David remembered the signatures in the hallway, and all the adrenaline drained from him. “Nooo.” He froze in disbelief. “Not possible.” He said. How could they do that to him?
“Do they know who I am? How could they betray me?” David whispered to himself.
Another scientist in the crowd behind David said, “They are all gone. What do we do now?”
Everyone on the team stared at David with convicting judgment. He felt shame well up inside of his heart. “Everyone, out of my sight. Take a paid afternoon off while I sort this out,” he managed to gasp out before collapsing on his desk as the last person left. Manda was the only one who stayed. She sat across from him.
Hours later, David still sat in the center of the labs, staring out at the perplexing and unfair world with dulled, unfocused eyes.
Chapter 33
Borderline Behavior
The Lave Labs halls were still and serene. Only the familiar electronic buzz of the advertisement projections and the occasional workstation hums and beeps sounded through the expansive testing building. A large neon-blue Nnect sign shone at the far end of the lab opposite the only fully operational workstation. Most of the room’s lights were set on energy-saver mode, which David thought was eerie, because all the computers gave off a dull, muted white light, impressing the room with the appearance of an eternal twilight. The illustrious and groundbreaking slave project was officially at a standstill.
“Guide of life and work.” David prayed in a beseeching desperate voice. No answer.
The white-and-silver floors surrounding David glimmered and mirrored his image as he sat, bewildered, and swung around nervously in his Thrive-branded chair. Nnect was the best in connection and communication, or so it read across the front of David’s workspace. The slogan taunted his inabilities.
“They knew I’d have two days before I’d report to the CEO’s office.” David was angry with his fellow managers. “Manda, they played me like a fool.”
Communication and connection embody Nnect.
Sure, they do, David thought sarcastically, pounding his hand on the armrest of his Thrive chair. “Some great shitty communication this week,” he ranted out loud. His desk was positioned above the containment homes and testing chambers, allowing him a commanding observation point from one of the many balconies that jutted out over the floor. Command central had lost its commanders, and the home cells had lost their slaves. Both sat empty and still, haunting and taunting the perplexed project manager. “A home is only a home if someone is living in it!” He remembered the mantra from one of the exclusive viewings of Medieval Storyworld. Manda remained silent, supportive.
“The human stock be damned.” David was out of sorts as he cursed his ill luck and dire misfortune. His brand sporadically played on his fears of being fired, throwing him on the floor with paralyzing panic attacks.
“Here now, David. Think positive.” Manda would kneel beside him and massage his neck and whisper soothing phrases to him every time he went under the influence of the attacks. “We can dream up a story to change this. That’s it.” Breathing was difficult. “All successful enterprises are laden with setbacks.” She wanted to make sure he didn’t have a seizure. He slowly recuperated and began to brood on dark thoughts again.
“So much for an easy rising career that could have set me up for purchasing myself, for freedom. Huh. Damn them,” he mumbled bitterly as a tear drooled over his cheek and fell fat and wet with a plop on his desk.
“Don’t project on yourself. This is on them.” Manda watched him like a monk watches a sick child.
“It is not fair,” he whined with whimper.
He waved a tightly clenched fist around his desk at nothing in particular. His tirelessly perfected professional demeanor had dissipated. He could hardly keep from weeping like an intern.
“I wish you didn’t see me like this,” he said. Logic and constant fidelity to the sweet, seductive promptings of his blue tattoo usually moved him steadily forward and upward on the Nnectonian hierarchical ladder, the blue brand’s soft whisper always reminding him of the elusive Self-Purchase package, the only way to freedom.
On his knees he yelled, “Why, by the stock, why?” It was unfair. Despite his best effort, tears angry and hot rolled from his red eyes.
“Mindmonks and motivational speakers never adequately warn about the dangers of business,” Manda said.
“Cursed be my stock number. Commercials lied to me about success.”
“David, breathe.” More rubbing on his shoulders. “Seminars don’t describe how all your dreams can be dashed apart ruthlessly by cutthroat competition.”
“I’ve been betrayed and played the fool, Manda. I never saw it coming.” Tears streaked down his cheeks. I was a hundred steps behind Grandpa Greg with his perverted crooked smile, Crystal Ice with her cold blue eyes, and Steven Slayer with his the cunning, disarming charm.
“Get hold of yourself!” She slapped him, encouraging him to relax.
“We have power too?” he questioned Manda in desperation.
“We do.”
He beheld the manager’s nameplate enshrined on his desk. Its golden letters reminded him of his sacred duty to Nnect. I will follow. He reached out a trembling hand to touch the letters, longing for renewed potency. “Knowing one’s responsibility is a strength. Is it not?”
“Responsibility is a choice and a devotion,” she agreed.
David’s projection screen was active, and it hovered above his workstation. “Manda, I need to be about doing.” He started doing.
Not knowing where to start, David watched the research footage from the interviews and simulation tests that had been set up to disarm and extract information about Tri-Coalition.
“Team building, my stock date. Spineless suck-ups.” David stomped over to the team leader’s circle, the central focal point of the research space. The leadership teams’ workstations could be rotated into a circle; it was the manager meeting space. The lab room was capable of supporting research by a maximum of twelve managers. Only four chairs and stations faced one another now. David’s workstation was the first in the formation, which looked like a lopsided circle. His personal portfolio and management role were displayed plainly on his station. The three betrayers stared at him remorselessly. Well, their images did, their Selfies; the four desks had Selfies glaring at one another. The projections were as vibrant as real life.
David investigated the desks for clues as to the final whereabouts of his managers. The tech had been correct. He discovered more proof that Crystal Ice had taken a buyout from Tertain and had secured herself a sweet consulting position just under the CEO of Tertain himself. Steven Slayer had taken a group of the slaves and leveraged himself into the position of chieftain of marketing at Ssential.
Unlike the mild disdain he felt toward Crystal and Slayer, he loathed the last Selfie, the despicable face of Grandpa Greg. It taunted him the most. “You’ll beg for permission. You’ll grovel before me,” the face seemed to scream. Greg had taken the best to Orns, including the youngest of the product and the middle-aged group that David had been testing, including Tara. He had left some crude notes for David to stew over as well.
One such note said, “Be waiting for you at Orns when you get fired for your failure. We at Orns will be the only ones who will hire your useless ass. Prepare for a new business model and approach. Maybe if it happens fast enough, you can see your precious slaves and your Arc girl. We have big marketing plans for Slave Tara Joan. No product-protection guarantees over in this world of pleasure and profit. We use them for what they’re worth. Don’t fool around with niceties. Making tons of freedoms. Enjoying it too. Life is about the journey, Saver boy.”
Glancing around at his own desk, David saw an active notification. His screen had the “to be sent to the CEO” file. The file had a due date deadline. David would have an investigation from the CEO if he didn’t send that update within the next day. He had to fix this dilemma before the
n.
Tomorrow. It blinked with finality. Doom.
He stared at the notification in horror. He had to find a way to save himself and Nnect from the loss. But instead he found it easier to procrastinate. When no immediate solution presented itself, he watched research-testing videos instead of working toward a solution. He watched with the dull fascination of an addict. Over and over again. And then back to the beginning.
What else can I do?
His inner self answered with the thought, Anything but procrastinate.
He didn’t listen. Limply he witnessed the test subjects undergoing fear, hope, joy, pain, anger, frustration, and despair. And finally he watched the interviews, which he had really begun to enjoy—the debates with the three slaves, Mop, Domin and Arc. He shook himself and remembered their names.
“Manda, they had names. Frank, Domin, and Tara Joan.”
She let him babble.
Then he reprimanded himself. “What a traitor I am for thinking of them as normal. They don’t have names.” He banged his forehead against the desk, trying to make himself behave. He desired to think correctly.
Manda silently supported his verbal rants, fits, and spontaneous destructive outbursts. Several tablets were thrown around the room, and chairs were flipped over.
The Lave Labs team had categorized the subjects into three groupings: young, middle-aged, and senile. The computer files showed that the middle-aged bunch of slaves were the most resilient. This batch of subjects believed that a truce could be negotiated. So, even though they would not be broken, they would barter with information.
The young kids were fearful and confused, emotionally weaker on the product readiness charts compared with the young products that Xchange produced at the Thrive Upbringing Facility. These young subjects held very little useful knowledge but would occasionally say something that led to a helpful inquisition with the other slaves. They mainly just cowered in fear and rambled when asked to speak.
The older ones, with their white hair, frizzy gray buns, and bald heads, were resigned to their fate of slavery but unwavering in their stubborn loyalties to Tri-Coalition, and they refused to be seduced by the promise of freedom. This senile lot gave little information and instead seemed content to provide educational proverbs for their tormentors to mull over.
David focused most of his obsession on the useful cluster. The middle-aged group was the only productive source of data. They were willing to negotiate. Tara, Domin, and Frank had shared a lot but had asked a lot in return. Domin and Tara had personalities that intrigued David. Many of the slaves had a sense of inner peace, self-assurance, and calm joy when they should have lost all of that. Their spirit made him want to have that elusive something that they possessed. He didn’t know what it was, but he felt like they were more human than he was. Calmer and more at peace. More content. They had happiness. Odd, considering they were the slaves, and he was their owner.
“Stop thinking! Work. Just keep doing,” David chided himself. “You need to get out and walk or drink or work out. Some personal product-development time so you can recenter on your objectives and the efficient paths of success. Solutions will come if you can get out of your head for a bit.” He looked around at the empty labs.
“What to do?” David repeated this question constantly. The screens around him flashed as messages and updates came and went. Pop-ups and advertisements blinked softly in his must-review spam box. David refused to respond. Not now! He was in the thralls of a bottomless catastrophe. His failure loomed before him like a dark pit that stretched below the earth and beyond to eternal darkness. He had risen so high, so fast above his own dreams and hopes and ambitions. His corporate career adventure had accelerated years ahead of his personal development plan. He would have been able to buy love outright and maybe even his freedom after this next success under the watchful eyes of the CEO’s team.
“Opportunity squandered,” he cursed. “I am a degenerate servant who can’t make a return on a single talent. David-23, you have failed miserably.” He was distraught, anticipating that in two days, the entire Nnect corporation would discover his failure.
“Manda, can you run these numbers again?”
He was staggered by the calculated potential loss report the statistical software compiled.
“Including the immediate loss of profit from the low-margin property sale of the slaves?” she asked before adding the obvious. “But the damage doesn’t end there. The report ineffectively calculates the loss from uncaptured potential margin that the Nnect might have gained after the human being testing was finished, inspiring new products and merchandise for the world of Xchange.”
“Theory of potentialism?” David was despairing.
“Potentiality,” she softly corrected.
A green light blinked and a compressed image of Doc Gus popped up to the side of his screen in his chat tab. David received occasional messages from Doc Gus reminding him of self-help meetings and personal work mental health ideas. The face of the inquisitive and penetrating monk with his goofy yellow hood and his full brown beard of wisdom, as the doc called it, beckoned David to open it. The message blipped off the screen, but an idea came to David.
The insightful Doc Gus always steered David right. He was able to understand the complicated thoughts that David faced in trying to understand his life.
Doc Gus had sagely said something just the other day about making the most of any failure. Something along the lines of, “There is always a potential profit to be gained if you follow the Outside-In methodology. Look at your dilemma as other people view it, and subtly re-form their perspectives. Present the facts in a manner that makes you look the best. Good stories will practically sell themselves as reality.” David repeated this out loud to himself several times as he tapped his digital pointer against his desk, pondering the matters at hand.
“What did you three do that I can turn against you?” David waved a condemning hand at the 3D Selfies of his betrayers. In an accusing tone, he asked, “What did these slaves have that I can use? What information can I compile and sell? How can we turn this unprofitable calamity into massive dividends?” Zeal filled his spirit.
“Doc Gus must be correct.” David was all caught up on the inside and needed to think from the outside in now.
The CEO armband! “Yes, I do believe that’s it. By the human stock, it might work.” David took off the armband. The powerful company key was in his hand, and it reminded him again of the strange old man in the Gravetless car. David did not remember his name and only thought of him as the strange old man.
“A strange old man gave me this when he was annoying the QC captain on the commuter rail last week. Maybe I can use the law here.”
“You mean like a lawsuit?” Manda continued with the line of reasoning.
“Yes, we could turn this betrayal by the others into a brand-infringement lawsuit that will return Nnect plenty of freedoms and regain our property from the other Majors. I could even sue the Majors for tainting our products.”
“Potentiality again?” she asked, trying to follow along.
“Oh, this could be good.” David knew that using the armband to authorize a direct message to order a lawsuit from the highest authorities at QC would be frowned upon. But if this illegally authorized lawsuit could regain the staggering loss of the slaves, then things might be better off. He could ask forgiveness after he regained the profit. Any reprimand would be a slap on the wrist compared with his current predicament.
Another message, a priority message, came through his computer just at that moment. The message was set to automatically override any activity, and it was programmed to play and repeat until viewed. Only a high-level message could do this. The image of Grandpa Greg popped up on his screen. Surprisingly, it wasn’t a Selfie but his actual face.
“Hey, rat boy, I know you’re probably sitting there in that room by yourself, wondering what happened to your precious human toys. You got too intimate, and now you lost them.
Dumb humans, such as yourself, have the unique disability of focusing only on what’s directly in front of them, instead of seeing the big picture. You should have paid for better entertainment outside of work. You were too easily captivated by your slaves.”
The man licked his pudgy lips and spat. “This game we call life exacts a high price for freedom and pleasure. It should never be played by the faint of heart. I wanted you to remember that we have several documents signed by you—yes, you.” The image looked around the room, not seeing David but knowing that it would be seen because of its priority status. The crooked sneer spoke. “And what you signed forbids lawsuits, without catastrophic marketing repercussions. Hahauhee…That might cripple Nnect’s image for generations to come. Only a retard employee would sign away Nnect secrets. The information I brought with me has enough weight to shut PPRE down if you come after us. I enjoy gifts. Thank you, stock-hole.” The leering face laughed. “So go get yourself fired trying.”
“Can they blackmail Nnect?” David said.
“They certainly are blackmailing us,” Manda answered, rubbing her long neck to ease the tension.
“Why did I sign that document? All the blame is on me,” David lamented.
“The other managers are a step ahead of us.”
“Again.”
The recently acquisitioned Orns employee, Grandpa Greg, sneered and then finished his speech with, “By the way, I made sure your precious Tara ended up at Orns for new relationship product testing under my division.”
Manda kept David from swinging at the projected image and said, “Anything he says could be a lie.”
Greg giggled. “We should have her fantasy scenarios, story line, co-actors, and enough infrastructure to broadcast an entirely new plotline in Storyworld. Spoiler alert: we’re going to insert her into Medieval Storyworld and base a season on her.”
David thought, I would have loved to see her in Medieval Storyworld under other circumstances. But he stopped himself from lashing out at the image.
A Tale Of Doings Page 43