I woke up red hot. Figuratively. It was an hour before my alarm was due to go off and I was buzzing. I had none of the typical sloshy malaise I usually carried in the morning until I had my caffeine fix. Just pure, razor sharp, clarity. Last night as I was drifting off to sleep one question had been swirling in my mind. How to handle the meeting tomorrow morning? This job is miserable, but it is a job. Suck it up and play the game right? But this morning, there was I had a totally different perspective. There was no debate. I rolled straight out of bed and landed on all fours, cat-like. I dove into a calisthenics routine I hadn’t touched in years - something the fraternity had made us pledges do back in the day. It was one of the only practical things I had learned from being a fraternity guy.
I showered quickly and skipped the coffee altogether - I didn’t need it. I rented a city bike, as I had no interest in repeating yesterdays train kerfuffle. The brisk air felt pleasant against my face as I navigated through the morning traffic. By the time I reached the office, my legs were on fire. There was no getting around the fact that I was woefully out of shape.
Last night I had gotten an email from Ria, our meeting would be at 9:30am. Dan would be there. It was now 8:12am. I was early. I sat down at my desk and responded to the pressing emails at the top of my inbox. Mostly just client correspondence. Despite what Jen would say to anyone who would listen, I actually wasn’t half bad at my job. My accounts were by and large satisfied. And as of this moment, I was still on the clock for them.
There were only a handful of people already settled in and working. They looked at me oddly. I was disrupting the status quo of the early mornings at Lake Shore Strategic Marketing Initiatives. The only person from my team who was a part of the early to the office crew was Stacey. That made sense. Stacey was a single mom with three kids. She usually took off early to do school pickup. Stacey took shit from no one, and body slammed any attempts to reel her in to office politics. She had more important things to put her energy in to, and she let you know it. She did what was asked of her, nothing more and nothing less. She walked over to my workstation, clutching her coffee mug.
"Tommy? What are you doing here already?"
"Hi Stacey, I got called in for a meeting with HR and the bosses this morning. I’m going to tell them to fuck off."
"That’s nice. Best of luck to you."
At 9:30 sharp I strolled in to the conference room. I sat down casually and crossed my arms. They were all sitting already. Dan was looking down at his phone, he gave me a grunt of acknowledgement. As expected he clearly didn’t want to be here. Jen sat rigidly, her lips pursed and her hands clasped together in front of her on the table. Ria was between them. They all stared at me expectantly, as if I were supposed to have prepared opening remarks.
I grinned. "Whats up?"
"We want to see if we can get to the bottom of the issues that have been reported and move forward" Ria said carefully.
"Yeah, absolutely. Let’s talk. I agree completely, this is long overdue. Something needs to be done." I paused for a beat, then added, "about Jen."
"This is about you, Tommy" Jen snapped, her face taking on a cherry color.
I looked to Ria.
"Ria, you have one of these meetings a week. Who was it last week? Stacey? We even got the big boss in for this one." I turned to Dan. "Although by the looks of it he would rather be poolside somewhere. No judgement sir, don’t blame you." His eyes were now up, and he smirked. "And what is the common denominator here?” I pointed at Jen.
“Her. The fact of the matter is, you’ve got a pretty damn good group here, Dan. I’m sure it doesn’t sound that way from Sam’s reports and updates. We get our work done, our clients like us, they come back. One thing I want to make crystal clear: this is in spite of, not because of, her. She is not some tough love genius who is elevating the team via tough love. She is, plain and simply a bitch. Through and through. You want my advice? Get her laid or lay her off.”
Ria looked at me, eyes wide and mouth agape.
Jen sat torn between tears and homicide. Dan was now fully engaged. He was enjoying the show.
"Tommy…" Ria was scrambling to come up with what to say next. This was not how they expected this to go.
I put my hand up and stood. "No need Ria, I am out of here,” I pointed at Dan. "Call me if Sam’s job opens up."
I went out and cleared up my workstation, then headed to the exit. I turned to the office, who had been watching in stunned silence.
"Maple Barrel, after work, Drinks on me. See you all there."
——
I watched intently, like I was tuned in to the most compelling program ever conceived, Despite my sometimes big talk, I don’t think I ever would have had the guts to do what that guy on the screen had just done. But the system gave me the prompt - QUIT ROLE AT LAKE SHORE STRATEGIC MARKETING INITIATIVES - and I had accepted. My proxy took care of the rest. My heart hammered in my chest. That woman, Leonora, was right. This was disorienting.
"Leonora, every time a prompt comes up, the screen freezes. How can I be making these decisions in real time? You can just press the pause button on my world?”
"One of the most difficult adjustments that you will have to make here is with your conception of, and relationship to, time. No, we aren’t pausing time, and it only appears to freeze. Time is still moving just at a much slower rate back on your planet. That is why each action prompt comes with a countdown. When you are prompted with an action, what is really happening is we have switched perspective to match the natural movement accounting for the discrepancies between our place in the universe and your planets. I believe on your world it was discovered by a wild haired gentleman named Albert Einstein. You would know it as the general theory of relativity. You are familiar, correct?"
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
"Yeah, why don’t you just go ahead and refresh my memory anyway."
"Time is a dependent dimension, influenced by velocity and gravity. The deeper in a gravitational field, the more an object will experience time dilation."
I scratched my head. Leonora saw my struggle to keep up and threw me a lifeline.
“Think of it this way. The whole earth is lathered in maple syrup. Time get’s slogged down trying to move through it. The farther away you are from the planet, or any mass, If you the farther you are away from the sticky syrup and moving would be much easier. Time behaves this way. The bigger the object, the thicker the maple syrup. When you get out of the maple syrup, you experience less time dilation.”
“Time dilation! Of course. Why didn’t you just say that? Less maple syrup here. Got it.”
—-
"Alfred," I said between mouthfuls of lobster roll. "This may be the best sandwich I have ever had."
"Thank you, Tommy.” There was glee in his voice.
Leonora had introduced me to Alfred, attendant to The Suites. He was humanoid, with a cheerful voice and polished demeanor. He had just brought me lunch.
"Can I offer you anything else? My drive has been updated to reflect all relevant elements of Earth culture so that I can best serve you. How about some coffee or cigarettes? A firearm? Perhaps some pornography?”
"No thanks. Actually, you know what, a gun sounds pretty good. If its not too much trouble."
Satiated, I tuned back in to Tommy TV.
——-
"Hey hey eyes up sunshine. Look alive. We have a lot to get to today."
I was slumped in one of the fluffy recliners facing the bank of screens. A hoverboard twisted lazily over my head. I could somewhat recall playing with it last night.
"Alfred, brew up some tea, that will get him focused."
The robot was on the ground, arms raised over his head. He looked like he had powered down mid break dance move. He snapped awake.
Leonora stood over me impatiently. She had a controller in her hand, and was looking at the three screens mounted on the wall. The screens on the left and right were on, the one in the center was not. Alfred handed me a steaming cup of something. It smelled like citrus lovingly infused with gasoline. She explained that it was tea made from the pulverized skin of a fruit we do not have on Earth. Apparently it was one of the main stimulants of choice in this corner of galactic civilization. I took a sip and felt the effects immediately. A swirl of focus and energy, underscored by a calmness. Coffee without the jitters.
The screen on the left was my actions hub and my tester profile. The screen on the right contained a message and notifications board, as well as a search bar. The middle screen was the first person view of my Proxy. Leonora explained that when Proxy Tommy was asleep, the screen would be blank.
In the actions hub, I could see a prompt, now in green. The text read, ‘leave your Lake Shore Marketing Strategic Initiatives job’.
"Actions are irrevocable", Leonora said. "However, the most recent selection will always take priority over a previous selection if they are mutually exclusive."
She pointed at the actions hub. "We do not control the actions of others, so actions are not necessarily guaranteed to occur. For example, let’s say you wanted to reconcile with your ex girlfriend. If she gets hit by a bus before you reach out to her, the action item would be voided.”
Noted.
“Without prompting, your Proxy will act according to his current mood, mindset, lived experience, and attributes. I encourage you to make selections each time you receive a prompt. Part of your evaluation as a tester will be based on your response rate.
Under your actions hub is the tester profile. Here you can see the current attribute distribution. The categories are Strength, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma, and Wealth. The average for each category is 50. The highest score you can get in each category is 100. Your actions will have cumulative effects on your statistics. You can also receive temporary enhancements or dehancements, which will be listed in parenthesis next to each score. The drinking Proxy Tommy did last night for example, caused some damage. Keep that in mind when you make decisions. Always. All actions have consequences for him. And consequences for him, are consequences for you."
I looked at my statistics.
Strength - 42 (-2)
Constitution - 48 (-2)
Intelligence - 43 (-2)
Wisdom - 29 (-2)
Charisma - 34 (-2)
Discipline - 40 (-2)
Wealth - 68
I was below average in every category, except for Wealth.
"These numbers… they are random, yeah?"
"No. Each of these statistics is made up of an algorithm of physical, mental, and emotional characteristics. Prior to the start of the beta we collected organic samples from 100,000 human adults and used that to build the baseline ‘average’ human. We can then compare any individual against that average. Perfect 100s are rare. Everyone who has a 100 in Strength can bench press one of your Ford F150s. And only one person was scored at a 100 in intelligence"
“Who was it?”
“Can’t say, file is confidential. But let’s just say they once referred to themselves a voice of their generation”
This was a shot to the jewels. Sure, I rarely exercise. No, I can’t touch my toes. Yes, I have on occasion tried to pick up stray animals. But according to the objective and impartial AI, I was utterly mediocre. Leonora seemed to notice my deflation and addressed it.
"There were some interesting trends we saw in your society. If we look at those with a similar social class, age, and nationality, you are right in line with the averages of your peers."
I thought about this for a moment. Young, wealthy Americans were… Let’s not mince words. Lowly. I had to admit, there was some consolation in this. At least what I was born in to was beyond my control.
"So, if I upgrade the statistics of my Proxy, and make a boatload of dough, when I return to my life, the money and progress stay with me?"
"Yes, when you return to your life, it will remain."
“Okay. You’ve told me what, but you haven’t told me why. Why me? Why Earth?
Leonora settled back in her seat.
“Here’s the thing. Civilizations tend to panic when they lose a sense of control over their own destiny. Every time a galactic envoy shows up uninvited, the locals shoot first and spin the rest into religion or war. So we are trying something new: Let them think they discovered us.”
“You mean Earth.”
“I mean every ‘Earth’. Yours just happens to be next. The Proxy Project lets your world stumble into the truth on its own timeline. Not with warships—but with breadcrumbs.”
“And I’m the breadcrumb?”
“I like that analogy, but not quite,” she smiled. “Your Proxy is the breadcrumb, you are the baker. Guide your Proxy. If people admire him, listen to him, follow him… we can move him in position to help the rest of Earth wake up slowly, on its own terms.”
“So what about me? Why me?”
“My deadline was approaching,” she said with a shrug, “and you looked gullible.”
