Fe Was 7
CR a CUCU ARR ha LCL bdTHE
Should I even be here? Dr. Monique Brown
thought as dawn broke over the horizon beyond Cen-
tury Gardens. Her car crested the hill below which
the gated community lay, and she had to pull over
and stop.
The sky was clearly going to be beautiful today,
a deep blue sentence punctuated infrequently with
clouds. The grounds of the facility sprawled out be-
low her, a beautiful and exotic Eden to which she had
somehow gained a key. No cars passed by to break
her reverie, the big city was miles distant (though
within reasonable commuting distance), and birds
were awake and singing in the spring morning. The
past four months of interviews and evaluations and
tests had all led her to this point, and now she stared
at the gates of her new home, literally one day away
from her first assignment as an employee of Utopia.
“How in the heavens did I get here?”
Her own voice surprised her, and Monique
laughed nervously in spite of herself. She had not
been this edgy since December when she had first
accepted Utopia’s generous offer. She had spent
weeks of sleepless nights thinking it over. It seemed
so recently that she had relented and made the call
Now, after four months of paperwork and background
checks, she was finally an official Utopian “Public-
Relations Manager.” Utopia had paid off her student
loans, offered her an amazing salary (one that raised
even the eyebrows of the other business faculty at
Kellogg) and helped her finance a house here in Cen-
tury Gardens. She had laid out her own hours and
predetermined her vacation days and her Utopian li-
aison had even talked her into a comprehensive
health- and dental-benefits package, Yet now that it
was all taken care of, Monique could only sit and stare
out her windshield at the cheerfully painted security
gates enclosing the orderly community below. She
wondered if maybe it all weren't too good to be true
Even the first phone calls so many months ago
had seemed like events from a waking dream...
“Excuse me, is this Professor Monique Brown?”
a friendly voice on the line had chirped one night, in
the middle of dinner with her sister. “My name is
Kelly Lambert, Doctor Brown; I'm with Project
Utopia’s Human Resources Division. Have I called you
at abad time?”
WELCOME >
HOME
“No, go ahead,” she'd responded, disarmed.
“I'm so sorry to bother you, but is this the same
Monique Brown who wrote her doctoral dissertation
in 2002 on the use of cognitive dissonance redc-
tion techniques in public-opinion management?”
Monique blinked several times before she could
answer. That paper was still the crown jewel among
all oF her publications, but no one had asked her about
it in years.
“Yes it is. Did we attend university together?”
“Oh goodness, no,” bubbled the friendly voice,
“Tm only in graduate school myself. No, the reason I
ask is that one of our assistant directors discovered
‘your thesis on file in the business library at North-
western University and he was quite impressed. He
asked me to call you and arrange an appointment to
‘meet with him here in Chicago next week. Is that too
short notice, Dr. Brown?” |
“May lask why?” Monique had asked, maintain- :
ing her composure despite her curiosity.
“I believe,” Kelly said, as if it were the most
‘obvious thing in the world, “that he wants to offer
‘you a job.”
The interview itself had been just as disconcerting
“But why my dissertation?” Monique had asked
Jay Hideki, the Assistant Director of Utopia’s Public
Relations Department. “Ihaven't even thought about
iin years.”
The two sat in a roughly closet-sized office
stuffed away inside the Chicago Utopia complex.
Monique had bought @ new business suit, retouched
her résumé, found a lecturer to cover her classes at
Kellogg and came to the complex @ week after the
First phone call. She was distinctly uncomfortable but
Hideki was doing his best to put her at ease.
“Simply put, professor, | thought your thesis
was an excellent read,” Hidaki answered. “It got me
interested in public-opinion management again,
which is something very few business texts can do.”
“Thank you, * Monique stammered, not expect-
ing such unadulterated praise from a potential em-
ployer. Monique smiled; every word like that coming
from his mouth effectively increased her base sal-
ary by another two thousand dollars per annum. She
was pleased. She always thought the paper was wor-
thy of more attention than it had received. Her ownPU
graduate advisor had labeled the paper little more
than adequate, and a bit esoteric as well. “I don’t
know what to say.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that, professor. I'l do
enough talking For both of us. Am I correct in under=
standing that you now teach graduate classes in pub-
lic relations at the Kellogg Schoo! of Business?”
“Yes,” Monique said, “and doing research. I've
been working on software that allows corporations
and governments to simulate public-opinion models
Thope to see them used in predicting...”
“Predicting what?” Hideki prompted her as the
doctor blushed and looked away.
“Well, Iwas going to say, Predicting what di~
rection public opinion will go in any particular cir-
cumstance given a certain set of probable assump-
tions." | apologize if that sounds silly or unneces-
sarily complex.”
“Not at all, professor," Hidaki said, leaning For-
ward and waving a hand casually. “It’s just that sort
of thinking — and that which you demonstrated in
your dissertation — that prompted me to invite you
here this afternoon. Forward-looking thinkers like
‘yourself are just the types we hope to recruit here
at Utopia.”
‘And recruit her they had. Actively. Aggres-
sively. Utopia had done just as much work selling
her on the job as she had done convincing them that
she was qualified for it, She had sailed and struggled
through good, mediocre and outright lousy inter-
views, but she had finally been taken on as part of
the team that had promised to clean up the Earth’s
environment and bring stability to the world. Uto-
pia had bought off the remainder of her contract at
Kellogg; as soon as the current semester ended, she
was to relocate and become a part of the effort to
build the perfect tomorrow.
And now here she sat, paralyzed with doubt.
‘As she gazed over the panorama of Century Gar-
dens, back-lit by the rising sun, Monique saw a shape
detach from the landscape well within the
community's walls and arc toward her. As it drew
closer, Monique saw that it was human-sized, and on
a trajectory toward her car. Moments later, the Fig-
ure touched down gently and Monique rolled down
her window in mute amazement. A novastood before
her. A nova had actually approached her in person.
She wondered if she were in trouble already, or if
maybe she should get out of the car and bow.
“Is everything okay?" the nova asked, flashing
straight, white teeth in a friendly grin. “I was just
catching some breakfast when | saw you stop.
‘Thought you might be having car problems.”