An Eighty Percent Solution (CorpGov) (12 page)

“If you go quietly, the parent company is willing to give you the following: one year’s severance pay, an equal length of full medical continuance, your accumulated retirement funds to date, and pay in lieu of accumulated vacation.

“By inference you can deduce what will happen to you if you fight.”

Tony shook in place
.
For years
he’d
felt ambiguous about his place as another bit in the great megacorp machine
.
Now, without his consent, he no longer even carried that insignificant distinction
.
His muscles and gut
willed
him to some action, however futile
,
and his mind
somehow
ke
pt t
hem both under control
.

“Granted
,
I think this offer is overly
generous
for someone who’s violated the morals clause in their contract
,
but
it wasn’t my call to make
.
Take it and get out
.
Cause the slightest trouble and I’ll strip you of even that crumb.
”

* * *
 

In his
butter
-
mellow baritone,
Nanogate
spoke
.
“
Alea iacta est
,
”
he stated—rather succinctly, he thought
.
He received nothing but blank stares despite the broad range of education
and mental implants
represented
in the room
.
“The die is cast. Phase one completed without incident
.
We discovered an added bonus in time to make use
of
it
.
The subject has recently obtained a feline.”

With
a scowl
,
Taste Dynamics
, the only one at the table currently in a skirt, looked up
.
“How can that be a bonus, unless you eat those kinds of proteins?”

“Not at all
.
It has multiple benefits
.
It allays the fears of the members of the Green Peace organization
,
and the cat itself has already been set up as an additional weapon
.”
There were several knowing nods around the huge wooden table.

“Phase two is underway as we speak,”
Nanogate
went on
.
“We
’
ll continue to increase the pressure until our subject has no other choice.”

“
Are
there any indications of suicidal tendencies?”

“None for over seven generations
.
Mental profiles show no H-seven indicators of depression, no Cannon indicators of self-hatred or self-destruction
.
As an additional precaution, we added a deep-programmed b
lock against suicide
.
If
—
no
,
when
—
he is probed, the terrorists
won’t
find it unusual
.
As you know
,
such blocks are standard practice to infants in over twenty-four percent of Earth and seventy-four percent in colonies.”

“What is the timetable for this next phase
?”

“Phase two should last no more than two standard days
.
Phase three we theorize to take between seven to nine days
.
Gaining their trust,
p
hase
four
,
is variable
,
but we anticipate no more than two weeks
.
”

“And the weapon?”

“Phase five is timed to begin replication at T plus
twenty-
one days
.
This will give him time to become a valuable member and no longer under suspicion
.
Evaluation of results should tally shortly after that.”

“I suggest we move to the next topic of discussion then,” the chairman offered
.
“I turn your attention to the new anti-cloning legislation in front of the UN
…
” 

* * *
 

All Tony’s personal belongings save one fit into his
satchel
.
Under
the careful and watchful eyes of the two
Nanogate security officers
, he packed the
wedding
solido of his mother and father and the boudoir solido of Carmine
.
Two plaques for completion of
one
course or another lay flat against his diplomas
.
He carefully folded a first
-
place T-
s
hirt
for longest softball hit at the
Nanogate
Sports Day Picnic and packed it in beside a toothbrush, a used tube of toothpaste and a Project Neptune
m
ug
.

“I guess that’s it
,
”
he said
sadly
, wrapping
his arms around the pot of
green and white
striped
leaves. The spiderwort’s presence
so often
made
such a nice counterpoint to the sterility of the corporate nature
.
His mom called it a Wandering Jew plant
when she took the original
cutting from a large healthy vine she grew over most of her living room
.
He
’d
been diligent in keeping it alive.

“I’m sorry sir, but the plant must remain,” said a scratchy voice from behind one of the
security guard’s
masks
.
 

“
What
?
This plant is mine
.
My mother gave
it to me
when it was just this long,” he
insisted
, holding his fingers apart by about
three centimeters
.

“That plant consumed light and water from
Nanogate
.
By inference, it must belong to the corporation
—
Portland Statute eleven-fourteen-
baker
.”

Tony thought seriously about raising a fit about the plant
, the only link to his parents,
dead nearly a year now
.
But his mind still functioned
.
H
e remembered the derision heaped on him by Anson for being a good and trustworthy
employee
.
His shoulders, set strongly
up
to this point,
drooped in defeat
.
His eye
s
dimmed as his head slumped forward just the tiniest amount
.
He carefully
s
e
t
down the plant after visions of Anson playing the part of a vengeful and self-righteous god darkened his mood even further.

Tony knew that fighting anything
Nanogate
or Anson
decided to do to him was a useless waste of time and resources
.
If Anson
gave
him the truth about the
charges
,
no c
ourt in the world would
entertain any case he put forward
.
Even if he did get it before a judge
,
the corporate lawyers would crush any representation he could possibly afford.

He was finished
in this world
.
The best he could hope for now was menial labor or migration
, if any of the colonies would consider him
.
His past employment didn’t exactly push him into any critical need category
.

The briefcase seemed very empty compared to the number of hours he
had
labored here
.
He t
ook
nothing
from the office except memories of an already extinct corporate career
.
With a sigh he closed the lid.

“I guess that’s all
.
Go ahead and do it
.”
As an act of finality, Tony lifted his wrist
.
The
scanner
sniffed the
DNA
from the loose cells
at his wrist
and crosslinked with the
Nanogate
mainframe
.
In picoseconds, every
door, every machine
,
and every
positive
record
within the corporation
would now deny Tony’s very existence,
irrevocably.

Silence filled the cubic
le
farm
.
The word passed quickly
as t
he p
eople with whom Tony had laughed, cried, supported, torpedoed, dr
u
nk beer, played softball
,
and competed against for the golden nuggets of corporate
politics
lined the hall
.
There stretched a human gauntlet of his life
.
A variety of reactions played on the faces of his former peers, subordinates
,
and everyone else who somehow
had
learned of his demise
.
Some wore
faces that did little to hide
their
joy, sadness
,
or outright fear
.
Above everything else, the silence stung Tony
.
He
half
expected to hear the muffled sobs of a grieving widow
.
The analogy seemed fitting
.
Instead
,
he got nothing
.

Tony maintained his composure through the procession
,
saying not a single word
.
He would go out as a man wronged with his head held high, not catching the eye of any of the silent witnesses
.
It was the longest two minutes of his life, putting one foot in front of the other, staring at a faded, four-year-old dental seminar poster on the far wall.

As he reached the exit, someone in the gathered crowd actually
mustered the audacity to cheer
, but only for a brief second and without great enthusiasm
.
Tony stiffened and stopped in the portal
.
He wanted to shout that they were next, to scream and plead for respite
.
Instead he looked to the group
, now clustered in the entry under the monstrosity they called
a
sculpture
.
With as much sarcasm as he could muster, he quietly said, “Good luck to you all
.”

Turning at once, he stepped out under the awning of the building
.
He b
itterly
rejected
the protection of the corporation’s roof
and he took several more steps
.
His dignity held until
the light
Portland
rain chilled his cheeks
.
Finally he afforded a weakness that wouldn’t show
.
Tears rolled down his cheeks
,
invisibly mingled in the wet
,
hiding his shame
.

Very briefly he considered just jumping off the ledge and plunging countless meters to an ignoble demise
, but he needed to
prove
they hadn’t beaten him
.
Instead
,
he stood with a
ramrod
-
straight back
,
mixing salt from his tears with the
drizzle’s
pollution as he waited for the lift-bus and a new, if unknown, life
.

“I’ll make this right.”