June 1, 2015

Hello Jim, please wake up for your first day of work at Calibre Intellect.

For the first time in my life, I immediately woke at S’s command. To be honest, I hadn’t really been sleeping; I was too nervous. 

After my usual morning routine, I dressed myself in my shitty, hundred-dollar suit, and walked out the door. 

“S, call me an auto- uhh, nevermind.” It was my first day of work, so I might as well be responsible and save some money.

I walked for a few minutes to reach the metro, then hopped in a metro car - not a train, like the ones you have, but an individual pod, meant for a single passenger. These were not only more comfortable for passengers, but were also much faster.

Although the metro stop closest to Calibre Intellect was thirty miles south of where I lived, my ride in the metro was only five minutes long.

After exiting the metro car, I looked around for a bit to get my bearings. However, before I’d really taken in the view, an autocar, branded with the Calibre Intellect logo, pulled up in front of me.

“Oh cool, I don’t even have to walk there!”

It was a quick drive from the metro station to the Calibre Intellect office building. It looked as cold and imposing as when I’d seen it before my interview, but this time, it somehow looked promising in its coldness.

This is what a high-class office building should look like!

Walking in, I promptly made my way to the 5th floor, where I met Addison again. 

“Hey, remember me?” I asked her with a confident grin on my face.

“Sorry, who are you?”

A drop of sweat trickled down my temple.

“Ah, I’m Jim. I’m here for a Business Analyst position with...um…”

Crap, who was I working with again? I couldn’t remember any of the names of the oldies who’d interviewed me.

“Oh, Jim. Nice to see you again! Give me a minute, I have some stuff for you.”

“Okay, cool.”

I awkwardly shifted in place as she pulled out a box from under the reception desk.

“Alright, so here’s a box of essentials. It’s got a badge holder, staples, a stapler, tape, some pens and stuff like that. You’ll get your laptop and badge later. Just wait a bit for the other new hires to arrive and you’ll be sent to orientation.”

“Cool, thanks.”

Well, crisis averted.

After a while, some other new employees arrived, and we just awkwardly sat around the reception area, trying to keep to ourselves.

I wasn’t quite sure what to think of them. We were about to be coworkers, which meant that we should be friendly with each other… but I’d also heard about the evils of corporate politics, coworkers tearing each other down to get the latest bonus, the upcoming promotion.

After a while, I decided to just let them be. Who knows, maybe I wouldn’t even be working with them. After all, Calibre Intellect was a large company with many divisions and subdivisions.

An hour later, someone from management finally walked into the room, addressed us briefly, then led us to a large, fancy conference room complete with floor-to-ceiling windows along the outer wall. There, we waited for another thirty minutes before the CEO of the company finally dropped in to formally welcome us into the company.

“We do things different around here, and we’re willing to be flexible around your hours. Take the VP of PCS for example. He likes to lift weights in the morning, so we said you know what Tom, lift weights in the morning. You can work from 10 to 7 instead of 8 to 5. See, each of you is a great talent and we’re willing to do what it takes to keep you here.”

To be fair, it sounded nice at the time.

After a minute or two of speaking, the CEO walked out of the room, and an employee walked around the room to hand us our badges. Looking at mine, it looked like I was under… HCM, whatever that stood for.

They’d taken our pictures at some point - I could see my suit just inside the lower edges of my picture. I thought back to when we were in the lobby. Was it there that they’d taken our pictures? I certainly hadn’t seen any cameras.

Well, whatever. 

As time passed, important-looking people dressed in suits and other business wear dropped by the meeting room to pick up the new employees for their divisions. Bored, I blinked my eyes three times, activating my augmented reality contacts, and watched some videos to pass the time.

Even after another half hour of waiting, whoever was in charge of picking up the new people for HCM still hadn’t shown up, and I was starting to feel rather tired and hungry. Worse, I was the only person left in the room. Everyone else had left long ago, leaving me to steep in my saltiness alone.

“S, what time is it?”

The time is 11:30AM.

“Suppose I could leave for lunch?”

That is unadvised.

“Great. So, what is advised?”

Stay and wait.

“...”

Suddenly, the room jolted, and I nearly fell out of my chair.

“S!? What’s going on!”

Unknown error. System shutting down.

The room jolted again. Simultaneously, the meeting room’s windows and glass walls tinted black, and the sides of the room began moving upwards at a moderate pace. Of course, I wasn’t dumb enough to think that that was actually the case. Clearly, it was the room that was descending.

But why? Was I being kidnapped by Calibre Intellect? My heart raced as my brain jumped to conclusions.

“Tch.” I stood up and ran to the door, just in case. But of course, it was locked. I quickly punched the glass door, then the glass panes next to it, but the glass didn’t even crack. It was layered, probably even bulletproof. After glancing around the room, I turned and jumped onto the meeting room table.

“This is gonna hurt.” I dug my feet into the table, then jumped off, aiming for what remained of the floor-to-ceiling windows. 

I arched my leg backwards, then swung it forwards, kicking the windowpane as hard as I could, but to no avail. Falling to the floor, I grimaced. The windows were too high for me to reach now - my only chance to escape had come and gone.

Ah, whatever. What could anyone want to do with me anyway? It’s not like I was worth ransoming. Worst case scenario, I would die. But was that even such a bad thing? It’s not like my life was unique, or useful to the world. Heck, I didn’t even have many friends. Would they even miss me? Maybe it would be better to...

Wait, what was I thinking? I want to live, damn it! I picked up a chair and bashed it against the room’s walls. I wasn’t dead yet, dammit!

“Just sleep him already.” A middle-aged man dressed in combat gear glared at some computer monitors over the shoulder of another man.

“On it.”

As unobservant as I was, I never noticed a tiny camera in the far corner of the office, which they’d been using to observe me. From this tiny camera, a tiny needle shot out and hit me in the neck.

Within seconds, I collapsed on the meeting room floor, unconscious.