to answer.
“A notice to all active Silte Corporation headquarters employees.” The bot was programmed female, and she glowed with a silvery light. “Please come immediately to Boardroom A upon arrival in the tower. There is a meeting this morning headed by Monika Leutz to discuss the future of the company. Your attendance is appreciated.”
“Okay, thank you,” Mike said, knowing all too well that ‘appreciated’ actually meant ‘ma ndatory.’ He folded his microtab and stuffed it back in his pocket, wondering what this could be about. He had already received his new day-to-day operations the morning after they forced his family to move to Silte Plaza. Like all of the VIPs still working at the tower, he had to examine the tasks and duties of all the senior or managerial Silte headquarters employees who had been placed on indefinite leave. Using this information he had to designate the essential jobs to one of the personalities in a new batch of virtual secretaries that had been repurposed and altered to perform more specialized business practices; in other words, Silte Corporation was almost exclusively run by artificial personalities now. And for those essential employees whose jobs they were doing…well, their indefinite leave looked like it had turned into a legitimate layoff, and a massive one at that.
The cart started up the final skyway, which rose gradually from the 30 th floor of one building to the 50 th floor of Silte headquarters, spanning an entire block in between. It was still hard for Mike to believe that most of these bridges connecting the buildings had gone up in just over a week. He looked through the shaded windows at the city below, still so quiet and normal despite the impending sense of danger such a brief time ago. Calm now, but the storm is coming. He almost wished something would happen soon; Meredith was growing more and more restless with their new situation, and Natalie was being as patient as could be expected of any nine-year-old. Some chaos in the streets below might convince them they were exactly where they needed to be. He couldn’t blame them, though, for being agitated; they were all prisoners, for no better reason than Silte Corp needed Mike.
It would happen, and soon. There may be no visible rumblings below, but millions of pe ople had been placed on indefinite leave without pay over a week ago. They had yet to be given a good explanation, and tensions were close to snapping with explosive fury. The Anti-Corp activists had seemingly devolved into disjointed groups committing sloppy, malicious cyberattacks at random; and then there was the ‘mind virus’ outbreak…but Mike didn’t like to think about that.
“Mr. Torres, please verify your identification.”
Mike looked up sharply; he hadn’t realized the cart had stopped just outside the newly-installed heavy metal doors at the end of the skyway. He hastily pulled his microtab back out and let it read his thumbprint then scan his face and sync with the security system. After a second or two the doors slid apart to admit him.
“Thank you,” the virtual security guard said in its droning voice. “You are encouraged to proceed straight to Boardroom A for—”
“Yes, I know, thank you.”
As the cart rolled past the security checkpoint on its way to the elevators, Mike glimpsed the private cop guards staring at him—or at least he thought they were staring at him: their black reflective helmets hid their faces, and he never knew what exac tly they were looking at. The one nearest Mike nodded as the cart went by, though he kept his assault rifle raised the whole time, pointed just below and a little in front of the exact point in space occupied by Mike. The sight of soldiers still made him uneasy, but more and more it was becoming a part of life.
This was the world he lived in now.
* * *
“Can you all hear me okay?” Halfhearted assent went up along the table. Mike had no pro blem hearing Monika
“A notice to all active Silte Corporation headquarters employees.” The bot was programmed female, and she glowed with a silvery light. “Please come immediately to Boardroom A upon arrival in the tower. There is a meeting this morning headed by Monika Leutz to discuss the future of the company. Your attendance is appreciated.”
“Okay, thank you,” Mike said, knowing all too well that ‘appreciated’ actually meant ‘ma ndatory.’ He folded his microtab and stuffed it back in his pocket, wondering what this could be about. He had already received his new day-to-day operations the morning after they forced his family to move to Silte Plaza. Like all of the VIPs still working at the tower, he had to examine the tasks and duties of all the senior or managerial Silte headquarters employees who had been placed on indefinite leave. Using this information he had to designate the essential jobs to one of the personalities in a new batch of virtual secretaries that had been repurposed and altered to perform more specialized business practices; in other words, Silte Corporation was almost exclusively run by artificial personalities now. And for those essential employees whose jobs they were doing…well, their indefinite leave looked like it had turned into a legitimate layoff, and a massive one at that.
The cart started up the final skyway, which rose gradually from the 30 th floor of one building to the 50 th floor of Silte headquarters, spanning an entire block in between. It was still hard for Mike to believe that most of these bridges connecting the buildings had gone up in just over a week. He looked through the shaded windows at the city below, still so quiet and normal despite the impending sense of danger such a brief time ago. Calm now, but the storm is coming. He almost wished something would happen soon; Meredith was growing more and more restless with their new situation, and Natalie was being as patient as could be expected of any nine-year-old. Some chaos in the streets below might convince them they were exactly where they needed to be. He couldn’t blame them, though, for being agitated; they were all prisoners, for no better reason than Silte Corp needed Mike.
It would happen, and soon. There may be no visible rumblings below, but millions of pe ople had been placed on indefinite leave without pay over a week ago. They had yet to be given a good explanation, and tensions were close to snapping with explosive fury. The Anti-Corp activists had seemingly devolved into disjointed groups committing sloppy, malicious cyberattacks at random; and then there was the ‘mind virus’ outbreak…but Mike didn’t like to think about that.
“Mr. Torres, please verify your identification.”
Mike looked up sharply; he hadn’t realized the cart had stopped just outside the newly-installed heavy metal doors at the end of the skyway. He hastily pulled his microtab back out and let it read his thumbprint then scan his face and sync with the security system. After a second or two the doors slid apart to admit him.
“Thank you,” the virtual security guard said in its droning voice. “You are encouraged to proceed straight to Boardroom A for—”
“Yes, I know, thank you.”
As the cart rolled past the security checkpoint on its way to the elevators, Mike glimpsed the private cop guards staring at him—or at least he thought they were staring at him: their black reflective helmets hid their faces, and he never knew what exac tly they were looking at. The one nearest Mike nodded as the cart went by, though he kept his assault rifle raised the whole time, pointed just below and a little in front of the exact point in space occupied by Mike. The sight of soldiers still made him uneasy, but more and more it was becoming a part of life.
This was the world he lived in now.
* * *
“Can you all hear me okay?” Halfhearted assent went up along the table. Mike had no pro blem hearing Monika
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