Virtuality

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Corporations are a virtuality, that is, they exist, somewhere on the scale between the real and the virtual. If you’ve ever tried to get past a robotic phone system to solve a problem, you know it’s not possible to have a conversation with one. Like vampires, they are made from human parts, but have superhuman powers. They are born and they die, but you can’t shoot one. Once they have their teeth in your life, it’s hard to tear free.

Sarai chewed her lip and considered the closing of her paper. Maybe it was the
ghost of Bond’s tongue between her legs, but the parallels that had started with Krush
in the dungeon had expanded. Her relationship with Bond was a virtuality, moving between their real-world contact and the virtual world that kept them linked when he traveled. Pretend with real impact. How dangerous were the games they played? How
real did she want it?

Corporate bureaucracies feed on unquestioning service. Like hungry demons, they can seduce us, own us, and suck us dry. Or like good parents, they can shelter, protect, give us safe space and resources to grow. Either can addict. Good or bad they have their beginnings in our longings and their existence in what we allow them to become.

She sat back again, blinking at what she’d written. Uneasy. At least the paper was
done. She attached it in an email and sent it off to her professor before she lost her nerve
and deleted it. This wasn’t the glowing, cheer-for-the-team piece she was supposed to turn in. Her GPA would suffer. She hesitated over the idea of sending it to Bond. He would know she was talking about more than corporate power games. She closed her eyes and hit send, because she needed something real, needed his reaction.

From The Dungeon Gourmet by Nara Malone

I posted this excerpt as part of the Weekend Writer’s Retreat. See what other participants contributed.