Human Resources

As Director of Human Resources for the entire facility, Helen had overseen more retirement parties than she could count. She was familiar enough with protocol that she no longer required the checklist in the appendix of the manager’s handbook, but used it anyway, in strict adherence to company policy. During her morning workout, she’d gone through the list in her head a hundred times, but seeing it printed out in black and white always brought a tangibility to the whole affair. She’d gone down to the kitchen herself to pick up the cake, rendering the cafeteria silent as she rolled the confection, red-velvet encased in featureless white fondant, as well as the requisite cutlery on a cart past ranks of seated workers on her way upstairs to the Accounts Receiving Department. Everyone knew what it meant.

Sparta International was a worldwide industry leader, whose corporate motto, “Arete,” meant “The Pursuit of Excellence” in Greek. Keeping on top of the bleeding hearts at The Athens Corporation and the blackguards at Tartarus left little room for sentimentality, but Helen was still human, and felt the familiar pang she always did when it came to letting someone so young go. Officially, the reason for Leo’s termination was a refusal to adhere to proper formatting procedures for his daily TPS reports, but this was just one of the excuses HR drummed up at times like this to maintain a paper trail. The real problem was that Leo just didn’t fit in, and for an organization that relied on seamless compliance by like-minded individuals working in teams, it was an untenable situation.

It all came down to Leo’s size. One of Sparta International’s fundamental corporate philosophies was interchangeability facilitated by adherence to rigid tolerances. Eugenics protocols had provided a workforce in which all employees stood between 5’10” and 6’2”, allowing a one-size-fits-all approach to the design of all company equipment. This meant that every office chair, jumpsuit, and disposable latex glove in the facility was identical, as was every seat on every company transport and in every training auditorium. The company store’s selection of clothing featured a variety of styles in only a handful of sizes, and tolerances were even tighter for Hoplites among the Sparta Militarum. Along with rigorous training procedures, this ensured that, theoretically, any Spartan could throw on a protective suit and rush into the Qbit core in the event of a freezedown. Leo was 7 feet tall.

Despite comprehensive genetic testing on both prospective parents and developing embryos, mistakes were sometimes made. Under normal conditions, when a defect or abnormality was detected in a fetus, a terminative procedure was immediately performed. A baby that passed its birth inspection was raised by its biological parents for seven years, during which time it was expected to develop normally. Any deviant mental or physical characteristics were to be reported to the company at once. Pending an investigation, a child falling outside the range of acceptable tolerances could find their citizenship application terminated at this time, which was uncommon, but not unheard of.

Having read Leo’s file, Helen knew that he hadn’t started to grow until puberty, which had presented a problem. At age seven, all children became wards of the company, at which point deviation is largely expected to be handled at the peer level. Children are exceptional at detecting abnormalities. As such, they are a potent component of an excellent society’s immune system, and with Arete as a driving principle, Sparta International sought excellence at any cost.

Having seen the system at work from within, Helen knew how uncannily capable kids were of singling out the different, and had even led the charge more than once while growing up, a clear sign of future management potential. She’d learned early on that if you point a finger at someone else, everyone stops looking at you. She was grateful, now, for having grown up in such a way, as she could see, with hindsight, that this was how Sparta remained an industry leader. Aggressively encouraging the weak to self-terminate their citizenship applications was one of the keys to success. Leo wasn’t weak.

Standing six feet tall at ten years old, Leo was quite capable of handling any faultfinders or assailants bold enough to engage him. The Human Resources Department at the time had taken a hands-off approach to the situation, knowing it would eventually be resolved. Now, fifteen years later, it was Helen’s responsibility to resolve it. Leo had made it well known that he wasn’t happy working at his too-small desk, sitting in his too-small chair, wearing mumu-esque outfits he’d sewn together himself from several smaller articles of clothing. He’d wanted to serve as a Hoplite in the colonies since he was a child, but as he grew, this dream had receded further and further into a life of filling out forms and filing TPS reports. He’d become a churlish, disaffected young man, relying on the conspicuousness of his size and the gruffness of his tone to keep people at a distance. Despite this, few could keep their eyes off of him for long in any given situation, their gaze was inevitably drawn to the spectacle of such an unusual specimen garbed in clumsily-stitched Frankenstein dress.

According to company policy, sympathy was a useless emotion that caused people to hesitate when action was crucial, yet Helen couldn’t help but feel for Leo. He would likely have had a very different life in the days when bloodsports or sweatsports had been a part of the culture. At no point in history would he have been a Hoplite, as the Sparta Militarum had never been in the habit of customizing equipment to the individual, but in the days of competition and celebrity he wouldn’t have had to spend his nights sleeping on the floor, as no bed was currently available that would fit him.

Helen told herself that Sparta International maintained its position ahead of The Athens Corporation, which spent trillions on retraining underperforming employees, and Tartarus, with its chemically indoctrinated workforce, by having higher expectations than the others. Deadweight could only be rehabilitated to a certain degree, and brainwashing removed that spark of individuality that fostered innovation. No, Helen told herself, Our way is the best way. She went down the checklist, examining the Accounts Receiving Employee break room, chosen venue for the festivities. The cake was in place, there were enough knives and forks for the dozen department members required to attend, plus a set for her, assuming there would be anything left at the end.

Retirement parties were always done at EOD on Friday. With attendance formally required by the Employee Handbook, the events were as much a morale boosting exercise for the remaining team members as anything else, and was good to give them their day off to decompress afterwards. Helen was looking forward to tomorrow. She couldn’t take the whole day to herself, of course. After her morning workout, she planned on stopping by the office to get a jumpstart on next week, but wanted to be back in the gymnasium by noon. “Sunrise, Meditation, Exercise, Dedication" was a company tenet Helen really took to heart. She tried to impress these virtues on everyone, especially struggling employees, not just because of constant exposure to indoctrination protocols, but because she truly believed in them.

She’d repeated the words countless times to Leo over the past few years, as he’d grown more sullen and withdrawn. “I don’t want to get any bigger,” was all he’d ever say in response, which was a fair point, so eventually she’d fallen back on the TPS formatting to make today possible. Clerical errors had a way of snowballing and before you know it, angry vendors are on the line asking about delays and extra costs. These things had to be nipped in the bud, though, by now, Leo had grown into a tree.

Helen checked her watch, it was 4:30. She eyed the cake, resenting the part of herself that craved its sugary sweetness, evidence of instinct’s eternal influence over human will and discipline. She hoped she’d get a piece, though civilized dispensation of slices was unlikely. By the time the team got to the cake they usually just ripped into it with their hands. Helen’s ability to resist such impulses made her management material, but to witness such a spectacle of heedless abandon always pricked her with pangs of envy.

Suddenly, the door banged open. While all the team members certainly knew who Helen was, she’d had to take time that morning to familiarize herself with them. She recognized Nikolas, who stomped in muttering “Let’s do this!” under his breath while flexing his arms. He stopped only when he caught sight of Helen, standing next to the cake. Smiling, he apologized for seeming eager, explaining that he loved retirement parties and hadn’t attended one in at least five years. That’s the problem with the current way of doing things, thought Helen, people get all pent up and working out only provides so much of an outlet. She’d long advocated for a return of sweatsports, or even bloodsports with their higher associated medical costs, but evidently every time the issue came up at board meetings it was tabled, as increases in worker recreation budgets cut unfavorably into the bottom line.

Athens had lagged into third place behind Tartarus in recent years, with management at Sparta attributing this to their soft corporate culture. They had invested vast sums into what they called The Lyceum Psychologus, which was the cornerstone of their employee wellness program, but despite this, continued to suffer significant losses in the colonies year after year. Helen knew that had he been born at Athens, Leo would have had all his special needs accommodated, but it was this sympathetic, liberal view of Human Resources that was causing them to lose the competition.

The door opened again, Alexander and Daphne entered, followed by Phoebe, Lysander, and Adonis. Soon all twelve members of the team were standing in the room, the only sound was their shoes scuffling on the tile floor as they waited. At 4:55 Helen completed the checklist, making sure each employee was ready with their knife and fork. At 4:59 they heard heavy steps approaching the break room, and at 5:00 exactly, Leo entered the room.