Microstory 2482: Teledome

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This is the biggest known ground-based telescope in existence. They make them bigger, but they’re all floating in space, because that’s the best way to avoid atmospheric distortions, and other artifacts. For those of you not in the know, Earth launched two arrays of telescopes for something called Project Topdown. These are currently on their way out into the two intergalactic voids adjacent to each face of the Milky Way Galaxy. They’re all about the practical applications. I won’t go the details, because you can look it up in the central archives, but I’ll say that the purpose of it is to map our galaxy, as well as peer into the local group, unencumbered by the light and other distractions that come from being within the “border” of our own galaxy. Of course, these are not the only telescopes in existence, and it’s not like we’ll ever dismantle the more local ones in favor of using Topdown exclusively. Earth still has its Bouman Interferometer Array, and other worlds in the stellar neighborhood are working on their own projects. Castlebourne isn’t trying to make any breakthrough discoveries with its Teledome, but it certainly seemed logical to build it anyway. At 5400 square kilometers, the Sugimoto Phased Radio-Optical Telescope takes up nearly the entire area of the dome. You might ask yourself, why is it even under a dome? It shouldn’t need to be. Other telescopes certainly aren’t. Well, dust; that’s why. The space within the confines of the dome is pristine, and very easy to keep well-maintained. If they had to worry about dust storms clogging up the sensors, it would be this huge constant chore. So instead of a geodesic dome, it’s a smooth one. And instead of diamond, it’s made of an ultra-clear polycarbonate. It’s not a single object, however. There are seams in it, but they’re bonded at the molecular level. So if it suffers damage, only that section has to be replaced, but that’s only in the event of catastrophic damage, because it’s just as self-healing as any other metamaterial. As for the telescope itself, the name tells you that it’s both radio and optical. It’s also not made of a single, uniform lens. Nanomodules can shift between states, allowing for the absorption of a wide range of frequencies on the light spectrum. There is an atmosphere on Castlebourne, however thin, and it does create artifacts on the image, but as I’ve been saying, they didn’t engineer this to be perfect. We have plenty of alternatives, and they’re always building more. If you want to see the telescope first hand, you can come here, but obviously, the prospectus includes a live feed of the image, and a constant readout of the data, for your own analysis and synthesis. So you don’t have to come here, but it’s cool to see anyhow, so I still recommend it.

Microstory 2204: Data Synthesist

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My Data Analyst would like to change his title to Data Synthesist. I was surprised when he came to me with that title, because that’s precisely what I wanted to call it in the beginning, but I was overruled at the time. You see, there’s a difference between analysis and synthesis. An analyst will take data, and break it apart into its smallest parts. They will examine each one, and figure out how it works; how it contributes to whatever it’s there to do. But a system is more than simply the sum of its parts. You, for instance, are not just a collection of organs, bones, blood, nerves, and muscles. You are a full person, and you cannot be rightly defined simply by listing every aspect of your self. What a synthesist does is take the system as a whole, and looks at how those parts work together to form that whole, in all dimensions. There’s an old parable in the systems thinking field that asks whether you would have the best car if you researched the best individual parts in the market, and tried to put them together. The answer is no, you wouldn’t; you wouldn’t even have a car! They wouldn’t fit together correctly, and would not add up to functionality. There is a time and place for analysis, but that time is not now, and that place is not here. I’m all in favor of my team member changing his title, but it’s a lot more complicated than just making the declaration, and printing new business cards. It has to go through human resources, and executives in our company. Our client has to approve it too, because they have the right to decide who they contract with. Compliance and legal have to be involved, as do departments that you might not immediately think of, like payroll and benefits. We don’t need their approval, but they still need to know that it’s happening so they can adjust their systems accordingly. And with all this comes the paperwork. Oh, the paperwork. We went through all this when the process was just getting started, and I was pleasantly surprised at how fast it went, but they might not be interested in undoing their work, and starting over from scratch, even if we’re just talking about one title. It may sound like I’m complaining, but I’m confident that we’ll figure this out. It’s the right move to make, even if it may sound small and inconsequential. It’s important that we state our intentions in all relevant ways, so our clients understand what kind of value we add to their businesses.

Microstory 2201: Understanding of the Data

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I came back into the office today. Actually, I got in really early, before the sun came up, but I just watched a nature show on the gargantuan TV until it was time to “clock in”. What happened was I woke up at the end of a cycle, and couldn’t get back to sleep. I didn’t find myself drifting away during the day, though, so I think it will be okay. Sometimes, fighting insomnia is worse, and it’s best just to accept what your body is trying to tell you, even if you’re better at math, and you know that it’s wrong. I won’t be making a habit of it. After everyone else came in, we put a meeting on the books. My Data Analyst wanted to put the finishing touches on his presentation. He gave us his initial findings. He now understands how jail guests are currently scheduled, and as we suspected, it really doesn’t have anything to do with group dynamics. There is so much data, and so many variables to deal with, this is going to be a difficult task, but I know that my people are up to it. The majority of the rest of the team will begin next week. They’ll be spending time on their training, and getting to know each other, so it won’t be until about mid-August before we start making progress, but that progress will happen. The presentation was interactive, with the other team members asking questions, and already contributing to the understanding of the data. He actually rewrote some of the slides while we were all there together. Right now, I’m consolidating and organizing the information that I’ve received in my brain, and thinking about ways that we can tackle this issue in the future, and I’ll continue to do that after I fall asleep tonight.

Microstory 2197: What Needs to Change

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My new Data Analyst started today. One could argue that his is the most important job of all. Of course, this will be a group effort, and everyone’s contribution will be valued and vital, but they are all already working in their respective fields. The lawyers have been lawyering, and the counselors have been counseling. The Data Analyst has worked a few jobs in his industry, but never anything like this before. The whole point of this project is to figure out how to organize the jail guests according to a set of psychological and social variables which we have yet to figure out. Without him, this would be nothing. The lawyers would still be working with their clients to provide them with the best defense possible, while the therapists would be helping them work through their psychoemotional issues. In order to make change, we have to do something that no one else is doing, at least not at scale. We don’t want there to be a fight between two cellmates, for instance, and have the warden be forced to separate them after the fact. We want to prevent the fight from occurring in the first place, and the Analyst will be coming to the conclusions for how we could make that happen, using the parameters that the collective comes up with over the course of our work. As the others did yesterday, the Analyst went on a tour of the facility, but I ran it this time, because I now know enough about this place to do it, for my people anyway. He met some of the guests too, and it turned out that he already knew one of them from way back, which was a funny coincidence. He was anxious to get to work, and I decided to let him. He obviously thrives on data, so in order for him to understand what needs to change, he first needs to see how things are right now. There are plenty of files for him to scour in these early days. I’m excited to hear his initial thoughts, which he promises to have by the end of the week. No rush, though. The rest of our team won’t be starting for another couple of weeks anyway. This is a long-term endeavor, not a race.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 13, 2398

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As far as anyone knows, there are no special temporal locations in or around Munich, Germany in any reality. This is just one more step towards their goal of Croatia. They don’t want to be spotted in this area at all. It would defeat the purpose of having Angela pretend to be Marie, safe and sound stateside. This is just part of a contingency plan. Yes, maybe Marie Walton was in Europe, but it’s not because she was having an abortion. She was just enjoying some time off, and maybe she and her husband are having some marital problems, and this was just a little break from each other. Again, hopefully no one finds out, which is why she’s walking around in a sort of casual disguise, but there may come a point where fessing up to one lie is the only way to protect the true lie.

The trio checks into the hotel, where they’re given a three-room suite this time. They agree to do their own thing for the rest of the day. None of the landmarks interest any of them. Actually, Marie already had a vacation here two years ago, and saw just about everything she wanted to. She’s remaining in her room, meditating on what she’s about to do. Ramses is buried in his work, analyzing the data from the Bermuda Triangle water, and whatever else he has up his sleeve. That leaves Mateo to wander the city, hoping to get lost for a few hours. That’s precisely what happens, but just because he’s lost, doesn’t mean he can’t be found. Across the street, he spots a familiar face, staring back at him with serious eyes. For half a second, as a bus passes between them, threatening to spirit the vision away, he questions his own sanity. Then the vehicle moves on, and the light turns green.

She maintains eye contact as she crosses, and approaches. “How was your flight?” she asks him in a suddenly British accent. “Or did you stay on the water?”

“What happened to your voice, forger?”

“This is my real voice,” she responds. “Not many hear it. I never needed anyone being able to narrow the search for me using superficial characteristics, like my place of origin, or natural hair color.”

“Why would you let me hear it?” he questions.

“Because it’s time you learn the truth about who I am, and why you’re here.”

“Why I’m here has nothing to do with you,” Mateo insists. “Please leave.”

“No, you chose the location, and I respect that. We were hoping you would end up in Türkiye, but we can work with this. There’s an important enough mission in this area too. I would like more prep time to pull it off, but based on your experiences with the traffickers, I believe you can get up to speed quite quickly.”

He rolls his eyes. “You’re intelligence.”

“Not exactly. You’re intelligence, and so is your wife. I’m just adjacent, which is why I was able to place the two of you in your respective positions of authority. I have my own background, though, which prevents me from making certain moves—”

“Blah, blah, blah, you needed an outsider. Blah, blah, expendable. Something, something, something dark side.”

She smirks. “That’s a reference, isn’t it?” She sticks her tongue under her upper lip. “You’re from the future.”

“Excuse me?”

“That’s why you don’t have an identity. That’s why you struggle with pop culture, but seem to have a set of your own. You and your friends are from the future.”

Mateo drops into a paranoid demeanor. “Clever girl, not many have found out. Timey-wimey, wibbly wobbly. But if you know, then you’re now in more danger than you can imagine. I’m one of the good ones, but we’re not all like that. If they find you, they will kill you, or worse...erase you from existence.” Okay, this is all actually somewhat plausible. Such forces are real, but it’s just that they don’t seem to live in this world. “I can get you to safety, but you have to do exactly as I say. Do you have any aluminum foil?”

She looks down her cheek at him. “Oh, you had me for a second, you sly dog. You sexy, sly dog, you.”

“Sexy?”

“What? Did you think my attraction to you was just part of the act?”

“One can always hope,” he replies.

“It is you who should come with me and learn the secrets. We have a job for you to do, and there is no time to waste. You will meet the team.”

“Yeah, you seem to be pretty convinced that what you say I should do is just what I’m going to do, as if choice has nothing to do with it.”

“It really doesn’t,” she says.

He stands there a moment, considering his options.

“We really must go,” she urges.

“You have a man on the inside.”

“Inside what?”

“That merc team who had the plan to free the refugees. Either they’re all your people or at least one of them is.”

“Yes, that’s how we know what happened to you. You didn’t think that a bunch of ex-soldiers randomly approached you, and forced you to help, did you?”

He shakes it off, “fine. My point is that you read a report. You know what we did.”

“Okay, yeah...” she trails off.

“But you don’t know how.”

“No, we were hoping to debrief you, perhaps after this next mission.”

“Oh, I can just tell you right now.”

She’s intrigued. She’s very intrigued.

He tips his forehead towards her, and beckons her to do the same with one finger. When she leans in, he looks around to make sure they’re not being watched, and drops into a whisper. “We’re willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done, even if it’s unsavory...”

“Yeah,” she presses.

“Even if it hurts.” With that, he slides his pocket knife into his gut where his left kidney used to be before he gave it to an alternate version of Leona. He gasps, but doesn’t scream. He leaves the blade in, and applies pressure. He turns around, arches his back a little, and stumbles away from her. It’s not long before passersby begin to notice that something is wrong, and then they see what is wrong. Good samaritans try to help, a couple of them catching him by the shoulders as he collapses to the ground. The crowd grows and grows. Somebody calls emergency services. He can’t see it, but he assumes that the mysterious forger-but-not-really is executing an exit strategy.

Microstory 1668: Curtain Call

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Year after year, Joseph Jacobson showed up to the universe that deliberately invited him with his special summoning ritual. They put on a show that fictionalized his life. Actually, they put on multiple shows at the same time, and crowned the one he responded to the winner. Joseph was aware of what they were doing, and seemed to have no problem with it. When he returned a year later for another go around, the amount of time he had spent away was incongruous. It might have been a year for him as well, or longer. He once spent three days doing this, just going straight to the next one after the last, though that wasn’t too terribly much fun, because the point of the event was to listen to the tales of his travels while he wasn’t with them. He even once jumped to five years in the future from everyone’s perspective, before going back and filling in the years prior, which meant both that he knew their future, and they knew a little bit of his. The point is that he always showed up, without fail. Until one year. It was the largest contest yet, with hundreds of productions around the world hoping to go down in history as the best. None of them won, though, which was odd. By then, they were pretty well versed in his life’s story, and the chances of not one of them being good enough seemed unlikely. Did something happen to him? Was he indisposed? That didn’t make much sense. He was a time traveler in the truest sense of the term. The only thing that could have ever stopped him from not eventually getting their message was death, and maybe not even then, because a younger version of him could simply appear instead. They didn’t even think he could die anyway. He certainly never gave anybody that impression. He had already been alive for millennia upon millennia.

As far as they knew, he was immortal, but they didn’t know everything. Perhaps there was some weakness he quite deliberately withheld from them. That would be completely understandable. But the idea that no one won the contest? That sounded far-fetched. He always acted like he quite enjoyed traveling to a world that knew all about him. He was famous in some circles, but since he moved around so much—and rarely visited the same place twice—there weren’t a lot of others that revered him so much, and continued to show it. The summoning ritual was always a choice. It was a way for people to contact him, not force him to show up at their whims. He never had any obligation to come if he didn’t want to, so if this was his way of saying he was over it, it seemed like an odd occasion. What had changed since then? Well, that was probably the point. He could tell them all the stories he liked, but they never really knew what it was like to be Joseph Jacobson. That wasn’t even suggesting he liked to lie. Maybe he left out enough about himself that they didn’t really know him at all, and there was no explaining his absence, because there was no explaining him, full stop. The reigning theory after everyone went home was that Joseph simply didn’t want to tell his stories anymore, but a close second was that they were so used to putting on the productions that there was nothing interesting about them anymore. People put a lot of effort into analyzing past winners, and trying to come up with the perfect way to perform to maximize their chances. After carefully going over the shows from the total failure year, they realized just how similar they were to each other. Either Joseph couldn’t pick the best, or the fun was gone, and it didn’t matter anymore. The world tried again the next year, but they were much more rigorous about weeding duplicate performances out. Still, Joseph didn’t show, so they tried one more time, but only with one single great performance, and then they just gave up. He never appeared again, and the people chose to move on. Maybe that was his intention all along, to somehow teach them to be completely self-sufficient. Or maybe something else had happened that most people on this planet didn’t know anything about.

Microstory 952: Systems Thinking

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You might be asking Google right now, what is systems thinking? Well, tab back over here, because I’m going to tell you myself. Throughout the history of problem-solving, people have primarily used a process of analysis in order to understand how something works. What you do when you analyze something is break it down into its constituent parts, and try to figure out how those work. You break it down as as much as possible, until breaking them any further would lead to fractions. For instance, let’s say you’re trying to learn about computer hardware. You would open up the casing, and start removing the parts. You have the hard drive, the memory cards, processor, logic board, etc. A hard drive is made up of the platters, circuits, spindle, etc. The processor is made of God knows what, and so on. Once you understand how each part operates independently, you would theoretically know everything you could about the whole computer. But this isn’t true, is it? Because a memory card isn’t useful unless you can process the information. A hard drive might as well have no data unless you can read it. You won’t be able to change anything about the information without input/output devices, and nothing in a computer matters one lick unless you can interface with it using some kind of monitor. The lesson here is that the entire computer, and how all parts work together, is what gives us the best understanding of the topic. One of the most famous explanations for this comes from a leader in the field of systems thinking named Russell Ackoff. He puts forth the hypothetical of trying to build the absolute best automobile in the world by taking the best individual parts from other vehicles. Maybe this one has the best pistons, and this other the best gas tank. The reality is that this is an impossible endeavor, because those parts wouldn’t fit together, because they were designed to fit in different respective cars.

I’m passionate about systems thinking, because of how interconnected all of my stories are. I’m not just telling all these little stories, and claiming that they take place within the same continuity. I have to understand how each one can impact the others, and the greater mythology. If I decide that Jane Doe from Story Y is the mother of John Smith from Story X—which I wrote first—then I have to remember that Jane Doe can’t die in her story, until she’s birthed her son. If in Story Z, I decide I want John Smith to have a younger brother named James, then I won’t be able to do it, unless I decide James was adopted, or John’s half brother. I spent years not releasing a single word from any of my stories so that I could build my world. I know how astral travel works, and where the astral planes come from. I know why the subspecies known as anomalies took longer to evolve than the ambers, and I know how it’s possible for someone to be born as both. I have a list of galaxies, their stars, and the planets revolving around them. I have a timeline that starts at the beginning of time, and ends at the end of it. Whenever I come up with something knew, I have to find a way to fit it into the preexisting mythos, and if that’s not possible, then I have to create a separate universe to allow its existence, or simply scrap the project. There is a place for analysis, but systems thinking is an overall superior technique for learning something. The best leaders have a working comprehension of their whole domain, which is what we need right now. If you want that too, then come these next two elections, #votethemout.

Microstory 892: And Twins

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All through high school, I was in love with two girls at the same time. I now think that I was probably more interested in one over the other, but they were literally never apart from each other, so it was sometimes hard to see them as individuals. For this reason, people started calling them Romy and Michele; nicknames which they never disputed. Eventually, even the teachers started calling them that, and everyone just sort of forgot what their real names were. After I graduated, I didn’t see either of them again. I think they both went to college on the other side of the country, while I pursued a medical career closer to home. While it wasn’t even on my radar when I was in pre-med, I ended up working for one of those companies that analyzes people’s DNA, and gives them reports on their family history, and health profiles. Just out of sheer coincidence, both of their names came across my desk one day. I didn’t recognize their names at first, because like I said, we all called them something different, but then I remembered them. I took note of how random it was that I would be the one to run their saliva samples, then I moved on and completed the tests. One service we provide is giving customers the ability to meet other people that they are related to, however distantly. Usually this is a second cousin, or something, but there have been human interest stories written about estranged immediate family members finding each other through us. This was one such of these cases. I discovered that Romy and Michele were not only related, but sororal twins. I also noticed some strange genetic markers that I didn’t understand, and which didn’t make any sense. I brought over colleagues to look over the data, and they came to the same conclusion; that they didn’t know what the hell this all meant.

Completely outside of company protocol, I contacted the two subjects personally, so we could discuss their situation. Needless to say, they were positively thrilled to learn that they were sisters, but confused about how it was possible. Their parents had never said anything about it. One’s died when she was very young, the other’s mother died a couple years ago, while her father cut ties with her shortly thereafter. The twins decided to hire a private investigator to get to the bottom of this, and they kept me in the loop, but as a friend, rather than their DNA Analyzer, which I presently was not anyway, because I was on unpaid suspension for my breach of confidential information. I’m still waiting to find out if I’ve been let go completely, or what. As it turns out, they were part of some bizarre social experiment. They were clones, yes, and separated at birth, just like that television show, but the mad scientist in charge wasn’t pursuing biomedical knowledge. No, he was looking at the social aspect of twins and siblings. He wanted to find a way to quantify the delicate balance between nature and nurture. Apparently he had done this with hundreds of unwitting mothers. He monitored each one of his subjects, using a vast network of spies to keep track of their movements and behavior. Romy and Michele were the only two who accidentally found each other later. The investigator got her hands on the scientist’s list of subjects, and discovered something that I found even more interesting. I was on it, as was a brother.

Microstory 717: Find the Ring of Culture

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Like the other four Primary Rings, the Ring of Culture has always been a mystery. It was worn by Eido Ivanka when she was first in power during the founding of this galaxy. It is said that she hid it deliberately in order to either protect it from people, or people from it. The original final taikon in the Book of Light did not list its rediscovery as part of the prophecy. Instead, the one hundred and seventeenth was meant to establish Ivanka—or her replacement, had one been appointed—as ultimate successor to Sotiren Zahir, should the Sacred Savior die a second time. Ivanka was the principal actor against the introduction of the Book of Anseluka. Even today, she rejects its teachings, and is adamant about retaining our tradition through the original divine books. She has gone to great lengths pushing her own divine book, despite the new taikon’s prediction that it must soon be destroyed. Presumably fearing that we would find the Ring of Culture, Ivanka was caught trying to retrieve it from its original hiding place (which we would have never uncovered, by the way), and trying to destroy it. As it turned out, The Ring was full of damning evidence that the history of our galaxy is not what we believed. Analysts are still looking over the data, but we’ve learned the truth about a few things already. Sotiren did not ride the Light of Prospect to the “land of light”. He gained access to a repository of knowledge which had already completed extensive study of the Fostean galaxy, long before our ancestors had so much as thought of breaking away from the communists. Some evidence even suggests these surveys were done far deeper in the past, possibly before Lactea was seeded with life in the first place. We currently do not know how comprehensive this conspiracy goes, or whether any of the other eidos had any clue about it; though Andrea certainly knew something. Certain remarks by Peter Fireblood, and other detractors, now make more sense. Perhaps we all knew a little bit of the truth behind our faith, which we now realize to be little more than a bastardization of an old religion on Earth called Christianity. Maybe we are lucky this information did not come to light until now, though. We are already in the middle of reimagining our faith into something healthier, and more productive. We would never have been able to reach this point had we been so profoundly made foolish by Sotiren and Ivanka’s lies. Now we understand why the new taikon demand we burn the Book of Ivanka. While we doubted the point of this before, we now understand, and we cannot wait.

Microstory 459: Floor 27 (Part 2)

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IT Tech: Mr. Rho, I wasn’t expecting you. Are we no longer on lockdown?

Rho: We still are. I broke through it so you and I could have a chat. I saw it as a perfect opportunity for us to speak without being seen by anybody else.

Tech: I’m afraid I don’t understand. Was there something we needed to discuss?

Rho: I know that it was you who sent the authorities information assisting in their investigation of our company. Now, wait...don’t get defensive. I’m not here to call you out on it. I’m on the board because of my background. I come from a family of justice-servers. Cops, lawyers, judges, news reporters. My whole life, I’ve been taught the value of fairness and honesty. For a long time I’ve been upset with this organization for its failure to be open to the public. I don’t have all the information of what happened, but you seem to, and I was hoping you would explain it to me.

Tech: Well, I have the raw data, but I never took time to analyze it. I was too busy with my day-job. If you give me some time, though, I can provide you with a report.

Rho: People know about my family history on my mother’s side, but what most don’t know is that my late father worked as a systems analyst for a national bank, working to solve transactional inefficiencies. If you give me the raw data, I could analyze it myself.

Tech: Okay...

Rho: Or we could work on it together? It’s not that I don’t trust the authorities with the information, but I know all about time and bureaucracy. I need to know for sure that something is happening, and I need to be in control of it. I need to make sure that the truth comes out, and you can help me do that. No one would suspect anything. A board member and a techie, we could fix this.

Tech: When can we start?

Rho: How ‘bout now?

Microstory 454: Floor 32 (Part 2)

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Accountant 2: Accountant 1, what are you doing?

Accountant 1: Nothing. It’s nothing.

Accountant 2: Is that a server? When did they install a server in your office? I thought that was a wardrobe? And I thought you keep it locked up because you didn’t want us to see a shrine of our boss in it, or something weird like that.

Accountant 1: Heh, funny. Let’s go with that, just the same.

Accountant 2: You’ve drilled holes into your hard drives and now you’re waving magnets over them.

Accountant 1: You can never be too careful.

Accountant 2: Is it...do you have a pictures of kids on it?

Accountant 1: What do you mean, I don’t have any...oh my god! No! Christ, Accountant 2.

Accountant 2: Then talk to me. What did you do?

Accountant 1: I dunno. Maybe nothing. I didn’t look at the data, but...I have to clear the evidence either way.

Accountant 2: Have you been stealing money?

Accountant 1: No, I’ve just been using software to make my job easier.

Accountant 2: How much easier?

Accountant 1: Well, um. I barely had to turn my computer on in the morning.

Accountant 2: What about paper reports, or  voicemail updates? You at least had to feed those in, didn’t you?

Accountant 1: My server could analyze all that. Everything I received automatically went in there. It even knows which Russian scam sites are actually run by one group of con artists.

Accountant 2: That may be, but no one trusts AI with accounting. There is too much at stake. All that money. The industry is scared to death of the next Y2K.

Accountant 1: I know, but I had it right. At least I thought I did.

Accountant 2: Is this why you always volunteered to do our work for us?

Accountant 1: I figured you deserved the downtime.

Accountant 2: You did that for us? You risked exposing your unauthorized software just so that we could play boardgames in the conference room? Why didn’t you just monetize it?

Accountant 1: I have my reasons.

Accountant 2: Stop what you’re doing right now.

Accountant 1: Why?

Accountant 2: Is the core code still intact?

Accountant 1: Well, yeah. But all the data’s been erased. I took away everything it’s learned about the world.

Accountant 2: Keep it alive. We can do something with that.

Microstory 442: Basement (Part 1)

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People are usually quite surprised when they come down to the basement and discover it to be clean and well-lit, but I insist on it. It’s important to me for my entire workspace to be easily accessible, organized, and free of pests. Insects, like cockroaches, thrive in the dirt and dark. I know it’s not great for the company’s wallet, or for world resources, but I have to keep the lights on at all times. I’m the only one who works down here, so that’s my right. At the moment, the company is going through a great deal of turmoil. Everyone is afraid of being laid off. Everyone is worried about what’s going to happen to the company, or whether they’re going to be sued. Of course, as a humble custodian, I have no such worries. I’m quite well-versed in the latest automated cleaning technologies, and would be able to find another position in a flash. I’m not educated enough to repair the little robots, but there will always be a need, at least for the foreseeable future, for someone to clean and maintain them, and to make sure that they’re actually doing their jobs. I spend a good amount of time in my basement, but the automation also affords me to go out to the floors and observe people. That’s always been my main draw towards large corporations. People leave you alone, and don’t notice when you’re there. I’ve learned a lot from the office workers. Everyone thinks they know the root of all their problems. Many of them are partially correct, but no one has the full story, because you have to see Analion as a single unit of many parts. Look at any one of these parts and you fail to understand the truth behind the unit. You can’t break down something like this, analyze it, and expect to find any useful answers. No one person is at fault the defective windows. Everyone contributes in their own way, and so everyone had a hand in the deaths. Some were more involved than others, but no one can be completely removed from the equation. I can tell you what happened. I can tell you everything. Just let me first get to the other side of the building. The elevator is about to crash.

Microstory 432: Floor 10 (Part 1)

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I work on the lower floor of the Research and Development department. Why this company needs two floors of labs, and one of offices, for only R&D is something I couldn’t explain to you. Things are far too spread out, and we’ve hired far too many people. In fact, too many people work at Analion in general. It is not a healthy way to conduct business. First of all, you’re spending too much money of labor. Secondly, all of my coworkers are stupid. If I extrapolate my personal experiences across every floor, it would turn out that we’re composed of at least 80% morons. That is, unless you examine only the executives and board of directors on the higher floors. If you do that, you’ll come to a cool figure of 100% moron. As soon as I started working here, I felt like the smartest person on the planet. I mean, there’s the scientific method, and then there’s doing the same thing over and over again, while expecting different results. Is my department at fault for Windowgate? Eh, probly. We break a lot of things here. Applying enough stress on any object will always ultimately result in its destruction. Nothing is impervious to force. So if we scrapped every project that couldn’t withstand a nuclear bomb, then we would get nowhere. We sent products down the line that eventually made their way to customers’ homes or businesses that ended up killing them. Sorry. I would like to take the blame for it, but I can’t. I told you that I work with idiots, and I can’t stop them from making mistakes. I know I sound like I’m making excuses, but whatever. I wipe my hands clean. I can’t feel remorse for something I didn’t do. If you don’t like it, you can take it up with my superiors. I consider them responsible for everything anyway.

Microstory 423: Floor 20 (Part 1)

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What I could never get my bosses to understand, or really to admit, was that time changes things. They kept wanting to add new projects, and grow the business without accounting for the necessary effects that would have on our resources. I work in a relatively rare department called resource analysis, and if you don’t know what that means, you are not alone. Our bosses don’t know what it means either. Why they pay me for a job they don’t think needs to be done is something that I can’t understand. They’re even too dumb to see this incongruity. Is it my fault that our products are defective, and resulted in losses of life? I guess, in a way, it has to be. Don’t get me wrong, I refuse to assume all responsibility, but I did play my part. I should have done more to express my concern with our resources. All of our projects either have too few people, or too many. The problem with the former is obvious, but the latter not so much. The danger in an abundance of labor is that there are essentially too many cooks in the kitchen. Teamwork is all about communication. If a billion people need to be updated on progress, or be taught procedure, then nothing will ever get done. Our teams are overworked, underpaid, and not given the tools they need to do their jobs effectively. A lot of this has to do with the project management department, but a lot of our work overlaps. And that’s another thing. Even in an organization as large as Analion, our two departments would do better as a single, cohesive unit. It’s that pesky communication thing that gets us every time. Why did we sell products that killed people? It might have been poor design, or faulty construction, but at the end of the day, it has to do with who knew what when. This all could have been avoided if they had just listened to me from the beginning. These inevitable lawsuits are going to leave us with nothing, and there is absolutely no place for a resource analyst when you don’t have any sodding resources.

Microstory 403: Floor 40 (Part 1)

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Gamma and Delta sat in a room alone. They were both furious about the most recent accusations of faulty products. Gamma believed that Alpha was the cause of all the organization’s problems, but Delta was quick to point out that he was the one who started the company, and had been there the whole time. Seemingly nothing had recently changed. They argued about whether they should push Alpha out and replace him with someone else. Both were convinced that a drastic change needed to be made if the company were to be saved, but then Omicron walked into the room.

“My friends, we are not looking at the issue with the right perspective. So many people believe that everything that happens within an organization can be traced back to management. But what we have here is not a management problem. Were there design flaws in the products? Yes. Could these design flaws have been avoided? Absolutely. Was Alpha responsible for them? No more was he than you or I, or Beta, or my grandmother,” he said, laughing. “You see, the root of all problems any company faces is people. All companies would run better if they didn’t need so many people to do it. Now, I know what you’re thinking; that I’m crazy, that we can’t get rid of all of our employees. And you would be right. About the second part. I assure you that my mind has never been clearer.” He slapped a heavy binder on the desk. “Theta and I have been working on this proposal for months. In it we detail a massive reduction in workforce. The fact is that labor is costing us far too much money, and if you’ve ever secretly walked the floors like I have, you’ve seen how inefficient they are. Social media, cat videos, mini-games, personal email, any website that features primarily these dumb things called “listicles”. These are all the things people are doing, and not because they’re trying to pull one over on us, but because there just isn’t enough work to do. And many of the things we do have them do are mindless and stupid. We think we need more people to do the job because that’s what we’ve been taught. All things being equal, a larger team should complete a project faster than a smaller one. But with careful observation and data mining, we see that this is simply not true. More team members just means more communication breakdowns, and more training expenditures; and more importantly, more money spent, and not much more made. What we need to do is streamline our business; cut the fat, so to speak. Could Alpha be part of that fat? Possibly. It’s not in the proposal, for we did not foresee this catastrophe, unfortunately. However, I’m willing to entertain the idea. The bottom line is that we need to refocus our efforts on the bottom line. If you wanna save the company, I can show you how.”

Gamma and Delta just looked at each other. They had built such a strong relationship, despite differing worldviews, that they often needed no words. Delta sat up straighter and turned Omicron’s binder towards her. “Did you make copies?”

Microstory 402: Floor 41 (Part 1)

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Beta, the Executive Vice President of Analion always considered himself to be a thoughtful and introspective person. He thought that he was pretty good at predicting future problems that might arise, and in directing progress in order to avoid them. So when the truth came out that something was wrong with a product that his organization had made, he was heartbroken. He had been there from the beginning. He built the organization with his friend, Alpha. People would often ask if he felt overshadowed by the face of Analion, but he never felt as much. Alpha was great at carrying out the processes necessary to run a business, but Beta was better at solving problems. Together they built one of the largest architectural and engineering firms around the globe. They considered Lion Tower to be their greatest achievement. What better way to demonstrate their expertise in the field than to work out of a building they had designed and created from start to finish? Unfortunately, the project was not without its issues, and they were all coming to a head now that it was practically complete. Beta was unable to find a solution. Part of the reason for this was his fear and anxiety over the company’s recent issues. This caused him to distrust his own decisions. He now questioned everything he had ever done, and every choice he had ever made. He was just too close to the situation, and needed a fresh pair of eyes. Beta felt like he was ultimately the one who caused the problems, so he needed to ask for help from someone who understood what was going on, but was almost certainly not the at the root of the problems. If Alpha couldn’t figure out what they should do, then no one could. Now the only thing left to do was to wait.

Microstory 401: Floor 42 (Part 1)

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Alpha, the Executive President of Analion Solutions stood uncomfortably close to the caution tape. His wife waited patiently behind him for a response but received none. He was not ready to give up his position within the organization, and he sure as hell wasn’t ready to dismantle it entirely. So many people’s lives relied on the continuing success of the company. He couldn’t let them go hungry because of this one mistake. The strange part about it was that no one seemed to know exactly what went wrong. With other so-called “scandals” of this nature, they always came out with the truth that someone buried a damning memo, or shredded a report from quality assurance, or did something. But honest to God, Alpha never heard anything about this. As far as he was concerned, there was no way to prevent what happened. The real tragedy was that the incident called into question everything the company ever did. Every good thing they made was now under heavy scrutiny. They just built this magnificent new tower using their own workforce, and now the government was telling them that they couldn’t stay here? What was that? How did they have the right? No one was forcing the employees to be here, if they wanted to go home, then fine. No, that wasn’t the right way to look at it. Alpha needed to drain himself of emotions and look at the problem analytically. That was his specialty. That was how he was able to build his empire in the first place. Yes, every problem had that one bad egg that needed to be teased out. Was it a research and development mistake? Was it a finance error? Hell, Alpha was even smart enough to see whether the food they chose in the cafeteria could be the root of the problem. It was time to meditate, and to prove he wasn’t scared of his own creation, he was going to do it on top of the atrium window they claimed was “unsafe”. He asked his wife to leave so that he could be alone. After the elevator doors closed, he climbed over the tape and sat down with his eyes closed. And then he began to fall.