A Tale Of Doings

by Philip Quense

  David was walking back from the slaves’ cells, still ashamed from the night before, his steps slowly bringing him toward the command center, when he came around the corner and saw fifteen scientists gathered around Tara’s containment home. Women were gasping, and some men were applauding. What could be going on? David hurried his steps. A path cleared as people saw who he was.

  “What is happening?” he asked Ang-40.

  “Same as always happens to slaves.” Ang was a pretty brunette with a softly freckled face and a subtle digital tattoo on her arm. She pointed at the cell.

  Grandpa Greg was in the cell with Tara. The security guards stood motionless. The white-haired woman was fully clothed, but her hands were bound with air cuffs. The blue glow of the cuffs and the steel bands around her wrists held her hands fixed above her head and to a floating ceiling attachment device. She stood tall, as the cuffs barely let her feet fully come to the ground. Greg was kissing her and touching her to the cheers of some of the group. She was gagged with a piece of pillow.

  “Grandpa Greg, get off her!” David yelled. “Guards, take him out of there.” The guards refused. David rushed to the door. “Give me your key card to that door.”

  “Manager, sir, he said he’d fire us if we let anyone disturb his fun.” The guards shrugged in apology.

  “I manage him!” Red in the face with anger, David slapped the guard in the face with the back of his hand.

  David clutched the authorization card too hard; the key cut his hand, and blood oozed and dripped on his pants. He dropped it as he fumbled with the slick door lock. He looked into the glass room. Tara was pushed to the bed and Grandpa Greg was on top of her, slapping her. The older man was hooting and enjoying the fight. Tears of rage dripped down her cheeks, but she couldn’t fight back with the gag and cuffs.

  “Now you know your place, you, you…” The wheezing voice burst into a raucous, singsong-like rant. “Love, you know you’re the only one that’ll dance to the music for me.” David heard the words as he burst into the chamber.

  “Get off my slave and away from this unit,” David hissed. “How dare you?”

  “Piss off. You can’t tell me what to do, boy. If you can use her, so can I.” Grandpa Greg didn’t stop beating her.

  “I order you to cease.” Blood dripped from both of David’s hands.

  “Go get your own slave, you charlatan,” Greg shouted in triumph. Through the open entrance, David heard the bystanders gasp as the managers fought. Some chuckled.

  “I will order you to leave one more time.”

  “You have no more control over yourself than you do of me, boy.” Spittle dripped on his chin as he licked Tara’s neck. Then he looked up and said so that all the bystanders could hear, “I will release the video of you getting locked in my office and begging like a little intern to be release. ‘Please, mister, please let me go.’”

  “You wouldn’t dare…”

  “You have no idea, fool. Step back, or I’ll shame you and end your career.”

  David’s rage swelled up like an all-consuming fire. He jumped on the older man, throwing his overweight body to the floor. The two tumbled, rolled, and banged against the glass. Grandpa Greg submitted first, his body collapsing in gasps, burps, and convulsions. The two stood, and David pushed the weaker man toward the door. David’s muscles were pumped with adrenaline. His forearm veins pulsed blue. His lips were frozen in a growl, and his teeth looked like a canine’s maw.

  “How dare you touch Nnect property, Grandpa Greg.” David was enraged, his role of authority violated. “You dare try to blackmail me.”

  Despite his physical condition, the older manager had a backbone of steel. “I dare all things for the sake of pleasure.” Grandpa Greg mimicked David’s voice: “‘Please, manager, sire. Let me out.’”

  “For the sake of team building, I’ll let you go unscathed.” He quivered with rage, barely contained. He knew there was a line he could not cross.

  But there was an equally vengeful fire in the fat eyes that stared back at him, blurred red with lust. “I am Nnect property.” The man picked up a platter and smashed himself in the face. An angry bruise was forming. “Look what you’ve done. Valuable property that you just attacked.”

  “I didn’t do that. It’s on camera.” Shocked.

  The older man waved his fingers as if he were tapping on a computer. “I control the computers here. Oops, I do wonder where that footage went. Who do you think the CEO will believe, upstart?”

  “The team will vouch for me.”

  “Oh, do you think people will back you? Over me?”

  David wasn’t sure. He had heard the snickering. He knew there was gossip about him. He knew he was an unsafe bet. His weakness shamed him.

  The old man pointed at his brand. “You won’t see the end of this, upstart. Your luck from the PPRE project can only carry you so far.”

  “You disobeyed a direct order.” David didn’t know if he could do this, but he didn’t know what else to say. “Grandpa Greg, you are fired.”

  The older man frowned. The jeering and hooting outside in the hallway ceased. Only a highly placed manager could fire someone. David was still a lowly temporary manager; he was in training.

  “Hahaha, that is the funniest thing I’ve ever heard! You can’t fire me. See you later today at the managers’ brainstorming meeting when we decide what to do with these animals,” Grandpa Greg murmured evilly; he gestured sexually and sent an invisible kiss to Arc. “How dare you utter such a barbarism. Oh, the CEO will hear of this.”

  “Get out,” David said with tears of rage and quivering lips. “Get out now.” His voice broke into a high pitch.

  “I am not leaving this project. But I’m going to Orns to have some actual pleasure for a bit. See you in the afternoon.” The man spat past David, onto Tara.

  “These are my slaves.” David tried to justify his position. “You violated the agreement, Greg.” His voice shook with frustration as he lost control of the situation.

  “Go screw yourself. You can’t fire me. I’d quit before you could.”

  Greg began swaying his harms in a haphazard dance and singing, in perfect pitch, a forbidden tune: “‘You can’t fire me, foolish manager. I’ll quit if you try. If I quit, then I’ll take another job. A better job that gives me power. Power over you. I’ll can your ass.’ I hope you figured out a solution for turning this shit show into a profit,” Greg cautioned, “or you won’t even be a manager very long.”

  David knew it was true. “Go away!” he yelled at all the people watching. “Go back to work.” With that he left, retreating to his cubicle. He sank himself into his next report and his work. He knew it would take a week for a CEO review, and he was going to make this project work and save face. The deadline clock was ticking. “Damn Greggy!” he muttered darkly.

  An annoying voice in his head told him to say sorry to Tara. Fooling thought, go away. He didn’t apologize to Tara. Managers didn’t say sorry to slaves.

  When he walked into his command center, his team acted like nothing had happened and continued discussing the subjects. The employees were smart enough to not involve themselves in managerial drama. That was a quick way to kamikaze a career.

  “I’ll finish this project with accolades,” David promised himself, lied to himself. Self-doubt was a career cancer, and it gripped him. This was a personal war against Grandpa Greg now, but he was losing. There was only one day more of discussion testing, and then the manager team would decide what to do with the slaves. He wasn’t sure what the next step should be.

  The next morning, while David, Tara, Domin, and two scientists were in the middle of a discussion on public policy, David listlessly filled his tablet with nonsensical annotations. Not feeling up to supervising the meeting, he had allocated one of the other scientists to direct the debate. He was preoccupied.

  Just then, a panicked, white-robed scientist from Grandpa Greg’s team came stomping in and testified breathlessly that Gr
andpa Greg was killing a subject up in the prototype branding room. “He’s live testing.”

  David panicked. “I didn’t give live-testing approval yet. Live testing may begin tomorrow!”

  He knew he couldn’t hold it off any longer. The managers were champing at the bit to start. Steaming anger out his pores at the further leadership slight, David jumped up and signaled for his support staff to show him the way. Blue robes streamed behind the Lave Labs division as they moved out of the interrogation chamber.

  David went into what he thought of as “authoritative management mode.” He sprinted up the two flights of stairs, skipping three steps at a time, shouting orders for a life-support unit to follow him, hoping that he’d make it in time to stop Grandpa Greg from damaging Nnectonian property.

  The entourage of robed scientists dashed into the testing labs and through four rooms into the prototype branding room and saw an elderly human being man stretched on a floating chair. The man’s bony and wrinkled arms were strapped tightly down; the straps bit into feeble flesh. Sterile steel robotic arms were branding blue and black ink up his left arm and deep into his spine and heart. The victim was screaming as the ink crept closer to his aging heart. Deep crimson fluid bubbled out his nose into his gasping lips. David halted at the door, frozen with indecision.

  How old and useless the man looked. What could Nnect use this man for? He thought it might not be worth stopping Grandpa Greg. He had to pick his battles. But his pride, authority, and respect as a manager were on the line.

  Just then, two panicked scientists jolted awkwardly into his back. David snapped out of his paralyzed reflection and turned around to see the contingent of followers, which included the three slaves he’d just been interviewing.

  Tara, seeing the other human being dying on the table, screamed at David to do something.

  “Get the products back in their containment homes now!” David ordered to any staff listening and rushed over to the brand simulator, seeking an explanation. “What in the stock are you doing disobeying my direct order, you Ornful waste of resources?”

  Grandpa Greg lounged comfortably with his feet up on a desk, dangling above the floor. His fingers manipulated the robotic control arm nearest to the human being’s heart. He smirked at the chaos his actions were causing. His sneer said, “You can’t stop it now.”

  “This product is mine to test, and I’m running him a simple branding simulator to see if their hearts are strong enough to snuff it. Back off, boy. This useless being isn’t worth any of your freedoms or mine.” Holding his hands out to David in a sarcastic gesture of teaming, he said, “Let’s agree to fight later. Maybe we can figure out a way to break them, and then we can brand them.”

  David considered accepting the offer, because it gave him a graceful way to back out of the argument, save face. But the situation rose to a high level of panic as the man on the simulator started coughing and rocking back and forth. The fragile body jolted like a doll being shaken by a giant.

  “Dear Creator, save me,” the man screamed. Four guards were in the process of dragging Domin and Frank out of the room. A fifth guard was tussling with Tara. Tara twisted and kneed the man in the ribs. There was a sickening crunch as the guard’s rib caved in. He fell immediately to the floor. Tara rushed toward the branding machine and tried to pull the suffering man off the chair.

  “Dad, keep breathing. Keep breathing.” She turned to David. “Free him; the brand simulator is killing his insides. His heart will give out.” More frantic tugging at the machine. “Get the poison out of him.” She scratched at the arm with the oozing tattoo, but the ink continued to fill his flesh. Ink squirted onto her tan face and white hair.

  “Dad?” David stopped. “That’s new information, Arc.” He knew what a dad was, even though most human stock did not know who their genetic parents were.

  The bulky Grandpa Greg was surprisingly fast and powerful for his build. He didn’t freeze like David but pirouetted around to the front side of the machine. “Dad don’t belong in Xchange. If you don’t get off of my test subject, I’ll hold you down and use you as an Ornfully. Do you want to feel his pain?” Grandpa Greg stood over her, thrill and excitement rushing into his eyes. “I’ll have no mercy on you.”

  She held on to her father disobediently, so the bulky manager grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and pitched her body away from his subject. She barreled uncontrollably across the room into David, and the two toppled onto the floor. Grandpa Greg turned back to the computer and typed in a new sequence of commands. “Time we brand this man for real.” The screams were bloodcurdling as the robotic arms surrounding him moved and waved like a monstrous electronic spider. The blue ink from the newly forming brand started to ooze and squirt out of his restrained left arm.

  David lay stunned on the floor, the wind knocked out of him. He was face-to-face with Tara. He saw the tears in her eyes as she screamed, “Daddy, nooo!”

  The dad jerked with a violent sputter of ink, and then his body stopped convulsing. A slowed heart rate signal came over the monitor, and the computer simulator spoke. “Prompt required. Subject is alive but just barely.”

  “By the damned stock. Finish branding him,” Grandpa Greg demanded to the machine, his rounded back toward the couple on the floor.

  “Subject is too weak.”

  “Don’t you dare complain or second-guess me, computer. Or I’ll reprogram you,” Greg threatened the machine.

  The computer tried to explain, “The cross mark on the slave’s back won’t allow the branding ink to take proper root in the subject’s heart and brain. The connection between the heart and brain cannot be made. Remove subject in the next thirty seconds, or we estimate he will be terminated.”

  Tara’s face was so close to David as her body crushed onto him. He could smell her fear and anger, and for a moment, he could feel her heart beating wildly through their clothes. Their racing hearts pounded together for a brief moment. A connection. The wind returned to his lungs. His own adrenaline increased as he regained his full physical faculties once more.

  “It will be done,” he whispered and pushed her aside.

  Grandpa Greg became the object of all of David’s pent-up frustration and confusion. Anger seethed; his brand ignited and drove his anger and energy higher and higher. Fighting for power on the corporate ladder was part of the Nnect world. “You’re destroying my property—Nnect property.” He decided to feed his accusations with statistics. “I saw the reports. Each subject who’s been branded in past experiments was killed.” David pointed to the full-body, front-and-back image of the man on the projection screen against the wall. “Look, this cross tattoo is keeping our robot from connecting the heart and the brain. Something that the cross does on the inside of the subject’s skull negates our branding protocol. We knew this when we tested and branded several of the first missionaries ever captured. Release him now.”

  “I can’t release him. It is an irreversible program. Once the machine starts, it won’t stop until it is finished.

  “That isn’t possible.”

  “Convenient little modification to programming. My magic touch.” A smirk. “Of course unless the CEO himself overrides it.” A victory smirk. “Do you see any CEOs here to stop this travesty?”

  “How dare you.” David waved a clenched fist.

  “The CEOs are the only ones with the override codes. Their sacred armbands of power can override every program in Xchange. Looks like you might lose this battle, boy.” He sneered derisively and stole a lustful glance behind David at Tara. He gloated as he watched the palpable suffering of the man on the operation chair. “Sadistic satisfaction is much better than most pleasure.”

  “You will stop at once.” Helplessness filled his voice.

  “Beg me, boy.”

  David felt the hopelessness and helplessness of being locked in the small room. He said nothing.

  “You can give me that sexy human being to turn a profit as recompense for insulting m
y methods of leadership and assaulting my person. When the CEO hears of your letting them run around a sterile lab like house pets from Real World, you, young manager, will be fired or sent to Orns along with the rest of these useless captives.”

  David felt grasping fingers, wet from tears and ink, tug on his right arm. Tara was kneeling behind him, and she pulled up his sleeve. She noticed the dull platinum-blue armband where his sleeve was torn during the tumble, the armband that David had until now hidden from the world in fear and shame. She pulled on the band and whispered softly; only David heard her. “Inside-Out or Outside-In?”

  At the words and her touch, the illegal armband unlatched from his arm with a quiet but distinct metallic whirling sound. Tara stood up and held it out in front of her and then slammed it down on the computer screen. The armband rotated once and then turned into a side-by-side I and O, like some sort of key code. It then beeped and transformed into a control disk.

  The computer voice of the brand simulator said, “Override has been accepted. Would you like to shut down the operation and reverse it or continue?”

  Before anyone could move, Tara, as if she knew it would do just that, yelled, “Override and reverse.” Contradictory to Grandpa Greg’s prediction, the branding machine went to work reversing its invasive process. The arm ink was sucked out of the prostrate man into a clear glass container hanging on the wall; blue ink mixed with red blood. The man’s heart rate sped up. His eyes opened a moment later, and he smiled.

  “Tara, dear, you shouldn’t have done that,” her dad said tearfully. “It was OK for me to die if it protected you.” She held his arm as the seat rotated and opened its constraints, releasing his frail form, and the two embraced.

  The blue control key transformed back into an armband. David walked over to it, shocked, and picked it up. His eyes glared suspiciously at the device. The band opened once more and attached itself robotically back to his arm before he could stop it, looking for all the world harmless and normal. The O and I inscriptions on its curved metal surface made more sense to David now. A control key. Who would have known?