Fid's Crusade

by David Reiss

“You do have quite a few projects awaiting federal approval,” he nodded, baring his teeth in what I was certain that he considered to be a smile. “More than enough to see to the company's short-term needs.”

  “Long term is just tomorrow's short term. There's a lot of upside potential here, Henry.”

  “Even so, the board recommends that you consider cutting research expenditures by thirty percent. Until the ratio of products-awaiting-approval to salable-products drops below industry average, of course.”

  “Our ratio is high because we're establishing ourselves as an industry leader.” I smiled tightly. A reduction that significant would require significant layoffs. “If we lower our commitment to research, we may lose that position.”

  “Your job isn't to be an industry leader.” The investor's voice was cold. Again, I was reminded of that foggy winter morning. “Your job is to make stock prices go up. Anything else the company may do is secondary.”

  I bit back my initial response, forced an approximation of a pleasant grin, and used my neural link to pore through a few recent articles by respected analysts.

  “The industry,” I pointed out, “is up fourteen percent, year-over-year. As I mentioned, we're up eighty. The brokerage firms you represent have more than doubled their money since they invested three years ago. I don't think that the board has much to complain about.”

  “That's true today,” he acknowledged without any hint of gratitude or agreement. “It is, however, likely to look very different after nine-to-twelve months of flat profits.”

  “Stock price isn't tied to profits,” I responded archly. “The research we still have in the pipe will generate a significant amount of positive publicity.”

  “And it will generate more if you demonstrate that you are focused on maintaining profit growth while waiting for the fruit of your labors to ripen. Again, the board is recommending a thirty-percent reduction in research expenditures.”

  I imagined him on fire. The scent of scorched hair and searing flesh, and the sound of his shrieks rising in pitch as the heat tore at his throat. His delicate, immaculately manicured hands curled into claws as he struggled ineffectually to douse the flames.

  “I understand the board's concerns,” I smiled, and he saw something in the expression that made him pale, “and I will certainly take their advice under consideration.”

  “You may have started the company, but your position isn't set in stone.” To his credit, his voice didn't shake at all. “If you push back on this, you'll have a fight on your hands.”

  “I could use a good fight,” I answered truthfully.

  The meal continued, but neither of us felt compelled to add to the conversation.

  ◊◊◊

  Welcome to #SYNChat!

  ‹encrypted private channel established›

  MortarThyme: doctor fid, u here?

  DoctorFid: I am, yes.

  MortarThyme: i got ur mail. Thx

  DoctorFid: The algorithm was helpful, then?

  MortarThyme: its tight. v efficient!

  DoctorFid: That was the intended goal. It should increase the speed of your searches by several ticks per iteration.

  MortarThyme: 12% faster, gj.

  DoctorFid: I'm working on a compression schema to minimize memory usage, as well. There will be a slight performance hit, but the difference can easily be offset by other improvements.

  MortarThyme: sounds gud. i rewrote ur error check code, have look here.

  DoctorFid: Interesting. I see a significant difference in the number of errors that you raise.

  MortarThyme: only a few r relevant.

  DoctorFid: We'd lose a fair bit of information, when attempting to troubleshoot problems with the application.

  MortarThyme: idm. ur code is solid and i can dig into prog w/o. more fault tolerant this way, 2.

  DoctorFid: I see your point.

  MortarThyme: thx again.

  DoctorFid: It was no great difficulty. I'm happy to help a fellow FTW member.

  MortarThyme: o just so u know, im reformatting ur code b4 posting.

  DoctorFid: Oh? How so?

  MortarThyme: changing indentations + variable names. spacing.

  DoctorFid: That won't impede functionality at all. May I ask why the change?

  MortarThyme: ur work is v distinctive

  MortarThyme: sum wont use program if they no it is urs

  MortarThyme: this way, mor ppl will use

  DoctorFid: I see. So, it is your opinion that the program will be of more use to the community if all credit for its creation is given to you?

  MortarThyme: not looking 4 credit, just want ppl 2 use prog

  MortarThyme: i herd about wut happend when u went 2 Gallery.

  DoctorFid: You heard about that, did you?

  MortarThyme: y.

  DoctorFid: It's too bad that you weren't at the Gallery when I visited. It would have been nice to collaborate in person.

  MortarThyme: mebbe nxt time

  (“We could meet by the pinball machine, where someone who looked rather like you had just earned a new high score moments before I arrived. Seven million, four-hundred fifty-two thousand, seven-hundred and fifty, wasn't it?”, I carefully did not type.)

  DoctorFid: Yes, perhaps another time. Feel free to modify the program as you described.

  MortarThyme: kthxbye.

  ‹MortarThyme has disconnected›

  ‹DoctorFid has disconnected›

  ◊◊◊

  The furniture was sturdy and comfortable, glossy antique cherry hardwood and dark leather upholstery in good repair. Built-in bookshelves adorned two of the walls, stuffed full of texts on a wide variety of subjects relevant to AH Biotech's products, and stacks of papers lay arranged in careful piles upon the expansive desk. The decor for my office at AH Biotech had been chosen to evoke the impression of an organized academic rather than the typical business tycoon.

  I'd never been that kind of professor. My personal space at MIT had been chaos incarnate, a jumble of notes and paperwork so muddled that it was indecipherable by any but myself. It was only in retrospect, reviewing memories years later, that I noticed the discomfort of my students when they came to ask questions of me during office-hours. Sitting half-on and half-off the metal folding chair, trying not to dislodge the half-completed prototypes that I'd left resting there. I must have done a decent job of answering their questions, at least; several of students had been willing to return multiple times.

  It struck me that Doctor Albert Hess, the professor that I had purported to name this company after...his office had been appointed similarly to the one I'd created at AH Biotech. The quality of materials in his chamber had not been quite so lavish, perhaps, but the paradigm was certainly recognizable. How odd. I'd designed this space and worked within it for years and yet never had made that connection.

  Perhaps I had noticed the association because I felt strangely unwelcome in that space. The office belonged to Dr. Terrance Markham, but right then I was too close to Fid. Beneath a CEO's skin, a predator lurked, vicious, tense and eager for its prey to arrive.

  There was movement at my door.

  “Sir? I was told that you wanted to see me?”

  “Ah, yes. Bradley Kent.” I faked a convincingly pleasant smile and motioned my three-thirty appointment to enter and take a seat. “We met at last year's Christmas party, didn't we?”

  “We did, yes.” The graying, slightly overweight man sat down, looking more confused than nervous. He hadn't been given a reason for being summoned.

  “Ananya introduced you. You worked for her at Reddington Software, and followed her when she came here?”

  “Yes, sir.” He nodded. “Ms. Singh is a good boss.”

  “I'd hope so,” I chuckled. “Ananya has mentioned you often in our meetings, by the way.”

  “Oh? Nothing bad, I hope!” He forced a laugh, looking a bit more concerned now than he had moments before.

  “No, of course not,” I shook m
y head. “She's quite proud of her team, and values your contributions very much.”

  “I'm glad to hear that.” He laughed out loud, his relief quite visible.

  “She mentioned that your son was recently accepted to Dartmouth?”

  “He was!” His smile broadened, his shoulders squaring as he puffed up in paternal pride. “That was his reach school, but he definitely earned it.”

  “Dartmouth is an excellent college.” I noted. “They have very high academic standards”

  “My boy, Alex...he's a hard worker, he'll manage.”

  “I understand that Alex is going to be majoring in organic chemistry.” I nodded approvingly. “Do you think that he'd be interested in an internship?”

  “I think that he'd be ecstatic!" Bradley beamed, but then raised a hand in caution. "Not in his first year, though. Starting out at college is hard enough. Is that what this meeting is about?”

  “In a way, yes. Your son has an excellent CV and seems tremendously passionate about his studies. We've never had an intern program before, but he seems like he'd be an excellent candidate.” I leaned back in my chair. “So, I'd very much like for you to take a moment and imagine what his expression would look like, if you had to inform him that you couldn't afford his tuition on account of your impending job hunt and legal fees.”

  “Wh-what? I don't under-”

  “You shared internal financial data with the investment firm that handles your wife's retirement fund. That's insider trading.” I'd located the source of Henry Collins' information and it was a joy, having someone to punish! My smile felt more like a baring of teeth. “Are you imagining your son's expression?”

  “Yes,” the accountant whispered shakily.

  “Describe it to me.”

  “He'll be heartbroken," Bradley murmured. I'd expected claims of innocence or belligerent defense. Instead, his gaze looked distant, as though focusing only upon the scene that I'd proposed. "He's told all of his friends, our relatives. God, we already bought him two of those blazers...I can't do that to him. I'll find a way, sell the damned house-!”

  Damn it all.

  “You don't need to do that, yet. We're still talking about a purely hypothetical scenario.” When I'd set up this meeting, it had been under the perfectly reasonable assumption that Bradley had revealed the information for some sort of profit. Annoyingly, all of my behavioral analysis programs indicated that to be an unlikely scenario. Softly, I asked “What do you think would your son say?”

  “He's a good kid.” He smiled, though his eyes were glassy with un-shed tears. “He'd put on a brave face and ask if I was all right.”

  “It sounds as though you've raised a fine young man.” That feral part of me, that part that had wanted someone to hurt...it sulked and retreated deeper within. I felt as though I'd just sat down to enjoy a hearty meal to break a long fast, only for the plate to have been whisked away before I could taste a morsel. Cheated and still hungry.

  “He is,” Bradley choked out.

  “It would be preferable, I think, if your son didn't have to undergo such hardship.” All that I yearned for was a deserving target upon which to vent my righteous wrath. Was that so much to ask? I swallowed rage and resentment, and shook my head. “I really very much would prefer to offer your son that internship in a year or two.”

  “Oh god please-”

  “I haven't informed legal about this incident, yet,” I admitted, offering a comforting smile despite feeling suddenly weary. “This is just a conversation between the two of us.”

  “What do I need to do?” He visibly gathered his courage, a man expecting the gallows and choosing to face it head-on for his family's sake.

  (My neural scarring had still been present when I'd founded AH Biotech. How had I managed to oversee an organization staffed by people so much better than myself? Was it luck, or simply good programming? The software that I'd composed to augment our headhunting efforts had, admittedly, been very complex.)

  “You're already doing good work,” I reassured him. “Ananya raves about you. All that I want is for you to stop sharing information with your friend from Watson and Forester holdings.”

  “I swear!”

  “Then there's nothing more we need to do or say. Except to ask that you relay my well-wishes to your son.”

  “Doctor Markham...I really am sorry.”

  “I believe you,” I sighed. “Just...explain to me why? Ananya raves about your work, you seem happy here...”

  “It was a mistake,” he shrugged helplessly. “A stupid mistake. Greg is an old friend, and I didn't think that there would be any harm. He was already planning on investing!”

  For a brief moment, I brightened at the thought that I could perhaps ruin this Greg person's life over this incident instead. Unfortunately, I could think of no easy way to do so without implicating Mr. Kent as well; Bradley was, by all appearances, a loyal employee. My pulse may race eagerly at the opportunity to punish a traitor amongst my people, but the faithful should be cherished and protected.

  “I have no proof, but I suspect that your friend shared the information with his superior in order to justify the investment. The information spread from there. There may be consequences for this,” I sighed, “But I'll make sure that they don't land on you. For your son's sake...please be more careful in the future.”

  I'd looked forward to destroying Bradley Kent when he'd entered my office, but he thanked me profusely on his way out. I no longer felt alien within this homey, richly decorated office.

  I barely felt anything at all.

  ◊◊◊

  During my initial career as Doctor Fid, my brain had been altered by knife and chemical 'til I'd been every inch the villain. I'd had a goal, after all, and half-measures would have interfered with manufacturing the pyrrhic final battle I'd ached for. After my temporary retirement, the drug regimen had been abandoned and the surgeries reversed. Through five years of research at MIT and a decade rebuilding and expanding upon Doctor Fid's mission, I'd thought myself whole.

  It had been many months since the medical nanites had eliminated the last of my neural scarring. The change to my psyche had been at sometimes profound, and other times quite subtle.

  It wasn't a question of intensity; I'd never lacked for strong passions! There was, however, a nimble and reactive nature to my emotional state to which I was still becoming accustomed. There were new nuances to my ethos that I was ill-equipped to describe. I felt better for the shift, but I'd been unprepared.

  (There had been memory issues, too. Minor glitches, evidenced only in hard-coded logs. I'd apparently flushed my short-term memory a half-dozen times during my recuperation; I had no idea why I'd felt compelled to do so, but the commands had been issued with my own authorization codes so surely I must have had good cause. I only wish that I had thought to document my reasoning for future reference)

  I missed Starnyx.

  For an incandescent fraction of my life, I'd had a trusted confident. Someone who I could talk to unmasked, someone who listened and commiserated and understood. I'd never had a friend like that. I'd never really believed that friendship like that existed outside of fiction! I'd been whole barely long enough to truly appreciate the value of that bond, and then he was gone.

  My ward, at least, could know both Terry Markham and Doctor Fid. It wasn't the same. Whisper's psyche existed as a quantum cloud held in state by clusters of the most powerful crystal supercomputers on the planet, but she was young. If needed, she could absorb the sum total of all psychology research and self-help literature available on the internet, and construct advice based on statistical analysis of outcomes...but she couldn't really empathize with my frustrations. She could sympathize, of course! And she did, extending gentle and caring support for which I would be eternally grateful. Still, I did not wish for her to be unnecessarily burdened.

  When I'd joined the FTW, I had (at least subconsciously) longed to find similar relationships among their members to tha
t which I'd had with their founder. Nyx...Eric Guthrie...certainly could not be replaced. I'd anticipated that I could, however, at least find some comfort among those he had influenced. In them, I'd hoped, I could at least find an echo of Eric's presence.

  ◊◊◊

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  > Topic: Suggestions for next target

  v464b0nd (Original Poster):

  - The Elliot Property Holdings job was very

  - successful. We got half a million hits and

  - coverage on four major networks. Elliot

  - has already started sending out restitution

  - checks to victims of their mortgage fraud.

  - Great job, folks.

  - So, any suggestions for our next target?

  M0nk3yB0i (member):

  - how about paragon research? they do a

  - lot of secret weapon research, including

  - the sonic cannons used by Bialya

  - military to suppress protest.