Automata

#2

The next morning, back again at work, with a cup of cappuccino in her hand, Alice is standing next to the glass wall, watching the city as it wakes up to a new day, lost in her own thoughts like yesterday.

On the 76th floor of the Akimo Tower, her office is half as big as a football field and furnished minimally and accurately, as the rest of the building. Of course, it's a corner office, like every other executive, so two of the walls are glass top-to-bottom, with magnificent views over the sunny, almost tropical city of Vancouver.

One of the remaining two walls, the one opposite to the coarse desk, is indeed a gigantic screen; unlike the other executives, she keeps turned off most of the time and relies on her vintage phone to stay in the loop.

The last wall, smooth and matte off-white, includes an automated, retractable mahogany door. Next to it, on the other side, is the desk of Two Nine Seven Sixty Eleven Nine Nine Oh Eleven Five, Alice's personal assistant.

Alice sits at her desk and rests her hand on the left part, over the haptic interface embedded in the surface, to activate the input mode. "Five, I'm ready."

It's less than a minute until Two Nine Seven Sixty Eleven Nine Nine Oh Eleven Five emerges through the door and walks with short but decided steps to the desk. She's clothed in the statutory Akimo executive assistant uniform, an indigo two-piece suit with a tight, just-below-the-knee high, pencil skirt, and holds a tablet with her left arm, ready to use it. "Good morning, Two Five Nine Oh Four Seven Nine Two Nine Eight Four Six Four. You look gorgeous today."

People stopped having official proper names already a few decades ago, around mid-century. Once it became mandatory for women to have an ARD (Assisted Reproduction Device) implanted in their wombs, governments used the UNIX timestamp of the conception, in milliseconds, to identify each of their citizens, from that moment on.

So for Alice, conceived on February 2nd 2052 09:34:58 GMT, her official identification timestamp was 2590479298464, and everybody but her most informal acquaintances, and herself, addresses her using it. Alice is but her chosen name: the name that her parents chose for her when she was a kid, only to be used within intimate circles.

"You look fabulous yourself, Five." Because of her position, she can get away with referring to her assistant using only the last digit of her timestamp. She doesn't know her chosen name, nor has any interest in it.

"You think? You're too kind..." Five blushes. She's socially required to praise her superior's physical presence, but it's not that common to hear a nice word back about herself. And even more significant considering from whom the pleasant word is coming...

Once Five regains her composure, she swipes the 3-day agenda from her tablet to Alice's desk interface and starts talking through it. "Let's start with a quick overview, and then I will have your morning takeout delivered to your office to get you going."

As she talks through the calendar, Alice casually leafs through the pages of her private email. She mechanically checks the details sent to her about her upcoming pleasure trip to Japan. But there isn't a single one unread message. She exhales with relief.

As she's reading, Alice touches the right side of her screen and checks the time reflected in it. It's 8:11 AM. Even though she's early, she thinks she would have been late if she hadn't finished with XY at roughly 6 AM. She reckons she lost up to 2 and a half hours on her most wonderful orgasm of the week. Orgasms, actually.

She decides she's going to take a full day off this weekend.

"You'll have a meeting with Two One Seven Five Eight Zero Five Nine Six Eight for two hours in the afternoon. Then just a couple of quick minutes with Two Six Twelve Four Sixty Seven Five Nine Seven Six Six Two and the rest of the day is yours..."