The Intelligent System - Story 10 - "AUSSIE FLASH STORIES" Short Story Book by Daniel Gutiérrez Híjar

 

Three hundred? You reckon?, said Mark, my boss, the bank manager. Three hundred? You reckon? said Mark, my boss, the bank manager.

Straight up, I told him. Three hundred. I showed him the final chart of my presentation, the one that summed up all the benefits of the program I'd just developed, a system built on an artificial intelligence engine that I'd created and fed line by line myself.

Seeing the satisfied look on the boss's face was everything to me; and, wanting his expression to last and get even more intense, I let him in on one of the most extraordinary qualities of my creation: By next month, we'll be able to sack another six hundred employees.

What?

I didn't need to repeat a thing. Mark had heard me perfectly and my finger was pointing to the number and the evidence on his laptop screen.

So that's three hundred in the first month and six hundred in the second month? Nine hundred in three months of your program being up and running?

 

 The number of people getting the sack follows a simple arithmetic progression; each month, the number goes up by three hundred employees compared to the previous month, I added with apparent disinterest, as if it was a minor detail.

The boss's face was a simultaneous parade of joy and disbelief. Those emotions wouldn't leave him for a good while. The avalanche of good news was overwhelming him; looked like it might crack his skin.

I want you to present this tomorrow to the directors. It'll be an achievement for both of us: yours for creating such a revolutionary program, and mine for hiring you a couple of years back. When I did that, I saw potential in you that hasn't let me down. And now you've proven it in spades. With what we save the company by sacking those three hundred, and then the six hundred, and so on until we're left with only the necessary staff, I'm dead certain they'll give me triple pay plus shares in the bank, some long and well-deserved holidays, and to you, of course, the bank's star, a generous bonus, he announced, without taking his eyes off the promising results on his computer screen.

 I don't care about the money, I thought, while Mark pictured himself sprawled on some Caribbean beach, running the bank from there, sipping a piña colada, getting a massage from some local sheila, hygienically away from his wife and kids for whom he was just another one of the many ATMs the bank he worked for had scattered all over Australia. I'd created that revolutionary program just to see him this happy and chuffed. And I'd done it.

Here, he handed me three hundred dollars he pulled from his wallet. It's a little advance I wanna give you from my own pocket as a first nod to such a magnificent job, dear Patrick.

***

A month and a half after we presented the Intelligent System to the bank's directors, Mark had already reaped juicy salary benefits thanks to the success of cutting three hundred strategically eliminated positions. He was also enjoying long holidays in Aruba, one of his favourite getaways. He'd left me, with the directors' approval and blessing, in charge of the bank's general management.

*** 

Mark is tanned. It's Tuesday and he's just arrived on the tenth floor of the bank's main building, where his office and the cubicles of the people who work under him are located.

He knows he won't do anything important today; just have a squiz at some of the thousands of emails that have piled up over the more than sixty days he took as holidays, a well-deserved break, mind you, for having generated significant income for the bank by removing three hundred workers from the payroll. Nah, what am I on about, three hundred, he says to himself, while searching for his access card to the floor. As always, he's arrived early. Through the glass walls of the office, he can see, with a certain childish pride, that no one's shown up yet. He likes being first at everything, whatever it is.

What am I on about, three hundred?, he corrects himself again, savouring the correction. We're nearly two months in; now it must be six hundred sacked.

He's about to laugh, but holds back. He swipes the electronic key past the sensor next to the door and it stays shut. Did I grab the wrong card?, he thinks. He checks it and yeah, it's his key. Bloody hell. He wipes it on his shirt and swipes it again. The door stays shut.

 

 Then he lifts his hand like a visor and leans towards the glass of the door, trying to see inside with renewed urgency. His eyes no longer scan the place with the calm they had before, but with growing anxiety, almost a silent plea for someone, anyone, to have arrived before him. After a few tense seconds, he makes out the figure of Patrick, his assistant, in the manager's office, in his office.

Patrick? What's he doing at my desk? He doesn't bother giving himself an immediate answer because the most urgent thing is to get the door open.

He moderates his initial desperation so his subordinate doesn't see him vulnerable. With an almost casual gesture, he knocks on the glass to catch his eye. When he sees him, he mouths silently: Open up, please. Patrick stops what he's doing and comes straight over, as obliging as ever.

Hey, d'you know what's up with these sensors? I swiped my card a few times and the door never opened, says Mark with the same arrogant tone as always, as if Patrick ought to be across every single one of his problems, even the most trivial, like why the traffic's a nightmare in the mornings or why the midday sun's a proper curse.

 

Patrick, however, doesn't take long to clear it up for him. Thing is, you're not the manager anymore, Mark. Check your email. The Intelligent System must've sent you your new position within the company, one that fits better with your knowledge and skills, and no doubt that new position is on another floor of the bank or at some branch.

What? Mark stammers, dumbfounded.

Check your email, says Patrick. The System's infallible.

And what position has the System put you in?

I'm the new manager. The System appointed me a month ago. It evaluated my knowledge and capabilities and, based on that, figured I brought more value to the company by running management.

Mark dives into the chaos of his email inbox, overflowing with unread messages, while Patrick's unbelievable words ring in his ears. If they've made Patrick manager, then they must've moved him to the board. That's the logical thing. Desperately, his eyes search for some message sent by the Intelligent System.

Here it is, he says at last, triumphant.

But as he reads the lines of the message, his face crumbles.

So now I'm your assistant?, he manages to say, his voice caught between disgust and disbelief, as if the very idea tasted like rust.

Nah, says Patrick, with a patient voice, like talking to a distracted kid. Have a proper look. That email must be from two months ago. Look for the most recent message.

Mark finds it and reads it out loud: Following the optimisation of the company's competitive structure, your position as management assistant is no longer necessary. Your duties will be taken over, with greater accuracy and no absences, by us, the Intelligent System. So you are sacked with gratitude and courtesy. We present you with a lovely virtual floral arrangement in recognition of your twenty years of dedicated service. Please vacate your office before midday. He can barely get the end of the message out.

Patrick, with a smile that seems polite, points to the box with his belongings. They were gonna chuck your stuff out, he says, but I, as the new manager, asked them to leave it in that corner until you arrived.

A buzzing sound wakes Mark from his mental stupor. It's Patrick's mobile. He takes it out of his pants pocket and, after checking it, hands it to Mark.

I just got a message from the Intelligent System. Would you do me the honour?

Mark takes the phone with hands that no longer seem to obey him. The characters of the text appear sharp, inexorable. The Intelligent System has just appointed Patrick as director of the bank, sacking three inefficient directors.

Disbelief settles in with all its weight inside Mark.

 Here in my wallet, I've got three hundred dollars spare, says Patrick. They could be yours if you put all my stuff in a box and take it upstairs to my new director's office.

If there's one thing Mark has learned in the corporate world, it's that opportunities, whatever they are, have to be taken. Moving his ex-subordinate, ex-boss and then ex-colleague's gear took him half a day.

The President's grandfather — "VLADIMIRO MONTESINOS PRESIDENT OF PERU" — A Novel by Daniel Gutiérrez Híjar

 

Charles Darwin —who related us to monkeys—, Albert Einstein —who shattered Newton's theory of gravitation—, Edgar Allan Poe —who awakened terror in entire generations— and my grandfather, Guillermo Montesinos —who composed exquisite symphonies with his cello and left impressive pictorial captures of the Arequipa sky—, all married their cousins or had children with them.

I am the still-living proof that from such unions the product is not always defective or monstrous. Rather, I was president of my country, of Peru, and I turned it into the most modern in Latin America, not without first having redeemed it from the ruins in which it lay sunk.

And although my contemporaries did not know how to thank me for this, who will let me die in prison because, at over ninety years of age, little time remains for me; I hold onto the hope that you, Peruvian reader of the future, will manage to appreciate my deeds. Therefore, I am going to tell you my story.

***

I belong to a lineage, that of the Montesinos, which moved with a certain mediocrity, since the dawn of the republic, within the cultural and political spheres of Peru. Its legacy was discreet; without much brilliance, barely a faint trace. I, however, refounded the social, political, and economic bases of the country; practically, I reinvented it, after having lifted it from the abyss with the metallic pulse of a crane. That is to say, my legacy was total.

***

I will begin my story by telling that of my grandfather Guillermo.

I should clarify that I did not know him directly. I was born twenty years after his death, which occurred in the year 1925.

He died young, playing the cello; an instrument whose echoes accompanied him from his mother's womb and from which he did not detach himself even while falling from the wooden platform he had erected on the roof of his house to give memorable nightly serenades to his beloved Arequipa.

From that platform, moreover, Guillermo, assisted by the curious eye of his camera, captured the most handsome, insolent, and mysterious cloud formations of the Arequipa sky.

***

Rudecindo was the name of the Indian whom Guillermo commissioned to build the platform. In reality, he was a frequent laborer at the house, though not hired full-time.

He was also a voyeur; a voyeur of women. He deserved that no one give him work, but my grandfather, who was generous —a rare thing among the Montesinos— would offer him one or another specific odd job. That said, he would never have hired him permanently in his mansion.

The beauty of my grandmother drove Rudecindo crazy, who, whenever he could, spied on her through some crack, imagining her in a series of heated scenes in which he turned out to be the unflagging lover.

Despite the biological turmoil to which she was subjected by Guillermo —she suffered twenty-four pregnancies from which fourteen children survived— María Montesinos, my grandmother, maintained her conventual beauty; an austere beauty that I managed to inherit.

***

My grandfather was a peaceful man. This was because he was only interested in three things in the world: playing the cello in the early morning, photographing the clouds that coiled around the peaks of El Misti, and fathering children on my grandmother; in that order.

Despite his height, corpulence, and his large Kaiser-style mustache (he was indeed named Guillermo in honor of the first of those German emperors), his eyes revealed an overgrown, self-absorbed child.

It was because of his peaceful spirit that my grandfather did not make any scandal when he caught Rudecindo spying on his wife while she was undressing in the master bedroom. The shameless little savage had been caught with his hands down his pants. Guillermo grabbed him by the neck, dragged him to the backyard, and admonished him severely, though in a low voice, to prevent the atrocious fault from becoming general knowledge in the mansion. The reprimand included a good ear pulling and a couple of blows with his cane.

After a few minutes, Guillermo forgot the incident, such was his nature, so prone to not harboring any grudge or resentment. But it was in Rudecindo's heart where the employer's rebuke took thick and twisted root. He determined that he had to return the affront to wash his honor as an Indian. It would be a revenge that would bash his aggressor, keep him away from intellectual salons, from the photography he so loved, and from going around beating innocent Indians for a good long time.

***

One afternoon, taking advantage of the absence of the mansion's occupants, Rudecindo pulled out the nails from the planks that supported my grandfather's platform.

That night, returning from an intellectual gathering, and after a brief and forgettable argument with my grandmother, Guillermo took off his coat, put on some slippers, poured himself a small glass of whisky, and went up to the platform.

Hidden behind the bushes in the mansion's orchard, Rudecindo spied on each of his master's movements. He waited impatiently for the moment when the planks would give way and the musician would break a few bones in his fall. He wanted to see him battered in a bed, unable to take care of his own needs.

Guillermo unsheathed his instrument and caressed its strings. With delicacy, he took it by its neck and, with his free hand, picked up the bow. The first tuning notes escaped the clearing provided by the lamp hanging high on the platform.

That night, he would begin rehearsing one of the compositions he had just finished a few days earlier. He would offer it at the next private recital he would give to his fellow tertulia members in his magnificent mansion. At these musical evenings, he used to decorate the walls of his manor with his most recent landscape captures.

Since, in these solipsistic concerts, Guillermo gave himself without reserve or any shadow, both musically and photographically, he practiced with the discipline of a craftsman, even though many of the guests, who were his neighbors, complained about the early morning rehearsal melodies, calling them noise.

Hypocrites, my grandfather would murmur in a silent dialogue with himself. They gobble down and devour everything I put on the tables at my recitals; but how they love to badmouth when I start rehearsing. They don't even have the courage to voice their complaints to my face. Bunch of cowards. They're just as pharisaical as the people from Lima.

Those thoughts dissolved as soon as the bow made the cello strings vibrate. The deep night awakened with those virgin notes. Guillermo, softly illuminated by the dancing folds of light from the lamp, did not need to read the scores standing upright before him; he knew the meanderings of his composition by heart. He closed his eyes, enraptured by the sonic ecstasy.

Meanwhile, the platform remained intact, supporting my grandfather's weight without issue, which was no small matter. Rudecindo, hidden by the thick night and the shaggy bushes, bit his lips, cursing the resistance of the few nails that still fastened the planks. With jealousy and rage, he helplessly observed Guillermo's unpunished enjoyment as he lyrically intruded upon his neighbors' sleep.

Then, he decided to intervene to see his hunger for revenge satisfied. Slipping through the grass, agile and furtive like creatures of the underworld, Rudecindo managed to get under the platform and, grabbing the hammer he had hidden right there, began to remove more nails. He had loosened seven, and was working on the eighth, when the planks exhaled a scream similar to that made by the ghostly woman who shrieked at night searching for her dead children. Before Rudecindo could react, the platform came crashing down on him.

Some legendary witnesses, of the kind that invent memories without having seen anything, claimed that my grandfather did not even realize he was falling, so blinded was he with the notes he was milking from his tireless cello.

Guillermo Montesinos broke his neck instantly.

Those same witnesses also assured that the powerful melodies of the cello were responsible for having loosened the nails that were found scattered among the rubble.

Rudecindo was never heard from again. No one asked about him.