A Tale Of Doings

by Philip Quense

  A workie slammed through David’s body. He staggered to his knees as the brand jolted him with pleasure at being in the presence of such goodness. His heart pulsated and slowed, and the energy rushed to his head. Time stopped, and he almost blacked out from the adrenaline. David had never been this close to a CEO. His heart leaped with joy and wrenched inside of him in fearful anticipation. This man was the symbol of David’s motivation. Then in a flash the internal stimulation was over. The workie was shorter than usual. The brand rush ceased, and David stood, blinked, and looked around. Several of the group were twitching on their knees.

  The CEO waited patiently. He was used to the shock his presence could have on virgin employees. The man smiled at David, and David could only whisper, “Thank you for blessing me.” The CEO’s nodded his acknowledgment.

  “You have each been identified by our team to participate in a Rapid Improvement Teaming Event. This is your first RITE.”

  The CEO walked around the group and blessed them by rubbing his thick thumb on their foreheads with an X. “My management team wants this RITE to create novel ideas for marketable services.”

  “May Nnect be a pillar,” the thirteen employees droned in response.

  The CEO continued, “Competing brands are taking market share in the connection world, and we need to reclaim lost ground. Your team is one of four. You are a compilation from various divisions and will be competing for the best idea. The goal is to think of ideas that can be implemented by the end of this week. A RITE is rapid. I want to implement immediately.” He stressed the “want,” then continued in a more mystical tone. “A RITE is a sacred and daunting task. The other three teams are standard Nnect initiative teams led by some of the best and brightest Nnect managers. I’ll be calling you the Upstarts because I believe the normal Productzen can contribute to greatness. Impress me, and you’ll earn a spot on future RITE initiatives, and there are freedom bonuses associated with success. This is the opportunity of a lifetime. Do not fuck this up, or it will be your hides on the line.”

  The great man paused to let the impact of his words take root. David felt his brand pump energy into him as understanding seeped into the byways of his brain. He reflected on this career changer, a move that could impact his entire life. I will climb the corporate ladder. Desire filled him. “One rung higher up, one move deeper in.” He whispered the Mindmonk mantra to himself. Excitement rushed into him and blended with the energy from the brand. David looked at CEO Saul and swore to himself to follow this man. Gratitude swelled in him for Nnect’s providence. Another workie raced through his body. David’s legs gave out from under him, forcing him to his knees. “By the blessed stock,” he gasped. He recovered and stood.

  The CEO continued, “A team of initiative managers will debrief you on the project particulars and specific mission objectives as soon as I finish, but I will bless you with some company perspective first.” He paused and scratched his nose. “When I assumed control of this great company, I bought a struggling brand and turned it into one of the four Majors. Each of us has defining career moments in our lives. Now is your time. Now is your moment. Give me your all, and you will be rewarded. Earn me freedoms!” He smiled. “Freedoms are power, and power is freedom.”

  Obtrusively breaking into the solemnity of the moment, an irritating beep sounded. Beep again. All eyes went to the gamer. His jet-black Tz600 Nnect gaming device beeped, beeped, and a voice whined, “Victory.” His chest pocket lit up and vibrated. The man looked in horror at the pocket. He attempted to silence it. The device fell out of his clumsy and now-sweaty hands and skidded across the emerald marble floors. Vibrating, it stopped sliding at the feet of CEO Saul. “Victory, victory,” the device screamed. The man scrambled on all fours after his device, crawling and shuffling like a rat with its tail stuck in a trap. He seized the device, knelt, and then stood. The face of the rat transformed again to horror, realizing in his moment of shame that he stood face-to-face with CEO Saul.

  A dark, bulging blue vein, which David noticed for the first time, popped out on CEO Saul’s bald head. Red faced, the blue vein angry and pulsing, he declared, “We each have defining moments in our lives.” Fire raged in his eyes. “You, slave, have let your addictive habit destroy a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. A wise man knows which ‘desires’ and ‘needs’ are created for followers and which ‘character traits’ and ‘habits’ we as leaders need to leave behind to succeed at the game of work. True managers have no need for products that are as useless as that time-wasting device in your hand.” Saul waved his hand. Pointing his arm with the Outside-In armband, he displayed the O with the bent I before all in the room.

  David shuddered. May the CEO never find the cursed band on my arm. It looked very similar. David’s hidden armband was platinum. The CEO’s armband of power was blue.

  The CEO continued in a thundering voice, “Take this worthless servant, and sell him for scraps to Orns.” As the CEO spoke, an expression of pain crisscrossed the excommunicated man’s face; he clung to his brand and rolled twitching on the floor. His mouth twisted in a horrible frozen scream, but no sound emerged. A slight blue glow brightened the room as the brand lit up. “What a useless tool,” the CEO said to no one in particular. “What a deficient piece of shit Thrive sold me in that stock.” The moment passed, and the CEO lectured the crowd in a calmer voice. “That useless heap would’ve ended up at Orns anyway. The brand technology unit will remove the beautiful sacred Nnect letters from his body. Not everyone is cut out for the hard struggle of discipline that freedom requires. Send him away to a company that can make use of him.” He turned to the fired man. “Be gone from my sight, you worthless creature.”

  Four heavily armored soldiers entered from hidden doors that materialized in the wall, and they dragged the man out of the room. He begged fruitlessly and screamed one last time, “Please, one more chance. I thought it was on silent!”

  David did not need the brand to fill him with terror. His body shook with fear as he witnessed the swift act of justice. How precious and precarious the path of life. He trembled visibly until the expression on the CEO’s face transformed. It was at one moment the face of the devil and in the next that of a benevolent ruler.

  After pausing and waiting for the sound of the struggle to disappear down the hallway, CEO Saul announced ceremoniously, “And so we continue.” He blessed himself with the X of Nnect. From their kneeling positions, all the RITE employees imitated their leader. “It is good to know that we have uprooted a pathetic product who sprang up among this fine harvest unrecognized until this very moment. Sometimes one must let the wheat and the weeds grow together before you root the weeds out to burn them.” The man habitually rubbed the tuft of hair under his lip. “Each of you may remember some of the history of Nnect, but let me share three key moments in Nnect’s trajectory toward success.” The man held the room’s absolute attention. “A gift and a lesson from my own struggle toward absolute power.”

  The lights suddenly dimmed into a surreal nighttime atmosphere. The skylight overhead transformed into a solid dark dome. A scene appeared on the far wall, and the story began. “Years ago, my father and a team of scientists unlocked the means to advance humanity to another level of perfection. They created human brands: the interlocking of the intentional creation of pleasure and pain with our brain’s basal ganglion. The basal ganglion is an ancient neurological structure at the back of the human skull that takes over our thought processes and aids us by building and controlling habits. The scientists sampled many ways to control people. They attempted procedures that affected human nerves, implanted devices in the cranial and cardio systems, and tested emotional manipulation methods. Eventually, by connecting to the basal ganglion, these forward-thinking scientists stimulated emotions, adrenaline input, and feelings by linking certain physical responses in the body and heart to chosen traits and patterns of thinking in the human brain. As the human advances in years, these intentional patterns, known as ‘chunking’ i
n the world of memory and habits, solidify and shape its life.

  “At last mankind could choose the characteristics that needed to be disciplined and rewarded to build a perfect human-doing. We ascended from our mortal imperfections into new beings.

  “This ingenious and creative team of scientists took a huge step for the betterment of humanity this day.” The projector displayed a video of a science lab, with cheers and champagne and celebratory speeches taking place, a mirage of memory from the distant past. The lab shifted to a video of the modern-day branding machine and process. A man and woman receiving the tattoo smiled candidly as they looked at the upgraded image of themselves in the mirror. Across the screen ran the words “Building humans into effective tools of happiness.”

  Next came an image of a low-level engineer holding a computer-guided rocket launcher, aiming at a falling building. The building in front of him was smoldering and smoking as it crumbled to the ground. The man who turned around from the pile of ashes looked like a younger version of CEO Saul. “My brother Rex was a patriot who inspires my dream each day.”

  CEO Saul has a brother? David was learning much in this history lesson.

  “Business was flourishing, but there came a time when brave and critical decisions needed to be made. Aggressive action was required. The corporate world was locked in combat against outdated democracies. Internally our company was asking who would lead them in the fight to build a new world. Rex was a patriot in this fight. The strongest companies were leading the fight for market freedom against the grasping and shortsighted goals of the government and religious leaders of the day. The corporate freedom fighters believed in monopolistic capitalism and socialistic idealism as the backbone theories to best control the market, and in turn to maintain peaceful and fruitful trade.

  “It was unclear which companies would emerge from the pack to become the all-powerful monopolies. In the communication market, there was Nnect, competing to take over the ‘connection’ responsibility and be one of the Majors. Nnect was locked in fierce competition with a worthy conglomerate of now-outdated brands, including but not limited to Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, Google, LinkedIn, and others. Nnect needed to destroy the competition if it wanted to remain the building block and the sole connection cornerstone of Xchange, the new society my brother was fighting to establish.” Images of the outdated brands came and went on the screen—old ways of thinking, branding, and connecting humans. “A young manager at the time, with dreams to rise to the height of power, Rex decided to push Nnect to the next level.

  “How was this possible, history will ask?” Letting the anticipation rise, he waited. His listeners were wrapped around every word of the story. “Prior to attacking their infrastructure, Rex pushed two innovative ideas about humans: first, that they should pay for connections with other humans; and second, that the human image should be perfected and marketed by the company and not the individual. So we at Nnect started creating our users’ profiles, and the Perfect Self-Interaction Profile was born—Selfies, as you know them. And Nnect made a killing in dollars. People paid money to have us perfect their image and create mini marketable gods out of their tattered self-images. Then we began charging for high-quality chats, and then we charged for rights to relate with certain other humans. And on and on until we had the infrastructure to sweep the other competition out the door.

  “But taking large gains in market share was never enough for Nnect. Becoming a board member of Nnect was not enough for Rex. Control must be complete to be satisfying.”

  To prove his point, CEO Saul showed another scene, and the rapt audience watched in awe and horror as a Nnect military cruiser attacked and blew up an entire city block. Smoldering signs with the names of the outdated brands bounced along the street from the rubbish of the buildings to rest at the feet of a figure. The silhouette in the foreground with the rocket launcher laughed tyrannically. “Rex killed those who were unworthy and burned the competition to the ground. Nnect used the momentum to establish authority and stabilize the market. Nnect will now forever be a pillar. The only connection pillar. Our freedom was born through Rex’s heroism and blood.”

  “Blood, CEO, sir?” David gasped out, unable to stop himself.

  A tear dripped from the hardened face of the most powerful man alive. The CEO walked over to the kneeling David and put a muscled hand around his neck. He will kill me. David bowed his head and submitted.

  But the CEO brushed David’s face with paternal tenderness. “My brother was killed during the fighting. He never rose to the seat of power he deserved.” The man moved back to the center of the room.

  “Years later, with Nnect as a pillar of Xchange and Xchange free to govern itself, we still had more developments to make. The final lesson came when the Xchange governing board invented the freedom policy. The monetary system known as freedoms. The ultimate goal of mankind is freedom and happiness. So we merged the two. The four governing CEO board members and a recently ascended delegate from the powerful fringe company Orns met thirty-five years ago. There was a financial crisis, and the Xchange dollar monetary system was destabilized. Xchange needed something that would ensure the survival of its society.

  “My brother’s heroism paved the path for my quick rise through the ranks of management. I presented the idea of the freedoms as a monetary unit to the board.” David imagined that the CEO was a powerful orator and persuader. “My son taught me how.” The screen showed a wonderful mansion with CEO Saul’s ten-year-old son standing in front of it. The boy looked up at the sky from the expansive lawn as he flew a toy airplane.

  “Dad,” the boy said, “isn’t it beautiful to be free in the sky and go wherever you want, however you want, and just ride the currents of the wind? I want to soar like this plane. I would pay anything to be able to fly like this plane. Daddy, can you invent a way to fly like this?”

  A younger CEO Saul came out and put his arm around his son. “Will a person pay anything for that freedom? What would we pay?” The image panned out, and then an image of the Brand Development and Human-Doing Contract—the constitution of Xchange—and the Freedom Xchange Currency Standard came into the video.

  “That conversation highlighted for me the desire we all have to be free and helped me draft the financial amendment to our constitution. I knew that if we could harness this desire, then the human potential could be predictably guided for our newly founded utopia. But it was not so easy. I proposed the improvement to our monetary system to the powerful members of the governing board, but there was hesitation to establish the freedoms unit of Xchange.” He paused. “The board did not believe anyone could get such a freedom policy started, even though companies were already branding humans to replace personal debt and credit lapses.

  “I proposed that I’d lead by example. I sold my son to the stock market to show the world how to go about following this new freedom monetary policy. Within a year, the board of the Majors made it mandatory that humans sell their kids upon birth to the stock market for the right to live in our civilization. I was raised up to replace the current CEO of Nnect as my vision became a reality. The Corporate States forbid marriage to normal humans and designated it as a right of only the free. We already owned many adults who had sold out for any number of reasons to various brands leading up to the war that split the world. And then the Thrive School for the Education and Perfection of Children was born; this was led by CEO Sarah of Thrive Health Divisions. The system and the stock Xchange all hinged on these influential decisions and sacrifices. My son is now a thriving member of society because of this vision, a cog of industry. You may never know who he is, but he is proof of the goodness of our system. Family heritage is unimportant. All that matters is the world we build. I have no doubt that he will earn his own freedom one day as he climbs the career ladder.

  “There are three lessons I wish to impart. First, fearless scientific discovery is always required. Second, creating the need for an outside-to-the
-inside perspective on mankind is imperative. And third, we need to sacrifice everything for the betterment of mankind.

  “This is what our great civilization is founded upon. I want each of you to be mindful of this, pray about this, discuss these lessons with your Mindmonks. If you do this, you may begin to harness your potential!”

  The speech was over, the video reel stopped, and the powerful man stalked out of the room, the atmosphere created by his presence still lingering, tantalizing the emotions and minds in the room like a cloud of perfume.

  The rest of the day flew by in a blur of introductions and detailed informative sessions hosted by the project leaders. The day wrapped up with several hours of brainstorming. Everyone had to come up with an idea that would help gain market control in the next two weeks. What could they invent—or sell or reuse—to make a profit? Ideally it would be some new way of doing business or seeing business using current resources.

  It turned out that the driving motivation behind the assembling of David’s team was a project called Work-Out-at-Work. The commoners referred to the popular program as Cross-Workers. Two of the other Major brands were combining forces on this extremely successful, groundbreaking project, which created a revolutionary product and new revenue streams. Both Productzens and Self-Purchased employees were jumping on board and taking a cut in their compensation in order to participate. It got people fit and got work done at the same time. These companies had previously outsourced many uncomfortable or labor-intensive job positions to Orns’s contracting teams. Now it was an in-house division, which cut costs and was incredibly profitable. The Work-Out-at-Work project consisted of creative exercise routines built into construction sites. Such slogans as “Build yourself and build buildings” were the bread and butter of the campaign. Other catchphrases such as “Yoga on a steel beam,” “Leave the forklift behind and do cleans and squats,” and “Pull-ups on a crane” flooded the marketplace. The Work-Out-at-Work program had put Nnect behind in profit shares this week, and it was time to catch up.