the city and get tickets to popular events before they went on general sale, as well as other privileges that were reserved for artisans. It was a whole other side to life.
As they walked back to the lev-e-facts Malcolm said, ‘That was weird. I know the brain-es are generally subservient but I’ve never seen one act like that before. Why do you think that was?’
‘No idea.’ Claiming ignorance was safer than trying to explain.
When they got back to the Quality Improvement office Tan looked alarmed.
‘Directive from on high. Abelard’s got to go to R&D for testing tomorrow. They can’t actually do any damage to him, can they? We wouldn’t stand for that. Would we, Malc?’
Malcolm shook his head uncertainly.
Abelard looked back and forth between them. ‘I appreciate the vote of solidarity. But kicking up a fuss after the fact won’t do me any good if my brain’s already in a jar on the Head of R&D’s desk.’
‘Good point,’ Malcolm said. ‘And Simon Hanley would probably like a brain in a jar on his desk.’
Tan struck a heroic pose. ‘Never fear, though, Quality Improvement will avenge your untimely demise – somehow!’
‘Thanks. That makes me feel so much better.’ Abelard wondered if his stint at Gadg-E-Tech would be the shortest in history.
CHAPTER TWELVE
At Monday lunchtime Alessandra made her way to her mother’s office, knowing Laleh would expect an update on Abelard’s training. To avoid potential accusations of nepotism they had decided not to make their relationship public knowledge when Alessandra joined the company. But, as a female Board member, Laleh acted as Alessandra’s mentor so they had plenty of opportunity to see each other during the working week, though Alessandra might wish otherwise.
Laleh was hard at work when Alessandra entered her office. Their contrasting colouring wasn’t the only thing that set them apart. Their respective ideas of business dress were quite different. Laleh had her dark hair drawn back into a smooth bun at the nape of her neck and her conserv
ative trouser suit was navy with a white blouse buttoned at her throat and flat shoes visible beneath the desk. Alessandra had her long blonde hair around her shoulders and was wearing stiletto heels and a red shift dress that showed a discreet amount of cleavage.
Laleh looked up at her entrance and Alessandra noticed a tightening at the edges of her mouth before she broke into a smile of greeting. Alessandra steeled herself for whatever criticism was about to come her way.
‘How do you expect anyone to take you seriously when you dress like that?’
‘There’s nothing inappropriate about this outfit,’ Alessandra threw back, the words travelling familiar pathways from similar arguments in the past, ‘and there’s nothing wrong with using my looks to my advantage.’
‘But are your looks really an advantage? Or do people make assumptions based on them that could cause them to undervalue you? Walter, for example. He was in here yesterday.’
‘Oh?’ Alarm bells were going off in Alessandra’s head. ‘What did he want?’
Laleh’s eyes took on a crafty glint. ‘He seems to think you’re taking up with the engineer.’