Brave New Worlds

been 7. 2. If Jonathan knew anything, he knew his own scores.
    Simon was changing them.
    "CV, please, full CV on Simon Hasley. "

    Not available.
    File cancelled due to termination of employment

    "Simon Hasley is here until 31st August. His files are not cancelled. "

    Not available.
    File cancelled due to termination of employment

    "Then open the ex-employee file. "

    ???????????????????

    "Action. Restore scores for Dayplan Item One to 7. 2. "

    ACTION NOT AUTHORIZED.

    Jonathan slammed the top of his desk.
    George walked in. To talk about late invoicing. And the bloody machine flipped back to its proactive intervention.
    "It's not my letter," Simon was saying. Jeez, how embarrassing, right in front of other staff.
    "Stop intervention," Jonathan ordered. "Sit down, George. "
    Then Jonathan remembered. What had Simon said? Something about Accounts, that he'd worked in Accounts. Accounts with their big system who did all the monitoring. The really big boys. Simon would have swept up after them, wiped their asses, what does he know about the system?
    George was talking to him, and Jonathan realized he had not heard a word. He was losing this, he was not handling it.
    ". . . it's the same story. We have to wait for extra-contractuals before we know what the job costs, and so we can't bill. " George was smiling his noncommissioned, sleeves-up, man-on-the-shop-floor smile.
    "That's not what the people upstairs think. "
    "Well, with the best will in the world, they're not down here doing the work are they?"
    "They don't have to. George, I'm sorry to pull the rug from under you, but I want to change the agenda for this meeting. "
    George sucked his teeth, scoring points, tut, bad meeting management.
    "You know I would never do this normally, but I've just had an intervention on Simon as you came in. How is he taking it?"
    The shop-floor smile was still there. "Like a prince. He's calm, in fact, you could say he looks quite happy about it, like he has a card up his sleeve. You give him a good severance deal or something?"
    "We can't afford severance deals. This is in confidence. Simon is changing people's performance scores. He's got access to Accounts somehow. The machine can't change them back. "
    "You're joking," said George, his pink face going slack. Then he began to chuckle. "No wonder he looks so pleased. He's changing people's scores. Well, well, I didn't know he had it in him. "
    Managers must never lose their sense of humor. Jonathan managed to find an answering smile. "It's one way of getting your own back. " there was sweat on his forehead.
    "Changing yours, is he?" George's red moustache seemed to glow redder.
    "Screwed both of us. You're in charge of monitoring. " Jonathan's own smile was a bit harder. "So. How could he have done it? How can we stop him?"
    "Beats me. Unless he got hold of the password when he was in Accounts. "
    "You mean the access code. "
    "No. This is different, it really lays open the whole network. I think only the Chairman has it, maybe Head of Accounts. You get hold of that you can change any information you like and then ice it, so it can never be changed. Change it invisibly I mean. "
    "Great for when the Auditors call. "
    "I expect so. "
    "Can you change it on verbal? By mail?"
    "By camel, I imagine. It's only a rumor but I've heard a few funny things. "
    "From Simon?"
    George grinned back at him.
    And then in waltzed Harriet. It was 10:10 after all, and here he was, still in his previous meeting, so his time management score would be fucked, and Harriet would know that, and wouldn't she just love that?
    Harriet loved something. She had gone doo-lally with pleasure. She started to do a dance around Jonathan's desk. "Ring around the rosy, a pocketful of posy, husha, husha, they all fall down. " Harriet roared her hearty, Hooray Henry laugh that Jonathan had not heard in so long. "Did you know that that is a song about the plague?"
    "Someone's caught a cold," said George and his and Harriet's eyes seemed to harpoon each other, and both of them grinned.
    Bad behavior from staff depressed their own scores, but insubordination knocked the stuffing out of their manager's profile. They knew it. They were enjoying this.
    I am fed up with this crap, I am fed up trying to keep people happy. I am not responsible for keeping people happy.
    "Harriet. The stress has gotten to you, "Jonathan said. "Come back when you're more in control. "
    "When you are more in control, you mean. " Harriet was