WorkSpace

WorkSpace Memo

• Date stamp: 22-06-2028, Time (EST): 23:47
• From the desk of Xiu Chen Wong; VP, Tech Overview for Job Maintenance (Europe)
• To all Job Operators, (Implementation notification commencing 01-07-2028, 00:01):

Please Note: As of July 1, 2028 WorkSpace is dropping all support for the Job firmware OS based on the H4DAPI open source kernel. This decision is based on a number of factors, including:

• The growing need for a closed source, securable operating code for the Jobs
• Reduced WorkSpace tolerance for the undesirable personality memes still present in the open source community
• Proprietary requirements for an OS that can better manage organic overstretch implications of Confluence and other Total Employment activities

As such, your Job’s will shortly be receiving the appropriate system reformat and rebuild necessary for the deployment of the core code of WorkSpace HapLIS; this is a wholly internally derived and built code set, custom developed for the specialised requirements of WorkSpace All. In addition, this upgrade offers the opportunity to conduct a hardware improvement for all Jobs operating in key WorkSpace sectors (N.B.: Excludes orbital operants). Enhancements following hard/soft upgrades will include:

• All Molly-class (v2.03) force feedback systems will be replaced with pseudo-organic, grey-goo compatible, full immersion true-true haptic systems. Keyed to dermal and ocular interface options this new system will permit over 97% RL equivalent feedback quality. For example, it will now be possible to manipulate micro environments/materials at the sub-1 micron level; this means true hands-on product awareness and prompt processing of critical shareholder value materials such as construction diamond.

• 3-D virch Tank capacity will be revised to mega-status, with up to one million cubic meter volume available for collaborative projects. Furthermore, Tank resolution finesse is now determined by fractal ranged algorithms based on the standard ocular augment of 18.2 x 10⁷ pixels, giving effective infinite resolving power to equiv-subatomic levels.

• WorkSpace has not forgotten employee leisure applications for the new technology. True sensory reproduction of previously inaccessible tactility options will now be available. In addition to the normal bumptop facilities available for downtime, a fully populated petting zoo will be online shortly. Recognising the long acknowledged psychological health benefits of pet interaction, you will now be able to enjoy the fur of the coypu, the slippery dermis of the eel, and other sensory delights. Book your slot now!

• Conjugal visits: exciting new developments in erogenous interface and direct autonomic patching means Job can now facilitate (monitored) break time virch visits from your nearest and dearest. The newly available SomaSpace will allow the natural expression of love to be part of your WorkSpace life (Hetero interface only currently available).

• H4DAPI will also permit the rollout of revised Reward/Discipline subroutines. Extensive WorkSpace research has shown the delays imposed in the reward/penalty response time result in a poorly articulated corporate->operator message. HapLIS deployment will enable near-immediate (positive/negative) sensory feedback to the operator resulting in definitive clear-message understanding. Similarly, the licensed PAVlove application will ensure greatly reduced repetitive (accidental or otherwise) misapplication of proprietary WorkSpace tools and resources.

All Operators will acknowledge receipt and understanding of this memo by 00:04 at the latest – pingback failure will result in forfeit of 10 kiloseconds of leisure downtime. Operators should also be aware that Job reformat will result in an RL divest of two days – WorkSpace is pleased to announce that for this period a series of team building away-sessions have been devised to further the coherence of WorkSpace efficiency and to better foster a happy working environment.

Check your skeds, guys.

See you there!

<>
Xiu.

The cell wall fills my entire view, the membrane soaring gelatinously towards the notional roof of the Tank. 10,000 seconds in full virch schlepping my way through several TB of endoplasmic reconfig – basically fixing someone else’s sloppy code. The client is waiting and I’m suffering hard with the basic incompatibility of overdue deadline with Monday morning apathy.

WTF – the Tank construct stutters, then freezes completely. Un-fucking-heard of. Like an old movie from the Sci-Fi Classics channel the entire space looks like it’s been embedded in a crystalline block, even the Prims just hover mid-mod. I greb for the most basic root commands – nothing. Even the eject mnemonic doesn’t work. Panic starts to kick in – I can’t leave work.

I toggle Job on the suit channel, at last – a response.

“What is your status, operator?”

“I’m stuck Babs!” I forget nomenclature protocol in my panic.

“Stand-by, operator”.

The tank view vanishes and suddenly – the system’s in a hurry. “Job?” No answer. Bright white light – a staging Tank; I’ve not been in one of these since orientation. A text-only horiscroll flows silently across my HUD.

…view selection, operator. Please await transition to WorkSpace Prime. Mandatory review selection, operator. Please await transition to WorkSpace Prime. Mandatory review selection, operator. Please await transition to WorkSpace Prime. Mandatory review selection, operator. Please await transit…

Shit. A period of nothing. Then sharply awake. A chemical seesaw to keep me both unaware and horribly alert. The latter day equiv of a management meeting request on a Friday afternoon (enjoy your weekend!).

I’m spat into Prime with pinned pupils and a wholly contrary sense of cooperation (thanks, Babs, you fucking Quisling). Prime reception (serf-side) is, impressively for a virch space, a grotty little vestibule. A poorly rendered CAVEspace running elderly code – a nine year old could do better these days. They’ve not even bothered with half decent lighting; its 27 cubic meters of 2^nd gen virtual reality, with the emphasis on virtual.

There’s someone to meet me. The sweetest avatar I’ve ever seen.

Purely androgynous, exquisitely rendered (I suspect a dedicated line), and an almond shaped face, no doubt capable of every post-human expression variable but currently fixed in an impassive mask, (Management Mid-Severity Expression #4R03N. *Denotes potential subject guilt, not yet legally provable).

“Tag this please, operator.” It pings me a standard lead-and-restraint script – SOP leashing for non-management in Prime, charming.

The management avie levitates a precise 10 centimeters and I reciprocate automatically. Reception fades out to the beautifully animated interior of Prime Tier 2.

Destination: Operator Reviews.

Gulp.

Friday always hurts. Divestment is a bitch; Job does its best, a mild pre-exmmersion palliative analgesic plus some standard reality counselling hypnotics, but still, RL is always a grind at first. Gravity reasserts, data access is torturously slow, cooking – sheesh, and the sheer effort of having to interact on the poverty of the human-only level.

Coarse lumpen humanity everywhere you look. Brains, mouths and tongues forming (so slowly), the info-poor commerce on the pitifully narrow organic bandwidth that is people. Clawing dunk goo from your eyes at 19:02 on a Friday evening, you have to start to consider the gross coordination of survival until Sunday p.m. Still, a beer and a snuff later, things start to look up a little; you remember that you have some friends, a life (of sorts), even a favourite bar, your groin twitches as well – endocrinologically your brain stem remembers other pleasures as well.

Priorities: A shit, a shower, a shave, some eat. The microwave dings and you boot Backchannel; piggybacking the WorkSpace portal, Backchannel is another small stolen secret in your privacy arsenal. Horded compulsively by WorkSpace peons this is an essential part of weekend planning; ducking (we think) the social control heuristics and content checks used by WorkSpace; Backchannel is a home-grown hiatus, a carefully tended killfile allotment oxbowed off from the rest of the corporate net. I place a multi-shout to my crew (keywords: booze, gear, tactility) and prod listlessly at my plasticized macaroni cheese.

21:00: It’s fucking packed at Soylent (20^th anniversary of Heston’s death, should have remembered). I greb dibs on the next round and scan the crowd, immediately I clock the smooth dome of Brant’s head, bobbing a good 20 cents above the crowd denominator, he spots me at the bar: Christ, human contact feels good; the hug lasts a good 30 seconds, the first pint a good ten seconds less.

23(ish). We manage to get a booth at MAC, vectored in on a wave of carelessly squandered first week pay and a slightly hysterical group psychosis. It’s a good vibe, no rugby shirt twats or Shermanites; the music is good too – lots of bass, not too loud and not so achingly hip that it’s unrecognisable. Cale breaks open a cheekily secreted wrap and the bubble comes down – that warm amniotic of inclusion that only good friends, good drugs and the weekend ahead can bring.

02:07. (I know this because from my prone perspective on the damp concrete I can see the LED clock high on the gherkin above). There’s a rich salty taste in my mouth and there seems to be something wrong with my jaw, my arm hurts too and I can’t feel the reassuring lump of the PDA in my back pocket. Worse yet, I can see the orange blur of a WorkSpace Security logo and the bland syntax of a construct voice advising me to keep still.

A downspiral montage:

• The sting of the intoxicant analysis.

• The drone of the duty sergeant.

• The smell of vomit on myself.

• A sense of panic of shit yet to happen.

06:14. Home again, FWIW. I’m still holding a wadded, bloodied dressing to my lip; my head’s fucking killing me, I’m on my own. RL can go fuck itself; I pop a valium and crash.