CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: BRAVE NEW WORLD

Wherein we glimpse the future and a right-hand man arrives

 

 

 

As dispirited as she was, Deborah focused on the task at hand. Gracefully circling the metal cup, she dipped and drew it back. Swirling in the cup was a perfect heart of steamed milk. Thank God-the last thing she needed was more docked pay. Her first few weeks had been financially painful as it was. Hunter had docked her a full ten hours already this month, though it was beginning to tail off as she worked hard to avoid making the same mistakes again. She had made sure no to repeat the previous day's transgression. The simple white button-down blouse and pleated blue skirt was 'secretary safe' and, though it had been painful, she'd made her first trip to the office in a pair of black three inch heels, her sneakers consigned now for weekends and any free time. Damn, her feet did ache though!

Grabbing the pad and pencil on her desk, she made her way in to present Hunter with his morning beverage. Per the morning ritual she placed the cup down daintily, stepped back and waited to be recognised. This morning, that hadn't taken long.

"Debbie- were you aware you left my office door unlocked when you left for the day yesterday?"

"I did?" Oh God.

"Well, it was unlocked when I arrived, so I'd say so! What do you have to say for yourself?"

Her shoulders dropped. It would mean more precious wages sacrificed because of her inattention to detail.

"What's wrong- are you ok?" The heaviness in his tone lightened a notch.

"I'm sorry- my apartment was broken into yesterday."

"That's awful!" The frown was gone and he was now expressing sympathetic concern. "What happened?"

She shrugged hopelessly. "When I got home, the door was opened. They got my jewelry, some cash and my laptop."

"Have you made a police report?" he asked doubtfully.

Deborah shook her head. "What's the point? I'll never see any of it again."

"There might be fingerprints at the least," Hunter pointed out. "If they had to bash open your door-"

"They didn't though! It was like they had a copy of my key. But no one has a copy but-"

He nodded. "Of course! Let me check!" Unlocking his top desk drawer with a small key, he looked down and held up the key she'd had to provide him. "Nope. Here it is! You say your door looked like it was open?"

She nodded.

"Well, I'd say you probably forgot to lock it yourself. It's the most probable conclusion. You left my office door unlocked too. That is," he smiled skeptically, "unless you think I was slumming around your neighbourhood and robbed you."

"No, that's just silly. I guess," she concluded despondently, "you must be right. It was my own fault."

Hunter leaned back, satisfied with her conclusion. "That's a shame. It's not a very nice neighbourhood but it is safe. You have to be more careful, Debbie. At least you won't need to spend the money to change the locks."

Her laughter was sad. "I couldn't afford to anyway."

Hunter nodded thoughtfully. "Look, I was going to dock you for leaving my office unlocked, but... I'll let it go this time. Under the circumstances," he added, sipping his coffee, "you've had a rough enough twenty-four hours as it is. Forget it again though and you'll be docked a whole day's pay. Now what do you have to say to that?"

He was so fucking smug. "Thank you, Mr. Downe."

"You're welcome, Debbie. Even the best secretaries get a bit scatterbrained at times. Do you need an advance on your salary?"

She was pleasantly surprised at the gesture. "Uh, no, thank you, Mr. Downe."

"Well, are you sure? We can't have you starving and you won't be paid for another two weeks!"

She sighed. "After work, I'm going to a second-hand clothing store. I'm pretty sure I can get some cash for some of my suits. I mean, since I don't need them for work anymore..." she trailed off. She'd keep one interview suit, but the rest of her executive wardrobe, so carefully collected over the last couple of years, would have to go.

"Sensible girl. Well, enough of that. Give me my schedule for the day." His reversion to standard boss brusqueness occurred in a second.

"You have the morning blocked off to meet with the Technology team?"

"Confirm it for ten. Continue."

She did-there was a 'goal setting' meeting with Anne Miller, a quick check-in with Alexis Hunter. Finally, there was just an afternoon meeting.

"Mr. van Engen called to confirm your four o'clock here?"

"Good."

She was about to leave when he pointed to a bag on the side of his desk.

"Debbie, my dry cleaning. Just drop it off at Ezy Cleaners over on Federal. Don't worry about money- I have an account there. All you need to do is drop it off and pick it up when ready."

She wanted to point out that this was an errand clearly over the line. He had no business having her attend to his out of office chores- and the smirk on his face was daring her to do just that.

"When would you like me to do this, Mr. Downe?"

"You have two breaks and a lunch- you can decide when is the most convenient time for you."

Snatching up the bag too quickly, Deborah squeezed out a neutral smile.

"Very good, Mr. Downe!"

 

 

 

 

 

"Hunter!" She beckoned him beyond the frosted glass walls that formed the boundary between Technology and the rest of the company. He flipped his security ID and the thick glass doors drew back on their rollers.

The welcoming committee was a trio-Indira Patel, Director of Technology, with Josie Wong, R&D Manager and Blair Santos, IT Manager riding shotgun with her.

"Welcome to TechLand! It's so nice to have a tourist!" she joked. In fact, it was a pleasant diversion. For a tech company CEO, Jennifer spent five hours with sales, marketing and finance to every one she bothered to spend in Technology. Her attitude tended to be that, as long as the marketing demos worked properly, Technology was doing its job. It was less than inspiring leadership.

"I'll be honest-if I wasn't trying to get my sea legs in Planning, I'd have been bothering you a lot earlier. That demo at the Town Hall meeting-I was blown away!'

Unlike cold fish Cynthia, airhead Allison or even that autistic new CFO, Hunter Downe seemed authentically interested in what they were doing!

"I think you already know the 'Asian Invasion' team-Josie's our resident Brainiac and Blair makes their trains run on time."

Handshakes were exchanged and she led them all deeper into the off-limits Technology lab. Giving Hunter a grin, she promised him a revealing morning.

"We didn't share more than a fraction of the real stuff we're working on. Blair, can you bring up Aphrodite?"

They were in a central lab filled with supercomputers, wall-sized display monitors and dashboards spaced around the room. Her Filipina colleague brought one wall to life, as her Chinese R&D wizard set up a wireless keyboard on the table all of them wound up sitting down at, four pairs of eyes fixated expectantly on the big wall display, where a wireframe outline of a human figure revealed itself in green lines against black.

"Sorry, but I grew up on the Matrix movies," Josie grinned. Please say hello to Aphrodite!"

"What is it-or she?" Hunter asked even as the avatar fluctuated on the screen.

"Only the future of AI-aided innovation!," the pretty Chinese programmer boasted, her English unaccented and school perfect.

"As you know, Artemis was launched with the ambition to aid and assist women in various aspects of their lives. The first-gen offerings were pretty common off-the-shelf type apps, but we continued to research far beyond the basic utilities. While other players looked at surface applications, we considered the bigger implications of search, social media and artificial intelligence," Indira expanded.

"And devices and the internet of things," insisted Blair in a chirpy English spiced with Tagalog inflections.

She nodded. Blair always completed the picture and filled in the details whenever she waxed on strategy or Josie drifted into technobabble.

"Quite right. A key point because linking it all to output devices is a critical component. Where we diverge from other tech companies is that we look at all sources of content as organic ingredients of one single repository of data and shape it to speak to the needs and values of our core audience-professional women. Aphrodite is what we're calling a Mentor Application."

"Like a fairy godmother?" Hunter tried to conceptualise it.

"More like a guardian angel. A fairy godmother looks out for you, while a guardian angel is more of a teacher and a mentor. And unlike waiting for prayers or wishes, Aphrodite has the agency conferred by artificial intelligence."

Hunter's creased brow made it clear he was trying to follow along, but still many steps behind the women.

Josie jumped in. "Maybe this will help." On the screen, a woman appeared, working on a laptop.

"Julie is working on a management report. How can Aphrodite add value?"

As she asked the question, the video zoomed in as the screen was filled with floating elements which the woman tapped to attach to the report. With each addition, the very text itself recomposed, as if re-editing itself to incorporate the new data served up.

"Aphrodite has just-without being asked-just added a magnitude of valuable and highly contextual new data to Julie's report. Now watch this."

Julie was now browsing videos when Aphrodite instantly redirected her to three new videos, each with a reason why she should be viewing the new videos instead."

"Wow!" Hunter's exclamation was pure exhilaration to the Technology team.

"Recommendations, guidance and active and practical intervention-imagine her on all of your devices!" Blair was rightly proud, implying their baby was going to change the way women worked. "And it's a three-sixty experience. Watch this!"

On the screen, Julie was touching her earlobe lightly, even as a voice advised her on the best responses to make during a full-on formal business meeting.

"The earbud can't be detected unless you're really looking for it, with a battery that lasts a year," Blair noted.

"So you're basically porting hard knowledge, emotional intelligence based on event-related social media data I assume, and constant recommendations for... everything," Hunter observed in admiration.

"And on multiple devices and environments," Indira jumped back in.

"And Aphrodite learns, based on the user choices, to adapt to the user needs," Josie pointed out.

"And before you ask, we're building on a foundation of female-based data, collected from hundreds of millions of female users. No one has the kind of database we have because no one has focused so exclusively on women users. In the war between the sexes, current company excepted of course," she smiled at Hunter, "it is a game-changer."

Josie handed a pair of glasses and a bracelet to Hunter, who inspected them intently.

"Wearable tech is the key," Blair insisted as she showed Hunter how the items worked.

"I thought the Google Glass thing was a disaster though," he countered, even as he put the rather ordinary looking glasses on. "Whoa!"

"As you can see for yourself, the technology has come a long way. Now imagine being able to use them at any time, any place and tap into the curated wisdom, knowledge and experience of millions of women."

Hunter's lack of words and utter concentration as he watched Julie on the screen told Indira all she needed to know about his take on Aphrodite.