Artificial(ish) Intelligence

Chapter 12

There are people in this world who forgive without trying, who allow injustices perpetrated against them to drip off like water on a particularly oily duck's back, who take no offence at even a perceived slight, and who would turn around and offer the other cheek just in case. Adelaide was not these people.

"That child-of-unmarried-parents!" she shouted in whispered tones.

"Good morning, Adelaide," said the older woman in the adjacent cubicle, not breaking from her work.

The cursive sign on the wall read, House of Paschar.

"That lustful-animals-copulating child-of-unmarried-parents. I knew it!"

She stared into a personal screen. Her impeccably clean desk was adorned with a judicious lack of sticky notes. Not even one scrap of paper transgressed from the nearby multi-function colour laser printer, housing a 2.5GHz processor, able to pump out A3 documents at 305ppm, at a resolution of 12,000 by 3,000 dpi, with an input tray holding 10,000 sheets.

She checked the end office for any sign of movement. The door was closed. Of course it was.

This only made her snarl.

"Maggie," she said, struggling to roll her chair back through the shag carpet, "with me."

"I know you're the aitch-arr director, dear," said Maggie, pulled by Adelaide into the stairwell, "and my line manager, but I'm not about to be on the end of a resource action. If I don't get these employee evaluations completed by lunch, Mr Borken won't be happy."

"Mr Borken?!" screamed Adelaide. "I don't give a release-waste-product about Mr partially-inhabited-by Borken. He can die for all I care."

"Oh," said Maggie, feigning interest. "I thought you and the cee-ee-oh were..."

"We are. Were!" She shook her head. "Not any more. Not after I caught him with--"

She stopped dead at the sound of footsteps against the metallic stairs, fast tat-tats that became louder, as a pair of heavy breaths echoed within the chamber. The owners were two women who, over their purple and gold uniforms, wore florescent head-bands, matching florescent wrist-bands, and held tiny weights as they scaled the stairs. It was like a scene from the 1980's.

As soon as they got within earshot, Adelaide's demeanour became at once calm, polite, professional. "So Maggie, how are our workers finding the simulated video chats?"

"Oh," said Maggie, happy to talk about work again, "there's a high level of satisfaction. Most of them can't even tell the difference between a real person and--"

"Enjoying the work-out, ladies?" said Adelaide, to the breathless duo.

"Oh yes," said one, with faux enthusiasm. The other eyed her menacingly in response as she panted her way past.

"So no backlash?" said Adelaide, since they were still within aural range. "They don't mind complaining to a robot?"

"Actually," said Maggie, "many feel freer to fully--"

"Female-dogs," said Adelaide, watching the pinks and purples disappear further up the stairwell. "What did I do to them?"

"Well it's probably your relationship with Mr--"

"I don't have one!" said Adelaide. "Aren't you listening? I'm not going to share him with another woman."

"You mean his wife?"

"Not his wife," said Adelaide. "I mean that promiscuous-and-disreputable-young-lady in sales. Look."

Adelaide shared two columns of numbers with the older woman.