Nano Man

by Dean C. Moore

  “They’re just robots, Jane,” Cronos interjected.

  “I wasn’t talking about them,” she said. “I was talking about you, and the people who sent you.”

  Seeing Mike and Jane slipping into a dispirited funk, Cronos clapped his hands together to snap them out of their daze, and said, “Well, then. No more pesky distractions. We can finally get on with the next chapter in our love-hate relationship, namely the hate part.”

  “You sure you won’t reconsider?” Michael said.

  “Do I strike you as the waffling type?”

  “No, not really. In that case…” He held up his hand, but that was as far as he got. “What did you to me?”

  “Not just to you, Michael. I swear you have such a persecution complex you think it’s all about you.” Cronos held up the two empty syringes he’d filled earlier. “The paralytics were always intended for you and Jane.”

  “But how…?”

  “Well, in all fairness you both were a bit distracted by the nanites’ latest handiwork,” Cronos said, pointing to the drama still playing out in the distance, the dying, screaming, agonizing soldiers. Once again, Michael felt the pain of having to multitask his empathy for their predicament with his own needs for survival.

  Jane dropped to the ground first. She looked up at him with pleading eyes before passing out. “What’s the point of putting us out of commission? I thought you wanted a fight.”

  “You so undersell yourself, Michael. No, we’re just in the early days of field testing what it takes exactly to bring you down. I’m sure this is just the beginning of what will be a long and fruitful relationship.”

  Michael was preparing a snarky comment for him when everything went dark.

  THIRTY-THREE

  The ad had gone out stating New-Man Enterprises was hiring fifty thousand people at this campus alone. NO EXPERIENCE REQUIRED. Several hundred thousand or more had shown up from the signs of it, and there was a guy with a bullhorn now trying to settle the crowd in an effort to keep them from killing one another just to press through the gate first.

  “I want to assure everyone here today that there is a job for you,” he said holding the loudspeaker up to his mouth. Even if Monty wasn’t up on a podium like the speaker, he could tell that remark did a lot to quiet the stir. “Those of you who are not picked up today will be picked up in the days and weeks and months ahead. And in the meantime you will receive a small stipend up to and including the value of your monthly salary by way of an advanced loan.” The quiet hush was quickly rising into a furious uproar on his words. A chant had started to ripple through the crowd, “New-Man! New-Man! New-Man!” Monty wondered what it meant. What kind of company calls itself New-Man? Though that thought was quickly pushed out by What kind of company can afford such largesse?

  The gates opened and Monty was part of the advanced wave to pour through. The very reassured crowd must not have been that assuaged because the pressure to stay up on his feet and not be trampled only increased tenfold. “Easy, please!” came the shout from the megaphone. “We’d like everyone behind the yellow line to go to gate two, which is now opening. Everyone behind the green line can proceed to gate three. As you can see, wherever you are in the crowd, you are essentially at the front of the line. So everyone, please relax. Everyone behind the blue line, please go to gate four.”

  As the speaker kept calling out gate numbers, splitting the mass of bodies into smaller and smaller mobs, Monty did feel the pressure on his back ease off. That might have been a mixed blessing. If he was trampled now, he’d likely just die a slow and agonizing death as opposed to a quick and merciful one.

  ***

  Monty sat before the head of personnel. Apparently they had several heads of personnel, depending on what department, and they were meeting directly with employees off the street. Most impressive and most humbling, Monty thought. He scarcely felt he rated such attention. He couldn’t even afford to show up in a decent suit. His clothing was maybe one notch above what a homeless man would wear. He knew, because he had recently become homeless and this is what a person looks like before the stink sets in, before the madness accompanying malnutrition and worry ate what was left of his mind. He tried to smile, sit upright, and look worthy as opposed to desperate enough to do anything. He had already eaten the leg off one sleeping homeless man who was too old and decrepit to put up much of a fight. Admittedly, he’d just taken a piece out of his calf, and stitched up the rest. The guy thanked him for his charity and asked if he would return the favor some time. Monty had agreed without hesitation. If he weren’t so mad with hunger, he’d never have considered it. And that was after just being homeless a few days! But he’d never gone without eating for three days before. That was all it had taken to erase all but the last of his humanity. He doubted New-Man enterprises could do much worse to him, whatever they were up to here. Anyway, a soul-sucking corporate job might help to allay the guilt of what would happen next until he could get a roof over his head again and three squares a day that didn’t involve cannibalism.

  “Monty, is it? Glad to meet you,” Brian Withers said, shaking his hand. Monty had gotten his name off the faceplate on his desk. As to how Brian had gotten his… he’d yet to fill out any paperwork! Brian had a curious tic; every once in a while he’d show the whites of his eyes as his eyes went up and to the right as if he was trying to reach for something at the back of his head.

  His interviewer was wearing what had to be a several thousand dollar suit. Not just his tailoring, but his manicure, his posture, his every movement, telecast refinement. That haircut had to cost a few hundred dollars too. And the gym body showed from the beneath the precision-cut lines of the suit. For all of that, Brian didn’t seem the least condescending. If anything, he seemed damned cordial for anyone Monty had ever met in HR; it was like those guys took a course in how to dismantle people. Brian interrupted his pacing, and took a seat, not across from him and behind his desk. He seemed not to want to have anything come between him and Monty. So he planted himself on a couch backed up against the wall.

  “Here’s the deal, Monty. We’re a high-tech firm, as you probably gathered as you were walked to my office. We manufacture most anything on the spur of a moment, but mostly related to life enhancement, helping people to be more productive, and efficient, anything that can help them stay on top of an increasingly competitive world. Usually it would take two to four years of tech school training to get in here, with periodic refreshers every couple years or so, just to hit the ground running. It’s assembly line work, so it’s not like you need some advanced degree from Harvard, but you do need skills that quite frankly no one has, which was why it was pointless to put out an ad demanding a laundry list of qualifications.

  “And with the world changing as fast as it is, we don’t have two years for some trade school to bring people up to speed either. Our competition would just roll right over us. So we came up with a brilliant solution. Why not put all those out-of-work folks like yourself, disenfranchised by an economy that is increasingly less dependent on human labor and increasingly more automated, back to work? Put some purchasing dollars back in their pockets that might well help to keep the global economy going. And why not make sure that what we were offering was a true equalizer, no more preferences given to folks who were born a little more fortunate than the next guy? Hell, why not just usher in a brave new world with this new approach to hiring, one that isn’t just fairer and more equitable, but contributes to the kind of world we all want to live in where the precious few who alone make it past all the odds get to lord it over the rest of us, the ninety-nine percent who increasingly have to live off the crumbs on the table? You with me so far, Monty?”

  “Yes, sir. You’re the first corporate type I’ve talked to that gave a damn about anyone who didn’t meet his strict list of qualifications, and who didn’t pretend to like me only because he could use me until he couldn’t use me anymore, and, having sucked me dry, throw me to the pavement. Honestly
, before today, I wouldn’t have thought they came any other way.”

  Brian just smiled at him for the longest while. “Well, I’m ashamed to say I was part of such a world once and guilty of those very same sins.” He flipped his tie as he allowed himself a moment to reflect on the bad old days.

  “So then, our solution.” He handed Monty a gold watch.

  “I thought you guys only handed these things out at retirement parties. The fifty dollar watch to thank the person for fifty plus years of service, after yanking his retirement pension, his health benefits, and refusing to contribute more than ten percent to his 401k.”

  “God, Monty, you’re just too real. The last person I heard speak their mind was in the 1950s. I thought they’d become extinct.”

  “When I pass, they may well have.”

  Brian laughed. “I like you, Monty. You’re genuine. In fact what I’m offering you right now is a chance to become ever more yourself, so you don’t have to pretend to be anyone else ever again. How does that sound?”

  “Like everything else, too good to be true.”

  “What you have in your hands there is everything you’ll ever need to keep up with what we do here at New-Man enterprises. All the tech training and expertise you’ll ever need. And if it’s all obsolete tomorrow, not to worry, we’ll just download the latest software to the chip in the watch.”

  “Are you saying I put this on and I just know what I need to know?”

  “That’s right, Monty. You’ll feel a bit of a pinch as the probes go into the skin, but after that you’ll feel nothing. And in a few days, the chip coordinates with your higher brain, learns to speak its language, and gives your frontal lobes a chance to learn how to communicate with it. After that, it’s as if you just took those years of schooling, you just know what you need to know.”

  “And this doesn’t mess with my brain beyond that?”

  “Of course not, unless you want us to.” He held his hand out in a “hold on” gesture to give him chance to explain what he meant. “Some people have some addictive habits they’d like to shake, quit smoking, quit overeating, or things they’d like to do but can’t seem to get motivated enough to do, such as take better care of themselves, exercise more, take power vacations instead of working compulsively year round like some workaholic…”

  “But we can be all of those things and still work here?”

  “Absolutely. We don’t force anything on anybody. We don’t have to. What do we care what you do with your downtime so long as you deliver when you’re at work?”

  “I thought the whole point of replacing humans with robots and automation was so you didn’t have to deal with the high maintenance that goes with being human. I get how the watch reduces a lot of those costs, but it doesn’t eliminate them entirely. What happens the first day I don’t show up for work? Or have to call off sick for a week or more? Or get stuck in traffic for no fault of my own? How does that compare to a robot that never leaves the factory room floor?”

  “Robots are very expensive and have hidden costs all their own. Prices continue to drop, yes, but they still aren’t the ideal solution for everything.”

  “What happens when they are? Does this just buy me some time?”

  “In a way, yes. But we believe it will do more than extend your expiration date.”

  “Because I can keep augmenting the software to improve me in ways I didn’t need to improve initially, as with that list of nasty habits you’d like us all to get rid of.”

  “That’s correct, but that’s also a purely defensive play. And not a very promising future as all that to offer people. What’s more, it leads to standardization of humans with robot-like efficiencies and we’re not sure that’s in anybody’s best interests. After all, what’s unique about you is the most saleable quality you have in the end, the very things which can’t be copied or turned into coding. That means your own unique compendium of foibles and self-destructive habits mixed right in there with your more life affirming ones. No, we feel a new renaissance is afoot and we’re spearheading it. With renewed wealth and free time you’ll be free to become who you want to be in ways you never even dreamed of. And we want to encourage that because your explorations into human diversity paves new paths for us into the future none of us could predict. You see, to have a future that’s desirable, you have to be willing to be a little out of control. If you can push people around how you want and confine them to your limited take on the future, well, you end up with fascism, and the whole system just becomes so dispiriting it just collapses on itself.”

  “Again, it seems too good to be true.”

  Brian shrugged. “Here in the business world we’re pragmatists first, idealists second, if at all. Economics not spiritual philosophy pushes us to a more enlightened age. Because, as it turns out, if you want top quality people you need to play ball with them, not pressure them. You have to make a world so enticing they don’t want to leave. Just look at how Google does things. Onsite gyms, massage therapists, Starbucks, gourmet food… Up until now just the top one percenters, the smartest of the smart, the most diligent and hard-working got to enjoy jobs like that. But honestly, you reach a point where even they can’t keep up. The smartest people can’t throw out a lifetime worth of learning and cram in another lifetime’s worth entirely in the vanishingly small windows of opportunity in which we have to operate. Again, we arrive at a more enlightened age not because I wanted it or was any less terrified of change than the next person, but because of necessity.

  “Necessity is the mother of invention, Monty, not philanthropy. Sure, I’m selling this to you as if we’re just visionaries leading us into a bright new age. But let’s get real for a moment, in business we’re never leading the pack, we’re always following, and usually a good decade or more behind when we should have seen the writing on the wall past the inertia of our own fears, old habits and surefire means for ensuring success. Nothing destroys innovation like success, Monty. That’s why they say the higher they are, the harder they fall. The guy winning the game playing by the old rules is not going to see the game and the rules changing until it’s far too late.”

  “Okay, I’m sold. What do I have to lose?”

  “Precisely, Monty. It’s not like we’re asking for your soul, or to sign on the dotted line in blood.”

  “Well, there is a sort of dotted line on my wrist that is signed in blood.”

  Brian laughed. “Touché.”

  “I hope this brave new world you’re talking about works out, I really do. I can’t see any other way to the future that puts everyone back to work and creates a new Renaissance like you say, an explosive outburst of energy that is enough to drive everyone to greatness.”

  “Nor do I, Monty. And trust me, it’s our job to consider all options before acting. We don’t create the future here, we just open the door to any and all possible futures. The hybrids like yourself, the upgraded humans, and the robots coming on line even as we talk, they make the future. The ferment of all their creativity, unguided as it needs to be, is what grants us a path to any and all possible worlds. And those are endless markets for market leaders like myself to capitalize upon. Infinities within infinities ripe for capitalist exploitation. Think of it as contained chaos. With enough of you mavericks out there, over time we won’t just create the best of all possible worlds as some sort of Leibniz reduction to the most basic common denominators we can all agree on. No, we’ll create the gateway to any and all possible worlds. Why choose one future over the other when you can have them all? We need you and the hordes of plenty behind you to create those futures for us. Like I said, we’re not visionaries and builders of tomorrow by trade. We’re, well to be perfectly honest, parasites. We come along after studying these worlds you’ve built for us under a microscope and we determine how best to profit by them. So in that sense the world hasn’t changed any. People like me into money and power will always be on top. Only now the bottom where the other ninety-nine percent lie feels mo
re like a top than a bottom doesn’t it, except with none of the headache us control freaks are tethered to?”

  “By God you talk a good game.”

  Brian laughed. “Well, as they say back in Witchita, where I come from, when the deal is done, don’t keep selling.” He got up, shook Brian’s hand and said, “Tell the kind lady that showed you in I’m ready for the next customer, will you?”

  There was something casual and perfunctory in Brian’s dismissal that chaffed at Monty. But it wasn’t fair of him to hog any more of this guy’s time. The HR director was helping people to see the light and find the God in themselves in his own way. He was everything he said he was and more. It was the more part that interested Monty most. Was it just more mind-melding bullshit that these corporate types excelled at, getting you on their wavelength just so they could bend you to their will all the faster? Or was this guy everything he professed to be? Again, what did he have to lose? Not only was his life over, the game as everyone knew it was over, the global economy had crashed and no one but no one had figured how to kick-start it again, at least until now. And maybe for the very reasons Brian had stated. If he was the devil in disguise, it was one hell of a disguise.

  Monty wasn’t even outside the building before he’d slipped on the watch. He didn’t feel any different. He wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad sign. But Brian did say it took a while for it to work its magic. Prayer, in any case, seemed in order.

  Before he got to the door someone else in HR handed him a cashier’s check. She said, “You don’t have to worry if you don’t have any ID on you.” It was the first reference anyone had made to how he looked. She managed to say it like she was merely being considerate. “Once you’re part of New-Man your identity goes with you everywhere, and the stamp of excellence is recognized the world over.”

  Somehow that remark did send chills down his spine.