by Tom Germann
SENIOR MANAGER IN THE GLENTOL CORPORATION DEAD! SUICIDE FROM OVERWORK!
Michael Harley Smythe was a senior regional manager for the Glentol Corporation in the North Am zone. He was found dead in his office, located at the downtown headquarters at 543 Park Road this morning at 6:14 by janitorial staff. Mr. Smythe was directly responsible for expanding the Glentol Corporation’s gaming centres, which are spread throughout the world and host the most popular game ever, Marine Raider. Mr. Smythe had been under observation and review for depression and questionable business practices.
The Glentol Corporation has released a statement indicating that Mr. Smythe had been passed over for promotion to junior vice president due to discrepancies within his office. It appears that Mr. Smythe had been tampering with data, embezzling funds and working on slowing corporate progress.
Mr. Smythe has left behind a loving wife, Susan Wenquist, that would only make the following statement: “Michael had been so depressed lately and covered it up by staying at the office more. I tried to get him help, but he just wouldn’t listen.”
Mr. Smythe is to be cremated and a small service will be held for immediate family and friends this Saturday at 11 a.m. at the Further and Sons funeral home on Airport Road.
The Glentol Corporation is investigating further to ensure that no other company employees have been negatively affected by Mr. Smythe’s decisions in the last few months.
I read it twice. “Slowing corporate progress” was like saying treason.
I was being put up in the corporate dorms again, but on the top floor. I was in a room that was twice as big as my cubby had been last time. The bathroom was a bit bigger, but I finally had a decent-sized desk. I was told that this was only for a few days until a housing unit on the outskirts came open.
The front-desk receptionist was different from when I was last here, and she looked surprised when I asked if I could stay where I was instead of being shifted. She thought about it and then said I could. I moved my stuff in and got ready to go back to work.
I showed up for my first day of work like I had the previous year. I was cleared through security fast and was heading upstairs in minutes. I walked into my office, which was smaller than Mr. Smythe’s had been, and had a common area where receptionists and administrators worked. The first thing I saw there when I walked in was Ken.
He gave me a cheerful smile and I waved.
“Welcome back, Timothy. I had a feeling you were destined for great things. Just so you know, I was promoted to be your administrator.”
I stopped at his desk and stared at him. “You were promoted from the position of administrator for a senior manager about to be a vice president, to the position of administrator for an entry-level mid-manager? Is your pay raise also a 50 percent reduction in salary?”
Ken laughed at me. “Not at all, Timothy. I am now an instructor. There will be a brand new administrator coming in soon and they will shadow me and then start conducting themselves as the administrator while I stay here in the background and make sure everything is operating smoothly and efficiently. A good administrator is not hired, they are moulded.”
He frowned. “I had better warn you. If I do a good job, they may send some of the trainee classes through here to get a feel for this, and that can be … scary.”
Ken wouldn’t say anything else, but gently pushed me into the office and told me to “get to work, Timothy.”
I had never had a full-time job. I’d just graduated and the only work I had done before was my summer job: working as an intern for a senior manager for just over two months last year.
What was I supposed to do?
I stopped myself and took a deep breath. Panicking would do nothing.
Sit down at the desk and see what files there are, I told myself. The system came alive and then a large eye was staring at me from the screen. “Hello, Timothy. How are you doing today?”
The voice was warm and cheerful. I didn’t really care, though; the eye staring at me was freaking me out, as was the fact that someone hacked the system. Or was this a practical joke?
“Hi there, disembodied eye, I was doing okay until you started staring at me.”
The eye blinked and then the view pulled back. Now I was looking at two eyes but no face. “Sorry about that, Timothy, I understood you had a bit of a sense of humour. So you know, you have not been hacked and this is not a joke. My name is Hal. I am a Level 2 AI that disseminates data to the different personnel within this building and department. I actually deal with most of the business for the corporate offices in the city as well, as the Level 1 that runs some of it is a bit cranky and old.”
“I see. So you are sort of my boss?” I didn’t see at all, but at least Hal seemed nice.
A mouth formed and smiled. “Not at all, Timothy. Your boss is Mr. Landry upstairs. I am a data management assistant. As you work on projects, I will take the data and stream it to the relevant personnel to evaluate or execute as necessary. As you wrap up projects, I will also be directing more work your way. The idea is that no assets are overworked while others sit doing nothing.”
That made a lot of sense. But this must be a new system.
“Hal, are you new, then? I didn’t see you at all or hear about you when I was here before.”
The smile got a bit smaller. “Not at all, Timothy. I have been in use for over five years here. When you were here as an intern last year, Mr. Smythe had locked me out of all higher-end functions. He had considered AIs to be an interference. Now that he is no longer with us, his replacement has opened the system up to evaluation. If you need anything or have questions, feel free to ask me, all right?”
The partial face frowned and then turned into a full face with a shock of black hair braided back. Hal kind of looked like a male version of Clara. “Do you prefer a face a bit more like this? You appear to view it more positively than just the single glowing eye of doom.”
“Um, whatever works for you, Hal. I think it will take me a bit of time to get used to this.”
“No worries, Timothy. Oh, there is a meet-and-greet slated for you at lunch. You will meet most of the department then.”
“Okay, Hal. Before you go, can I ask two questions?”
“Go ahead.”
“Why are you called Hal? And are you always on call?”
“The name comes from an old book and is a joke that most people don’t get. I can send you a copy later if you wish?” I nodded. “Sure, that would be great, Hal.”
“I do tend to be on call always. You are early to work and the demands on my resources are not that bad right now. Later in the day you will only see messages, or I may talk to you, but I would not be taking control of your screen. Don’t worry, I’m not omnipotent.”
“Okay, thanks for the update, Hal.”
“You’re welcome. Have a good first day, Timothy.”
I pulled the first file and started working. Before I knew it, Ken was knocking on the door to remind me about lunch. There was a young woman with him following him around and looking really nervous. She called me ‘sir’ when Ken introduced her. Stephanie Lansen was from the east and had been recruited two years ago. She had completed the training courses and was here to get six months of on-the-job training before heading off to become a full administrator.
We chatted on the elevator as we headed to lunch.
Everyone in the cafeteria was new to me. I realized that aside from the administrators, I hadn’t met any other corporate personnel last year. Not really.
Everyone was upset by Mr. Smythe’s suicide and kept saying how terrible it was. I didn’t feel that bad at all for some reason. I met his wife that one time at the party, and she was attractive and fake. I could smell her new-age plastic three streets over.
Only a few weeks after the funeral, she was over at a mutual friend’s house being “consoled” for h
er loss. Less than half a year after the funeral, she was living with that friend, who was a mid-level corporate flunky. I saw her once after that and she had just gone in for more body mod. Everyone thought that she was gorgeous, but that was when I realized that she was hideous and I really wondered what Mr. Smythe had been like.
After lunch we headed back to the office. I let Ken lead on how he was teaching his shadow.
There was a big file waiting for me to review.
Hal had set up a work schedule for me. The next few weeks I was to get myself up to speed on everything in the department so I at least had an idea of what was going on. Then I was to tackle the problem of the gaming centres.
My suggestion had been evaluated and it had been found that the data being submitted by the office had been tampered with.
It made no sense. Mr. Smythe had been in charge of this project. Why would he make it look bad?
In two weeks of lots of work and review, I thought that I had at least some answers.
I got in to work early on a Friday morning, which was the slowest morning of all for some reason, and talked to Hal. I liked to have my door open normally, but today I had it closed with the privacy screen on.
After my system powered up, I went to voice command. “Hal, are you there and do you have some time to talk to me?”
The face formed and it was still male Clara. Now, though, it had some weird lettering across its neck. “Good morning, Timothy. Given you are in an hour early and you seem to be nervous, your questions are likely serious. How can I help?”
“I read the book, Hal, and it was pretty good. You don’t often kill employees, do you?”
The face grinned. “No, not at all. But sometimes I will do the red-eye thing in the elevator and that is always good to freak out one of the new people. I understand that some departments make reading the book mandatory.”
“Good to know that, Hal; thanks for the heads up. I am not sure how to ask this.”
“Well, if you just ask, I will answer and, if necessary, ask you additional questions to make sure that I have understood what you want or need.”
“Okay. Hal, who killed Mr. Smythe?”
The face frowned at me. “Really, Timothy? Mr. Smythe killed himself. I do not evaluate mental health and could not tell you fully how he was acting as I was blocked from his systems. He did drink too much and he did things that he should not have. If he had other problems, this may have made it harder for him to keep going. Then he hung himself. A sense of guilt and the desire to hurt the Corporation. Why are you asking?”
“Well, Hal, it seemed like he was sabotaging the recruiting system for some reason. ‘Slowing corporate progress’ is considered equivalent to treason. I was curious if you had seen someone go into his office or if he had been killed off by someone. After all, I have not heard of other managers hanging themselves in their offices.”
Hal nodded at me. “The last suicide was almost two years ago. You are correct; this is disturbing. Other personnel that have killed themselves have done so away from work. Mr. Smythe killed himself in his office. Would you like to talk to a counsellor? I understand that you worked for him as an intern. This may have been very trying for you.”
“No thanks, Hal. Mr. Smythe was distant and sort of stuck-up, so I never had a chance to really get to know him. If you say he killed himself, then he must have. I’m going to get to work now. I have a lot of learning to do still.”
Hal faded away with a smile.
Did I care about Mr. Smythe? No. I had just been curious.
Chapter 25
I had spent a lot of time working on the simulation system. In fact, that was my only focus. The games were an excellent tool, but had been held back. I also went into the games regularly to make sure the changes being made were really hitting the public.
Interest had been slacking off for awhile. The centres were always busy, and home gaming units were expensive but allowed a lot more people into the games. Still, numbers were dropping off slowly.
So many advances had been held back and slowly released that people were just giving up and moving on.
The boss had given me permission to go digging. I found dozens of new missions and some reboots that allowed you to play against other opponents. The anti-gaming community was gaining ground, as those games that were out there were top-of-the-line, but they were all the same: geared toward evaluating subjects for the military applications. The Corporation needed smart, quick-thinking and tough people all over the solar system and beyond. Forward thinkers who had hope and expected technology to improve.
Humanity did need to be out amongst the stars growing, not sitting here in the solar system building up defences. One day something would come, and if we were not out there learning, it would overrun us and extinguish humanity.
People needed to relearn hope and grab on to it.
I sat down and pulled together a small work group. We crunched through everything that we had for information and ended up using a Level 3 AI’s computing power for most of a week. By the end of that, we had an effective series of releases that would fire up people on the system again and increase the “fun” factor by several thousand.
Part of the work was extrapolating what would have been the end result of Smythe’s modifications. It turned out that under the military element, the top 5 percent of players would make good powered-armour soldiers. The system had a full database and could institute physical fitness training programs that would allow, in weeks of training, a core group to be effective in armour. Not Corporate Marine armour, but a dumber, cheaper version. Within six months of starting a program of recruitment, it would be possible to push out almost two million trained soldiers.
It is easy to look at the national armies that still exist and say, “So what?” There are millions of soldiers on Earth alone. In six months of dedicated training, it should be possible to field an army of approximately three hundred million.
But those were soldiers raised and trained in the old way. They would be fragile and not able to carry much. Powered-armour troops could carry more firepower than a platoon of heavy infantry.
What Smythe had not factored in was that there was not enough lift capacity in the entire system to move more than a fraction of the troops in the time frame we were looking at. When I thought about what would have to be done to support those troops, I shuddered. They would be slaughtered, or simply suffocate when they ran out of air.
Based on our numbers from sitting in the office and staring at this, it looked like we could support a maximum of ten thousand troops if we could build up reserve supplies in advance. Things like ammo, spare parts, food, and so on. If we could not build up reserves through bulk haulers and had to use the smaller, faster courier ships, then we could support perhaps 150 for a long-term engagement.
We could deploy a maximum of 150 combat troops that would be self-sufficient for heavy combat for a long time, up to three months. Longer if casualties occurred that did not destroy the supplies.
When you travel in deep space, you have to be self-sufficient. This was why intergalactic war was not possible. At least not yet.
All the factors that needed to be included overwhelmed us quickly. It was a lost cause. I wondered if Smythe had realized that and then hung himself in his office when he realized how he had spent a decade trying to build an empire on wishful thinking?
All data was shared with the full system resources and our plan was approved.
There were some questions about why fun was so important. A big mod to the gaming system was completely unrealistic: the zombie apocalypse. That was always fun, and no one felt guilty as they tried to stop the spread of the infection and save the people at home.
This added nothing really to the evaluation value. But it made the game fun and insanely difficult. Players would know, in some of the scenarios, that they would “die” but
they would be saving hundreds, thousands or maybe millions of civilians. This would keep the game fresh and new so people were not playing the same few missions over and over.
The questions were removed and the mod left in. It was one of the first public changes that were made. It was the biggest hit since the release of the full simulation version. When the short introductory films were released, they were the most downloaded around. Activity at the centres doubled and a large number were new gamers. People who did not like realistic first-person shooters where life forms were hurt had much less of a problem with a game where their kids were shooting zombies or other monsters.
Before that mod went out, we made the non-public changes. The full system potential was unlocked and the standard dropped. I and a few others had made it through because a high military potential automatically unlocked a higher level of evaluation. I had been a fluke. That fluke had sent off several messages to different systems, which had then started the initial queries on why returns were so low.
With the changes in place, we were rapidly getting back returns of seventy to eighty potential candidates instead of the two or three we were getting before. It sounded great, until I sat down and ran the numbers.
It was a flop.
The team and I went back and made other small tweaks to the system. I was expecting to see around twenty new recommendations out of a sample size that had the potential.
My big fear was that it would take us years to get the algorithm corrected. Smythe had done a lot of work on that over the years. Undoing it ended up being much easier than I thought.
After the next run, we had twenty-four potential recruits and their profiles looked correct.
We ran more tests and then the changes were approved. I know someone up high in tech development ran the algorithm.
When the permission came down from on high, there was a report with it. If we were going to keep the quality as high as we needed, we would be able to get an estimated thirty candidates instead of the past one to three. Now someone would wash out of training, but we could likely field two full sections of Marines out of one month-long data run for a region.
