by Dhtreichler
“That’s not why we’re here.” I see Jane Williams from the ACLU just behind Nitta. “Morning Jane. Why are you here?”
“Because you are a threat to every one of us, even though you downplay it. I’m not worried about you alone. I’m worried for all these people because of those who will find a way to use you in a way you weren’t intended. That’s the threat and that’s why there can’t be more like you.”
A CHANCE
I can only assume that the American Civil Liberties Union is preparing a suit to shut down Bart Woodall’s clinic, or at least prevent it from transitioning any more people. Either outcome would be a disaster for A’zam’s plans, but could provide a permanent advantage to AppleCore if no one else is able to transition. The question is how do we either prevent the law suit or ensure the clinic continues to transition our folks while the courts decide. I wander down the hall to Dietrich Zellers’ office. Dietrich is our General Counsel. A tall and proud German whose family has been in the law arena for decades, if not longer. And while he is an expert at corporate law, I’m not so sure of his expertise in the area of civil rights, which is the angle the ACLU will take.
“Morning Dietrich.”
“What brings the CEO down the hallway past production?” Dietrich’s office is just on the other side of Wallace’s office from mine.
“What can you tell me about the ACLU?”
“How in the world did you find the rock they live under?” Dietrich sounds unhappy.
“By transitioning,” I respond tentatively since I’m thinking this all through as we talk. “Seems our friends in the media have painted me in such a way that ACLU thinks I’m a threat to all humanity.”
Dietrich considers my statement for a moment, then formulates his next question. “Ja, I see how that is possible. But the causative link has to be very tentative since there is only one of you and what? Over six billion of the rest of us?”
“The statement was they want to prevent there being more like me.”
“That would not be an AppleCore issue. So, why are you, ‘chatting me up’, as you like to say?”
“It is an AppleCore issue because we have the exclusive contract with UT Southwestern and Dr. Bart Woodall’s Life Extension Clinic to transition people for the next year. Dr. Woodall has just transitioned his entire team to fulfill the volume requirements of that contract.”
“How many people are involved from AppleCore?”
“Roughly two thousand. We have about fifty that are either through the transition or in process at the moment.”
“Is that why Wallace was bumping into walls earlier?”
“He’s down the hall in my office now resetting his processors so he can better handle all the data and information the internet is presenting to him every second.”
“No wonder Wallace has been so grumpy recently. You know he’s just not a big data guy.”
“If the ACLU files an injunction against UT Southwestern and Dr. Woodall to cease transition procedures, how do we overturn that?”
“You don’t think they’ll file against AppleCore?” Dietrich raises a question I’d not given enough consideration to.
“From the way Jane Williams talked, she seemed to be more focused on Dr. Woodall, but now that you mention it, the Daniel Lynch articles may give her enough ammunition to file against us as well.”
“Jane Williams? She’s at the ACLU now? Hmmm.” Dietrich apparently knows Jane Williams and it doesn’t sound like he’s happy about her involvement. “What have you publicly said about our role?”
“Nothing public about our contract. But I have confirmed we are looking at the product side of an immortals market and why.”
“What was the reason you gave?” Dietrich wants a complete picture of the circumstances.
“That we build the communicators the world uses, but immortals have the communications devices built in, so immortals won’t be buying AppleCore products.”
“Did you differentiate between apps and hardware?”
I have to quickly re-run that conversation which takes only a couple of seconds, “No.”
“That may be one approach, but the bigger consideration is that if we become a party to this suit, we will have to disclose the contract in discovery.”
“That’s a major competitive consideration,” I have to push this point with Dietrich. “At the moment our competition has at best a vague idea of what we may be doing. This is all happening so fast they would have difficulty comprehending the nature of what we will be able to do in the very near future. The one immortals team that is up and running has already delivered a revolutionary platform and done some good work in other areas. They are just scratching the surface of what they’ll be able to do once they really understand how to use the immortal advantages.”
“You say they are a competitive advantage.” Dietrich muses. “Would their existence be considered a trade secret? Or can we prevent disclosure through employee medical privacy laws? There has to be several defenses we can mount to prevent disclosure. However, every one of them will end up acknowledging that we are doing something with our employees relating to the transition you made. That in and of itself may be sufficient to alert the competition what we are doing and give them a chance to respond in kind.”
“But that may be part of the issue. AppleCore has contracted in such a manner that the clinic is prevented from transitioning anyone AppleCore does not request to be transitioned.”
“Tell me how this works?”
“In my case my doctor referred me to the Clinic as a last chance opportunity to save my life. Dr. Woodall and his team reviewed my case and actually decided to transition me even though the procedure and systems weren’t ready. Up until now the selection was a medical decision based on a medical referral. Under our contract, Dr. Woodall’s team receives a request and medical history of the candidates for transition. Since any known medical conditions will not persist after the transition, there really isn’t a disqualifying situation. So, Dr. Woodall and his team configure a body to host the consciousness of our candidate that is transitioning. They perform the procedure, dispose of the former host body and provide a day of reorientation to the new capabilities of the immortal host.”
“That’s fast. No wonder Wallace is struggling.” Dietrich considers the process I’ve described. Is this covered by our health insurance?”
“No. AppleCore is paying for these transitions from general funds.”
“We’re self-insured, so you may wish to reconsider that decision and have our health care system pay for these procedures, including all those who have already transitioned. Then it becomes protected information.”
“They’re very expensive,” I note.
“So is cancer and a host of other diseases.” Dietrich counters.
“What do you think?” I have to call the question or Dietrich will muse on this all day. He will anyway, but hopefully mostly after I go back to work.
“Ja, we have options. If they file, we request a summary judgment. A judgment of this nature will take a few days, but not the months or years the ACLU will be seeking. We build the case based on the fact the ACLU is speculating an impact from a growing population of people like you. But they have no direct evidence that you have displaced a single worker or negatively impacted the civil rights of any individual.”
“Full disclosure?” I bring up.
“Have to have it. What haven’t you told me?”
“There is one person we transitioned.” I’m trying to frame this so Dietrich understands the individual may be vindictive. “He came back with a negative attitude and has been very disruptive.”
“Why would he do that after you invested in him?”
“Those who transitioned were told they would lead a team afterwards. I had to change that because of a competitive offering obsolete one of ours and I needed a replacement like overnight.”
“So, you reneged on a promise you made to this individual.” Dietrich is trying
to frame the situation.
“Not exactly. I told him initially that he wasn’t mature enough to transition. But a special project came up and it was easier to have him transition and manage that project than find someone else with the necessary skills.”
“But when he returned you kept him with the others, working as a coder rather than as a manager.” Dietrich summarizes.
“Yes.”
“So, he became disruptive to the team, complaining and disrupting their work.”
“I asked the team lead to evaluate his contribution to the team effort.” I explain to Dietrich. “On a ten-person team his contribution amounted to three percent.”
“So, well below his expected contribution. Is this evaluation in writing?”
“No, it was a conversation in my office.”
“Make sure you document these things in the future.”
I nod. “But there’s more.”
“Oh?’ Dietrich isn’t sure he wants to know the next part.
“I deleted his voice software.”
Dietrich has to think about this for a minute. “I’m trying to remember what I was told about the company rights to modify the immortal body. As I remember it was designed to permit processor and memory upgrades primarily. But we broadened it so we could essentially replace any part of the body system if AppleCore develops something we want to incorporate.”
“The language is broader and not restrictive to AppleCore replacement parts. We can essentially change or modify any component of their immortal body at our discretion.”
“Then you were within your rights,” Dietrich notes. “But you did what you did as a punishment. That pushes it over into an employee rights litigation mine field. We really don’t want to go down that path. I suggest you restore his software with improvements if that’s possible. Did you put him on a performance improvement plan?”
“Yes.”
“You had the specific right to delete his software, but you need to delink it from the performance improvement plan.”
“I took the action to prevent him from being disruptive to the team. It accomplished that purpose.”
“You’re saying it wasn’t punitive, it was to enable a more cooperative workplace environment on a company critical project.”
“Exactly.”
“No good.” Dietrich shakes his head. “You will never be able to delink it from punishment with that approach. You’ll have to give me something better. I take it this individual was not cooperative as you performed this procedure?”
“He was not.”
“Who knows about this besides you and me?”
“Petra received email from him complaining specifically about the sexual experience of immortals, not sure if he referenced his voice deletion. Daniel Lynch at the Chronicle has made references to things that this individual could have sent to him. Not sure about that as Mr. Lynch hasn’t revealed his sources.”
“So, possibly the entire world, except none of them have referenced this so far.”
“Correct.”
“You need to restore his voice as soon as you leave here,” Dietrich advises.
“I’ve already sent a note to Alice, the tech who has the software asking her to do so.”
“You did that while we are sitting here?” Dietrich is surprised.
“I only need to think it and it’s sent.”
“I’m on the schedule for next week. Does this mean I’m going to have my laptop in my head and I think it and it’s done?”
“Glad you’re transitioning soon. Then we can have these conversations at immortal speed and it won’t take so long. Not quite like that, but you’ll find it will make you incredibly more productive while being able to navigate much more complex situations.”
“Wallace said he spent the first hour after he woke up just lying on the table watching words flashing past him.”
“It affects everyone differently,” I acknowledge. “I took a while to link with my memories, but that was an early issue they’ve corrected. None who have come through since have complained of that.”
“So, you spent several days on a vacation from yourself?”
“In a sense. But you won’t have that pleasure.”
“You said something about your discontent immortal not being pleased about the sexual experience,” Dietrich remembers. “What’s the issue there?”
“Right now, sexual experiences are only loosely coupled with feelings and emotions. And that’s a major advance since I came over. We’re making them a lot better, but frankly, they’re not there yet.”
“Are you talking from personal experience?”
“I also wrote one of the versions, but one of the teams has had a chance to work it since then.”
“What you’re telling me is once I make the move I become a work in progress, only I’m not the one driving the progress, it will be your hardware and software teams.”
I nod. “An interesting way of looking at it.”
Dietrich suddenly realizes something and decides we are finished, “Would you send me a note when you’ve restored the poor boy’s voice and detailing whatever upgrade aspect was included?”
“No problem. What’s your sense for how this will play out?”
“Jane Williams is good. The evidence isn’t strong, so I think we have a chance.”
LOVE, HATE OR ENVY
Mindi calls from her office, “Beth Allison on line two.”
Beth is the Chief Operating Officer at Symbol Ventures. She and I were lab partners in high school. It was always a competition as to who was going to get the better grades. We graduated first and second in our class and Beth has been trying to one up me ever since. But we are friends, although in our current roles we can’t reveal anything that would be considered proprietary to our firms. That makes the calls difficult. Probably why we call so seldom.
“Hi Beth. How are you?”
“I’m happy, healthy and could be wiser.”
“Glad to hear nothing’s changed since our last conversation.”
“Actually, in our business nearly everything changes every day.” Beth notes. “But I’m sure you’re as used to that as I am by now.”
“You can’t get used to change, from what I’ve seen,” I take a philosophical approach. “Every change leads to an adjustment. And adjustment means you have to learn something new and then find a way to make that routine.”
“But the routine only lasts a short time and then another change occurs, and you have a new routine to get in to.”
“I assume you didn’t call just to compare notes on the rate of change.” I need to keep this focused or we may inadvertently stray into something I can’t talk about.
“Am I supposed to congratulate you on the new you?”
“My transition? No. Just an unfortunate set of circumstances that led to taking a chance it might help me survive. I’m lucky in that it was far enough along that I’ve been able to manage through the changes it forced on me.”
“What I was interested in knowing is what effect has your… you called it a transition? What effect this has had on the increased rate of new products coming out of your shop? The release this week is just so far ahead of where you’ve been.”
Where the industry has been is what she wants to say, but I get the message. This is exactly the conversation I’ve been hoping to avoid. Unfortunately, the publicity about me is enabling the competition to put two and two together faster than I hoped. “As you’ve probably read I no longer have certain limits on what I can do in selected areas.”
“You don’t sleep.” Beth notes slightly exasperated.
“I’m able to stay on task longer than I used to, that’s true.” How do I avoid the obvious? “But you know one person can’t have that big of an effect. And now that A’zam has moved me into the CEO role, I have even less direct time on the products coming out.”
“Why is Oriana only an acting SVP? That’s not like you.”
“It was to give her
an opportunity to work in the role for a bit and decide if it really fits her skills, interests and abilities.”
“Are you planning on making her permanent?” Beth clearly will offer Oriana a comparable job at Symbol if I were to say no, but she’d want to know why first.
“That will be announced in the next few days.” I let the air out of that balloon.
“Was she involved in the new platform release?”
“It’s in her shop and I believe she was central to the architecture decision.”
“So, no casualties from your reorganization.” She’s wanting to pick up any of our senior folks who may be wanting to leave. I’d happily give her Moshe, but not as an Immortal.
“Just Julia who you’ve already talked to.”
“I heard she joined a venture fund specializing in communications technologies.”
“She should do well in that space,” is all I’ll say about Julia who made my life hell.
“Fisher’s not going anywhere, but he’s still looking for someone as either a President or a CEO with him moving to Executive Chairman.”
“He really doesn’t need to do that.” I suggest, probably because I was just looking at their performance. “Knowing you, I’m sure you’ve got the place under control. And besides, that’s not the level where you seem to need help.”
“Oh? What’s your recommendation?”
I have to be careful here, “I’m sure I’ve not seen anything you’re not working on.”
“Probably not, but what have you seen that you would change if you were over here?”
“What drives sales?”
“A great product at the right price with ready availability,” she doesn’t hesitate at all.