WorkSpace boasts a “rigorous selection process” in their corporate literature. No fucking shit. I am sure that the nervous troupe of newb managers that tottered through the titanium portals of WorkSpace HQ (RL) thought that after a week long interview process their positions would be secure. Yeah, right. Twelve of us pass through the proscribed materials TerrorHurtz detector tunnel in single file; nine come out of the other end into the vast lobby.
I find out much later during a random trawl through the induction database: two victims to outgas analysis (probably a beer or joint too many the night before), and one to unfavourable posture comparison (backchannel had it that some bright spark at R&D had unearthed an old phrenology text and Frankenstein-wed it to a reinterpretation of the Alexander technique).
It doesn’t stop there, any nascent group dynamic is shattered by the immediate separation of the remaining nine; each us of is whisked off by a herd of identically dressed, bland faced “Orienteererers” of indeterminate age, ethnicity and sexual predilection. I won’t see any of my induction group for a week now, not until the die is cast and they reemerge as nice new pod people. No trenchant comments from Babs, Job’s are quiescent at this stage; the lobby casts an AI suppressor field—thank fuck for small mercies.
My journey is a little different to the others. Instead of heading for the vast bank of lifts that line the lobby area, we trudge a quarter kilometre towards a row of four small doorways set into an east wall foyer. My minder (he introduced himself as Stuart), hovers solicitously a precise 50 centimetres from my right elbow and offers some little bon mots about WorkSpace (Stuart is pretty low level, so will have no idea of my piggyback mission).
“The WorkSpace lobby is the largest in Europe, so high in fact that it supports its own microclimate. This is fully controllable of course. A daily precipitation provides 14% of all the water needs of the entire building.
“In addition, here at WorkSpace we have pioneered Total Employment—an inclusionary, fostering employee leveraging technique that ensures the highest per-capita corporation productivity record on the planet, and yet enables the aspirations of all its participants.”
At this point Stuart titters worryingly, and pats me on the lower back, pressing my sweat sodden shirt onto my skin; his perfect smile falters a little and then reasserts, effortlessly picking up his evangelical monologue.
“Your first week will be residential. I trust you haven’t brought more than the permitted personal effects allocation?”
I pat my Crumpler daypack.
“Please feel free to utilise, at any time, the net coverage in HQ. Please note that surveillance coverage is total. Ablution facilities are provided with modesty merkins if you feel unduly exposed, new partners often do.”
I smile sweetly and suggest that I could make an AI tumescent; Stuart re-blanks his face and we walk on in silence.
We approach the eastern sub-foyer with the four doors and, after a brief pause as my escort obviously checks his HUD, Stuart precesses me towards the third door from the left. They are very ordinary stainless steel doors, two meters in height and with a recessed handle in the centre of the top panel. My door is labeled: Fast Track.
“It appears that you have been blessed, only our very best recruits go through here. Good luck.”
Stuart bestows me the sickliest smile I’ve seen this side of tertiary disciplinary hearing and glides off, no doubt to evangelize to some other poor schmuck. I grasp and turn the door handle, there’s the briefest pause as my identity is bio-authenticated, and then the door smoothly opens and I step through.