Raika startled. It felt like she woke up from a dream. A shrill, high pitched cut through her thoughts. She focused her gaze on her displays right in front of her. All the lights blinked bright red and the sound was unbearable, piercing her brain like a thousand little needles. Her confusion only lasted half a second and her palms became sweaty. On her screen, big and bold, the message “You are late for your meeting with Tom [boss]” followed by her delay, updated by seconds: 10: 13 minutes, 10:14, 10:15. Raika’s thoughts raced circles: Could she lie that she was on the loo? No, the computer recorded her activity. She could say she was checking the last code push, she had the right site open to make the lie believable. But that was contrary to who she was: First, she didn’t lie. Secondly, she never second-guessed her work after it was available for others to check. At that point, it’s up to others to give her feedback. 

“Fuck it” she said, and opened the meeting invite. Tom, an old man often played the grandfather role caring for all and telling stories from the olden times. He grew up in a world where not every item had a chip and every activity was recorded. It seemed adventurous for her to walk around without exactly knowing her heart rate, oxygen level, calories burned, or her precise location beamed out to everyone who was on her ‘allowed list’. Which, in her case, was only one person, Akira, a made up friend. The system didn’t allow for an empty ‘allow list’. It was quite a struggle to create Akira’s digital life. At the end she learned a lot, it might have been easier to just add her sister, but they became estranged a long time ago. When Tom recounted his stories he kept stressing how dangerous living was at that time, how short people lived, and how much better they are having it right now. 

Tom’s hologram appeared super sized in her office, bright red in the face. A stream of words spewed out of him, but nothing really making any sense for her. It was a new sensation. She always felt conflicted about him. He was a good boss, but this grand-fathery attitude rubbed her the wrong way. For her, work is work. It’s not the place to make friends, and for sure, she didn’t want to feel that her colleagues were family. Because family, well, is family and carries a whole lot of other duties that she didn’t want to bother about.

Raika grabbed her papaya, orange smoothie, slurped loudly and put the glass back down. Tom’s eye twitched. She opened her top drawer, rummaged around it and then, slowly, took out a bag of salted peanuts. She opened it, took a handful of peanuts and started snacking. One by one. Her boss continued the litany. She wondered if he might have a heart attack, but she didn't worry too much about it, his assistant would appear if his vital signs would drop into the orange zone. It’s not her responsibility to keep her boss alive, and if it isn’t listed as a job duty Raika stopped a year ago to care. He’s well beyond 100 years now, and should have retired 3 years ago. But then they got a new contract and he stayed on to lead it. Couldn’t let Jimmy work on this, he’ll screw it up, he told her once, while winking. 

Finally, she had enough. Enough of this meaningless work. Enough of the driver to capture more and more of the market, to fine-tune algorithms, to capture every observable piece of data. Enough of this life that she didn’t choose. Her thoughts darted to the children she once held for a brief second, before the lady in white snatched them away. Over and over again she wasn’t allowed to keep them. Not a productive member of society if she would be raising kids. Her kids. 

Without considering the consequences, she swirled around on her chair and showed the holographic projection of her boss her back. A no-no, in the world of high-potential young women: Always show your best smile was their mantra. His voice got automatically louder, the sensors knowing that she wasn’t paying attention. No need to press the mute button, it would be deactivated anyway. She typed I, q, u, i, e, t, hit enter and waited.