Caz had vanished to pursue other members of staff, leaving James, Chris and Holly to complete the office section of the tour in peace. At least, she did eventually - Chris was sure he caught a glimpse of her slinking between adjacent office partitions on one or two occasions. The other persocoms in this part of the building were of a similarly energetic nature, lending credence to Holly's earlier comment about them being "too much fun", but they generally wanted nothing from the group beyond a friendly hello or a quick interrogation to see how their day was going. Holly seemed to draw them to her like flies to fruit - her neutral air was exactly the sort of demeanor they seemed to target, as if they were determined to get her to smile. Such attempts failed fantastically on every occasion, proving a constant source of frustration for Holly... and amusement for James.
Now the three of them stood before the inner circumference of the office block, which overlooked the building's inner ring. Chris stared at the scene before him in wonder. Their vantage point on the seventh office floor overlooked the factory below. It was clear that the inner ring had multiple floors, but it looked like they must be fewer in number, and much taller. The massive space inside this uppermost floor was crammed with heavy, polished hi-tech machinery. They formed what appeared to be production lines, many of them squatting over conveyors that ran most of the length of the floor, carrying persocom chassis from one end of the line to the other. A large corridor-like structure bisected the area down the middle, disappearing into the distant curvature of the far wall. Its dark, translucent surface was peppered not with doors but hefty access ports that didn't look like they were for pedestrian use, generally set at waist-height and often opening directly onto the production conveyors. Chris could see large silhouettes behind the dark exterior, shuttling rapidly back and forth along the inside at alarming speed. He observed one as it rocketed up to the end of the channel, briskly depositing something at the final access port before hurtling the length of the factory floor and vanishing into the far wall.
"Okay.. I don't know what I'm looking at down there, but it's fascinating." Chris murmured, resisting the urge to press his face against the glass. Not a whisper of sound came to his ears; indeed, all the commotion below was inaudible behind the thick glass at which they stood.
"The middle of the building is mostly factory space; offices and ancillaries tend to exist in the rings. We'll be down there later," James beamed, clapping Chris on the shoulder. "You'll love it, I promise." His persocom nodded in agreement.
"Yes. But the design is complicated. Let's examine this building in a little more detail before we explore the factory floors." Holly said, motioning for Chris to follow her. She led them into an unoccupied office which couldn't have belonged to anyone, on account of not being stuffed with marketing gear and the sort of strange artefacts this office seemed to collect.
"You're not required to memorise this; it's just to give an impression of how the building comes together." Holly said. Her eyes flashed and the transparent walls flicked to an opaque state, plunging the room into darkness. A moment later the inside wall lit up, a map of the building's interior superimposed on it in isometric relief. The various floors were separated and blown apart so the contents therein could be seen. It was immediately apparent from the diagrammatic representation that the inner areas of the building were indeed mostly production space, but there were examples where this wasn't entirely the case. The inner ground floor contained... something, whatever it was. The first floor seemed to be half factory, with the other split between things like canteens and kitchen space and other facilities Chris couldn't quite discern from the renderings of their contents. Perhaps persocom and building maintenance? The second and third floors were fairly consistently for production, and it seemed lots of office space ringed them in the smaller, more numerous floors on their circumference. Small offices and rooms were also dotted around the very outside of the building in the outer wall of the atrium, which did indeed appear to encircle the entire building as he had suspected, albeit offset from its center such that it was widest at the front entrance and narrowest at the back.
"What's that?" Chris said, pointing to the odd corridor he had seen out on the uppermost factory floor. Now it was drawn on a map he could see it was far bigger than he had assumed, extending not only to the back of the factory but down through most of the other floors except for the ground level. It barely touched the first floor, dropping in at the center from the floor above, to land in the factory that took up half of that level. In the places where it reached the back of the building it continued on to permeate a further set of buildings hanging off the back of the main circle which Chris hadn't even known were there.
"This is the Spine." Holly explained. "Consolidating the factory floors inside the centre of the building was great for productivity, but it bottlenecked the way goods and materials could enter and leave the structure. The Spine fixes that problem; it's our high-speed goods and materials network for the factory floors and our other facilities, such as these," she pointed to the more traditional square-shaped structures that grew out of the rear of the main circular building. "Stores for finished goods and raw materials are situated inside here."
"You said the Spine fixed the problem... What did you use before the spine?" Chris asked. Holly smiled, and the diagram changed, four of the office floors and all but the lowest of the large inner factory floors disappearing.
"A good question. We currently have seven outer-ring floors, and four in the inner circle. But historically this building comprised just a couple of outer floors, and only one in the inner circle, for the original factory. Materials would traditionally enter the factory through an underground tunnel and the production process would take place in an anti-clockwise circle, such that when it was finished, it was back at the tunnel entrance and ready to be moved to storage. This maximised floor space while allowing goods to enter and leave the factory rapidly."
She indicated the area on the map where the old tunnel used to be, running from the side of the original factory floor to intersect the right-hands stores building behind it.
"As the business grew further, production capacity had to increase. This necessitated extra floors, which required goods to be moved between them. It also meant the quantity of goods handled would be increasing, and so a better means to feed the production lines and clear out finished product was needed. LOKI was built on the original factory floor, and the subsequent floors above were added to replace it and extend capacity. The Spine was implemented and penetrates all the upper factory floors, functioning as an automated goods and materials handling system."
Chris looked at the inner ground floor. So that was LOKI? He didn't have time to consider this, though; they were still explaining the Spine.
"It's an extraordinarily efficient design, in terms of output for square footage of floor space" James explained, pointing at the guts of the building. "Everything starts at the bottom and works upwards. Look at end of the Spine on floors two and three. See how it doesn't quite reach the far wall? Raw materials and unfinished products from the lower floors go here. They are unloaded onto the production lines, and proceed down the sides of the floor. When they get to the other end they are either ready for the next floor, or finished, and the Spine collects them again, taking them where they need to go. The shuttles can move up and down, and along the structure extremely quickly without any people to get in the way."
Chris studied the diagram in fascination. It was elaborate, yet elegant. He wondered how the Spine was automated and how that integrated with what the factories were doing at any one time. LOKI, maybe?
"Look at him, Holly!" James laughed, clapping Chris gently on the back. "We're blowing his mind right now."
"This place is incredible," Chris mumbled. How on Earth did he manage to land a job here, again?
"Yeah it is! There's no point looking at it on a map all day, though. Come on, let's go check it out." James pulled open the door, and the glass flashed into transparency again as they filed out into the office.
"We will start at the first floor, which you'll recall from the map contains the smallest factory: that's Neurolectrics. From there, we move up to Mechatronics and Engineering and finally Chassis Completion, which you just saw through the office windows." Holly said, as she led the way towards a set of opaque partitions that Chris realised were a little different to the others as they drew closer. They were in fact a set of lifts for traversing the floors, subtly made to blend in with the rest of the office space.
"Chas-comp hate that the other two factories have more impressive names." James chuckled as they walked inside. Chris spotted Caz a little way down the office aisle hurrying cheerfully towards them, but Holly's eyes flashed and the lift closed its doors immediately, beginning its silent descent. She glanced guiltily at Chris, shaking her head as if to indicate she couldn't stand another minute with the pink-haired persocom.
James didn't notice, absorbed as he was in his musings. "Hmm... As I recall, I think they were petitioning to have it renamed to something else, but what could you possibly call it? Chassis Completion is pretty spot on, really."
"What kind of stuff do they do there?" Chris asked.
"Primarily, it's the final touches to the assembled persocom units from lower levels. Accessory modules are installed, if necessary, but their most important task is the skin. Skin needs to be added to the chassis as a final step, at least in our production process; it's different for some other manufacturers, I understand. It's not very glamorous if you ask me, but it's obviously a crucial part of the process!" James laughed at that, but Chris was busy thinking.
"How about… Dermal-tech? D-Tech, for short? Or Integumentation? Those both sound pretty swanky."
Holly's eyes flashed. She smiled. "LOKI finds them interesting. They will be added to the list of suggestions."
James clapped Chris on the shoulder again. "Hah! You're going places, mate! LOKI likes forward-thinkers."
"Oh - I didn't mean to interfere-!" Chris began to apologise before Holly interrupted.
"You're not interfering, you're contributing. That's encouraged. NEIS operate an agile bureaucratic environment here, and LOKI mediates a lot of the decision-making processes; everything from what the restaurant menus should offer this week, to what materials to order in anticipation of demand for the next quarter, to big departmental and inter-departmental decisions that affect the structure or functionality of the company. Meetings are poor for productivity, so we keep them to a minimum; if the employees can collaborate on ideas dynamically throughout their workday, without interrupting themselves to sit in a room for an hour of discussion, it benefits everyone."
"That's for later though, let's concentrate on the now." James said, as the lift chimed their arrival to the first floor. The lift opened into a corridor covered in doors that must lead to places further around the ring. They walked out and turned right, heading towards the middle of the building instead. The corridor soon ended at the side of another which followed the curvature of the inner wall, and the windows ahead revealed a very different factory environment to the one Chris had seen from the seventh floor.
Chris walked up to the window to stare. There were no enormous sweeping glass partitions here; the windows were small, built into thick walls with large seals around their circumferences. The floor inside was smaller than upstairs, its semicircular shape encompassing 'only' half the enormous space within the inner wall. It looked like the innermost portion of the factory was divided into another smaller crescent by floor-to-ceiling walls. Through the little windows therein, he could just glimpse the tail-end of the Spine, dropping into the space through the roof. It looked very different too, its few access ports much smaller. Or so it seemed; it was hard to see from that far across the factory floor, especially with all the equipment in the way.
That drew his attention to the equipment. Chris had thought it was clean enough upstairs, but everything in here looked pristine, and a lot of the machinery was not bulky, but instead delicate. Precision instrumentation he did not recognise were arranged neatly on the work surfaces, and the people within walked around in strange coveralls with masks over their face and caps covering their hair. Chris could see the floor was still clearly arranged as a production line. Product was flowing slowly along the curvature of the floor, although it seemed to slide on rail-mounted jigs directly from machine to machine instead of by conveyor, and where it did leave a rail, it was carried exclusively by persocoms operating elaborate-looking carts which loaded and unloaded the jigs like cartridges.
"Why stand out here? Let's get inside!" James said, shepherding Chris along the corridor to what appeared to be a large airlock and changing room. They walked inside the chamber, which contained racks of the same clothes people were wearing inside.
"Put these on," James said, offering him a set that looked to match his size. Holly was already pulling a coverall up and over her shoulders. "They go over what you're wearing. Pop these straps over your shoes and tuck the end into your socks as well, please. And please don't touch anything once we're inside, okay? Antistatic and anti-particulate precautions, you see. We're dealing with extremely sensitive electronics in here."
Chris made a bit of a mess of it; his footwear was larger than the others' and the coveralls caught on them as he tried to pull them on. When he was finally zipped up he felt something tug at the cap on his head, pulling it a little lower at the back. He turned to see Holly looking him up and down, satisfied he was ready.
"This way please," her voice was a little muffled from the face mask. Her eyes flashed as she approached the airlock door; it hissed open before they walked inside, and clunked shut behind them. James tapped Chris on the arm to get his attention.
"Now don't be alarmed by this step, but there's going to be a-FUCK" James shouted as a strong gust of wind hit them in the top of the head and Chris jumped, looking around for the source. A moment later it was gone, and James sighed, ignoring Holly's intensely disapproving look.
"Bloody hell, it gets me every time... ah, sorry, naughty language..." he muttered, as the inner doors to Neurolectrics slid open. Immediately the noise of the floor reached Chris's ears. It wasn't the aggressive grumbling of heavy machinery, so much as the whine of servomotors, high-voltage electronics and air-moving devices.
"Right, then. As you might have been able to guess, this is where we build the neurologic hardware for every persocom we manufacture." James gestured around the factory floor, raising his voice over the noise. "Tell me, how much do you know about semiconductor fabrication?"
"Just a little," Chris admitted. The information wasn't all that easy to find on the web, but he had read about it on occasion. The processes were fascinating. "I've heard of the basic concepts, I'd say."
"Good enough! Good enough," James clapped his hands together, rubbing them cheerfully. A passing persocom glanced unhappily at his gesture; it was a surefire way to spread particulates into the pristine air. "Well, I can tell you we don't manufacture our own source crystal - they're shipped in - but we do fab our own wafers in-house. That actually happens in there," James pointed to the thick wall further towards the center of the floor. "All the photolithographic processes, etching, doping and dicing happen in there. But we can't go inside without proper environment suits and clearance. Maybe we'll gawp through the windows a bit later. Out here, we're packaging the finished dies and assembling the core. The 'brain' if you will. This eventually makes its way to Mechatronics for installation in the chassis, but it has to take a trip in the Spine to Quality and escape their clutches first, and that also takes days..."
Chris stepped aside as a procession of persocoms made their way to the inner airlock, only to move again to make way for another pushing a cartridge cart for the rail system. "There's so much going on here!"
"There is, but it might interest you to know that this is by far the slowest floor of the whole factory, in terms of turnaround. It takes a long time for the semiconductors to be completed, which hurts when there are defects that render some of them useless. Our current process is down to about 45 days. That's really very good, all things considered."
"What's the yield rate?" Chris asked, searching his limited semifab knowledge for something relevant to say. James chuckled and shook his head.
"Don't ask! But we're always looking to improve."
Holly chimed in as they began to walk along the factory floor, following the flow of the various products on the lines. "Development of Neurologic technology is a continuous endeavour. This department works very closely with R&D in this regard - one of their departments is stationed a little further round the corridor on this floor."
James nodded in agreement. "Yes, R&D exist in some capacity on most floors, as it happens. They need to keep their fingers in every pie to be truly effective. Must be a bit disconcerting, not really having an official department designation of your own. But hey, if it ever bothers them, nobody seems to complain."
"Will we get to see my department?" Chris asked, his voice faltering as he watched one of the mysterious cartridges disappear into the side of a large machine beside them. Through the viewing window he could see the cartridge break open, revealing delicate electronics inside. The machine selected a tiny board, lifting it away and locking it beneath what appeared to be an array of disturbingly long needles on a set of articulated arms. Those arms flew into action, their needles flicking up and down and across the board, moving so fast they were a blur. Chris realised they were electrical probes testing for continuity and signalling, each tip delicately making contact with a microscopic pad or test point, reading the result, and moving on. A display on the front of the machine showed the board schematic, flickering rapidly between the thousands of circuit paths on the board as it cycled through them.
"No, that'll be tomorrow. Just factories and LOKI for today! That'll be more than enough, believe me!" James laughed, gently steering Chris away from the machine. "Come on, we've got a lot to get through before lunch!"
The tour of the remaining factory floors had been fascinating. Each factory seemed to have its own distinct layout and working methodology best tailored to its needs, making for a highly varied environment in each. Chris had seen everything from the neurologic cores being wire-bonded into their housings to finished persocoms rolling off the line and into the Spine. It was both mentally exhausting and exhilarating, and he was buzzing with enthusiasm when they left the inner ring for the atrium once more.
"That was crazy," Chris said, drawing smiles from Holly and James as they walked the circumference of the enormous atrium on the way to the restaurant. "I heard it was complicated but I can't believe the level of assembly that happens here! It's just brilliant."
"Well, it's easier to control these processes when they're together under one roof. We've certainly got the room for it," James said proudly.
"It seems a bit more roomy than that! This place is huge! It's bigger than I thought possible."
James nodded. "Yep, easily a few million square feet if I remember, and this is only part of the overall complex - there are other buildings!"
They'd exited around the far right-hand side of the inner circle, on the ground level; as the map they'd reviewed earlier indicated, the atrium's width was narrow here, its radius off-centre compared to the inner ring. Even so, in person it still felt very spacious, and James' voice bounced off the far wall as they travelled across the open floor.
"I wouldn't say they were nearly as essential as this one, but they're there nonetheless. What LOKI didn't tell you in the little intro presentation was NEIS aggressively pursued the rights to the land around here. It was supposed to be for a business park but NEIS managed to gobble up most of the development. LOKI generally leaves out that little detail."
They came upon a set of doors in the inner wall that looked a little different to the regular design. They were bigger than usual, and looked older, made of metal instead of the usual elegant glass and wood affair. Chris slowed down to look, but the doors were solid and certainly looked like they wouldn't open if he tried. "What's in there?"
For the first time that day, Chris thought he saw James' cheery demeanour fade away. "Ah… yes. The Closed Wing, we call it. Bit of a sore spot, really. It used to be shared space between R&D and some of the product realisation groups. It was closed in the restructuring that saw the factory floors extended, and the two departments were consolidated and moved inside the inner circle. A lot of people lost their jobs; needlessly, most agree... it wasn't a good time for NEIS. LOKI was not happy when it came online and learned of what had taken place before it was installed - R&D is actually a large part of its business strategy, so it's kind of ironic how they take up so much room and need so many staff now."
"Why's it sealed, though?" Chris pressed, and James shrugged.
"We're not using it. Frankly I'm surprised it wasn't re-occupied immediately by another department as soon as it was emptied. I guess it's a little out of the way round here by the side of the complex, and the departments that could use its facilities are better served by their current lodgings. It would take a lot of work to make it suitable for other departments... Hmm, now I think about it, about a year ago a there were rumours we might open it up as some sort of museum or tourist piece, but they've died out since. It used to contain a lot of the hardware necessary for working on our products because the staff would need to iterate on designs faster than the original single-floor factory could support. That would certainly have made a good showcase for how our products were made. But, hey… it's just how it is, I guess. LOKI will think of a use for it eventually, I'm sure."
Their walk carried them further around the circumference, back across the front of the building where the reception island floated inside its sea of empty space. After a quick lift ride to the first floor they kept going, heading around the other side now, and the noise of chatter and bustle slowly began to build, as did the number of colleagues who joined them on their journey. The noise was clearly coming from the restaurant entrance: a wide, doorless opening which delved into the inner circle.
James had explained the restaurant was a hectic affair even outside normal lunch hours, but to see it at midday made that statement somewhat unbelievable. By the time they drew close it looked like the entire company was flocking in its direction all at once. The trio poured themselves through the entrance along with the incoming crowd. The long entrance corridor inside curved around to the left, seamlessly melding with the beginning of the actual restaurant and expanding wider and wider still. The left wall ended abruptly where the actual seating began, thereafter revealing a wide additional area behind it filled with yet more tables, chairs and hungry people. A set of wide ramps gently inclined down there, connecting the large lower eating space with the upper deck. The right-hand wall, which continued on its rounded path, became a huge counter that connected the restaurant to the kitchens on the other side. Stood overlooking the scene, Chris could see the restaurant formed something of an oval inside the floor in which it was built - almost as if someone cut two thirds out of the middle of a circle and stuck the end pieces together. He knew Neurolectrics and their R&D division took up an exact 50% of this level in the inner circle, but what lay on the other side of the restaurant wall? He tried to recall the floor diagrams from earlier... maintenance, maybe? And the kitchens and storage?
"What would you fancy?" Holly asked, taking Chris by surprise. He quickly scanned the menus, displayed on monitors on the wall.
"Oh... anything with chips would be great. That chicken burger sounds good, maybe I'll have that!" he said, fumbling for his wallet.
"One chicken burger and chips..." Holly's eyes flashed as she nodded in acknowledgement.
"You won't need the wallet." James told Chris, patting his hand away from his pocket. "It's all covered by the company. Very generous, eh! It's the least they could do really… besides giving us some of the most interesting jobs in the world and paying us for it, that is!" He chuckled, rubbing his hands together with glee.
"And a drink?" Holly asked, looking at Chris expectantly.
"Did you... are you placing an order?" Chris asked the persocom. She nodded again.
"Of course. It's much quicker than you ordering at the counter."
"Wow. Oh, uh... tea, would be great, thanks."
"Same for me please, Holly." James chuckled. "Come on Chris, did you really think a persocom manufacturing company wouldn't take advantage of persocom abilities at every opportunity? Why would we order lunch any other way?"
He pointed to the line they were joining. It moved very quickly for a lunchtime queue.
"Here, take a look. Have you noticed how the queue is mostly persocoms? They queue a lot more civilly than humans do, and they can move more dextrously in tight proximity to each other. Watch."
Chris could see that the persocoms ahead in the queue were hardly stopping when they reached the counters. Instead, persocoms on the other side walked straight up alongside specific units with their orders, wordlessly handing them over without slowing before veering away and back into the heart of the kitchens. These orders - trays with plates, or bags to go, drinks and all - were deftly accepted and carried away without missing a beat. The line only really stalled when a human in the queue reached the counter.
"Some people like to eat at their desks and will send their persocom down for their grub, and others just can't be arsed to stand in line. Either way, it's much more efficient to keep human involvement to a minimum here. The same is true for several areas of the company, actually, but no truer than here!"
By now they had reached the counters. Sure enough, they stalled the line as they stopped to accept their trays, thanking the kitchen persocoms who handed them over much more carefully than they did to their own kind. Chris was sure that kind of caution was unnecessary.
"I tried it," James said to Chris, reading his mind. "Did work a couple of times, but then I managed to throw a tray all over the floor and look stupid in front of half the company. It's better to slow down and pick them up like we're supposed to." He chuckled, scanning the restaurant in front of them before leading their little procession across the dining floor and down the ramps to the lower deck. "Let's try the corner. I like the corner!" Sure enough, there were a few sparsely-populated tables tucked into the corner where the curved outer restaurant wall came back around to meet the inside wall of the entrance corridor.
James made a beeline for a table occupied by an attractive young woman in a NEIS company polo shirt. Long, straightened brown hair framed a face with cute features that scowled the moment James drew near. She gave him the finger as he and the others were taking their seats.
"Fuck off, you!" she said, unable to keep the scowl in place and snorting inelegantly into her food. James grinned as he dropped his tray on the table opposite her. Apparently they knew each other well.
"Sooo, I see-"
"No! Shh! Don't you even start." Her voice wavered as she fought the urge to laugh.
"- I see the Alphabet looked well this morning." James finished, wearing a charming smile.
"No! Bad. Shut up." she said, directing an amused glare at him before fixing large hazel eyes upon Chris, who now sat beside her. "Hello stranger, it's nice to meet you. Don't mind James, he's a bloody wind-up merchant. Name's Sarah Brookeledge."
"Chris Barker, I just joined." Chris said, smiling and offering his hand.
Sarah smiled back as she shook it. "Oh I can tell, nobody hangs around with that bloody layabout if they have the choice!" she flicked a pea from her plate and it rocketed across the table, bouncing off James' nose.
"Disgusting table manners. Just appalling." James muttered, pretending to be offended as he took an unflatteringly large bite out of his burger. Holly regarded Sarah with disdain, but stopped when James subtly touched her arm. Chris might have pondered the rich array of relationship dynamics at play were it not for the food he was about to demolish being so distracting. He couldn't quite figure out how a burger that big was supposed to find its way inside his face... Why were they always so tall?
"So what are you in for?" Sarah said, her attention still on Chris.
"Software dev," he replied, still eyeing the burger suspiciously. Sarah's expression brightened.
"Ah, one of us! Welcome! Oh, we'll see each other again real soon, then. I'm in S-Dev too! We do all sorts of crazy things over there, it's a total playground. Right now I'm working on a next-gen behavioural matrix project and it is going to be the most awesome thing ever, you just wait and see."
"Actually he already has," James chuckled, turning to Chris. "Remember the Alphabet? They're the fruits of Sarah's labour. It's going awfully well, I must say. Awfully well."
"I'm serious James, you leave my babies alone, we're trying something very different here!" Sarah admonished him, pointing her fork across the table with one hand while the other hovered by her plate. She seemed tempted to flick more food in his direction, but the look on Holly's face might have changed her mind.
"What do you know about Emotional Software Cortexes?" Sarah said, switching back to Chris in an instant. Chris blinked as he tried to catch up with the question.
"Oh.. uh, not a lot really, first I heard of it was today. A new type of behavioural matrix?"
That response earned him a derisive snort. "Pfft! Hah! Hahaha! Oh, of course... you heard this from James didn't you?" Sarah glowered across the table, but her playful look was deflected by an impish grin, so she continued. "Well that's not doing it justice at all. An ESC is a complete rethink on the way a behavioural matrix functions. One replaces the other, but they're barely comparable. It'll mean more realistic persocoms than ever before." Holly gazed at Sarah with a blank expression, but the woman avoided meeting her eyes, fixing them on Chris as she spoke. "It'll mean the line between artificial and genuine intelligence becomes even blurrier than it already is."
"Behavioural matrices are pretty good already, Sarah. They're certainly much closer to human-analogue than you've managed to achieve so far!" James teased. Holly glanced at him, her face unreadable, and he smiled disarmingly back.
Sarah sighed, chewing thoughtfully. "Yeah… yeah, I know. But I hope to build a fully functioning one someday. Someday soon. We'll do it… we have to. NEIS will be left behind if the team doesn't come up with our own ESC. You should see the buggers from KESS gloating about theirs on PSoc. 'First in the UK', blah blah blah. Arrogant gits. Someone should remind them they're still a year behind the likes of Japan or Korea."
"Persocom Society," James said, explaining PSoc before Chris could ask its meaning. "It's an online forum for developers which used to be about passion for the technology. Now it's about bragging and willy-measuring, thanks in no small part to troublemakers like Sarah here."
"Please," Sarah sniffed indifferently, "Don't lump me in with those super-intelligent idiots. I read their self-centred drivel, that's all. Besides we're gonna crack it too, mark my words." She paused to snarf down a forkful of shepherd's pie, then switched subjects again, directing her attention back to Chris. "So where've you been today then? What've you done? Come on, spill the beans!"
"Oh, uh, the offices and factories so far." Chris said simply. Apparently that answer was insufficient. Sarah blinked at the reply and laughed. "Wow, he's fitting right in, James. Did you hear that? Such a detailed and enthusiastic description of his day!"
"Hey, I can talk your ears off if you like, I just figured you knew all the details already," Chris grinned, and Sarah raised her eyebrows, turning to her colleague.
"Oooh, I stand corrected, he was in fact fascinated. Truly, this is a testament to the quality of your tour-guide skills." Sarah chuckled.
"Hmm… I should do this full time, shouldn't I?" James mused, rubbing his chin in thought.
"Now that raises a great question: what exactly do you do around here? Nobody I talk to seems to know!" Sarah smirked victoriously over her plate, but James weathered the insult effortlessly.
"I'm actually the oxygen tester." he said matter-of-factly. "If I collapse, head for the nearest window!" The humans laughed at their banter, but Holly didn't join in.
"Oh come on Holly, we're only playing." Sarah said as she noticed the persocom's demeanour.
"James has an important job." Holly said reproachfully, looking intently at Sarah. "It is erroneous to suggest otherwise."
"So defensive!" Sarah gasped in amusement, "We know who wears the pants between the two of you, don't we?"
"Holly…" James smiled wearily, sighing as if he'd repeated these words many times, "People are allowed to have fun at each other's expense, okay? It's perfectly harmless."
"But in this case it devalues your contribution to the company." Holly stated, before turning to Sarah, "And please don't make such assertions about James and I. That is inappropriate." she sounded a little annoyed, but her expression was still neutral.
"But you two are adorable together," Sarah wistfully clasped her hands and held them to her heart. "So cute!"
"We work effectively as a team." Holly said bluntly. Chris glanced at James, unsure whether to be amused or bemused, but the stocky man was momentarily occupied with his burger.
"Work effectively? Aww... I'll bet you do! Like two perfect peas in a busy little pod." Sarah spoke as if she found this endearing, but there was something calculating about the way she was looking at the persocom.
"That's hardly an accurate description." Holly retorted, her face still perfectly composed.
"Isn't it? How would you put it?" Sarah pressed, leaning forward. She seemed very interested in what Holly would say next.
"I would say we are productive together; a much more concise evaluation of our pairing that isn't tainted by your romantic hyperbole." the persocom replied, emphasising the last few words. The conversation was beginning to make Chris feel uncomfortable, but James laughing into his burger eased the sensation somewhat. The man nodded to himself, as if satisfied with the calibre of Holly's response.
The same could not be said for Sarah. "That's cold, Holly. Won't you at least admit you look good together? You know that, don't you?" she said reproachfully. Holly remained silent, at that. "Come on, you're the perfect duo! Ooo, what if we used you two for stock photography for the our short-form catalogues! Have you talked to the girls in marketing? How about that lovely persocom, oh, what's her name… Caz, is it?"
"I don't think that's a good idea."
Sarah waved Holly's words away dismissively. "Nonsense! You get on really well with her, right? I'm sure she'd be only too happy to help, when I get back to the office I'll get Tilda to send her a message-"
"Can we move the conversation on to something else?" Holly said, perhaps a little louder than usual. Sarah's eyes were locked on her face, studying the persocom's expression. Chris looked for himself - Holly's expression still seemed quite neutral, to him. What was going on?
James finally lowered his burger. "Right, that's enough! Leave her alone." He spoke sternly. Sarah shrugged, leaning back in her chair and wearing a sly smile. "You've had your fun. You don't anger the Holly. Never anger the Holly."
"Grow up, James." Holly grated. Now the annoyance was visible on her face. It appeared he was the real weak spot in her armour. She glared daggers at him, and Sarah regarded the two of them with interest.
"Yes, Holly. At once, Holly!" James saluted, earning himself another scowl, before sitting up and wolfing down the rest of his food. "Mmn. Chris, are you nearly done? I think we should go and see LOKI for reasons that have nothing at all to do with ending this conversation. See you, Sarah."
Holly and Sarah both gave him a flat look, but he was already getting up from the table and didn't notice. Sarah patted Chris on the arm as he stood, mouthing something that might have been "see you later!" or "he's an idiot!" before turning back to her meal.
Chris and James collected their trays and deposited them on one of the various collection racks that dotted the restaurant floor. Holly took the lead out of the restaurant, and James breathed a quiet sigh of relief as they walked away from the tables.
"Phew! Okay, off to LOKI we go. Should've known not to tease Sarah about the Alphabet. She always gets me back double. Winding up Holly like that… Should've known, should've known. Now Holly will be grumpy for the rest of the day."
"I will not!" Holly said, in a manner which sounded rather unconvincing. It seemed Sarah had struck a nerve. Maybe a few. Chris couldn't resist asking what that interaction had been about. "Why are Sarah and Holly so-"
"Incompatible?" James laughed, "It's strange to say, but Sarah's actually fascinated by Holly. Her behavioural matrix isn't quite 'standard-issue' you see. There were once a couple of guys in S-Dev who wanted to experiment with the way a behavioural matrix interacts with the learning capabilities of the neurologic platform. Holly's matrix is the result. Those guys have since left the company - for KESS, would you believe… and guess what they're working on! Yep. They're posting on PSoc about their progress on ESCs. Unsurprisingly, Sarah is convinced Holly's software will help her figure out the ESC puzzle, so she pokes and pushes her to see how she reacts to different stimuli."
"I'm an experiment to her? You never told me that!" Holly was incredulous, but James just nodded cheerily as he continued.
"Oh, certainly, but you're more than that, my dear. Sarah genuinely feels your involvement would be an important step in the right direction for her end goals. You know for a long time now she's wanted me to put you in the ESC project!"
"Sarah wants me to join the project? Are you going to let that happen?" Holly seemed visibly appalled at the notion, but James put a reassuring hand on her shoulder, and his response brought a small smile to her lips.
"Holly my dear, I told her never in a million years!"