[The City that Never Wakes] Wageslave

> Sure. Thanks.


> By the way, are there sim lounges or something like that around the arcology? Or are you committing to walking either everywhere or nowhere?


As she communes with her fellow inmates, Ash prop herself up against a corner and dives into sim, trusting her sensor package to sound a proximity alert in time to pull back up before her attention is urgently required in the flesh.
 
>Brett: Wow. "Sim Lounge?" What, did you fall through a time portal from 2040 or something?


>Mark: Don't be a dick. You know what she meant.


>Glen: Running back guys almost there.


>Laura: There are couches up the hall in the break room.


>Brett: Hey, I'm just trying to help a fellow Netrunner. What if she needs a power outlet to recharge her deck?


>Virginia: The rooms are more comfortable though maybe she should come back up if there's time.


>Mark: I said don't. We have enough difficulties without you antagonizing her.


>Lisa: Yeah, we sure do.


>Kyle: Okay, I think I found our schedule. I don't know if it's comprehensive but I'm putting it on the shared folder.


>Brett: Jeeze, Mark. Who died and made you king?


>Nora: Oh oh! I know this one! "The Previous King," for 25 points please!


All this text and more appears in the time it takes for Ash to make her way to the corner and plug in, the text content scrolling by at a rapid pace—far faster than a normal user could possibly type. When Ash dives into sim, it slows to a pace she can at least keep up with, and then gradually dissolves away entirely. She finds herself standing in a hazy, wireframe representation of the fab room, where every object there is made of glittering lines of light, and darkness encircles her in all directions.


Her teammates—save Glen—are already present in their icons. Mostly they're just talking, but Kyle particularly is arranging space around the edge of the room, forming "shelves" of useful programs, which appear as bright icons. Mostly skillsofts, but also data search and other possible general tools.


When Ash arrives, the conversation briefly ceases, and all eyes look her way.
 
Ash's icon is deceptively simple, a swirling, three-dimensional cloud of little digital critters surrounding her handle - in this case simply "Ashley Peterson." However once she begins interacting with the node, it becomes obvious that the persona skin is carefully crafted. The little digital insects split, merge, and change colors in a patter that never seems to quite repeat itself. When she interacts with other icons, divide themselves into little clouds representing programs, files, and data streams. The daughter clusters connect back to the main persona with little trails of ever-evolving bugs, like ants scurrying to and from a food source, their numbers proportional to the amount of data being exchanged.


She wastes no time setting to work, her swarm spreading out through the node to inspect the local icons, teasing out approximate functions and relaying the information back to Ash for either retention or broadcast to the rest of the group.


While she sets to work mapping out the node, Ash joins the conversation in short, clipped thought-packages. The information comes in pure, low-level DNI bursts, raw thoughts made data.


Conjecture > Probable that we are a designated team.


Conjecture > Probable that eventual evaluation a weighted average of team and individual performance. Weighting unknown at present time.


Recommendation > Expeditious establishment of governance structures internal to team, to formalize professional interactions and minimize cultural and personal friction.


Clarification > Battery recharge not urgent at present time.


Commendation > Cordial gratitude to fellow decker for consideration of possible hardware failure.
 
Ash's comments result in a moment of silence, through Ash isn't quite sure why. Perhaps they're surprised by her use of DNI messages. Or perhaps they're privately messaging each-other to keep her out of the loop. Whatever the cause, Kyle is the first one to step forward. "Uh... I wouldn't have quite put it the way Ash did. Uh... but... yes, getting more formal structure on the team would probably be a good idea. These tests are supposed to replicate actual working conditions remember. The company will expect you to self-organize small work groups."


"Well, you've been doing this for like a billion years, right?" Nora asks, her doe icon hopping over Kyle's way. He frowns, but doesn't have enough time to respond before she takes him by the shoulders and grins. "Oh hush. I'm only saying it out of love. But! There's no doubt you're the most experienced. Will you be our leader?"


"Actually, I'd rather not," Kyle says after a moment. "On my old teams, we always used skillchips, so I'm not any more qualified than the rest of you, and I feel like this is a team with a lot of uh... strong personalities. Skillchip or no, someone with more personal authority might do better."


"I nominate Mark," Allen says, glancing Mark's way. Mark's avatar, the twisting dragon that coils into infinite, tilts its head to the side.


"Seconded," says Laura, the first word Ash have heard her speak above a whisper—though Ash isn't sure whispering is enabled on this sim, and Laura's own icon is a floating diamond anyway. Lisa quickly thirds, and Nora fourths, and by the time Glen logs on—appearing as a flawless and unbroken sphere—a consensus has been reached.


"Okay, great. Just a second," Mark extends a talon, and a program comes to him out of the ether. It appears as a whirling disk, like the wooden nickel from before, this one showing a "V" on one side, and a blue and silver crown on the other. His talons fold around it, and it vanishes.


"Okay everybody, listen up!" he calls, in a voice that sounds eerily like his own, though the inflections are noticeably different. "This is a team with a lot of strong personalities. We're all people with very firm opinions and the smarts to back them up—I'm certainly not used to taking orders and I'd hazard you aren't either. You take ten people like that, put them in a room, put them under pressure, there are precisely two possible outcomes! By the end of these three months, we will either be the best team in this entire arcology, or we will have eaten each-other. Now I can't speak for all of you but I have a pretty strong preference for which one it's going to be."


"Now, later today, I will be assigning you reading. The NeoNET Practical Working in Teams Guide. You will read it, you will apply it, and you will not just download the skillchip, you will need that chip slot for other things." He whirls, his infinite coils seeming to encircle the group, before they coalescence back into a single point. "There's more to say, but we'll be getting our exercise in the next few seconds, so it'll have to wait. You all ready to kill this!?"
 
Affirmation > Standing by for deployment.


> Sharing preliminary overview of node architecture and active icons, in decreasing order of novelty. [Preliminary.Analysis.Results]


Analysis > "Mark's say-so" adequate governance structure for present circumstances, given time constraint. However likely to prove insufficient going forward.


Recommendation > Mapping of necessary functions to accomplish required tasks, subsequent designation of roles and responsibilities, workstream ownership, escalation structure and process.
 
"Hoo-rah!" shouts Nora, her icon suddenly sprouting a marines helmet and a fatigue jacket. Lisa adds her own cheer, while Kyle and Allen give more moderated but still enthusiastic nods. The rest of the group at least gives a word or two of affirmation, showing their consent.


>Mark: You and I will have a word about this after work tonight. Is the only response Ash receives to her second suggestion. Private message.


Before the conversation can proceed any further, 4:30 rolls around, an alert to that effect appearing in Ash's vision. To her probable irritation, the alert then adds: Hey, nice job being on time! -1 Aggro because you're improving. A little green smile face briefly appears over Ash's icon.


She hasn't time to complain about this however, before an image of Gale appears in the node. One look at the icon is enough to know it's a recording, not a real person.


"Hello everyone," she begins. "Welcome to your first exam. Now, some of you may be familiar with a little game called Minecrift. It's an old, old sim title, frequently updated and patched by a cult fan community which includes myself. I'm planning to throw a little get together this weekend for my gaming group, and I would like you to build me a new rig. I'm expecting about 300 users to be logged on at once, and I expect the game to run with no noticeable latency. My friends just hate latency," she says, with a slightly demeaning twist to her tone.


"They also," she continues, "like to use hot sim, and are deeply concerned about the possibility of hackers crashing the party and hurting someone. So I expect you to have the ability to put at least two full layers of node defenses between my server and the Matrix. You have until 9:00AM, and you may use anything in this room. Message me if you have urgent questions."


"Good luck," she waves, and vanishes.


"Right!" Brett says at once. "Let's see what we've got here." He touches one of the drones, which immediately picks up a box of electronics from under the benches and unloads it. A pile of dusty graphing calculators spill out onto the bench, followed by old, beaten up Barrens salvage, and what seems to be the guts of a refrigerator. The other boxes aren't much better.
 
Ash's icon immediately begins dividing into bug-swarm schematics of various node system layouts, discarding some immediately, cycling through variations on others for a time before either winking those out of existence as well or pushing them against one 'wall' of the virtual workshop.


Conjecture > Users logging in from outside system.


Conclusion > Outermost layer(s) of security must include multiple redundant routing paths, making hard reboot of outermost layer device viable option in the event of penetration which cannot be defeated by available soft countermeasures.


Clarification > Outermost layer of security requires strong individual processing power, to run adequate firewalls and analysis softs.


Recommendation > Place best hardware at security perimeter, build core processing node on cluster architecture of individually less capable devices.


Observation > External sim login inherently unsafe. Emergency resurface and shutdown protocol must be developed and adhered to by all external users. Emergency protocol not in scope for present task, however sake of good order recipient of deliverable should be notified of requirement upon delivery.


Conclusion > Proposed node architecture drafts drawn up.


Recommendation > Elimination of infeasible architectures, given constraints on available materials and timeline, prior to commencement of main workstream.


[dice]1194[/dice]
 
And so it is that the test begins.


It doesn't take the team long to conclude that the test, on the face of it, is impossible. All the components on the table, collectively, don't have a fraction of the processing power required to run Minecrift, much less to fulfill the other requirements. At once, ideas start shooting forward—they could build a wireless device to steal cycles from nearby nodes, they could reprogram Minecrift's ugly and oft-patched code to be easier to run, they could build a pass-through node to some cloud server. Ash suggests finding a way to run the game on the 300 visitors commlinks, an idea that the team discusses at some length.


In the end, they take a different route, cannibalizing some of the working drones to steal their parts, since they were "in the room," when the exam began. With only her skillwires for hardware work, Ash is definitely the least useful teammate in this challenge, and ends up spending most of her time making frame parts on the laser cutter. She gets the impression that her teammates remain less than enamored with her—particularly Lisa, who shoots her an ugly glare at each opportunity—but they seem to at least respect that she has good ideas, and the team finishes on time.


The rest of the day is in much the same vein. Signal Interception and Encryption requires them to find a file on the network, only for them to later discover that the file is stored in an un-networked harddrive locked in someone's desk. Software requires them to debug one million lines of totally undocumented code. Dinner consists of returning to their suite to find that the kitchen module has been disassembled, and they have 45 minutes to repair it if they want to eat.


Ash may not think much of this places professionalism, but she's more than capable of thinking creatively. Her decision to interpret "network" outside of computers and simply call the officer who controls the file lets her team finish early with perfect marks, much to their pleasure. Her suggestion to solve the debugging challenge by simply throwing away the old vending machines and replacing them earns a polite rebuke from the administrator, who informs them she didn't assemble the brightest minds in the company so they could throw money at it. Her second suggestion—mirrored by several others—of just rewriting the code from scratch results in a partial completion, with their new code more than 3/4ths done when their time runs out.


Still, her teammates don't seem to hold that against her. She even apologizes to Lisa, which earns her a grunt and not much else.


The mandatory exercise requirement is a straight hour of jogging so hard Ash gets acid reflux and thinks she's having a heart attack. Sweating and panting, she manages to stumble into orientation debrief and remedial assignment, where she can only stare at work is piled in front of her. Her knowledge of hardware is grossly deficient. Her knowledge of cyberware design considerations is nonexistent. Her signals needs work. Her team leader has assigned her several company field manuals on teamwork. At each deficiency she has displayed over the course of the day, a book is dropped in front of her, and a self-learning online exam to complete to show her proficiency.


It's all digital of course, which is good, because she doesn't think that many physical textbooks would fit on the shelf in her room.


When Ash stumbles out of the session, her head is reeling. She still feels exhausted, so tired she can barely lift her limbs, and she was easily just given more than twenty hours of work on top of her regular assignments. She has no idea how she's supposed to get it all done, and so for a moment, she ends up just staring blankly at the hall in front of her.


Then, her AR feed blinks.


>It now 21:15. Event Starting: End-of-First-Day Hot Stone Massage. You are late.


>Your team leader has excused you from Aggro for late attendance to this event. Message: "I figured you'd be in no mood to run across the building after that. See you soon."
 
Ash has already started walking toward the lift that will take her most of the way to the baths by the time she has collected her thoughts sufficiently to begin composing her response.


> Hi Mark, thanks for the hall pass.


> You wanted to talk. I just had my free time evaporate, in a puff of shit I am apparently expected to know despite having specifically told the recruiters that I didn't, and been assured that this was not an issue, so I'm keen to make dual use of idle time.


Request > Private chat. Options: Text/Audio/Video
 
>Mark: Good plan. Multitasking is a habit you'll need to get into here. Hold on just a second.


There's a delay on the other end, and Ash walks in silence towards the elevator, surrounded by other employees in blue who does not look at her as they pass in the hall. At first, she at least has the freedom to scowl, until she makes eye contact with someone with that expression on her face and gets pegged for Confrontational Body Language. +1 Aggro.


A little frowny face appears over her head as she waits for the lift.


"Okay, there," Mark says, appearing next to her in AR form. He appears as himself this time, instead of the whirling dragon. It's actually the first chance Ash has had to look at him in detail, and she's moderately surprised to notice just how he looks. He has piercings in his ears, tattoos, and metal studs running along the back of his knuckles. He looks like a typical orcish street thug, a look that runs sharply in contrast with his more educated speaking style. "Sorry about that. I don't have a subvocal mic, and I thought this was a conversation you wouldn't want to share with the rest of the team."


He waits a moment for that to sink in, and assuming Ash doesn't say anything wildly unexpected, continues. "I wanted to talk about how you're fitting in with the others. I'll be honest, you did not make a very good first impression. Or even second impression. But you did well in the exams today. You're very bright, and you clearly know what you're doing, and it's equally clear why the company hired you."


He steps into the lift with her as it opens, unseen by the other passengers. "But you will not survive here without your team, and the team still doesn't like you. They tolerated you today, because you're competent and they're professionals, but over time, if you don't engage with them, they'll form work groups without you and you'll be left on your own. And that's bad for everyone."


He glances at her neck, and then at her wrists, pointing at the skillwires there. "I would like it if you would ask Lisa to assist you with your remedial hardware work. She's very good with hardware, and there are many teaching skillsofts on the cloud to help her instruct you. I think it would go a long way to showing the team you're trying to meet them halfway, and it would give you some positive interactions with them."


"How does that sound?" he asks. His intonations are still a bit off. Must be that managerial skillsoft.
 
Ash steps into the elevator, taking a few moments to think over her response before answering.


> I appreciate your candor, and I hope that we can maintain that style, at least between the two of us.


> Going to Lisa for help with the refresher material sounds like a good idea. I will follow up on that.


She pauses for a moment before continuing.


> That being said, and in the spirit of keeping our interactions candid and to the point, this company hasn't precisely made a good first impression on me either. Or good second through fifth impressions, for that matter.


> I have not brought this up before, because whatever grievances I have with the company should be irrelevant to our professional relationship, and are in any case outside both your responsibility and authority to fix.


> But going into a three-month high stress, high fatigue environment with this kind of... baggage is not going to end well for anybody involved.


Another pause.


> I guess what I'm saying is that I need someone to unload on. Someone sensible, who hasn't drunk too deeply from the koolaid. As my old boss would have said.


> I don't want to push this on you if you are uncomfortable with the notion, or you think it is incompatible with your role as team lead, or you simply do not have the time for it. But giving you first refusal, at least, seemed like the most reasonable thing to do.


> Are you up for it?
 
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Mark needs a moment to think about that as well, and when the lift door opens, he steps out and to the side and then stops. Their destination is just up the hall according to her AR feed, and it seems he doesn't want them to arrive until the conversation is done. When he speaks, his tone is measured, but decided. There's no doubt in his words.


"If you're looking for a sympathetic ear, I'm always happy to provide that. This is a really big cultural transition you have to make, and I know culture shock can be rough." He gestures at the skillwire tattoos on her wrists. "And if you're looking for someone who can help you adjust, help you work with the team, I'm happy to provide that too."


"But," he adds firmly. "When you the phrase 'drink the koolade' to describe life here? You're not insulting a government I don't approve of. You're insulting me and you're insulting my friends. And I'm not interested in just being a punching bag for all the things you don't approve of here. I'm not here to indoctrinate you, but if you want help adapting to life here, you have to actually be willing to adapt."


"Is that okay?" he finally asks, after another small pause.
 
Ash sighs and leans against the wall, arms splayed out in an exhausted posture.


> Fair enough.


> Not gonna lie to you, there will be a fair bit of punching bag involved. At least initially. Right now I'm feeling tricked, abused, cheated, and, frankly, violated. And powerless to change any of that, and therefore frustrated.


> And I won't promise to adapt just for the sake of fitting in, or to avoid offending supporters of a government that fails to earn my respect.


> But all that said, I am not immune to being persuaded on the merits of a case.


> Is that okay?
 
Mark cracks a grin at that, responding almost at once—a sharp contrast to his earlier, considered manner. "Yeah, well. When the company decides it's going to kick your ass, it has a remarkably large set of boots so... we've all been there. You want to scream that life sucks pretty hard right now, I'm not going to hold that against you. And..." he considers briefly, though his tone remains casual, "Being open to facts is really all I can ask you for. But cool it with the brainwashing jokes."


"Deal?" he smiles when he offers her his hand, though of course she can't touch it.
 
Ash gets up from her half-slumped position, and passes her hand through the AR construct in a curious cross between a handshake and a high-five.


"Deal."
 
"There we go," Mark says encouragingly. "Come and join us then. You'll feel better."


The entire spa process is a little bizarre. All the attendants are volunteers using skill chips, here because they enjoy it. Ash isn't sure if this is supposed to make some point about egalitarianism in the company, if it's a networking event, or if the company culture here says it's perfectly acceptable for a Vice President of California Financial Mergers and Acquisitions to give a hot stone massage to a low-level transfer employee.


It still feels really nice though. Ash had a lot of tension to work out. And she does feel better after, a little. That might just be the hot towels though.

********

​



Three days later, Ash's situation has improved in some respects, and taken a turn for the worse in others. Interpersonal matters present the brightest spot. Competence, it seems, covers a multitude of sins, and Ash's teammates seem to be warming up to her. Mark has specifically gone out of his way to be sympathetic and understanding, and while some of it may be skillchips, Ash doesn't think it's entirely an act. He seems to actually like her a bit, and his attitude trickles down to the rest of the team. Lisa clearly still holds a grudge, but doesn't let it openly show, while Nora's so friendly Ash is sure it's a bad act. The others are all starting to like her though. Oh, except Brett, but everyone agrees he's an asshole so that might not be Ash's fault.


Her workload though, lacks such a sunny outlook. In the three days since she started, she hasn't finished her reading material from the first day, and has gained significantly more. The examinations and practice problems are getting no less tricky, but are getting significantly harder, and her lack of niche training is starting to show—in hardware most of all. Worst is that she can't even use her time productively. In theory, she has a handful of free hours every day. But in practice, after working for 14 hours straight, and jogging until she's covered in sweat and gasping for breath, she doesn't feel like anything except falling into bed and calling up Razor. Talking about the move from the barrens into UCAS turf. Relaxing.


Razor's doing well, at least. She took the rejection well. Ash can tell she's stung, but... they're still close.


Now though, Ash has other things to worry about, and she pushes thoughts of Razor out of her mind. Her icon is in the office of Andrew Gurney, the Associate Director of Early Training and Recruitment, and Gale's immediate superior. Normally, she'd connect to him directly via sim, but it seems that he's offline at the moment. A rarity in this firm. And so her virtual ghost waits there, hovering around the space. His office is... well.


It's an empty, unadorned box, with a desk that doesn't even have a monitor. A single desk plant is the only decoration.


You are late. +1 Aggro. Appears over Andrew's head as he rushes in, huffing and puffing from what was obviously a sprint. He grips the edge of the desk, tilting his head up just in time to catch the red frowny face that floats up over his head a moment later. "Damn," he grumbles, letting out a sigh and shaking his head as he catches his breath.


He's not the biggest troll Ash has ever seen. Point in fact, Razor could probably take him apart. But there isn't really such a thing as a troll who isn't intimidating that close, even if he is in a suit. It's the horns and pointed teeth.


"A pleasure to meet you, Ash," he offers Ash his hand, passing it through hers in half a handshake and half a fist-bump. "How can I help you?"
 
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Ash is not using her swarm-of-swarms persona for this meeting. She is here in a formal capacity, and so she is "dressed" in formal wear - although it is quite obvious that the off-the-shelf NeoNET jumpsuit has been badly and hurriedly modded onto an old rendition of Ash. A version that clearly used to have hair, because the scalp is so poorly rendered that it is actually possible to see the polygon count, and which lacks the intricate tattoos she has recently acquired. The jumpsuit visibly clips when she shakes his hand, before the persona returns to an at-ease position.


"With information, Sir. There has, I feel, been a non-trivial misalignment of expectations going into our business relationship. I would like to understand the extent of this misalignment, and the options we have for mitigating it. Specifically, I need to know how representative the current training regimen is of the job I'm actually hired to do, provided I pass. In terms of both workload, required job skills and assorted extra-curriculars.


"Because, Sir, and at the risk of being a little more candid than is generally advisable, if the ARAT program is in any way representative of my options on the other side of a passing grade, then this is not the career track I need to be on. Not in terms of skills, and certainly not in terms of personality."
 
"A non-trivial..." he repeats some of what she said back to her, his face clearly showing his careful deconstruction of her words. After a brief pause, he continues, putting both his hands flat on the desk. "Alright. I'll be happy to answer your questions as best I can for the next fourteen minutes, but you are aware that I'm the early training director, yes? This really seems like a matter for HR."
 
"I can take it up with HR if that is your preference," Ash's avatar makes a slight bow. "But in my past experience doing so without at least touching base with the program manager first would be viewed as an unfriendly escalation. I apologize if I have misjudged NeoNET culture on this point."


Then she straightens, looking the director in the eyes. "But I think you can help me with my basic question: How much is the ARAT program about preparing the candidates for their future job, and how much of it is about pushing them until some of them crack?" At this point Ash is glad that she is present only in sim. Her control over her face is good, but her control over her icon is better, and she has the feeling she might need some of that control to avoid letting slip just how much in contempt she holds the notion of pushing your employees to the breaking point just to see which ones crack first.
 
He pauses, and grins. "I'm not offended," he assures her, sitting back. "I just have 2,000 trainees I'm responsible for at any given time, so it would be a little impractical if you all decided to make time on my calendar. HR is there for a reason, and they're good at what they do." He makes a dismissive little wave. "But you're here, so..."


He considers Ash a moment more, before he gets around to actually answering her question. "In this case, the two goals are not distinct. The ARAT program is preparing you to work on the company's most important, experimental projects. That means that, if you pass, you will be working on projects where there are no guidelines. No superiors who can give you useful guidance. You will be under constant pressure to perform, and under threat of all manner of industrial espionage and sabotage. It's a high-pressure, high-stress environment. If you can't handle that, it's better you wash out now."


"But," he continues, more firmly. "The goal of the program is not to hit you until you break. It is a training program. I see in your file here you've been flagged as severely deficient in a number of areas. I understand this might seem personally hurtful, but it's not meant that way. A rating of anything less than perfect in every area would have yielded additional material. We believe in continual improvement here. That includes you."
 
"There are certainly aspects of the program that I consider gratuitous, unprofessional, company-sanctioned abuse, Sir. But remedial hardware design is not one of them." Ash actually lets her persona crack a small smile at this.


Her smile vanishes as she continues. "However, while your stated intent is to recruit candidates for high-performing, highly security conscious small project teams, the training program you have actually constructed fosters and evaluates precisely none of the qualifications actually required for that sort of function, and several which are actively detrimental. And you have to know all this already, because you're all very smart people and have been doing this for longer than I've been alive."


"So what gives?"
 
He seems to find her new comments less funny, and the grin fades from his expression—though he doesn't scowl. "Well, I thank you for your honesty," he finally says, "but the company does not share your view of the situation." He seems to consider ending it at that, but after a moment, goes on. His tone is a bit less directed now, and he considers his words as he goes.


"It is my understanding—and please, correct me if I am mistaken—that Renraku's corporate culture values reliability, rigor, and careful testing." What others here might say with judgement, he starts carefully, as an impartial fact. "When I buy Renraku hardware, I don't want it to impress me with astounding performance. I want it to function exactly to specifications, reliably, forever. To that end, Renraku is notable for it's ability to source, train, and develop talented staff, training them to be that reliable without the aid of skillchips. This makes Renraku's staff—on paper at least—some of the best in the world. Depending on how you measure, they are the best." He grins a little then, at least, giving a humble nod.


"NeoNET is not like that," he continues. "I don't care if a piece of software we build works perfectly, because we're going to rip it up and rebuild it in a month anyway. I don't care if a piece of hardware we build will work perfectly in a hundred years, because it will be outdated in six months. Our customers don't want or expect reliability. They expect to get the very best cutting-edge equipment money can buy. A NeoNET device or soft should outperform every other available soft by a significant margin, whatever that takes."


He lifts his hand, pulling up his sleeve so his skillwires show, and tapping his wrists. "That's why we have these. It's a fast-shifting corporate structure we have, and without them, nobody could possibly keep up with everything that's expected of them. It makes us agile, and efficient, and it's why we consistently outperform Renraku, even if they have the better-rated staff. But..." He again gives a nod. "It's not a perfect system. There are several key areas that are not well suited to this culture. Security being one of them. According to your profile, that's why you were hired. We hope you'll bring some of that experience to us."


He puts his hand back down, and carefully smooths his sleeve back over it. "But while we may understand that your culture is valuable, you'll have to work in NeoNET's existing culture. And if you can't handle that, better you wash out now. As I said," he finishes, "we don't see the goals as distinct."
 
"Thank you for the clarification. I hope I will be allowed to leverage that experience."


"And thank you for your time, which I shall not further occupy." And with that, Ash bows politely and her persona winks out of existence, the bug-swarm coming to life back alongside her team at the same time.


Well, that's eight minutes and fifty-one seconds of my life I'm not getting back.
 
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Ash doesn't really have eight minutes to spare at the moment. She's no sooner reappeared than she finds her team knee-deep in reviews from their first day. Angry red marks cover their evaluation, along with suggestions for areas of interest for today's exercises. Exercises which, notably, start in seven minutes.


It's a very quick review session.

*********

​



"Look, Ash, I'm tired too, but we need to get through this, okay?" Lisa says, sighing and tumbling backwards. She lands on a soft, fluffy cloud, arms splayed out on either side of her, as her eyes stare up into the infinite blue sky above. Lisa's personal node has a rather relaxing feel to it: an infinite sea, over which floats a profusion of white fluffy clouds in a sunny sky. The sea produces steady white noise, while the clouds—assuming one is in full sim—replicate the feeling of a particularly soft mattress. The next effect is terribly soothing, though Ash isn't really in a mood to be soothed.


NeoNET's server has over fifteen different teaching skillsofts, optimized for different learning styles and techniques. Ash quickly got tired of "Peppy Instructor," Lisa, and "Thoughtful Academic," didn't go over any better. Nor, if Ash is being honest, did seeing Lisa totally change personality at the drop of a hat really put her mind at ease. But, on the third try, the psych-algorithm actually made a good recommendation. "Visual Learner," it's called, and it seems to give Lisa a great love of carefully made diagrams, charts, and references. They're helping. They really are. Ash wouldn't have believed she could learn this much about hardware in two weeks, much less one day.


But, the day is long since over. It's past two in the morning, and the stack of books she has to read is still higher than it was on the first day. Her sleep regulator allows her too, in theory, go 72 hours without sleep with no loss of ability. Ash has been trying to avoid using that particular function since it's a false savings—she has to make up the time later. But for now it's helpful. Though apparently it doesn't make you actually feel alert. Ash tries to focus on the pile of electronics diagrams in front of her, but her eyes won't focus, for reasons that have nothing to do with sleep or lack thereof.


Finally, as the silence continues, Lisa relents: "Okay... tell you what. Let's take five."
 
The swarm-tendrils connecting the main cluster of Ash's bug-swarm persona to the schematics thin out almost to extinction as she abandons her attempt to keep them in focus. Then the swarm fades entirely, replaced by a humanoid skin which leans back into the cloud sea. Where the swarm-persona was lovingly hand-crafted to an impressive level of detail the purple-haired, oriental woman in black combat boots, fatigues and dark blue vest is obviously an off-the-shelf skin. And while not downright cheap, it's not an expensive one either.


Ash's persona-puppet rubs its eyes with the heels of its hands for effect. "This, right here, is why I always insisted on monitoring my team's Long Haul intake. It'll keep you on your feet, and it'll prevent the most egregious fuckups. But it doesn't do shit for fatigue."
 
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