The motorized kiosk moves along on caterpillar tracks, stopping momentarily at each job station. Jacob estimates it’ll be to him in less than 5 minutes. He quickens his pace assembling another print head. Just when he gets really good at assembling one of these 3D print heads they come out with another model. A touch of solder and a couple screws zipped in with the pneumatic and this unit is done.
“Good morning, 972378.”
“Good morning to you, supervisor,” Jacob glances at the designator on the kiosk, “343.”
The computer generated face on the kiosk almost seems to smile. The kiosk makes a loop around Jacob’s workstation and stops again, in front of him. Jacob, knowing the drill, sets what he’s working on down and stands at attention. He glances at the red flashing light next to the onboard vid and sees that a red hooded figure is monitoring the interaction in a window in the upper-right corner of the monitor. He takes a steady, deep breath.
“You are surpassing the standard by two units, but you are one unit behind your average and three units behind your record pace. Reflections?”
“I think that there are fluctuations in the air pressure to the pneumatic screw gun, that are causing some time loss, but…”
“Analysis of i/o monitoring indicates no fluctuations, would you like to reconsider you reflection?”
“I would’ve sworn, but…well, I guess I’m just not obtaining maximal output. I was planning on staying over, off the clock, to achieve a Tier 1. Will this station be available?”
“Yes. You’re positive reaction will be noted for your next review,” and the kiosk moves off.
Jacob felt pretty good, with hitting Tier 1 for the past 6 months, that his upcoming performance appraisal would prompt a promotion. He was due. Positive thoughts brought positive results and these motherfuckers owed him. His time in the trenches should be at an end.
No one reported to him so he not only didn’t need to wear a hood at work…he wasn’t allowed to. Management passed a rule years ago that entry level employees weren’t allowed to wear their hoods; the thought was that it would create camaraderie and eliminate any non-team players. All Jacob knew was that it meant practicing his smile in the mirror for hours…getting his eyes just right was the hard part, as it seemed a very fine line between sincere and insane.
* * *
Calling it happy hour seemed somehow ironic to Jacob. A third of the people in here were fueling a self-destructive addiction, another third were getting toxed to forget the miseries of their lives, and the other third…well, that was him. He slipped the straw into the drinking port of his hood and hoped it wouldn’t take too many of these to loosen him up. He glanced around the bar and could easily pick out those on the make by their exaggerated posturing. Men walked around like four star generals, while the women thrust their boobs and asses out and flopped their hands around when talking. He imagined it to be a circus and regretted not developing a link with a girl back in elementary school as his mother told him he should. He could’ve avoided all this.
Three drinks later and he was finally invited to a privacy booth. Her voice was light, airy and carried a long buried southern lilt that she must’ve worked very hard to erase. They slid into the booth and closed the door. She started to reach for her facescreen in her hood, but Jacob gently reached out for her hand to stop her.
“Let’s take this slow. How’s about we pick top or bottom for each other?””Oh, sure…you’re cautious. That’s cool. ”
“No…it’s not that, I just want to leave a little mystery for later. If things progress, then we can really open up.”
“Umm…ok, you go top.”
“You go bottom.”
They both reach for their facescreens. Jacob un-velcros the top and rolls it down to the bridge of his nose, while she rolls up the bottom half of hers. He felt vulnerable, though he wasn’t showing his whole face, but seeing this woman open up to him had his heart racing and he could feel his face flush. She had full lips that had a pouty appearance and she was lightly chewing at the right corner of her mouth. Now he wished he had seen her whole face…her mouth was beautiful and she had a delicately, feminine jawline.
“You have beautiful eyes. Are they grey?”
“Thank you, yes. You have a beautiful…smile.”
“I don’t mean to pry, but I thought it was a little odd that you’d brought a planner with you, but I see from the embossing that you work at RepliCorp. My cousin is a mid-level manager there. What floor do you work on?”
Jacob’s heart sank. He couldn’t possibly tell her that he worked on the lower third and if her cousin worked there then lying was out of the question. Game over. He apologized and excused himself, not looking forward to the long, cold walk home.
erichmichaels 