You want to know where I’m coming from? Seems fair, I guess it’s helpful to know a little about each other before shipping out. Anyway, it’s a long story, not really a good one, you best first pour a round of drinks, or two rounds... or three... unless you have something better in mind to take the edge off.
Me? I’m from earth, like most sorry sacks it seems. Grew up on the edge of central free trade zone, fucking waste of good land, well what used to be good land anyway. My family started out like most it seems, never around much, barely scraping by. Ever since I could remember, my dad devoted basically all day, every day, tending to his duties as a sanitation foreman for “West Eden Bio-Vat Nutrition.” That’s right, laugh it up, he was a goddamn trash-man, can you believe that? In this day and age. People still do that shit. I guess they gotta make the undesirables stay busy and distracted somehow. I mean isn’t that pretty much the only thing that keeps universal basic from goes up in flames every damn day?
Anyway, where was I, oh yeah, he spent most a lifetime as a loyal company man. The veritable paragon of a corporate drone. But he was proud to have that job, always stable, work that always needed doing, never impacted much by recessions, depressions, or what have you. Plus, the corporate infighting mostly leaves sanitation alone, nobody wants to upset that apple cart. He said that job was a gift, that there could be so much worse for a man of his skill level. He never saw how it was just sucking the life out of him.
There I go rambling, well to make a long story short, that was all shattered by a few baseless accusations and “corporate aversion” to any hint of unionization. He was sent packing in the bullshit way big corporations do, no severance, last paycheck “re-allocated for termination filing fees... to the employees benefit, of course.” It’s supposed to be illegal to do someone like that isn’t it? But who the hell can fight can fight that in court. That experience broke whatever little was left of him inside. Things happened fast after that and we lost touch. I heard that he just does odd jobs for whoever he can, whenever he can. Supposedly he doesn’t talk about it much. I know the medical bills have to be mounting, the years of backbreaking sanitation work hollowed him out. I often wonder what work he “actually” does now.
Sometimes I think they canned him because of some fucking bean counting CPU’s idea on how save a buck by cutting ties with workers at risk of large medical costs. Makes sense to me, those fuckers get away with murder in the name of corporate efficiency. The very las time I saw him, he was pissing all of his time away at the bottom of a bottle, any bottle he could find. Anyway, I am sure he is still there somewhere, too stubborn to die. Or maybe a corpse recycler vat once bit off more than it could chew if you know what I mean, hard to say.
My mom left him almost immediately after my dad got terminated. Said she couldn’t handle the rumors, the whispers. That they drove her mad. She put on a whole show of “actually beginning to suspect that my dad was a secret union sympathizer.” Total bullshit. I guess that’s what you should expect from a professional fucking liar. I never forgave her for what she did, and I never will. She just ran out one day. Moved in somewhere near corporate housing for middle management types. I get the feeling like this had all been part of a little plan of hers for a while. And the best part, the best part, she had the audacity to try and leverage dads unemployment to get full custody of me, and...and... throw up restraining orders. What did she think, we would just forget the past and start over? kick a man when he is down huh, she can go fuck herself for all I care. I don’t want to talk about her anymore.
I regret it now, but at the time, thank god Koch Processing Consortium doesn’t give a shit about “legal age” restrictions for on adding personnel to their corporate security training program. I just up and disappeared from my so called family as soon as I found my dad passed out drunk next to a court summons for my moms fucking legal battle. He was a husk, and she would never find me. I had a corporation’s anonymity to hide behind, became just another serial number among thousands. Corporations cover their ass so much, they don’t give out shit without a level 4 subpoena. Good finding me now... bitch.
More drinks!
Anyway, I was 13 back then, charged up with anger, not even done with public primary but who cares, corporate track baby! Fucking stupid looking back on it now. KPC-Sec was too perfect for that whole situation. They scooped me right up. You want ‘em young you know, easy to train, easy to mold, minimal preconceived notions. They can build a “Company man” from the ground up that way, that’s how they make you into an empty suit. That’s where fanatics are born. Ha ha.
I tested high in mechanical ability and have good hands, well... I guess now I have good hand.” They started me out as a flight mechanic, trained to work on jet bikes, then K7 shuttles, then pretty much everything else. I moved on to Systems design and hell, 4 years in I had redesigned the whole range of corporate flight training simulators. I was good... no, I was the best flight simulation jockey there has ever been. I dare you to find me any corporate jackass pilot with higher scores than I got during development of those simulators. I DARE YOU!
Eventually one of my managers got tired of poor performance by the simulation training software and got the bright idea to have me educate a few dumbasses on how to run pilot training. My first trial run as an instructor went well, I mean 18% performance boost for new pilots across the board. Corporate HQ wasn’t about to credit some plebe middle manager with an efficiency gain that big. They busted him back to some crap desk job, then legal up his ass with some trumped up gross negligence claims to demand silence and marketed my training program as their doing, just to kiss some board members ass. Then they promoted me into the newly vacant spot. Probably to buy my loyalty... Pretty much worked
Corporations do love their efficiency don’t they. Those shareholders eat that shit up. Anyway, on top of that, they fast tracked me through real flight school, it was easy as hell, my simulators were so good, they knew it would be cake, easy money, fast, efficient. I finally landed on deputy lead piloting instructor for earth based operations. Then there were a few good years of that. Best years of my life. Running corporate pilot training, leading special security details, access to some of the best flight tech you could imagine. Those were the good times, they were going to last forever... but then things really went to shit.
*starts to drunkenly ramble/rant
After that, something happened, some people died, I remember lots of drugs, I signed some legal documents... under duress... while half in a coma. They took my job, my flat, my pension. I was only allowed “proper” “corporate” medical treatment once “corporate” cancelled my “corporate” medical coverage... so, all on my dime of course. drained my savings real quick, and they took it... they took my ship. Course I don’t remember most of this actually happening, just seen the paperwork and was barred from accessing my ships berth. They took my future, for what? Some “allegedly” novel starship-Data interface IP that I “allegedly” refused to share with the company... what a crock of shit. Those goddamn bastards kicked me to the curb, revoked my access, expunged my serial ID, put this thing in my head (taps metal plate) They practically threw these discount bullshit prosthetics at me and left me with THIS FUCKING FACE.
damnit... I shouldn’t have said that... what was in that last drink?
*composes herself, looks around the room,
I meant to say I signed some papers “of my own volition” and left the company “of my own volition.”
*sighs
*mumbles “corporate fucks”
*begins to just stare off into space
Anyway, couldn’t go back to my family for help, so I have been doing contract piloting work ever since. Gotta stay ahead of debts you know? I work for myself and am never going to be interested in permanent corporate work again.
You need anything moved across the system? I can fly anything, anywhere, any time.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Notes:
Owes lots of money to a few mid level loan sharks/criminal organizations.
Never really had a decent enough contract to build savings/buy stuff, just stuck paying down loans.
Desperately wants to upgrade her prosthetics as much as possible.
Intensely pursues improvements to her own survivability primarily focused on toughness and fortitude through any means necessary.
Heavily suspects that a certain previously demoted mid level manager from KPC-SEC orchestrated her “accident” in order to gain favor with the company by seizing “allegedly” proprietary IP via her ship.
Not a good person to have involved in corporate discussions... refuses to “play ball” and speaks bluntly and with contempt to corporate personnel at all times.
Exocortex is piggybacked on another modification which is embedded in her skull. The other mod appeared after the “incident” and does not respond to anything she has tried so far. She made and installed the exocortex to try and figure out what the other mod does, but has been unsuccessful thus far. She suspects that it is a memory blocking device which has to do with the months leading up to her “incident” but it is only a guess. This is information that she will not disclose to anyone unless severely intoxicated. She will take any and all measures to hide this information from contract employers.
A Poem:
My festering life
corporate greed swallowed up
my dreams died screaming