2

“We regret to inform you...” was the generic phrase which started the message. Aiden hated that phrase, whatever he was about to be informed, the company probably didn’t regret to tell him. Aiden hoped that people were more direct with each other. It’s a tough world, and mutual honestly would make life much easier for everyone. Aiden continued to read the message, and was rather surprised, and angered, to find out that The Curator had just suggested replacing 75% of security personnel at Bureogis, and that by the end of the week he would be needing to find a new job. However, what infuriated Aiden even more was that he was informed that he would be working for one more week, else his department wouldn’t be giving him his paycheck.

Aiden sighed. He never liked his job, but it was all he had. It was dangerous, but it did give him purpose. Ever since The Curator decided to cut the police a few years back, the private security industry had surged. The Bureogis corporation was one of the most targeted institutions for terrorists, mainly because it has sort of became the de facto government, housing AI Estos TAC II. Every month, at least two Bureogis buildings become victims of various crimes, ranging from some anti-corporate graffiti, to sabotage, to suicide bombings. Some of these were even done by the company’s own employees.

Aiden still remembered how the world was shocked, and why he decided to join the Bureogis Security Forces from the military. When a Bureogis technician at the Bureogis Cairo North Africa regional headquarters’ sabotaged the Regional AI’s nuclear fusion reactor merely two weeks after the United Nations dissembled the local government in favor of the AI. Luckily, the reactor was underground and no one except the engineer was harmed in the blast, but the consequences of the AI falling offline might as well have been nuclear. For three months the entire region experienced the complete breakdown of basic social services. The emergency channel which was meant to governed by the AI broke down when the AI fell, and the police, hospitals, and fire departments could not receive emergency calls. For three months there was chaos. Riots broke out in the streets in protests where the protesters didn’t know what they were protesting, only that they were in living hell. Neighbors turned on each other for the lack of food which occurred in merely days in major cities. Generally, the worst of humanity was shown. The world was shocked at such a humanitarian disaster, but there was little to be done as the entire regional government had been pretty much disabled, and core officers were now operating in other regions.

In addition, because the AI handled all communications for the region, it was very hard for anyone to know what was going on inside North Africa. It was only after a month did a battalion of UN Peacekeepers along with some officers of the Bureogis Security Forces manage to secure a site to install an emergency reactor to power the AI, two more months before the engineers were able to install the reactor, and almost a year before AI was able to restore order to the region. It was this incident that changed how Aiden saw Bureogis. Before he simply liked them as a technology company, but this incident made him see Bureogis as a force for good. Bureogis was what make the world good, and there were bad people trying to destroy it. Being an officer in the BSF gave Aiden a greater purpose, to protect the innocent, and to maintain social order in an age when the government was no longer. For Aiden, corporations are the institutions which all humans will rely on, they are the new government, but just better and more efficient because they are governed by the laws of competition. A corporation, unlike a government, is not a monopoly, and the most successful corporations must have earned that by being simply better than all others. Since Bureogis was the most successful corporation, it meant that they are the most valuable to the world, and therefore the most worthy of protection. It was this sincere belief and the fact that Bureogis paid more than what little there was left of the UN Peacekeepers, that Aiden joined the BSF.

During his time in the BSF, Aiden saw a lot which sometimes shook his firm belief in Bureogis. First, there are the pay cuts, but second, there are also the disgraceful human rights violations. Although the company denies it, the Bureogis Security Force has captured civilians whom they have suspected to be terrorists and has tortured its prisoners. Most of the time these captures were based on solid evidence, and the suspected subjects did turn out to have a homemade bomb or two in their homes. But sometimes the suspects were stupid teenage boys doing stupid things. Once Aidan had to deal with such a case, where his targets were two kids who were around the age of 16, and who threw some balloons filled with paint over the walls of the Bureogis headquarters. Apparently, Aiden’s superior officer thought it was necessary to secretly assassinate those boys as they were “threatening the dignity of the institution with their acts of terrorism.” Eventually, Aiden was able to convince the officer that a few balloons filled with paintballs did not merit assassination, and the company decided to sue the families of the boys instead. It was at such moments that Aiden through that perhaps the Bureogis Corporation has grown too powerful. But he would quickly dismiss those thoughts since the problem was just with a few bad apples inside of the company. It never occurred to Aiden that perhaps the problem was systemic and that whenever there is power without accountability, that power will be abused. Aiden had some problems with his job, but he believed that he was doing the right thing most of the time, and he found a sense of purpose.

However, now Aiden knew that he was about to lose even that. He felt betrayed and was resentful to Bureogis for what happened. But it was not that he felt entitled to his job, Aiden knew, as he was taught in school, that no one was entitled to anything, and that all must be earned. Therefore, he should not feel anger, and yet he did. It was not entitlement, but rather something else. Something that Aiden could hardly find words to describe. It was the same feeling that he felt occasionally when he sometimes looked at a beggar by the side of Canal street and wondered how they ended up there. He tried hard at his job and did what he was told, but that didn’t help him at all. The beggars, like him, has probably made some major mistakes in the first half of their lives, but is it right for that to stay with them forever? The feeling was close to a sense of indignation, it felt that his sudden discharge from his position was somewhat … unfair.

The mag-mobile slowed down, and Adam was forced out of his melancholic reflections induced by the shock of what is basically his firing. He looked out of the window and realized that he has arrived at the Bureogis headquarters. Despite his newly acquired animosity to the company, something naturally caused by being fired, he could not help but be awed by the magnificence of the campus, which occurred to him every day he came.

Unlike most of the rest of the city, the Bureogis campus was styled in Greco-Roman architecture. While most other buildings in the city mostly had a clean and plain exterior with an elegant form that communicated the ideas of intellect and advancement to their beholders, the campus here sent out a message of strength. There were three major buildings on the campus, each housing a few hundred staff members and one of the TAC II components. The Traveler was housed on the western complex, The Engineer on the eastern, and The Curator in the middle of the northern complex. Each of the three buildings is around 100 meters tall and covers an area of at least 200 meters by 100 meters each. Their exteriors formed by magnificent and delicate Corinthian columns each with a height equal to the building itself, and fully covered by dark Emperador marble. In front of each building was a great statue of the symbol of the respective AI housed inside those buildings, and between all three buildings spans a large garden of half a kilometer in length and width. Exotic plants from all over the world, as well as bioengineered plants, are planted here along with artificial streams and hills. But for Aiden, the garden and the campus building themselves were not the most awe-inspiring. Around the entire campus a great wall equal to the height of the campus buildings were erected, and a gate of inordinate splendor was placed on the south side, before which Aiden now stands having left his mag-mobile.

Aiden looked at the entrance, which is now in its full glory under the morning sun. the gate was made of pure white marble, and stands around 150 meters tall. The great stone octopus of the Pros family, owners of Bureogis, spans the length of the entrance. Under it are a man and a woman, both half kneeling with their arms bent to support the weight of the giant octopus. On the sides of the gate are the depictions of The Curator, The Traveler, and The Engineer. Finally, in the interior of the gate, are reliefs showcasing the great prosperity that the company has brought to the world. As if giant white marbles under the morning sun isn’t enough to show the ego the family, the architect of the gate apparently also decided that it was necessary to streamline all the edges of the relief with gold. As Aiden walked through the southern entrance, he cleared his thoughts, and prepared himself for another day of work.