by Diane Duane
But in none of those cases, she thought now, gripping the rental’s wheel as tightly as she’d been gripping her seat’s armrests, had I just come off a flight like that!
A blue Dodge pickup changed lanes in front of her unexpectedly, veering in front of her. Delia braked skillfully, leaned on the horn, shouted “Idiot!” then checked the lanes around her, signaled, changed lanes herself, and blew past the Dodge. Come on, come on, she thought then, forcing herself to breathe more slowly, calm down. This is the worst time for this! You have got to get a grip. You’ll be there in twenty minutes. Breathe.
She breathed. She drove. The sky, which had been turbulent with clouds only half an hour ago while she was still picking up her luggage, was now almost completely empty of them, and the blue of the sky was turning hard and clear, while all around her a butterscotchy morning light spread itself over what landscape was visible past the beige gravel, sand art, and cactus plantings of the freeway.
That freeway actually went right past the Omnitopia campus, though there was no direct access. So the flatness of the Phoenix-area landscape being what it was, Delia caught sight of a few of the fabled “dreaming spires” from a few miles away. The phrase was a joke, she knew. The place was built mostly in the primarily horizontal Southwestern stucco-and-tile idiom, and no building on the campus was more than six stories high, that being part of the company’s gentlemen’s agreement with the city of Tempe when they first mooted the huge development. Though no one would’ve been surprised if the city’d agreed to let them build the Empire State Building all over again, knowing what kind of money this company was going to bring into town.
It had indeed been a sweetheart deal by anyone’s reckoning. Tempe had been only one of eight cities to begin campaigning for Omnitopia’s business when the company announced its intention to purpose-build a hundred acre main facility somewhere in the South-west. Most of the other cities—Taos, Tucson, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Pueblo, Amarillo, and Los Cruces—had, on the face of it, better sites or general offerings than Tempe, so there had been a lot of muttering among them when Tempe had carried off the prize by offering Omnitopia 150 acres of hitherto useless land north of the Rio Salado Park-way and south of the river’s mostly dry wash basin, west of the flood barrier between the basin and Tempe Lake. After the fact, all kinds of sour-grapes speculations were flung about by the losers—some of them smacking seriously of conspiracy theory, like the suggestion that Arizona State University had made Omnitopia some kind of secret deal to let the company rent the ASU science servers when they were done with a clandestine military project that was coming to an end: or that a past president or new presidential candidate from the area had privately bent Dev Logan’s ear and influenced the choice with promises of high-end political appointments to come. Other rumors were more straightforwardly whacko, such as the whisper that the Tempe site had better feng shui than the others—this involving some indecipherable gobbledygook about the site being perfectly positioned between air, water, earth, and fire in the forms of Sky Harbor (or the air rights for the contiguous dry wash area), Tempe Lake, Hayden Butte, and Sun Devil Stadium.
In any case, the deal had been done. The City of Tempe had gone away happily counting its very large pile of newly acquired dollars, and only two years after the groundbreaking for the uplift piers, the completed roofs and towers of Omnitopia City had risen on the riverbank and over the dry riverbed—bringing something like six thousand jobs to the Tempe area even after the construction was done, not to mention millions of extra dollars per year in tax income, and all the other money that all those new and fairly well-paid employees pumped into the local economy.
Now Delia swung around the eastward curve of the freeway, past the admittedly beautiful “built butte” of carved and cast sandstone landscaping that concealed the piers holding Omnitopia’s base platform high above the dry wash, and had to shake her head in grudging admiration. The pictures—and even the full-size virtual version of Omnitopia that existed as a Macrocosm inside the roleplaying game for the reference and convenience of both visitors and employees—did not do the reality justice. The many low buildings, here and there with a modest tile-roofed tower rising out of the trees to challenge the surrounding skyline of Tempe, had a look about them both civic and rustic, but rustic in an easygoing, modern way, very much at ease with itself, and individualistic, but casually so. The hot yellow Arizona day and the hard blue sky somehow got drawn down and tangled into that handsomely contrived landscape by the glitter of the sun off fronds and leaves in the groves of subtropical plantings, so that light seemed to be concealed in the landscape, revealed, concealed again. The whole effect was absolutely the opposite of corporate: a parklike kind of place in which people would probably like to live. And probably wouldn’t mind staying around to work extra hours, Delia thought. Just goes to show you that the best money can buy the best design. Especially if the bean counters think it’ll benefit the bottom line.
Buried in the heart of the campus, mostly concealed by a small forest of imported eucalyptus and other desert-friendly trees, was the chateau-peaked main tower of the so-called Castle Dev, the combined residence and main office of Omnitopia’s “First Player.” Delia caught just a glimpse of it while changing lanes. Maybe that’s part of what bothers me, Delia thought as the campus poured past on her right and finally dropped away behind. All this oh so correct fake populism, this more-ordinary-than-thou stuff, when the guy comes from middling-big money in the first place. It smacks of somebody protesting too much. She let out a breath as she headed down the off-ramp that would feed into South Mill Avenue. It would take another ten minutes’ backtracking through the middle of Tempe to bring her to the Omnitopia main entrance.
She was expecting some vast acreage of sunbaked parking lot spread out behind one set of guarded gates and in front of another. But instead Delia found herself driving into a large circular space like a cul-de-sac, paved in red-brown flagstones. Surrounding three-quarters of the circle, high raised banks of white and colored gravels decorated in Pima and Maricopa motifs—sun wheels, wise lizards, Kokopelli cane dancers and flute dancers—flanked a wide half-circular flight of golden sandstone stairs leading up to an area like an entry into a public park, but gateless and open. Water from a small square pool at the top of the stairs ran down a carved channel in the middle of the stairs, splashing from step to step into a pool at the bottom. To either side, wide accessibility ramps led up from the circle through the banks on either side toward each of two low tile-roofed stucco buildings and past the buildings, through the open space between them, everything changed. Outside the space, except for that glinting runnel of water pouring down the stairs, everything was bright, dry, arid. Inside, past the two buildings, everything was cool shade and bright splashes of floral color, small paths winding their way under the green canopy through a landscape of low, humanely-scaled, congenial-looking buildings. Delia pulled the car up at the edge of the circle, stopped, and just sat there a moment looking up the stairs, over the border into Omnitopia. It’s like being parked in Kansas and looking into Oz.
Someone tapped on her driver’s side window. Delia turned quickly and found herself looking at a smiling young brunette woman in a blue linen uniform with the Omnitopia omega logo embroidered on one sleeve. Delia touched the window control, rolled it down. “Uh, sorry, I didn’t know where to park—”
“Oh, no, Miss Harrington,” the young woman said. “It’s not a problem, we’ve been expecting you. If you’ll just drive around there—” She pointed at one of the ramps off to Delia’s right. “Follow the ramp down under the overhang, then hang a right into the guest parking area. Here—” She handed Delia two plastic guest ID badges, one on a neck lanyard. “Park anywhere you like in the ‘A’ area and leave the second card on your dashboard. Somebody’ll be down for you in a few moments.”
“Sure,” Delia said. “Thanks.”
The ramp that led through the sand-painted bank branched off just past it, one side
leading up into the pathways of the main campus, the other diving underground through an entrance partly curtained by hanging plants. Delia slowed as she headed downward, expecting a few moments of blindness in the usual sudden parking-structure darkness, but much to her surprise, there wasn’t any. The whole inside of the underground parking area space was lit, maybe not dazzlingly, but by what appeared to be natural sunlight filtered through clouds. Delia turned as she’d been told, found many empty parking spaces all emblazoned with “A”s, and parked in one of them. She then got out of the car to stare, fascinated, at the ceiling. It was completely paneled with squares of some material that glowed with a soft cool light.
From the far side of the parking structure, the sound of a small electric motor approached. Delia looked that way and saw one of the famous pink Omnitopia golf carts coming toward her with a slim young African American man in a polo shirt and chinos driving it. He pulled up next to her. “Miss Harrington?”
She smiled at him and slung the ID card on its lanyard around her neck. “That’s right.”
The young man stepped out of the cart to shake her hand. “I’m Joss McCann: I’m with the publicity department here.”
That brought Delia’s eyebrows up. He wasn’t just “with” Omnitopia publicity here: he was the head of it, and the number two man in Omnitopia PR worldwide. She was astonished how young he was, and then realized that she was probably radiating that astonishment. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting you to be my ride!”
Joss flashed a dazzling grin at her that said, And that’s not all you weren’t expecting, but I’m not saying a word. He glanced at her rental car. “Don’t forget your briefcase,” he said.
“No, of course not. . . .” She reached into the backseat after it, shut the car, locked it. Delia settled herself in the passenger seat of the golf cart, glancing around the parking lot. “Is today a day off for people here or something?”
Joss looked at her with slight surprise. “Why?”
“The parking lot’s kind of empty.”
“Oh! No, not a holiday,” Joss said, starting the motor up again.
“We’ve got a lot more room down here than we need. Most of our staff use park-n-ride facilities based off campus. There are shuttles that run all over town from the topside level.”
He drove down toward the far end of the structure. Delia peered upward as they went. Joss glanced at her. “The ceiling?”
Delia laughed. “Yeah.”
Joss nodded. “Solid ‘cold light’ like that has been a trope in science fiction and fantasy roleplaying games for years and years. When Dev found out that somebody’d finally figured out direct-glow electroceramic, he had to have it.” He glanced up at the last of the roof as they drove up the ramp. “The boss is such a geek.”
Delia blinked at that. This was not the kind of opinion she normally heard from upper management about uppermost management.
“But it’s energy-saving too,” Joss said as they drove up toward the sunlight. “So the bottom- line types like it. And it’s supposed to never burn out, so the physical plant people really like it.”
They came up into the sun near one of the two gate buildings, but only for a second; the next moment they were under the canopy of the trees. “So much for technogeekery,” Joss said. “Was your flight all right? Hear there was some pretty bad turbulence this morning.”
“Uh, yeah, there was,” Delia said. “I guess other people off my flight have come in?”
“Might have,” Joss said, “but I heard about it from one of the board members this morning. They’ve all come in for the rollout. Your timing’s perfect: we don’t normally get all of the Magnificent Seven on campus more than a few times a year.”
They were driving down a wide path that curved between plants and raised beds that partly concealed the buildings behind them: the path was full of people strolling, driving golf carts, riding bikes painted in the same shade of pink. “Forgive me,” Delia said, “but I have to ask. Are all the employees here really this casual about the board of directors?”
“It varies,” Joss said. “Some people like to be more formal. I know there’s been a lot of press speculation that we’re all just stock-option-brainwashed wage slaves who’ve drunk the happy happy corporate Kool-Aid.” He shrugged, flashed that grin at her again. “I think you may find a little more variation in the sample when you’re on the fifty-cent tour today. Are we well paid? Yeah, better than a lot of people at similar companies. If there are any similar companies.”
“Which of course you’re paid to tell me there aren’t.”
Joss gave her a wry look. “Of course. But, who knows, you might come to some similar conclusion yourself before you’re done. Are we brainwashed? I don’t think so. Trouble is, people who’re brainwashed into thinking they’re happy and people who’re having a lot of fun doing fulfilling work for a decent wage tend to exhibit some of the same symptoms. Add the side effect that the second kind of people trigger in folks doing work they hate for crap wages, and the clinical picture gets kind of confused.” Joss angled to the left when the path they were driving down branched. “But you’ll get a fair chance today to check the corporate coolers for unnatural-colored fruit drinks. One of my horde of slavering minions will take you around the buildings, get you oriented. That’ll take an hour or so. Make sure you make the minion stop and get you something cold halfway through: it’s gonna be a hot one today. Then you’ve got a meeting with Ron Ruis, who’s our chief worldbuilder, and Tau Vitoria, who’s chief server engineer, the king of our hardware guys.” Joss chuckled. “Watch out for him, he’s a hand-kisser.”
“What?”
“Tau’s very European,” Joss said, rolling his eyes in amusement. “He’s a minor member of some deposed Slavic royal family or something, I forget which one. Tau’s all manners and languages, but don’t be fooled. It’s just a blind to keep you from noticing that he’s the kind of guy who’d still be wearing pocket protectors if his staff hadn’t broken him of it.”
“I should be taking notes,” Delia said. It was meant, if anything, as misdirection: her memory was her one of her chief assets, one that made her more effective at what she did than some writers who were far more glossy prose stylists.
“Ask his staff for the latest gossip,” Joss said. “Or rather, try to stop them from telling you.” He took another branch of the path, where it ducked through a tunnel of greenery formed by a pergola smothered with vines and the beginnings of bunches of grapes. On the other side was a small parking lot paved in the same sandstone flagging as the paths, with a semicircular three-story stuccoed building embracing it. There were three or four golf carts and a scatter of bikes in front of it, both in a rack by the front doors and abandoned on the lawn around the parking area. Under a small patch of palm trees on one side on the lawn, a couple of employees were sitting on the grass, one hammering away on a laptop, another leaning against a tree and reading. To Delia’s eye, they looked like they were just barely out of college.
Joss killed the golf cart’s engine. Delia picked up her briefcase and followed him toward the doors, glancing at the young man and woman under the palm trees, and at the people going in and out of the doors ahead of them. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised at how young the workforce is here,” she said. “A big tech company, after all . . .”
“Young, yes,” Joss said as they went in, “but we’re also the state’s biggest employer of seniors. Possibly the biggest one in the South-west, though I’d need to check the stats.”
That surprised her. “Really? How many?”
“At least eight hundred people fifty-five or over,” Joss said. “I think about five hundred people over sixty-five. It makes sense down here, after all! There are all these educated retirees who enjoy working from home on ‘relaxed hours’ or some other kind of flextime. A huge untapped resource.”
It was of course the kind of thing that you would expect a PR person to be telling you about. Delia made a me
ntal note to look into this another time, specifically with an eye to finding out what kind of wage these putative retirees were earning. “Anyway,” Joss said, as they headed in through the building’s lobby and up a broad flight of stairs in its center, “after you see Tau, Dev should be ready for you—assuming something bizarre hasn’t happened to his schedule between now and three hours from now.” They came up to the second floor, where a large central corridor followed the main curve of the building, and small informal open work areas budded off on both sides. The whole feel of the place was bright, open, airy. Delia looked up and was surprised to see what appeared to be completely unobstructed blue sky.
Joss chuckled. “Our famous glass ceiling,” he said. “It’s polarized—you get that it’s-not-there effect until the sun hits it. Welcome to the Flackery! This is where we handle PR for the worldwide operation, so if things look a little crazy right now, it’s all about the rollout . . .”
They walked down the corridor to the right. “Maybe it’s just me,” Delia said, “but if this is the building when things are crazy, then at a calm time it must seem positively comatose.”
Joss looked up and down the corridor. “Nooo,” he said, “too many people on Rollerblades for ‘comatose.’ Come back next month.” They walked past a big kidney- shaped table with numerous large flat-screen monitors on it. Working in front of one of them, or perhaps playing, was a man in his forties, intent on a number of figures running around in some grassy landscape. They appeared, from the quick glimpse Delia got as they passed, to be playing tennis.
“He’s in Namath,” Joss said, after a glance. “It’s a Macrocosm where all combat is in the form of Earth sports. Once a year each of the Sports Nations there holds a competition to determine who’s going to rule each nation for the next game season.” He shook his head. “I stay out of there. That ’cosm is nuts. Talk about your unbridled savagery and internecine warfare.”