WorkSpace

There are five of them, all faceless, arrayed behind a bland blonde wood table. They must have applied some sort of management witchcraft review hack to my ocular feed; the rest of the office remains crystal, rendered, clear; but whenever I try to focus on their faces I get macula fuzz-out and a stab of pain in both eyes. Nice touch, even face to face, management interactions are a one-way info transaction. The fetch minder avatar fades out and I’m alone with the inquisition.

I’ve been perched on a high, 3 legged, backless stool; this has the combined effect of maximum exposure and discomfort, and also denies any sort of posture that could imply composure. The central reviewer avie speaks (I tag it as Inquisitor 1).

“Operator 1338, this is a mandatory, extra-ordinary employment review; it will not appear in the public performance review Space, it will not be accessible by your line Operator, it will not, at present, contribute to annual exchange collateral enhancement decisions.

In addition, any breach of confidentiality pertaining to this meeting to any sentient entity will result in immediate employment termination and Job expulsion; with attendant deletion of any personally accrued monetary (or otherwise) resources. Please acknowledge with a band-5 WorkSpace fealty ping.”

Fuck.

“I acknowledge.” What choice have I got, I toggle the ping and I note an immediate upgrade to my basic level 3 security clearance – WTF – this is getting weirder.

“Do you confirm that on Saturday night, 24-June-2028, you were engaged in multiple social intercourses, intoxicant enhanced, with your habitual extra-curricular peer group?”

Gulp.

“Yes, confirmed”.

“This board notes that during the course of this Saturday evening you became dangerously incapacitated due to the consumption of a random narcotics mix (see appended WorkSpace Security toxanalysis). As a result of this willful intoxication you put yourself in a position of vulnerability, and incurred a degree of peripheral, non-life threatening organic damage. However, more seriously, your actions, or lack of them, resulted in the loss of WorkSpace property, to wit: One iRex PetaBook. Physical device loss aside, what is of much more importance here is the loss of, and open access to, the data on that device.

Operator, the loss of this device has severe implications. As you are aware, all Operators are issued with PetaBooks after the completion of their 6-month probation period. Ostensibly a company benefit, the PetaBooks provide a useful personal node for data capture, bio-authentication ackles, employee tracking, downtime leisure usage and other standard WorkSpace activities.

However, the PetaBooks also provide a critical , distributed WBAN function for WorkSpace All, facilitating continent-wide wireless net access. The loss of your device has had a two-fold implication: One, there was, for 1.7 seconds, a net coverage loss in the EC1 cell – the result: a financial data loss in Krasnoyarsk natural gas transactions amounting to 3.2 billion Euros. And, two, a phage incursion from agents unknown into the WorkSpace net.

It is due primarily to this latter issue that we find ourselves convened today.”

OMFG. My Job flags me an adrenaline overstretch alert, I quash it reflexively – of course I’m fucking stressed!

Inquisitor 1 continues.

“Track-back analyses indicate that despite access to the proprietary data on your PetaBook, the net incursion would not have been possible without a degree of internal WorkSpace complicity. Your incompetence aside, the review board does not consider you a suspect in this infraction, ergo, another Operator is responsible. Your task now, non-optional and in immediate effect, is to assist with the identification and apprehension of this rogue WorkSpace element. To assist you with this task you will be fitted with a mobile Job prosthetic, I imagine you are familiar with the concept – your Job is going with you from now on.”

We had all read the specs; mobile Jobs are a skeletally bonded variant of the more cumbersome exo-unit we use daily, correctly integrated they apprently can assist with biofeedback analysis (a polygraph with shoes, essentially), provide enhanced net access and, if necessary, a degree of organic boost. We had all also noted a number of less conspicuous spec footnotes; this type of Job modification will also, where relevant (whatever that means), make WorkSpace mandated override decisons on the Operator, for example: diet enforcement, and the euphemistically named: loyalty action recommendations.

“Please note that this assignment does not in any way reduce your normal responsibilities to WorkSpace, nor does it, in any way, imply an enhancement to your current WorkSpace employment status.”

I was wondering about that, the replacement of the standard Job immersion apparatus with an internally integrated Job kink is usually the preserve of Prime management members. This is the good bit – I’m going RL mobile with Babs in tow. Everything else is a fucking disaster; I’ve been turned, trussed and stuffed – a stool pigeon equally cursed and blessed.

And FFS, I’m still going to have to go on the team building sessions.

“A final note, Operator, the attendant fiscal loss incurred as a result of your carelessness has not been forgotten. The full amount will be salary index linked and payback amortized over your remaining lifetime, with an in perpetua ancestor clause active until debt completion.

Now, please report to WorkSpace Surgical.”

I’ve never been to WorkSpace Prime (Tier 2) before, and frankly, it’s fucking weird. And not weird in a weird way; it’s just too normal.

We all do it, winding ourselves up daily with pocket fantasies about how Management are revelling in the glut of resource and matérial that their privilege brings; in our mind’s eye we see them rorting and cavorting in shift-less freedom like a Vegas winner cliché on a bed of paper money.

The reality, as always, is stranger and more banal then we could ever imagine. The gate to Tier 2 irises open and I follow the sublime avie into the most unexpectedly prosaic scene imaginable. We’re in the bustling ground floor lobby of a large corporate headquarters; at the back wall is a long reception desk manned by three NPC zombies, faux-Doric columnar decorates the perimeter. At the entrance to the lobby, to our left (we obviously entered via an internal port), stand two metal detector arches (these must be visual analogues for basic guest entry authentication). A myriad of avatars flit across the huge space, occupying all three dimensions – a cloud of corporate seraphim; some tagged with visitor passes, others proudly demonstrating their place in the WorkSpace hierarchy with a mixture of livery, heraldry and synthetic pheromone tags. The floor is an elaborately rendered metahologram of the florid WorkSpace logo.

Involuntarily I follow my minder across the lobby floor, we ascend in a gentle arc towards the notional rear wall of the lobby space; obviously our ackles shit on lobby-level peons because we don’t even bother with basic Space etiquette and avoid other avatars on intersecting trajectories, we just cut through them – I am dimly aware of indignant pings failing to penetrate our shared firewall and then the view cut-fades to a very ordinary, much smaller lift lobby. A sign on the wall indicates we are on the 23^rd floor, poverty spec carpet analogue coats the floor. And then, bizarrely, we’re walking! Actually, really, perambulating. Absolutely no-one bothers with base human analogue movements in virch anymore; it’s a crazy waste of bandwidth and the time cost (time-theft as us operators know it) is so at odds with core WorkSpace ethics that I am agog.

I look around as we pass down a very RL-typical central office corridor, fabric cubicle dividers fanning off to each side. The degree and quality of the virch reproduction is staggering: coffee cup rings on desks, burbling water coolers, splayed staplers awaiting refill, furrowed brows peering at monitors(!?), a fucking photocopier – what is this place?

I ping the avie with a general broadcast interrogative (a WTF basically), it ignores me; just a repeat of the same text horiscroll rolls across my HUD “…Mandatory review…” I try to ignore it.

The walking continues and it starts to dawn on me, and I’m fucking outraged: these goons have been given the keys to the kingdom, they’ve clawed their Darwinistic way up the slippery shit stick of corporate achievement and this is what they spend their limitless data allowance and bandwidth allocation on: a repro of a shoddy second millenium office. Eschewing the sublime advances of near-perfect 3D virch representation, the paradoxically beautiful sight of corporate databases hewn in pure light, this is what they work in – an exquisitely rendered sty.

Fury whites out the ever present review anxiety, we reach a double boardroom door, veneered in cheap walnut. The avie inclines its head: I reach for the door handle. Fuck ‘em.

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!

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Xiu.