Red Ocean

Downtown - Sergei

Floor 99 of the Kami tower in downtown Vargos was typical for a corporate office space. All computers on the floor were secured to desks nestled in small cubicles with paper dividers and every employee that worked in one had a direct link to their machine through a wet cord that ran out of their temple. The air hummed with the soft whine of cooling fans and the occasional wet click of a cord disconnecting at a neighboring desk. Floor 99 was where the accounts department managed various orders and returns for subsidiaries of Quang Xi–Blackfoot, and where a small data leak was beginning to turn into a data tidal wave for a team of corpos completely unequipped to tackle the problem.

Three weeks prior to the data leak, merely the name of a new subsidiary leaked to the press, had catapulted the entire floor’s staff into a frenzy debating on who was responsible and would be consequently liquidated by the company. No one was operating under any illusions regarding what liquidation would look like: no more personal chit, no more identity, no more high rise apartment paid in full by the company, and no more oxygen as the dead had no reason to take a breath. Three of the fifty or so employees that worked on the floor had already been called to floor 105 to meet with managers and never returned to 99, but the data leak only continued to worsen as more subsidiary names were leaked to the press, drawing greater attention to the predatory business practices of Quang Xi–Blackfoot as reporters contacted these companies that had been steamrolled in acquisition.

It was the fourth employee being called up that put work on the floor to a standstill. Miriam Crane was a corpo lifer, having studied at a New York school and worked her way up the chain at Quang Xi–Blackfoot since setting foot in Vargos. She was the embodiment of the corporate dream: driven, ruthless, and loyal. Her name being called left the rest of the floor quietly asking themselves what the managers were thinking. Miriam had no incentive to talk to the press; indeed, she was more likely to pull a gun on a reporter than open her mouth to one. Yet her name sounding off with the polite chirp of the autospeaker left the rest of the floor stunned.

Sergei Volkov, a grunt on the floor and Miriam’s mentee who’d joined the floor after toiling years in a food processing plant in the Roman Stacks slums, stayed quiet and averted eye contact as she marched from her cubicle towards the elevator. His deskmate Charlie leaned over and whispered.

“What do you think?”

“Couldn’t be her. She believes in this way of doing business.” Sergei spoke confidently but betrayed some doubt with his refusal to look at her. He’d started at the firm when the subsidiary strategy was still in its infancy, but he knew Miriam had led the charge on aggressive acquisitions no matter how many sob stories from owners with their lives destroyed flooded in. There was little reason to think Miriam would spill to the press and bring receipts to the front door of the only entity in town willing to take on Quang Xi–Blackfoot. But something about her tranquility when her name went over the autospeaker, it didn’t sit right. Sergei knew she didn’t do it, and he knew she wasn’t one to resign herself to the whims of the upstairs office. She was a lifer, so she had to know even if she was innocent her merely being called to floor 105 was a death sentence for her career. But to take it lying down was out of character, especially when he knew the witch hunt had grabbed the wrong person. Sergei furrowed his brow and stood up from the desk, hurrying past the other cubicle rows before catching up to Miriam and joining her in the elevator. He wasted no time as the doors hissed closed.

“Why? Why do this?” He finally looked at her face as he let the question slip. She had suitcases beneath her eyes and scowl lines across her face. Normally a badge of honor for a corpo, signalling a tireless commitment to the work even as the day shift turned into night regularly. Yet she didn’t display confidence with a straight back or defiance with a raised chin. Instead she stared at her translucent heels that caught the elevator light, shot through with veins of gold leaf as they remained settled on the floor.

“I didn’t.”

“Damn it Miriam, they’re going to fry you.”

“I’m well aware, Volkov. But it was my floor it happened on and I managed all of you. Honestly I’m just surprised they called me now and not when the first article ran.”

“So you aren’t denying it? You went to that scumfuck writer that parades around like a journalist?”

“I didn’t. And if you accuse me again I’ll make sure they call you next,” Miriam hissed. Sergei went quiet knowing the mention of his name alone would be enough to have his personal chit zeroed and his apartment locked down. Whether he’d survive the exit interview long enough to even make it to exile in the gutter of Vargos wasn’t even worth considering.

They rode the elevator in silence until the floating cell stopped on floor 105. Miriam lifted her head up and strode off the elevator platform onto the beige carpet of the upper floor, its flowing water features and cheap medical office artwork, the ambient piano piped in at exactly the volume corporate wellness studies had determined was optimal for compliance, all calming only when one didn’t consider their reason for being on the floor in the first place. Sergei followed but was met immediately by Miriam’s hand slamming into his chest as she attempted to push him back.

“What the hell are you doing?” She whispered with fire in her words.

“You’re not going in there alone. I can vouch for your records, at least. I haven’t seen any files moved or copied to an external drive by you in the logs. I checked yours and Charlie’s when this all popped off.” Miriam arched an eyebrow and let her hand give way. She fixed her skirt and blouse and let her eyes meet his. She had violet irises and dark green pupils, a hallmark of high grade cybereyes that reminded her lessers of her higher than average tax bracket. Sergei was defiant, meeting her eyes with his organic ones but not moving an inch back towards the elevator.

“You looked at my logs? Where’s the trust Sergei?”

“I had to be sure.”

“Did you spot anything off when you audited the user logs?” She looked behind her shoulder towards the interview room she was designated but let her eyes rest back on Sergei.

“Nothing out of the ordinary, otherwise I would have flagged it to you immediately. At the very least I can say you didn’t leak anything though. If we tell them that, then maybe–”

“Shut up. Don’t say another word. Go back to your desk and download the logs from the last five weeks and share them upstairs. If we walk in there together they’ll just liquidate us both but if you send those logs at least there’s a digital trail they’re required to look into before calling the next person. They’ll liquidate the whole floor if we have to but every minute they’re chasing their tails is another minute to figure out who’s actually responsible.”

“They’re going to liquidate you regardless, they’ve already called your name!”

“I’m high up enough for an advocate. If this digital trail pans out, I can request a lateral, file for narrative containment, maybe push it to arbitration and not get put down in an alley.” Sergei’s eyes widened but Miriam remained firm. He’d never thought about what a liquidation really looked like but the idea of being aethered down some muddy alleyway nearly put his mind into a tailspin. Being killed by goons in some dirty section of Vargos’ endless streets was something that happened to other people, not corpos.

“Now move, get back down there and maybe we get an extra two days. You should have come to me with this sooner, not after I’ve already been called. Maybe your next mentor will make that sort of thing clear.” She paused and looked past him, at the elevator. Then back. “Be careful on the way down.” Miriam turned tail and moved with purpose towards the interview room as the elevator doors slid closed.

Sergei swallowed hard and fixed his collar as he stared at the elevator display counting down from 105 to floor 99. ‘Aethered down some muddy alleyway.’ The phrase felt theatrical. Now it sat in his chest like swallowed glass. He caught his reflection in the fogged glass of the elevator wall. Pale, composed, a corpo on the way back to work. Nothing about him looked like a man a few floors away from either saving a life or losing his own. The display ticked. 102. 101. He’d need to remain collected as he walked onto the floor. Whoever was responsible for the leak, they’d notice him walking determinedly back to his desk after following Miriam to the elevator. If she was supposed to be just another patsy to cover for their dirty work, they’d know he was a problem now too.

The elevators slid open with a quiet hiss. As Sergei took a step and finished fixing his collar he bumped into a firm body at the door’s threshold. The body shoved him back in and slammed the “close” button hard and fast. Sergei lifted his eyes and spotted Charlie meeting his eyes before a sharp pain erupted from his stomach. Sergei looked down and spotted a pen lodged deep in his abdomen. Before he could react he felt hands grip and fix on his throat as his eyes met Charlie’s. The man shushed him as his feet kicked and slid across the floor leaving black marks on the sheer white of the fogged glass elevator.

“Shh, shh. Don’t fight me now or the alarm will go off. Don’t want to make a scene, you know how they get about employee disturbances upstairs.” Sergei clawed at Charlie’s hands but met only metal as the skin flaked away beneath his fingernails. Charlie had replaced his hands last year for self defense. As it always was with cybernetics, their purposes were often manifold. His grip tightened as Sergei’s vision began to fold in on itself with blackness creeping in from all sides of his view.

“Gotta cover your tracks when you go looking at records. That’s a day one lesson. How do you think I edited mine without you noticing?” Charlie grinned, burning his face into Sergei’s mind as the world was shut out.

Upstairs Miriam sat down at a table in an all white room with two corpo suits sat across from her. Her seat was pulled out already when she’d walked in, with a glass of water she’d never requested resting before her. One reached for his temple and pulled out a wet cord, beaded with the saline that kept the connection clean. The corpo immediately connected it to a port in the table and sent his eyes into a blue glow as he went slackjawed, bringing several holographic screens up from a small light projector at the table’s center. The other suit looked at his partner then glanced at the screens before meeting her eyes, his eyes glowing a deep red.

“Thank you for coming, Miriam. We’re happy to share that we’ve closed the investigation into the data leak. Our office has determined the bad press will not materially impact this quarter’s bottom line, and as such, we consider the matter closed. Personnel realignment on Floor 99 is already in motion. We’d like to run through our after action report and have you sign a brief addendum to your existing non-disclosure before you return to your team.”