“Manager—I told them to send someone with that title in here,” Mop declared with a tone of victory.
“Stock,” David cursed. He needed to stop responding, or did he? He recalled the conversation with Jack and Manda. My scientists aren’t making headway, anymore. I need to create opportunity. The unconventional idea of engaging in dialogue, even though it was undignified for a manager, popped into his mind, so he asked, “What is AI, Mop?”
“Artificial intelligence. Robots. Why not have robots instead of humans working for the companies if efficiency is the only goal?”
“’Cause…” David began to retort and then stopped to actually consider. He didn’t know. The levelheaded inquiry took the stuck-up manager by surprise. Interesting, David thought. Mop has a brain.
“Put the tray down and drop the servant act.” Mop demanded.
Caught up in his thoughts, David sat without taking offense, pursing his lips, wrinkling his forehead. David vaguely remembered debunking similar lines of thought during apologetics, courses in the philosophical defense of robotic ethics, during his Upbringing years. The apologetics debate team had discussed a similar lie that human-doings were prone to ask about robots replacing humans. Try as he might, he couldn’t recall the particulars of the response or premise.
To give himself a moment to think, he responded, in what he thought was a reasonable tone, “One moment. I’ll do some research and get you an answer.”
The large man stepped aside. David stood, nodded, and left. Crisis avoided.
“Why AI?” David intoned as he walked into the hallway, leaned against the glass and searched the question on his tablet. The guards outside the door looked at him anxiously.
“Manager, should we punish the subject or drug him?” a bearded, gruff uniformed man asked.
A woman with a sergeant insignia said, “I’ll have the mop monster restrained, sir.”
Without looking at their name tags, caught up in his research, he casually commanded. “No need—step down.” A list of articles and helpful insights came up on his tablet.
Factually equipped, he stalked back into the room and expertly dictated, “Companies don’t use artificial intelligence or robots, AI, because deep-seated programming bugs are a nuisance nightmare. AI requires constant maintenance, expensive upgrades, unpredictable consequences, and material development.”
Mop said, “But don’t humans require food and shelter? As a resource, humans have a short expected service life. We die, don’t we?”
Reading from one article, David said, “The human machine only needs food, exercise, sleep, and water. Machines need oil, electricity, sensor calibration, programming iterations, material inventions, development foresight, and expensive repair components.”
“Machine components can be reused,” Mop countered.
David replied, “Human products breed a lot faster than software updates can be programmed. And it takes humans to program and develop robots. Why not cut out a useless step?”
“Machines can be more effective.”
“Maybe in your world. We brand humans into doings in Xchange. And branded doings are a lot more predictable than computer bugs. Especially with the branding corrections.”
The larger man seated himself on the edge of the table, satisfied to think on the response.
David recalled the other points he’d just read. “Humans can’t be hacked by other companies. Robots do have a place and are used at times. History teaches that legacy robots were a security problem.”
“The weak link.” Mop sipped on a fuel jug.
“Exactly—the security teams to maintain the robots were very, very costly.”
“What about safety? There are jobs that a machine can do and won’t get hurt.”
“Safety is not an issue in Xchange. Productive humans are not put in dangerous positions. Only Orns and lower-class citizens are utilized in as dangerous situation.” That was what David had read.
“Hmm. So it comes down to profit and not so much to efficiency or safety?” the jet engineer asked. “With your culture’s mind-set, I guess humans are more recyclable. Skin and flesh feed the earth, but plastics, batteries, nuclear waste, and metals take longer for the planet to dispose of.”
“What? That’s a disgusting thought.” David was shocked by the rude assertion and jarring mental image of bones and rotting flesh being thrown in a recycling pile like machines. “What sort of horrible place did you grow up in across the Adriatic Divide?” He felt a cold shiver down his spine at the repulsive thought.
“Us horrible?” Mop chuckled ironically.
Standing, indicating that the meeting was over, David said, “Mop, this was productive.”
“It’s Frank You.”
“I don’t care what you call yourself, Mop. I hope you learned something about life. I will ask you a question next.” He moved toward the door.
Mop said to David, “I will think on this.”
He returned to the command center, his mind bursting with new ideas. “Manda, I just had the strangest encounter with Mop.”
“The team has been gossiping about you talking to a slave.” Manda was seated on a spinning chair tossing defective screen controllers at a desktop trash arm; the robotic arm was beeping complaining whines and trying to catch the missiles. It missed most of them. Manda giggled at its incompetence.
“Dialogue might work. It strips back tension and allows us to hear the mind-sets of these human beings.” He would not let his creative realization be thwarted by conventional testing approaches. Isn’t that why he had been made a leader? David was innovative.
“Damn this property!” Carl-63 said, rubbing his bald top, as he flicked through the overwhelming and convoluted digital memos on his workstation.
Carl was not the only stressed person. A technician was unsuccessfully trying to draw a 3D flowchart of the Tri-Coalition’s schooling methods. David looked across the room at the technician. David had overheard all the members of the Lave Labs team murmuring since the testing period had been initiated.
Manda had warned him earlier that he needed to find a next step for the team or they would go to other managers for advice. David thought of what Doc Gus often said: Use the problem.
“Team huddle!” David beckoned those in his immediate vicinity toward his manager station. He flicked his wrist and cleared what he had been working on. The 3D reports and testing videos obediently jumped into their appropriate folders with the effortlessness that only computers could muster. “Give me feedback.”
“Manager David, I have to report to Slave Comfort Solutions in three minutes,” complained a female technician, her charcoal skin gleaming. Comfort Solutions oversaw the products’ bathing and feeding and the other necessary expenses that an organization incurred by owning humans. The blue tattoo on the black-haired woman sparkled gently as she dutifully stepped toward the team huddle, her spongy moccasins whishing on the polished floor.
A short, stubby man with a wide chin and goofy smile silently echoed the woman’s protest to a team meeting by raising his arm and pointing at her, as if to say, “I need to be about a task soon.”
David nodded at the two protesting technicians. After his silent acknowledgment of their requests, David began, “Full disclosure, I am turning off the recording.” He let them all see him slide the camera button on his computer to off. The huddling team looked at him, waiting for further explanation. “Feedback time. By the stock, what is making it so hard to work with these slaves?” He hesitated and pointed at the containment homes below them. “Why are you all so uncomfortable working with this batch? What has you so overwhelmed?”
Awkward silence. No one spoke.
“Oh, come on, doings. Feedback is important.” His voice rose to a screechy pitch.
Immobile silence. David was still a new manager, struggling with the ability to translate ideas to a large group. I am limited, he condemned himself. But we can do all things if we do them together, a positive internal voi
ce countered. And so he persisted. “I hear you all complaining about the slaves. How awkward, strange, and aggravating they are. I hear you complaining about me as a leader. So what is it about them? What is it about me? Let’s identify the issues we face so we can be a more effective working force here.” He grasped the coat of the nearest employee, “I demand one hundred percent accountability.”
Blunt honesty. His confession of weakness was risky, but it broke the frozen silence. As soon as David admitted that something was awkward, it elicited useful complaining.
One woman to his left said, “Those monsters aren’t obedient or compliant. They gab about random things. They don’t stop.”
A man wearing a green technician uniform chimed in, “They keep getting under my skin. It’s like they are too human.” He dithered, and his shoulders shivered like a bucket of ice was being dumped down his backside. “Those slaves don’t act like any Thrive Upbringing graduates and interns that I’ve labored with.”
“They are devious,” said the black-haired woman. She shuffled her feet and checked the time on a device.
“I prefer working with Orns waste products over these schemers!” declared a pudgy man, a clipboard dangling from his neck.
Waving his hands as the complaints rolled off their now-willing tongues, David chided, “Stop, stop. Give me details…How are they schemers and deviants?”
“Use your words, people,” Manda demanded.
The group paused, searching their minds’ eyes for specifics. David thought about specifics himself. How could he verbalize what he’d observed? He could feel in the captives a desire to survive and be free, a desire controlled by their strong wills. They each had a unique identity that they would not trade, even if it meant death. They had a reason to live and a reason to die. The Torture Scenario had brought each of them to a point of calm surrender and acceptance. Very odd indeed.
The black-haired woman swished her feet together and leaned closer to David. “One of them actually helped me when I dropped a food tray.” She twitched her lips. “Yes, yes, it was that gimpy slave. He stood up and waved at me to step aside, and he put all the papers and food bars back on the tray. I could have called security on the idiot for touching confidential items without permission.”
“Rude,” Carl said, disgusted. “Why would a man help you? Doesn’t he understand boundaries?”
Another woman added, “The mop one keeps joking about things. I can’t tell if he’s serious or lying.” She blushed, admitting her confusion. “I think that slave asked me on a tee-up. Like a date. When I told him he couldn’t afford me, he tried to explain that dates were free.”
Interesting. David still could not put words to the problem before them, but this was helpful team brainstorming.
Then the pudgy man with the dimpled cheeks shouted, “These slaves act like Self-Purchaseds. They try to interact with us, instead of going along with what we dictate.”
Another tech said, “They act like people from Storyworld.”
Jim-4000 added with conviction, “By the stock that took me from my surrogate, those devils act like they’re free people. The saunter around like a Real World executive.”
The group hushed. This was it.
“The slaves are acting like free people.” The looks in the group synced, and David could tell that they were offended. His own brand tingled in disgust as he pondered this atrocity. He pondered many things these days. Strange times. He wanted to vomit.
“How dare they!” the pudgy man hissed heatedly.
Use the problem as a solution, David. The Mindmonk mantra came back to David in his moment of need, and he said it aloud. “So these rats don’t like to go along with protocol. They keep getting under our professional skin. They like to talk. They think they’re free.” The group ceased the chatter.
David declared, “Maybe we can learn something from our conversations with these slaves, since we can’t seem to contain or shut them up. Maybe that’s the way to ‘use the problem.’”
Manda was the first to grasp the idea David was proposing. She questioned helpfully, “You mean, converse like free people?”
“Something like that, Manda. Team, let us pretend we are Storyworld actors communicating with the people in Storyworld that don’t know about Xchange.”
“That’s crazy.”
“Unpredictable.”
“I didn’t ask for your opinions. Just your feedback,” David snapped.
Manda said in a nicer tone, “Let’s engage in these conversations and try to draw out more information from these slaves. It’s true—we can’t seem to stop them talking.”
David said, “Our mission, should you be to commanded to work here, is to learn about the land of Tri-Coalition and to advantage Nnect. So let’s keep the ignorant rats talking.” He remembered the words of Paddy from the Irish pub, telling him to listen. “Try to listen. Record anything useful over the next days of experimentation.”
Manda forced the huddle back to the central 3D projection and asked David, “What do we do before your management meeting? We have limited hours to test these subjects—agree on next steps, sir. Then the entire group owes an update of our status to the CEO’s office.” The group looked to David.
David knew that time was short, but he felt deep down that discussions would yield information. He needed to show his team how to do this. “I’ll do it.”
“Do what?” Jack and Carl said simultaneously.
“I’ll step into the area where the glory is to be won. I’ll fight the battle that needs to be fought. I’ll sacrifice convention and be a game changer. I’ll negotiate with our slaves myself.”
The team gasped.
“And try to figure out a productive medium for testing to continue.” This was unheard of, a manager talking to worthless test rats. The others gaped, jaws dropping.
David marched past his team of scientists, down the stairs, and into a small pretest break room. The simple decor included four cream-colored Thrive hovering chairs and a low Ssential hovering table. It was a central room that was connected by short hallways to his three primary slaves’ homes. In a loud, theatrical voice he demanded, “Bring me Arc, then Mop, and then Gimp.”
And so dialogue began. David didn’t know it, but this was perhaps the first true conversations, other than missiles launched from shouting ships, between the Corporate States and the Tri-Coalition. If the CEO had known such a naive evil was taking place under his watch, David would have been severely reprimanded. But he didn’t know any of that.
The encounters were like nothing David had experienced. With half his staff looking in beyond the two-way-mirror walls and the other half watching on the cameras, recording information, David spoke with the three slaves, human-doing to human being. The experience proved engaging and stimulating for David. He wanted answers to all the questions that had piled up over previous days of observation. It seemed that these three subjects also wanted to talk to a figure of authority rather than actors or scientists. Information began to flow.
Arc was first. She stalked like a lioness, calmly into the comfortable room, her eyes seething with stormy energy. She was the essence of wild divergence. The fire of rebellion blazed in her eyes, contrasting with the cool, composed, flowing motions of her body. She maintained an impressive control over herself as she sought answers to her current predicament with a single-minded focus.
Good, David said to himself. Upset at least means I am getting through the interior. He wanted answers too.
“Blessed doing today, isn’t it? My staff has said you are quite an admirable piece of work,” he started awkwardly. Complimenting women always seemed to get you something in return; marketing ads always preached this.
“As long as you’re not an actor.”
“I’m a manager.” Establish dominance, David. An eyebrow raised; she didn’t seem to grasp what being ‘a manager’ implied.
Oh well. He continued anyway. “Sit down, and let’s dialogue.”
“You mean talk like normal people?”
Again he ignored her tone for the sake of his goal. “I’m David-23, the acting Nnectonian manager of the special Lave Labs task force assigned to this slave enterprise.” He waved at the couch. “I hear from my staff that you like to chitchat. Can we talk? I have much I want to learn, and the managerial chain of command will be putting pressure on us all for results soon.”
“You speak of results as if it’s a casual everyday job for you to confine and study humans like we’re animals.”
“You are much more intelligent than animals. We have taken that into consideration.”
“How can you treat your fellow human beings with such contempt? You’re a pig—just like the rest of them.” She spat at him and then slapped him hard. Her retracting hand caught the edge of his neckline and ripped part of the blue lab suit, revealing even more of his tattoo.
The slap hurt. David jumped up in surprise at the disrespect, taken aback by her contemptuous action. Don’t retreat from your objective, David. People are watching. You need results. David felt forced to compromise.
“What’ve I ever done wrong to you? This is a new lab suit!” He wiped spittle off his stung cheek. She returned the glare. “My staff warned me that you lot were unprofessional, but this is going too far. All I want to do is barter for results, and perhaps we can come up with a plan that is mutually beneficial.” He motioned downward with both palms facing the floor.
“All you. That’s a relative term.” But she shrugged in a more peaceful gesture.
They both sat tensely on the edges of their floating chairs. He continued, “Our goals are upright, and I’m being honest. All we want to do is earn as many freedoms as we can for Nnect. Maybe you can earn your own freedoms one day if you integrate into our society.”
Lies were necessary for progress. David knew that the slaves would never integrate in a freedom-earning capacity, but he could still toss them the hopeful idea. Maybe their God figure would help them. He chuckled to himself at the ridiculousness of the thought; the humor calmed him. He remembered a saying from one of his past managers: small, partially true lies always ring with more sincerity.
A Tale Of Doings Page 34