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.LP \& .ce .sp |4.25i .PP .ps 12 .CW ░ Meguro, Indiana. 2179. .PP .ps 12 One hundred and thirty years later SL was still sitting there at the same desk. To be fair, it hadn't really felt like a century and change. .PP .ps 12 His building, on the other hand, \fIhad\fR changed. Over the past hundred years they'd grown and re\-grown the whole thing around him, twice. His penthouse dormitory was by now no longer a penthouse, his view of the city almost entirely obscured by the artfully ivied walls of nearby new construction. His office hadn't moved an inch, but somehow it had still sunk below the windowsill of the city. Deep in the shadow of other buildings, he could no longer glimpse the sunset. Stationary, he was moving on down. .PP .ps 12 Yes, this was precisely the career limiting move he had feared, all those many decades ago. His rise at the company had stalled out, cresting the building's bloom, and had now sagged, sliding all the way down the stem to its hilt. .PP .ps 12 The flower itself remained. .PP .ps 12 It was in spite of these depressing realizations that SL executed his military simulations. Violence having been monopolized by the state, SL instead staged elaborate, semi\-covert \fImanipulations\fR of his coworkers, who were each and every one of them reliably unaware that they were being thus manipulated. The data he collected was still good, though, and SL struggled to hold it all in his head. (Logging was still disabled by default.) .PP .ps 12 Up and down the building he maneuvered them, diagonally, sideways, in all manner of impossible directions. The interface was experimental, the results still frustratingly inconsistent, but what successes he did enjoy were encouraging. He was confident now that in the event of an office fire he would be able to get everyone out alive. This, too, was arguably a sign of progress. .PP .ps 12 Well, management liked their little jokes, and SL was no exception. It gave him a focus for his conscience in the absence of explicit corporate policy. Whatever, he objected to the very notion of .I growing .R buildings. Next they'd be saying that buildings possessed certain inalienable rights, were living things, all on account of their technically being alive. And that was the problem in a nutshell, wasn't it? Why, at this rate, .I anything .R could be said to be alive. As a representative of the company he was contractually bound to object. .I But the company was growing the buildings. .R Logical stalemate. .PP .ps 12 It was all grist for his simulations. .PP .ps 12 Six hundred feet above Meridian St.\ SL sipped his tea and waited to retire. .PP .ps 12 "In this economy?" Michael said. There was that phrase again. SL scanned the executive lounge but there was no one else around. He bit his lip. Then he bit it again. Who was steering this guy, anyway? .PP .ps 12 Michael was a fellow third level, responsible for the neighboring orbit. Perhaps sixty years earlier SL had said something stupid in front of him, and Michael had never forgiven him the indiscretion. This had coalesced over the decades into a continuous ticker tape of condescension and blatant insults that were at once befuddling, and in point of fact less than endearing. SL's younger self had barely held onto his monopoly over idiotic statements all these years, overcoming stiff competition from his own staff. Perhaps Michael was jealous of that, too. These guys both knew intimately the boat they were in. .PP .ps 12 "Money is perhaps the most beneficial technology yet devised by man," SL observed, ready but less than anxious to mount a defense of the obvious. .PP .ps 12 Michael looked at SL as if he were hopelessly unsophisticated, fifteen years old, negotiating his first dalliance with a shaving kit. That old familiar facial expression, by now as natural and easy as a spring blossom floating on the breeze. .PP .ps 12 The flower returns. .PP .ps 12 Over the decades it seemed that more and more of SL's friends were becoming managers. Shedding their contracts, assuming the .I shiatsu .R comforts of the big chair, with only the big boss above them, world without end. A terminal, self\-started dive\-bomb towards... what? Some of them had achieved a firmer grip on the controls than others. Why, even Kurt had\(em .PP .ps 12 The dead dog lunged in the background. .PP .ps 12 Cin closed up his desk and pivoted to the task of getting the fuck out of his office for the day. The place had made him miss home, which was really saying something. Pollen made his nose hurt. Green particles dislodged from their ejectors at the intersections of network ley lines, ensuring everyone in the office was miserable. Dropped connections abounded. .PP .ps 12 The walk home always took forever, but at least there was kebab. Cin liked kebab, but he didn't like to walk. This trade\-off was one of the compromises he'd allowed himself in the furtherance of his career. .PP .ps 12 Breakcore! Cin's apt greeted him with his current favorite track, cranked to full volume. He didn't bother to turn it down. Already climbing into his memory chair, he'd hack out fixes and features until it was time to return to the office. Fuck sleep, and fuck his non\-compete. .I Prost! .R .PP .ps 12 In the morning, Cin closed up his apt and walked back to the office, stopping not once, but twice to load up on additional kebab. Cube fuel. .PP .ps 12 "No way you're bringing that in here," scolded his manager, frowning and gesturing at the kebab. Also blocking the doorway. Cin fished out his override and shut the manager down, watched as he tumbled to the carpet, then ankled his way around the crumpled crap\-ass and climbed into his cube. .PP .ps 12 Started getting things done. .PP .ps 12 The dead dog sniffed the flower's corpse and climbed through its pages. .PP .ps 12 He was no longer afraid.