Chapter Forty-Five - Corpo Shit Show

"Never assume that corporate incompetence is corporate maliciousness.

Corporations don't care about you or yours. They don't aim to hurt you. The reason you were hurt was because not hurting you would require a sacrifice of effort or money or both that's too big to be excused."

--Anonymous PR specialist, 2028

***

I parked my bike on the rooftop parking lot, slipping into a free space that was 'reserved for visiting samurai' according to a small sign hanging above it. It was right next to the handicapped parking space too, so not a big walk from there to the door.

I silently appreciated that it was on the far side of the reserved handicapped parking spots. There was a small space in my heart for cripples, and I appreciated that they didn't block the spot off just for some upjumped samurai or whatever.

Interestingly enough, it wasn't Eric who ran out to greet me, but some woman that I didn't recognize. She was in corpo chic, a tight skirt and a weird top that had large openings on the side that showed off the curve of her hips.

I didn't let my eye linger. Who knows if Lucy had convinced Myalis to tattle on me. "Hey," I said as I pushed the thought aside. Instead I was wondering what Lucy would look like in that kind of outfit.

"Hello, Stray Cat," she said. There wasn't nearly as much formality there as I'd come to expect from Eric.

"You're a new face," I said. "Is Eric busy?"

"Ah, Eric was promoted," she said. "Though he will still be available as your liaison. Did you come here to speak with him?"

"Hmm? Nah. It's fine. I called ahead. Well, my AI called ahead. I'm here to see how shit's going."

She nodded, then gestured to the entrance a little ways behind her. "I'm prepared to give you a summary of events, if you wish? Eric and a few of the others working this case are making time to meet you in boardroom seventeen-G."

"I'll take that summary, sure," I said. "Also, what's your name?"

The woman smiled. "Piper, ma'am. I've been working here for almost a year now. If my inexperience is an issue, I'm certain Eric can fill you in better."

"It's fine," I said. "So, summarise away?"

Piper nodded and I followed as she started towards the entrance. "The majority of the projects only really started yesterday morning. Prior to that we completed a partial sweep of the entire sewer system. Four locations were discovered with hidden Antithesis threats, though only at a yellow-danger level. Cleanup teams were dispatched in the afternoon and they've reported successes on all fronts."

That was... concerning. Probably not all that surprising, though. Antithesis needed biomass. Shit had plenty. "Is there anything in place to notice that before it turns into a clusterfuck beneath our feet?"

"There are systems in place. Or there should be. They were mostly offline, malfunctioning, or missing," Piper said.

"Of course," I grumbled.

"In any case, the surveys should be complete by this time tomorrow."

"Slower than I thought it would be," I said.

"Yes. We're having a difficult time with the hiring process. And the payment structure is complicated by the discovery of those nests."

"How's that?" I asked.

Piper shrugged, then held the door open for me. "Antithesis presence means that the survey work is now high-risk. That means better pay, but it also limits the workers that are certified for danger pay to begin with. I think we're having the surveyors that were meant to continue exploratory work instead look into double-checking previous areas for a more complete layout."

I nodded along. "Thanks. So survey work is all well and good. What about the actual work?"

"That's coming along. But we're running into more complications. Most of them are expected. Some of the infrastructure around the sewage facilities is crumbling and will need repairs. Some of the equipment is sub-par. Some of it is ancient. Then there are some areas that are owned by specific corporate entities."

"Wait, parts of the sewer system are corpo-owned?" I asked.

"Only some segments. But yes."

I shook my head. There was no way having that kind of stuff be the property of a corp was a good thing.

"We ran into some issues there. Here, if I may?" Piper asked.

My augs pinged as I received a file a moment later. Myalis vetted it in a fraction of a second. Opening it, I discovered a rather dry report, some sixty pages long, about one specific two hundred metre long segment of the sewers.

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Fortunately, there was a summary.

Unfortunately, it read like the summary of some unfunny comedy.

The section was run by a numbers corp called D-UCK corp ltd. Yesterday, at around 10am, they were contacted and told that there was a nest in their section of the sewers. At 11am, they denied that.

At 11:30, the Family double-checked, and confirmed it. But then the survey team was chased out by the corpo security who'd been informed that 'something' was happening in their underground section. Not what, just that there was a reason to send security down.

At 11:45, the Family got in touch with their CEO, who lives in Calgary. He said he'd look into it.

At 12:03, a security member was eaten.

At 12:09, the company-wide security level went from green to orange.

At 12:34, the company released a notice that they were going to begin maintenance on the lower levels... in three weeks.

At 1:32, the head of security demanded to know what was going on.

At 2:12, he was informed that nothing was going on.

At 2:13, he said he had the corpse of a member that said otherwise. The HQ said that that wasn't confirmation.

It took until 2:31 for confirmation to arrive, from accounting, because the dead employee's time charts didn't add up on account of him being dead, and dead people don't get overtime pay. This was enough confirmation that HQ raised the warning to red, which finally let security allow the Family's waiting team to step in.

It was, basically, a hot mess of conflicting procedures, misinformation, people shoving their hands over their ears and screaming, and probably more that I couldn't be bothered to read into.

"This kind of shit common?" I asked.

"Yes," was Piper's reply. "It's mostly factored into our estimates on repair times and cost, but this kind of event can sometimes be solved in minutes, and sometimes it'll drag on for days."

Right. I'd never been happier to foist off some work onto someone else. If I had to deal with all of this, a lot more people would be dead. It would probably be bad for the economy, or something.

"Next time you run into something like this, let them know that unless they want me to give the mayoral treatment to their board of directors, they'd better have a damned good reason for preventing us from fixing the city."

Piper blinked, then flushed. "J-just to be clear, you want us to threaten to kill the board of any corporation that interferes with the proceedings?"

"No, I want you to threaten to tell me about it. Let me do the actual, direct threatening," I said. I didn't need the Family using me as a whip to get the corps to move. It was another thing if they politely informed me, and then I went in and started whipping of my own volition.

"Noted," Piper said.

"Cool, cool," I said. "Now, anything else? You didn't go into the actual repairs."

"Those are coming along. The start was a little slow, and we expect to run out of essential materials before the day is over, but we have two teams on supply-acquisition already. We're starting with the areas that are least damaged."

"Not the worst-off parts?" I asked.

"Repairs require that we divert sewage flows. Diverting from an area in grade B, that is, in need of maintenance but not urgently, to an area that's grade F, that is, uh..."

"Fucked?"

"Essentially. Usually it's best to have some areas that are fully functional to divert into. We're fixing those first since the other areas are already in need of nearly full replacements. Mostly this is relying on the suggestions of experts."

I nodded along. "Myalis, can you make sure these experts aren't just fixing stuff for their own benefit first?" I asked.

It seems like everything is actually running according to procedures. I can't find any purposeful malfeasance or diversions of labour for personally-motivated reasons.

That was good enough, I supposed. I couldn't expect perfection here. Just having things underway was a big comfort. We were definitely going to run into more trouble, but it was a start, and if people knew things were going to get better, then it would calm down the likelihood of people rioting.

Piper and I paused before the glass door of a boardroom. Eric was within, as well as a few others. "This is it, Stray Cat," Piper said. "I'm glad I could be of service."

"Yeah. Thanks Piper," I said. "Now, let's get to the boring part."

***