Forge sat in his private office looking out the floor-to-ceiling windows over the city. Lights in buildings blinked on sporadically in the gathering dusk. Moonlight on the snowy peaks of the Lions made them look like giant canine teeth gripping the mountain ridge above the city.
 |
| Forge |
Forge placed his right hand on his forehead, then pulled it away, drawing his fingers together: the hand gesture equivalent to the "SHURPA" voice command.
"Ready Forge," responded Onyx.shurpa, Forge's personal assistant. "Onyx, can you show me that team matrix again?" asked Forge.
A dot of light appeared in the air above Forge's desk, then expanded into a rectangular holographic display surface, showing a matrix with the project team member names on the rows and psychometrics in the columns.
"Ok, a little larger please. Go to 4D, time scale on the bottom. Rotate, oh about 20 degrees. Show me a Cartesian Product. Activate data clustering. Optimize for psychometric convergence. Zoom 60%. Ok, stop there." Forge used his telecranial cursor to direct a laser pointer into the display, circling a kidney-shaped data cluster. "This is what I'm interested in, Onyx. Would you mind drilling in here and show me what you find?"
"Ready with analysis," said Onyx.shurpa. A second holographic display appeared in the air next to the first, this one with the original team matrix, but a smaller selection of psychometric columns.
"Uh-huh," said Forge. "Ok now, give me another Cartesian Product on these, but this time with the net product on each interstitial space. Normalize and graph it in 2D space."
The display flipped to a grid with a single red horizonal line wavering slightly around the row line numbered 1.0 in the left hand column.
"Ok, this is pretty much what we got before, right?"
"I'm sorry Forge," said Onyx, "I will need specific parameters before I can offer an opinion on this result."
"I mean, it's basically a straight line, right? It means the team as a whole is perfectly balanced for this set of psychems."
"I'm sorry Forge," said Onyx, "I will need specific parameters before I can offer an opinion on this result."
"Oh give me a break Onyx. Is the line horizontal or not?" asked Forge.
"I'm sorry Forge, a binary answer is not applicable for this data."
"Christ! If you're really that sorry, why don't you shove this line right up your simulated ass?"
"May I pour you a martini, Forge?" said Onyx.
"Now you're finally making sense." said Forge.
Onyx materialized by the office hospitality cabinet as a likeness of Sophia Loren, in her role as Anna in the 1958 film Desire under the elms. Tha poured a vodka martini, walked seductively across the room and placed it on the desk in front of Forge. "Don't be angry Forge. This will help you put into words what you desire to express," tha purred.
"Thank you Onyx. You're right as usual," said Forge, taking a sip, "I appreciate the gesture, I really do. But I'm trying to think strategically. Can you present with a little more, ah, decisiveness. I mean, oh, how about Winston Churchill?"
A blurry line rolled up Sophia Loren, leaving Winston Churchill, smoking a cigar, in its wake. "What's on your mind, Forge?" said Churchill. "Well? Get it out. We don't have all day."
"It's like this, Mr. Churchill," said Forge deferentially, "I have the perfect team. Their skills and likes are perfectly balanced to provoke each other into hi-performance. The wildest flights of the creatives will be brought back to earth by the other more practical members, but the best insights will be recorded for harvesting later.
I've also designed in the probability of sexual tension to drive competition between members. They're going to knock themselves out trying to impress each other. The whole organization will benefit."
"Good work Forge," said Churchill. "It sounds like you have this campaign under control."
"But that's just the problem," said Forge. None of this will work unless the team is allowed some freedom. Which is exactly what upper management wants to suppress. They insist on total control, but they have no idea how to use it."
"I have to defend my team from upper management, but give them what they want at the same time. It could be an impossible task. I feel like I'm in a vice. The truth is I don't know how to do this. Maybe I'm just not the right person for this job."
"Nonsense!" said Churchill, placing both hands on the desk and leaning forward with a pugnacious sneer. "You don't have time for a failure of confidence while you're under fire. You have to take this bull by its horns and shake hard until tha surrenders. You have no other choice."
"Thank you Mr. Churchill," said Forge, "but I wonder if you couldn't give me some more specific advice. For example, how should I set up the project definition?"
"My predecessor, Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson once said: 'Never mind the maneuvers, just go straight at 'em,' You may apply that advice widely. That will be all. Dismissed."
"Yes Sir," said Forge. "Thanks. That's inspirational, but not much practical help either."
"Onyx, please shut down everything here. We'll think about it again tomorrow morning."
"Very good, Forge," said Onyx.shurpa. "Good night."