SFSD-X

The Quality of Mercy

It was Friday afternoon, and Oliver kept his head down inside the cubicle as his colleagues packed their stuff and headed for the exit. His headphones were the large 'can' type with thick padding around the ears; they gave the impression that the wearer was oblivious to everything around him. He faced his monitor screens, where terminals to the Company's computer network reported on the various processes he was running.

He watched the reflection in a shiny shallow teaspoon, carefully positioned with blu-tak at the edge of his desk. He noticed that behind him Anne had paused by his cubicle on her way to the door. Anne was the one person in the office that never taunted him. In fact a few weeks ago she had told a group of them, led by Charles, to 'knock it off' when they had started to drag him towards the toilets. It had happened before; having his head shoved into the flushing bowl. He was grateful to her for sticking up for him, but he didn't have the social skills to know how to thank her.

Oliver opened another terminal window and began typing rapidly into it, whilst watching Anne's reflection in the teaspoon. He watched her hesitate for a moment, then turn and head towards the door after the others. He waited until she was out of sight, then killed the window, leaned back, and sighed.

He was happy never to be invited to the Office Outings. He didn't really drink alcohol (preferring his own drugs instead, which did not leave him feeling sick and headachy the following morning). He did not enjoy the small talk, and of course he simply did not like his team-mates. Not all of them were as bad as Charles and his friends, who seemed to be under the impression that being unkind to him was written into their job descriptions. But none of the others stepped in to help him, and often stood up in their cubicles and looked on in amusement when he became the butt of some joke. Or worse.

He took off his headphones, scooted back in his chair and stood up to go to the toilets, scanning the office as he did so to make sure it was empty. When he returned, instead of walking straight back to his cubicle, he sidled along the back wall until he was standing directly beneath the security camera. He removed a small spring-clip from his pocket, folded out a laminated photo of the office, and with a well-practised flick, secured it over the lens of the camera. Then he listened as the lens-motor refocused onto the photo, leaving the Security Guards in the Main Building blind to his subsequent movements.

The THEBES System had cost the Company nearly a billion dollars to develop. Each building had several Workstations, each of which connected via a fibre-optic cable to the processor racks in the Main Building. Its purpose was to calculate the structure of new molecules, and model their effects on the human body. It was the first stage in the long and expensive process of bringing new drugs to market. The System took the guess-work out of selecting new drugs to test in the lab. It allowed experienced researchers to 'build' new compounds, and refine their design until the desired outcome was achieved.

Very few people had access to the THEBES Workstations, and most of those that did had limited privileges. New projects could only be initiated by those with the highest security clearance. In many ways, system security was tighter than that of a Bank or Stock Exchange. After all, if a Bank loses your money, they have to pay you back just once. A successful drug will provide profits for the company for twenty five years!

Oliver wandered over to the THEBES Workstation, putting on a pair of lightweight cotton gloves. His role at the Company was Junior Analyst, which meant he only had user privileges on his own workstation. However, when THEBES had first been developed, he had been seconded to work on its installation. His role had been to configure the initial database of user accounts; a task that most people would have found mind-numbingly boring.

But he had an eye for detail, and liked to see things consistent, and above all, logical. His Supervisor had been impressed when Oliver pointed out various anomalies with usernames, access-rights and so on. She was even more impressed when Oliver had then passed her a completed paper recommending an alternative protocol that was internally consistent. She had put her name on the document, and passed it to the Board, who rewarded her with promotion to their ranks, and Oliver with a book token.