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Ecstasy or Oblivion - Session 13
🕑 Added 2018-11-04 23:30:59 +0000 UTC
Kamehameha Station, Asteroid Belt
Simulated morning light spilled in through my bedroom window adding warmth to the hospital-white walls. Jaahkah had playfully kicked me out once we'd both had our fill of sex. She promised we'd get to chat more next time. Next time… I smiled.
My smile was tempered by the realization that Jaahkah might stay a sex buddy and not grow into a real friendship. I still needed to work on my friendship with Nonah and pursue friendships with Binota and Harry. All that would be made easier if I had my own place. For the next half hour, I went back to the apartment search I'd started when I got back to Nonah's.
Getting out of bed, I got dressed in a grey-green jumpsuit. Its mixture of vertical and horizontal ribs made me think of pressure suits for thin atmospheres. The straight collar would work great for putting on a helmet. As I opened my door, I heard Nonah's spoon clink on their bowl. For a moment I considered hiding until it was time to go.
As I walked up to them, they said, "We should talk."
My neck relaxed. This was good. "Yes."
"From the perspective of the other people on the board, a perspective that glosses over a lot of details, Ferwa's comment made sense. From my perspective, it's demeaning and subversive. Craig and I worked together to create my position. I'm not a C-anything, but I have just as much power and a more flexible set of responsibilities. Though they respect me, they often view me as a glorified salesperson. That's why it hurt, a shitload, when you—"
"I'm sorr—"
They held up a finger. "Let me finish."
I shut my mouth.
"When you treated Ferwa's comment as if it was credible, you had no idea about the context of our interaction and yet you latched onto it. Trust fails if it's only given and not received. I let you stay here even when my own company had trouble weighing the risk vs reward in helping you. Your body is a weapon powerful enough to utterly destroy me and you're under my roof. And you know what worries me? That my attraction to you will shortcut my good sense."
I looked down at the interlocked rectangles of blonde wood that comprised the surface of the table. "I've been worried about the same thing."
"We're not in a situation that fosters trust. Animsys is doing things I don't fully understand when it comes to you and you have expertise from a past I doubt you can tell me about."
I tilted my head. "You don't understand what they're doing? Weren't you one of the people that decided to give me that deal?"
"No, I was asked to write up the deal. That led to a meeting between me and Craig where we hashed it out and he made his case for hiring you on and I eventually agreed." They leaned back in their chair.
"How did he convince you?"
They ran a finger along the edge of their bowl. "Craig kept talking about how starved we are for talent out in the belt. He pointed out that you were a once in a lifetime opportunity. Someone who could foster a paradigm shift in our security division."
I was leaning in now. "Did he provide proof of my skills beyond my fight with the FCAT?"
"He gave me the report from the cybersecurity department on the way you hacked into our network. It was a code match for another breach we'd had a couple years back."
I frowned. It wasn't surprising, I'd been in a hurry when I hacked into the network. I must have reused a block of unique code. Doing that when one didn't have time to cover their tracks was killer. Newbie mistake. And that earlier hack? Well, Animsys had talented security experts and leaving no trace of an intrusion was an unreasonable goal. I doubted they knew what I'd done, just that someone had done something to one of their high-profile employees. I'm sure that's the hack where I stole information on the second generation FCATs. I was lucky I'd gotten off the station before I was found.
"You okay?" They put a hand on my forearm.
"Yeah, I'm wondering why they didn't just throw me in jail."
"Okay, honesty time." Nonah took a deep breath. "If you hadn't agreed to our employment contract, we were going to charge you with a hacking felony before you left the station."
The end of my tail made curled into a tight spiral. "You made it sound like I was off the hook with either choice."
"Saanah, look, it's extremely illegal to get someone to sign an employment contract under the threat of jail time. I was representing the company at the time and I couldn't even hint at it."
"That's why you cleared my previous charges before you offered me the deal. I should've realized that. I should've realized Animsys had another way to get me if I didn't sign." I shook my head looking at the tabletop. "Do you still represent the company with regards to me?"
"No, I reported my attraction to you before your intake interview. I have no power over your fate in the company due to a conflict of interest."
I looked up to see them smile. "You know that wasn't completely necessary, right? Paitishek have sex with coworkers all the time."
"True, but I didn't like how complex things were between us from the outset."
I smiled. "Thank you."
They brought my hand up to their muzzle and kissed it. "It was as much for you as it was for me."
Taking my hand back, I tried to retain my smile. I wanted to trust them so badly, but I now had a lot to process. It was frustrating because I'd been planning to talk about how their handling of our fight had stressed me out. But I needed to talk about something lighter right now. "I've been looking at apartments and I have a few to follow up on today."
"Send me the list and I'll make some notes. I know this station like the texture of my scales."
I sent them the list and we chatted about the pros and cons of various units for a while until they said, "So, earlier, I made an effort to open up. Mind if I ask you a couple questions?"
"Don't we need to head to work?"
"I had a late appointment last night, so I cleared this morning. Do you have to do anything before the meeting? That's the first thing on my agenda."
I wanted to make an excuse, but I could only avoid talking about my past for so long. "What would you like to know?"
"Just generally, what did you do before you ended up here?"
"I was a hacker rebel and action hero, I guess."
"Did you hurt people?"
"Only people who deserved it." I shrugged.
They chuckled. "And who deserved it?"
If only my joke had worked to redirect the conversation. "Extremely rich and powerful people and organizations that oppress those less privileged than they are."
"Like Animsys?"
I stopped in my chair and just stared at them until their serious expression became laughter.
I laughed.
"I already knew you hacked Animsys, remember?" they asked.
"Yeah, you just caught me off guard."
They stared into my eyes, no humor on their face, just straight lips and concern. "Isn't working for Animsys against your ideals, then?"
"Yes, it is, and I was uncomfortable about it until I met you, Craig, Kwame, and Konkana. Lots of 'k' names, now that I think of it."
They smirked at my realization. "Go on."
"It's funny, I know Craig is a rather aggressive CEO, but I don't hate him now that I've met him. I've been swept up in trying to build a new life and haven't really thought about ideals." I frowned. "What am I even doing? You made a very good point."
"I think you're experiencing what I went through when I first started working for corporations. Making a living trumped my idealism so I let myself get assimilated. It was terrifying. I had nightmares about becoming Lord Voldemort."
"Oh, I still haven't read that classic."
"You totally should. It's steeped in turn-of the-century British culture."
"That sounds fascinating," I said. "Are you still terrified?"
They raised their ears. "No, I tried to do good from within. In the early years, I had no power and basically just watched the ugliness of the corporate machine first hand. It took forever, but eventually I had power to help make decisions. Craig would have done some pretty corrupt stuff if I wasn't in his inner circle."
"Is Craig a bad person?"
"Craig is not a good person. He's far too selfish and competitive. I've told him as much. But he's a great CEO." They got up and washed out their bowl in the sink. I watched their naked backside until they turned around and came back to the table.
"That's the problem, isn't it? The same things that make people great CEOs make them unempathetic."
"It's a huge problem. The economic system rewards bad behavior. But what am I supposed to do about it? I'm one person."
I sighed. "So, I should try to do good from within? When I was a hacker, I was trying to change the world. I'd've never joined the enemy."
"I can't make that choice for you. But consider this: I've made a lot of allies inside Animsys and I've been working closely with Craig for a long time. I want to change Animsys into a company that is giving back to society instead of just taking. Companies that have done so are more popular than ever nowadays. There's even some that are lobbying for higher taxes and better government services throughout the solar system."
"I may or may not have bullied a couple companies to go that route," I said. "I can't outright say that I did, however."
They giggled. "Well, you don't have to bully this one. We could team up, you and me. Maybe we could change things for the better before you go back to your old life."
"Are there copper consumers on this station?" I asked.
"Yes, some, why?"
"They're the people whose lives I want to help improve first. Then I'd feel I was doing something."
"Harry, Binota, the other C-whatevers, and I all want that too. We're in Kamehameha Cares. It's a non-profit that was started by the previous CEO."
"Is Craig part of it?"
"Officially, yes, actually, no. Remember I said he wasn't a good person?"
I smirked. "Are the other C-whatevers good people?"
They counted them on their fingers. "Konkana and Kwame are moderately good people. Ferwa is a good counter to Craig. She and I team up to rein him in even though she pretty much hates me. I don't know if I'd call her a good person overall, but I'm biased. Veeskha is complicated. I really don't know with her."
"Wow, you don't seem to be hating people right. You're being kinda nice to Ferwa."
"There's a right way to hate people?"
"Complaining about them being pure undiluted evil would be a good start."
"Wow, I really need to work on that. Thanks for letting me know."
I laughed.
They gave my arm a squeeze.
"Well, if I can help the copper consumers here, I won't feel as bad working for a big corporate machine. It's more immediate than changing the company from within, or whatever."
"Agreed. Shall we go off to work?" They got up and offered me their elbow.
I took it and we traveled to Craig's conference room. He was in his spot at the head of the table and everyone was there. The moment I sat down, Ferwa asked, "Can I have a few minutes at the end of the meeting?"
"Sure," Craig said. "First order of business is for us to review the video from yesterday. After that, Saanah will explain what she did."
As everyone reviewed the video file, I went over my presentation one last time in my mind. Veeskha clapped her hands after reviewing it and then stopped, seeming to notice she was expressing an emotion.
Ferwa hung her shoulders in defeat. "Okay, that was impressive."
Craig bopped her on the shoulder playfully. "Welcome to our side."
"Oh, stop it." She brushed off her shoulder as if Craig's jocular behavior had left behind some lint.
The rest were just as excited as I'd seen them yesterday.
I started off my presentation asking a question. "Did you know that FCATs reset after losing a capacitive position sensor for the ball?"
Kwame furrowed his brow. "They reset anytime they have to recalibrate the turret position. It takes less than a second."
Before anyone else could speak, I asked, "Did you know that if the main wireless antenna gets full-spectrum jammed while an FCAT is booting it assumes it's undergoing bench tests and enters test mode?"
"How, how did you?" Kwame stuttered.
"I went to the public help forum and looked for bugs that would likely affect every FCAT and could be put together to subdue one." I sent everyone links to the two forum posts.
"Kwame, why hadn't you thought of this before?" Craig asked.
"One moment," he said. "Okay, it's easiest to make calibration part of the startup cycle. Our competitors do the same thing. The jamming one is just so rare. If an FCAT is jammed while it's running, it turns off its antenna and waits for the jamming signal to stop. If it restarts during that, the state of the antenna is remembered. I think this bug wasn't worked on because it only happens if the antenna is jammed exactly when the FCAT is booting. It's a one in a million situation."
Before Craig could further batter Kwame, I said, "Exploits like these are very common. It's impossible to test every permutation of bugs in combination with each other. What I recommend is that you find a way to manage the information available in your public help community and that you lessen the number of possible ways that someone can get an FCAT to reboot. Systems are most vulnerable when booting."
Craig looked at Kwame. "Do you agree with these suggestions?"
"Yes, we were planning on updating the forum site this quarter to match the larger site revamp. And, I'll bring together our software and hardware teams to talk about reboots. I think we should also review all bugs related to test mode in light of Saanah's exploit."
"Saanah, would you mind working with Kwame to implement these changes over the next few weeks?" Craig said this without it sounding like a question.
Answering "would you mind" not-questions always tripped me up. If I said, "no" it would be an ambiguous answer. I wanted to say "yes" just to spite him for this question-phrased commandment. "Sure, I mean, I will do so."
Konkana said, "I'd like you to come to our investor luncheon next week. Do you feel comfortable doing that?"
I sent, Should I? to Nonah.
It would probably make Craig and Konkana very happy.
"I'll come if Kwame's invited too. I'd feel uncomfortable representing the FCAT division alone," I said.
Kwame sent me, Oh, wow, you're the best! Normally only the C-somethings get to go to those. I've heard they get the best chefs on Kamehameha to each cook one of the entrees.
Nonah sent, Smooth move.
Konkana blinked as if she was trying to disbelieve a hallucination. "Sure, you both can talk about the progress you've made. We'll emphasize our teamwork."
I sent Kwame, I wasn't lying about the uncomfortable part, but you have as much right to be there as I do.
Thank you, Kwame sent.
Veeskha tapped one of her pointy nails on the table to get everyone's attention. "Saanah, how did you jam the FCAT?"
I doubted she was going to like my answer. "I rewrote the firmware on my radar and wireless phased array so I could broadcast broad-spectrum noise."
Her ears fell. "That's highly illegal."
"Hackers or dissidents aren't going to worry about the legality of what they're doing when they want to take down an FCAT. I restored the legal firmware before I came back to my office."
Veeskha didn't seem to have a response to that. She just pursed her lips and looked away.
Ferwa said, "May I present the last order of business?"
Craig nodded.
"I've been approached by a majority of the board. It turns out they don't feel they were included in the decision to bring Saanah into our company. All of you, except Saanah, will have to make your case to them tomorrow at an emergency board meeting."
Craig pointed at Ferwa with his hand shaking. "Have you been working to under—"
"—mine you? No, I proposed the meeting, their original plan was to have me start an internal investigation." She stared Craig down.
His ears fell in embarrassment as he looked at his hands. "Thanks, Ferwa, I shouldn't have doubted you."
"No, you shouldn't have." She got up and looked at me. "You shouldn't doubt me either. You did good today. I won't let my feelings about Nonah cloud my judgement about you. So, stop looking at me like I'm your evil step mother."
"Sorry," I said meeting her eyes.
She nodded, her lips holding the slightest hint of a smile. She left the room.
Konkana said, "That got heavy."
Nonah groaned. "I'm beginning to hate meetings."
"I've always hated meetings," I said.
"I'm neutral on meetings," Kwame offered trying to smile.
Craig laughed and then looked at me. "This is just a small bump on your long career at Animsys." Just as he finished speaking, his jovial facade broke revealing anxious creases at the edges of his eyes.
And now I was worried.
