Chapter One

          I had spent most of my working life as a drone. A well-educated, high performance drone, to be sure, but a member of the hive nonetheless. My prime directive had always been to blend in, to participate, to conform. This required a high level of attention to the details of others. The needs of others was my call to action.

            Nothing was impossible. For a dedicated programmer in the state’s Federated Alliance for Increased Learning—a monolithic disturbance on the genitalia of corporate indifference—a request was nothing short of an order, failure not an option. The User’s need was my personal challenge.

            Programmers can do anything.

            Any task can be automated.

            How things changed that fine spring day.

            Let me start at the beginning.

            Mr. Randolph walked into my cubicle, my ten by ten grey enclosure, in much the same fashion as on any other day. He assumed the official State Worker position, leaning against my pretend office wall, right arm bent rigidly at a ninety-degree angle, coffee cup suspended at cooling distance.

            “How’s it going?” he asked, the familiar routine now part of his genome.

            My answer should have been something like “Great” or “Okay.”

            Instead I said, “Can you be more specific?”

            It was unexpected.

            As in not the anticipated response. Sort of like the blue screen of death, only not quite as dramatic. Windows may be the most popular operating system, but it’s not the most popular operating system.

            If you know what I mean.

            Mr. Randolph was perplexed at my answer, which was really a question.

            Wrapped up in an attitude.

            “Well,” he said.

            And that was it. I had deviated, and his internal behavioral program lacked the flexibility to adapt. His face contorted mildly as he hesitated, started to say something else, then awkwardly retreated from my cubicle. I sat staring at the place he had vacated, admittedly somewhat bewildered.

            I was puzzled at his reaction, a little. But I was more intrigued at my own response to his initial query. I had answered his question with a question, and a pretty esoteric one at that.

            My own behavior had departed from the norm.

            Why?

            I know now that it was the beginning. The process of awakening had begun, even then, but I was still too numb to realize it. Years of toiling in the obscurity of Kyuboria inexorably dulls the patina of enthusiasm. A shining beacon of zeal is ground into a nub of apathy, which prevails for a long time, perhaps until retirement.

            At which time it festers until overtaken by death.

            The cube dweller becomes not entirely indifferent, but rather dronish, working regularly and endlessly to advance the cause of receiving a paycheck.

            It’s not what you’d call a noble pursuit, but it is a pursuit.

            Dogs chase their tails.

            This, too, is a pursuit.

            After many years they still chase their tails, only more slowly, and with the knowledge that they will never catch their tails.

            It’s what they do.

            In rare cases—very rare cases—a different course is followed. How it happens, or what triggers it, is not known.

            Cannot be known.

            It is the mystery of Kyuboria.

            Somehow, some way, the slumber ends.

            There is an emergence, the chrysalis of conformity left behind. As the new creature clears the mucous of rebirth from its infant eyes, the world takes shape anew.

            This was me.

            Then my phone rang.

            “Uh, yeah?” I’m still looking at my empty cubicle door.

            The gateway to Kyuboria.

            The interior space of my cubicle.

            The collective of all interior cubicle space.

            The voice on the phone is female, not quite screeching, but not calm, either. In a strange way it reminds me of that guy in England.

            You know—I think he was from Dover. Anyway, for six months someone is stalking him, sort of. He’s getting tons of email, and he keeps responding because whoever is sending them seems to know all kinds of really personal stuff about him.

            Stuff only he himself would know.

            Like why he broke up with his first girlfriend.

            How he once secretly made his little sister eat a worm by putting it in her spaghetti.

            Certain personal hygiene issues that he never mentioned to anyone.

            We all have them.

            Turns out he had a split personality, and he was emailing himself with one identity, and responding with the other.

            Pretty bizarre. I think they ended up paying him overtime.

            “Is the system down?” yodels the semi-hysterical woman. In self-defense I hold the receiver away from my ear. She always shouts on the phone. In person her volume is normal, but for some reason on the phone she becomes Blaring Bertha, Mistress of the Shrill. Holding the phone a constant six inches from my ear is all I can do.

            “No. I don’t think so. I don’t know. Why?”

            “I can’t get in the system. Is it down? When will it be back up?”

            The lady on the phone is a legend. She’s been with our organization for over ten years, and has worked for virtually every department. Not that she’s popular. Everyone gets rid of her as soon as they can. She has a history of issues. We all have issues, and hers are no worse than others.

            Doesn’t matter.

            The issues are just an excuse.

            One time she fell asleep in her car during lunch, and didn’t return until someone woke her up.

            Three hours later.

            She claimed she just dozed off.

            The blanket and pillow were a tad difficult to explain.

            Like many others she’s an expert at computer solitaire–what you might call Virtual State Work. Her solitary skill improves steadily, while the travel vouchers sit untouched next to the King of Hearts.

            You might call it a window of opportunity.

            She makes the rounds, working for a few months here, a year there. Transfers are a simple enough matter when you work for the State. If you possess no critical skills, they can always find a place for you. Fair is fair, and if you’re incompetent, no one department should have to tolerate you forever.

            Just move along. There’s nothing here to see.

            I quickly look at my monitor and bang a few keys. “System’s up. What happens when you try to log in?”

            This is where I make my first mistake. As a drone my actions are above reproach, but that doesn’t make them right. Doesn’t make them wrong, either. It just makes them unassailable.

            I could have passed this request along to someone else.

            “It won’t let me past the box thingy,” she says.

            Although I’m in the throes of personal change, I haven’t yet completely lost my desire to serve. I guess that’s why I try to help, even though my heart’s not really in it.

            That special tingly feeling is losing its effervescence.

            Or maybe it’s just gas.

            Running out.

            “Is it the main system login box, or the Windows login?”

            “It just won’t let me in. I tried twice. Does my hard drive have to be reformatted?”

            I’m forced to smile. Why? Who knows? I guess I’m still blissfully dronish. It amuses me how users will pick up little scraps of information and use them to impress tech people.

            Try to, anyway. “No, I think your hard drive is fine. It’s probably your Windows log in. Have you changed your password recently?”

            She hesitates. “Um, no. Yes, a couple days ago.”

            “Okay. You need to use the new password.”

            Passwords can be set to never be changed, and to never expire, and for certain users I wish this would be done. Maybe for all of them. I’ve become an advocate of Open Systems. To technoids this means a kind of programming universality. That’s not what I mean. What I’m talking about is total freedom of information, or TFI. If all the information in an enterprise were freely available to anyone, we wouldn’t need passwords or security. What do we have to hide? God knows everything, anyway.

            “I did,” she says. “Wait a minute. It’s working now. You did something, didn’t you?”

            “No,” I reply, with little more than residual courtesy. I can feel myself disengaging further with each passing second. “Just remember to use your new password.” My voice trails off in a quiescent gurgle of disinterest.

            “I did.”

            “Anything else?”

            “No. Stupid system…”

            Soon I will find myself agreeing with her entirely.

Chapter Six

            “That’s a good look for you,” says Lyle. He doesn’t miss a beat, although I can tell he’s struggling to not gaze lower than my neck as I stand before his desk.

            “It’s okay. You can look.” I know he won’t. I don’t want him to, of course.

            His eyes flick downward once, quickly.

            He just had to make sure.

            “I wish I hadn’t done that,” he says.

            “No biggie.”

            “No kidding,” replies Lyle, smirking. “So are you going to tell me what the hell you’re doing in my office? Naked?”

            “I’m on my way to the main office area. I just finished undressing in the men’s room.”

            “Where’d you leave your clothes?”

            “Right here, outside your office. On the floor.” I point downward and to my right.

            “And you are naked because…?”

            “I’m going streaking. I thought a little performance in front of my fellow Alliance employees would make a strong negative statement about my character.”

            “It also might land you in jail. The authorities might call it indecent exposure.”

            “There won’t be time for them to get here, even if someone does call them. I figure five minutes, tops, and then I’ll dash back and get dressed.”

            “You gonna do something about the lint?” asks Lyle.

            This throws me. “What do you mean?”

            He nods towards my navel. “Looks like you’re packing quite a wad.”

            I look at my abdomen. Sure enough an embarrassing clump of whitish-grey fluff is hanging from my innie. I carefully dislodge it and let it fall to the floor. “Thanks, man. That might have been a distraction.”

            “Away with you, then. But don’t ever come into my office naked again.”

            I bow my way out of his domain, and begin my jaunt through the main cubicle area.

***

Kyuboria - Excerpts