Daniel Princeton stood up
from his desk and walked over to the window, looking down forty stories to the
streets of St. Louis and wondering how it must have looked back then, from that
old three-story brick building that Abraham had purchased almost two hundred
years previously. It was still visible from the skyscraper now known as the
Integra Building, where Daniel and the other employees of Integra Communications,
Inc. He fingered the pin on his lapel that identified him as “Daniel J.
Princeton, Assistant Analytics Officer,” and wondered about how much the
company had changed from Abraham’s time......
A ringing not
unlike the noise produced by telephones of the bygone communication age
interrupted Daniel’s thoughts.
“Yes?” he asked
aloud.
**Click**
“Data Analysis Meeting commencing in—five—minutes.” **Click**
“Thank you,”
Daniel replied, and turned to scan the files presented as digital windows on
his glass-topped, “smart” desk. He smiled; when it came to being just as
equipped as every other company in the nation, Integra was no exception.
The voice
alerting him to the meeting was part of an office intercommunication program
called “SUMMON-A”, or as the younger employees of Integra referred to the
female announcer, “Somona.” All the corporate businesses in America had them;
the system was hard-wired into the mainframe of the building, and all of the
Chief Officers could send out just such a bulletin to as many employees in
their jurisdiction as they chose. The summons would briefly interrupt whatever
sound was playing at the time with a pre-programmed announcement over the
built-in speakers in the ceiling of every room, and every employee would know
when they were required to report to their Chief Officer.
Daniel surveyed
the production, marketing, and financial reports he knew came from the offices
of his three friends—once neighbors and then hired at the same time he
was—Michael Dering, the Project Manager, Harrison Shaw, one of Integra’s
Product Managers, and Aaron Jüst, the Software Architect.
Daniel heard a
quick knock at the door, and quickly “moved” the file onto a portable glass
tablet with a swipe of his hand. He stood and walked straight through the
white, filmy door of his office. Michael awaited him in the hallway.
“Dude,” he
laughed in a low voice, “didn’t you hear the summons?”
Daniel shrugged,
“I guess I’ve gotten used to Somona by now.”
“Did somebody
say Jüst to Somona?” Aaron appeared
behind the pair.
Daniel and
Michael smiled and groaned; with such an uncommon last name, the fun-loving
Aaron was always coming up with new jokes and puns on his own name.
Daniel paused
briefly to “lock” the door of his office. He punched in a code on the keypad
next to it, and the door went into “solid” mode. Now not even Daniel could
enter his own door without re-entering the code to cancel the “lock.”
In the 2020’s, a
slew of office fires occurred in several major cities across the US. While
standard protective measures were often able to contain or put out the blazes,
there were too many instances of corporate employees getting locked in their
offices, or being unable to escape from the fiftieth story because the fire was
in the hallway, and there was no other way out of the room. Scientists from
Germany, China, and America all worked together to solve the problem: they
created a material called “holoplast.”
Similar to the
hologram, the material functioned on a specific frequency to maintain a low
density of atoms, but instead of merely functioning with light on a visual
frequency, through the development of holoplast the scientists discovered that
there was also a range of tactile frequency that could be maintained by a
specific combination of sound-waves in a magnetic field. The doorframes were
equipped with the audio-magnetic frequency generators, and the holoplast
material could then be poured into the frame, where it would remain static and
suspended within the barriers.
Holoplast doors could
only be entered from one direction, typically the inside; the molecules only
shifted away from an obstruction in one direction, much like the hinges on a
door. To “enter” the door from the opposite side, a person would simply need to
turn a magnet positioned on the doorframe, and the holoplast would be able to
bend the other direction. It was then a simple matter of making sure the magnet
was positioned correctly before entering the door, and one could avoid smacking
into the solid side of the holoplast. “Locking” the door involved placing the
audio-magnetic frequency at a high enough volume that the density of the
molecules increased, and the door would be as solid as plastic. Walking through
a holoplast door almost felt like walking through a dry fog.
The new
technology worked so effectively with maintaining privacy while facilitating
escape in an emergency (the doors closest to a fire would automatically
“unlock”, so that if an employee was threatened by flames, all he would have to
do is walk to the nearest fireproof stairwell, and he could make it out of the
building in safety, without fear of closed or locked doors between himself and
escape), that as of 2030, installation for every business was mandatory across
the nation, and by 2100, holoplast was as common a sight in office buildings as
potted plants (replaced by holographic-generated images in the late 21st
century; the actual silk plants were too labor-intensive for janitorial
services to spend time dusting, and the real plants were the source of too many
allergic reactions in a small number of employees).
“Ready?” he
sighed as he rejoined his friends.
“Yeah man,”
Michael beckoned to him, “we’ve been ready; we were just waiting on you!”
“Hey Dan,” Aaron
cut in, “did you see the new automation tables me and the guys are putting
together? It’s right here.” The amiable redhead pulled out his own tablet and
flicked through the data screens till he found the one he wanted. “See? Now you
can have real-time streaming data as your tablet wallpaper, so you can have
up-to-date information, no matter what screen you’re looking at.”
“That’s neat,
Aaron,” Daniel encouraged his friend’s efforts at innovation.
“Hey Harry,”
Michael nudged his buddy as his mischievous blue eyes twinkled, “rumor has it
you have a new line of personal amps in the works.”
Harry grinned,
“You ain’t seen nothing yet!” he boasted, holding his curly head high, “Just
wait till we’re in the conference room; then I’ll show everybody.”
“Speaking of
which,” Daniel’s quick eyes darted ahead of them to the windows of the
conference room, “It looks like a full house.”
Aaron frowned,
“That’s odd—“
They entered the
room. Everyone department manager and above waited around the table. At its
head, the Director of Personnel Affairs, Leander Boggs, surveyed the group with
a wan expression. Daniel, as his protégé, was especially sensitive to the older
man’s mood, and wondered what could have caused it.
Finally, Leander
motioned for everyone to have a seat. He waited until the room was silent and
he had everyone’s attention. Then he sighed and leaned his arms on the table.
“It’s over, boys
and girls,” Leander stated. “You’re all here because I supposedly called you
for a meeting; this is not true. There’s no staff meeting today; I’ve called
you here to tell you we’re done.”
Everyone
started.
Harry spoke
first. “Are you firing us?” he burst out.
Daniel pressed
his lips and watched his mentor’s face. The wrinkles around his eyes sagged
more than usual; Daniel saw no displeasure, only the heaviness of resignation
and self-imposed guilt.
“No, I don’t
mean we’re done with you,” Leander clarified. He looked at each young man in
turn. “I mean the company’s done; with all of us…even me.”
He pressed the
“share” button on the area of the SmartConference table in front of him, and
the same screen he saw duplicated itself around the table in front of each of
the managers and directors-in-training.
“Those of you in
the financial sectors have glimpsed this; until now, the knowledge was not
widespread. You see how our production, clientele, and business have increased,
reflecting favorably in the short-term market—“
“But profit has
not increased at the same rate,” one young man supplied.
“This means
bankruptcy in the long-term,” a female analyst noted.
Leander nodded
somberly. “But that’s not the worst of it; we’re not just going bankrupt, you
see; we’re in debt.”
“In debt to
whom?” Aaron queried in the dead silence following that awful word.
Daniel sighed
heavily, now feeling the weight of the situation hanging on him like an iron
cape. “To the Byblos Corporation,” he guessed.
Leander
confirmed it. “You remember the Business Symposium that Executive Director
Hector Maverick attended at the beginning of this year, don’t you, Daniel?”
“I do, sir,”
Daniel nodded, “Mr. Maverick thought he could brook a pact with Byblos by
taking him on a virtual tour of our facilities. He was confident that even if
Mr. King, the Executive Director of Byblos, would not offer any support to a
small communications company in Missouri, at least seeing Integra’s wealth of
supply and demand would cause potential enemies to become uneasy allies.”
Leander shook
his head. “Mr. Maverick kept the hologram on his person the whole time; we
never found out the extent of what was on the chip until he returned.”
“What,” a
personnel manager raised his hand, “was there more than just the virtual tour?”
“It wasn’t just
about our facilities,” Leander snapped, “That fool wanted to tout our finances
as well! He practically handed Mr. King
the records of all our profits, expenses, and liabilities when he showed him
that hologram!”
“Did no one warn
him?” Michael asked.
Leander was too
overcome to answer at the moment, so Daniel supplied the information. “Upon his
return, Mr. Maverick met with the Chief Executive, Justin Mandalord.”
“Somehow Mr.
Mandalord learned before anyone else what Hector had done,” Leander had
recovered enough to continue, “and he warned the Director that this would be
the making of Integra’s downfall.”
“How come we
didn’t hear about this till now?” Harry asked.
“Because nothing
came of it till now!” Leander pounded his fist on the table. “Hector saw no
reason to admit to his guilt because he knew—Justin told him—that Integra would
not pay for his mistake until after he
resigned!” The elderly man sat back and calmed his nerves with a long sigh.
“Sure enough, now that Hector’s successor Jee-Hoy Kim is Executive Director—the
truth comes out. Chad King of Byblos calls in his debt.”
“Wait,” Aaron
stared at the screens on the table in front of him and tried to make sense of
the information he was hearing. “How does Integra go from exposed to in debt so
quickly?”
These seemingly
unrelated pieces clicked together at an alarming rate in Daniel’s mind. “I’d
say that Mr. King took the information from Mr. Maverick, analyzed the
weaknesses and the loopholes, and exploited our company from the inside
information so freely presented to him.” He “shared” his own screen around the
table, so that each one could see the connections as he graphed them out in
front of him. “By getting into our investment portfolio, Mr. King could slowly
begin to direct cash-flow from all areas, one by one, into Byblos moneybags.
Then he goes after our clients, starting with the other shareholders and then
our least-monitored patrons, convincing them to channel their business through
Byblos instead. Since these clients are not important enough to be constantly
monitored by our system, this diversion goes unnoticed until it is too late.”
“Leander, sir,”
Harrison looked up as Daniel finished, “When we first began talking, you said
that it’s over for us. What did you mean by that? We haven’t completely lost
Integra yet, have we?”
Leander sighed.
“Integra might as well be lost. See that number in the top right corner of your
screens? That’s the amount of debt Mr. King is demanding be paid. In fact, a
convoy of Byblos executives are heading this way right now to collect it.”
One of the
financial analysts gasped, “That’s the net worth of the entire company!” he
gazed at Leander, wide-eyed with the terror that only confusion and fear could
bring. “Why wouldn’t Mr. Kim just liquidate the entire company and pay off the
debt?”
Leander enfolded
all the bright young faces around the room with a sorrowful, wistful glance.
“Because the debt is not about the money. Mr. King insists that it be paid in
personnel and services.”
“Personnel?” Aaron gasped. “You mean—“
“Yes,” Leander
confirmed reluctantly. “That’s what the convoy is for; every person in this
building, attached to this company, is now under the management of the Byblos
Corporation.” He hung his head, “Our founder, Abraham Mandalord, came away from
that place so long ago—“
“Following the
guidance of God,” Daniel reminded him soberly.
“So?” Leander
returned, “We’ve drifted away from God since then, and now here is our
punishment! Don’t you see what’s really going on? It’s not just another, more
powerful company calling in a debt; Abraham left that company, he was called out of it—and now we’re going right back there. So many decades of work,
more than a century devoted to this company…and we’re no better off than when
we started.”
In the shocked
silence that followed, every young man and woman in that room heard the roar of
autobuses arriving on cue. They all gathered at the windows and looked down.
Buses waited, with black-suited security guards pouring out, led by a tall
woman with long dark hair slicked back into a plumb-straight ponytail, looking
severe even at that distance.
“There are no
trucks for moving any sort of furniture or equipment,” Aaron observed soberly.
Somona chimed, “All
Integra Personnel report to the atrium in—five—minutes. Repeat, All Integra
Personnel must report to the atrium in—five—minutes.”
Leander looked
around at the room full of bright, eager young entrepreneurs, skilled in their
field, brimming with talent in their respective areas that a corporation such a
corporation as Byblos would only exploit rather than cultivate. At least
Daniel, perhaps his three friends Aaron, Harrison, and Michael—these four might
still achieve their potential. As for the others…
“We have five
minutes to pack only what we can carry,” he told them all. “Better hurry; we
don’t want to anger our new employers.”
Are they
employing us, Daniel thought as he raced
back to his office, or enslaving us?
He swept as many personal digital effects as he could onto a thumb drive
plugged into his desk, and stuffed some books from his office into the duffel
with a few changes of clothes he always kept at the office in case of
emergency—but never this sort of emergency.
Daniel joined the
flow of Integra employees heading for the elevators. He was glad the drop now
took a few seconds where a few decades earlier it took elevators more than a
minute to cover the same distance. He allowed himself to be smashed with as
many employees as wanted to fit in the car, and rode down to the atrium. They
were greeted by a security guard in a black uniform bearing the embroidered
emblem of the Byblos Corporation. He beckoned them out of the elevator with his
gun.
“That way, move
it!” he barked.
All the employees
obediently filed into the open area at the center. The severe woman stood at
the front of the room, watching everyone with cold, calculating eyes. As Daniel
stood in the crowd, waiting for the remaining employees to arrive, he watched
her. Every feature was flawless: her skin, her nails, her clothing, even her
body structure. She stood, straight, slender, and immobile. Byblos security
guards stood at every door, but Daniel knew instinctively that those in this
room were not all. His instincts proved correct when, after the last group of
Integra employees disembarked, another elevator door opened, and a group of
Byblos guards exited, confirming with the woman, “They’re all here, Ms. Perez.”
She turned her
attention to the cowering crowd before her. Daniel noticed a black box in her
right hand, recognizing it as a P-VAS, Personal Voice Amplification System; she
spoke into it, and her voice projected enough to fill the whole room.
“Workforce of
Integra Communications, Incorporated,” she announced, “Welcome. My name is
Ashley Perez, and I am the Director of Personnel Maintenance at Byblos
Corporations. Effective immediately, Integra Communications is hereby
dissolved, and every last one of you is under my jurisdiction until further notice.
When I dismiss you, I want everyone on those buses, and we’ll head back to the
Great Campus in Sacramento, California. Are we clear?”
A few people
muttered, others nodded, but it wasn’t till a guard bellowed, “Provide verbal
confirmation!” that everyone shouted back, “YES!”
Ashley smiled,
squinting her eyes with condescension.
“Welcome to
Byblos Corporations, employees!”
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