Holden glanced around the oblong conference table jammed into Meeting Room Q. The mouse-shaped communicators on its glass top clicked and whirred, zipping data directly into the chips of four despondent team members splayed about the room like victims of a springtime shooting.
LaTonya lifted her head from the information soup and shifted her gaze toward Holden, “Groups Alpha and Beta have reached occupant parity.”
“That didn’t take long,” the 30-something boss thought to himself as he fiddled with the pyramid face of his wristwatch. “Confidence factors?”
Benny swatted at the air in front of him as if taunted by a pair of yellow jackets. “97% of Group Alpha has 100% confidence in their beliefs. Only 62% of Beta does, but their fear and assimilation rates are through the steeple.”
“Send Group B some more shadow-memes this week and let’s see if we can’t get those numbers up. We have all their anthroprofiles, so let’s use ’em! A few inverted mirror passes should do the trick, amirite?” Holden laughed uncomfortably as he attempted the hip-switching he learned about at last year’s retreat. The four drones around the table laughed uncomfortably as they attempted the compliance technique they learned about at Holden’s workshop the previous month.
