The Forge: Fire and Ice

RESPONSIBILITY DISCHARGED (FIRED AND ICED) CM Angus

‘What do you mean, you don’t know who he is? What is he doing there anyway?’

The engineer swiped desperately at the air in front of him, apparently scrolling through virtual information, trying to find something – anything, to help him formulate a response.

‘He’s listed as an employee, Sir, He’s on the old system… but other than that, there’s no record of him. Sending you what I have.’

This was meant to be an easy job – Lift and shift the old system into storage; just don’t shut it down.

Why they were still even running such an antiquated piece of crap in the first place he didn’t know. It was late 20th-century tech, almost one hundred and fifty-years old, acquired along with other assets as part of the takeover. The lawyers said they had done their due diligence.

But this…

This was something else.

The antiquated hibernation-pod continued to flash warning messages as it hissed its way through its revival process.

The output of the engineer’s head-cam filled the floating display in the centre of the conference room. Around it, projections of ashen faces, circled the table.

‘What do we know?’ said one. ‘How bad is it?’

‘From what we can tell, it appears that their old system had its support on site. In stasis, under a zero-hours contract… but, if that’s all there was to it, I wouldn’t have disturbed you… It seems it was set up as a short-term measure. It was expected to run for a five year term with a significant severance package on revival, one which doubles every year after that.’

‘How many years?’

‘Just under one hundred and ten, Sir. It’s a massive liability, millions of times larger than our universal turnover.’

‘Who is he?’

‘That’s the thing – we don’t know.’

Something was wrong.

Something was very wrong.

The old man tried to lift his hands, but something stopped him. It wasn’t that the medical equipment constrained them. his hands just refused to move.

A rising tide of panic ran through him – infusing him. Against the crushing weight in his chest, the old man fought to breathe.

His eyes, wide with terror, darted wildly from left to right, struggling to focus and make sense of the chaos that surrounded him. It was only then that he even noticed the klaxon blasting in his ears.

What was all this?

Where was he?

WHO was he?

‘Who is he, Minerva?’

The artificial intelligence scrolled its response as it replied.

‘Unknown at this time… He’s simply listed as an on-demand, on-site resource, under contract 236E8L.’

How could that be?

‘What does his biometric-info say?’

‘Subject is pre-bio. He is recorded as entering hibernation in 2035, prior to the 2038 regulations. All other personal information has been purged.’

‘Can’t we access the archives to find and collate any information relating to that contract?’

‘Archive search is possible, but will take some time.’

‘Proceed and notify me as updates occur.’

The man struggled to understand what was happening. He recalled going under.

It was all meant to be so easy.

Go to sleep and, five years later, have enough to retire on.

It wasn’t as if anyone would miss him – money for old rope – almost too good to be true.

But this…

This wasn’t in the script!

He glanced down at the state of his withered digits, viewing them as alien, not recognising the hands as his own.

How could they be his? He was only 35 but these were the gnarled fingers and sallow skin of an old man.

‘We’ve managed to get some more information.’

The board had reconvened. Once again, their disembodied faces circled the virtual conference-room.

‘From the archives it appears that the five year support term, which should have ended when the system was shut down, didn’t complete as planned. The company found a loophole and used it to avoid reviving him, choosing instead to take the saving. The expense was initially deferred but this became a liability that could no longer be covered.

‘It looks like the old system was left running as an archive. By the time they’d realised what had happened, another 5 years had elapsed.

‘Correspondence from the time shows explicit instructions that the system was to be hibernated, stopped from running active work, but never actually shut down.

‘And whoever-it-is had his employment terminated but was kept under to avoid the severance package kicking-in.’

Tomorrow’s problem.

Fired & Iced!

The faces round the table grimaced in disbelief.

‘So, this employee was been kept in stasis for over a hundred years to avoid honouring his contract? And now he’s being revived due to having a stroke!’

‘He’s not an employee. He’s history. A liability.’

‘He’s an old man. We owe him. We have responsibilities.’

‘We can’t afford to owe him. This problem needs to go away.’

A medbot busied itself around him. Equipment buzzed as it attended to him, still recumbent in the pod.

‘What…’ he managed to croak weakly, ‘is my name?’

A smartly dressed man with a stern expression stabbed internally at his tablet.

‘Is he going to live?’ he said dismissively, ignoring the man’s question and without looking up.

‘It’s difficult to say,’ replied the medbot.

‘There are very few precedents for this length of time in stasis, he’s suffered substantial organ damage over the last hundred years and he’s just suffered a stroke.

The man with the tablet raised his gaze and stared angrily at the medbot. ‘Look, I need to draft an update to the board on the status of their responsibility and I need to send…’

His sentence was cut short by a message in his earpiece.

‘Yes, Sir. Understood.’

He reached over to the rear of the medbot’s neck and it slumped forward as he powered it down.

He moved over to where the man’s wide eyes stared at him in fear.

‘Well, I guess we’ll never find out who you are,’ he said as he grasped the release mechanism of the pod’s power unit and pulled out the thick, hose-like cable.

Turning away, he ignored the man’s last writhing moments to turn his attention back to his tablet.

the end