I’m lucky that I’m actually working when the section leader swings by my desk. Reed (that’s how we address him, I don’t know his first name, it’s a quasi-military set up but then I suppose we’re a quasi-military organization) never really swings by as much as pops his head over the parapet.
“We’re not a military organization Hugh.” He says to me in a voice that resembles authority but seems more inclined towards wilful collapse.
“I know that Reed.”
“Then why do you keep phrasing these traffic reports like it’s Stalinist f*****g poetry evening?’
“Please don’t swear at me, it makes me tense when you swear at me.”
And that is the end of that conversation, I presume Reed is trying to appraise the work that I am doing here but his management style leaves a lot to be desired. I believe that he has been on courses to adjust his technique as I some members of U section have made formal complaints against him. In my opinion the members of staff filing these complaints are clearly missing the hierarchy of our organization. Reed sits on the complaints panel (I checked the staffing graph as U Section offers a completely transparent information structure and for all the non-transparent information one simply refers to the back end of the site) so therefore any complaints made must be filtered through him. Knowing Reed he probably still allows most (if not all) to go to panel as it gives him an excuse to go up stairs and sit with Jenkins, Wallace and Hibdiah and discuss the merits of the team members in our section before sending him off on a two week management retreat in a Swiss skiing lodge so that he can adjust his management style.
It is important to note that whilst Reed is technically a subordinate of Jenkins and Wallace (and to extent Hibdiah) they were all resident at the same campus of St. Andrews University and whilst this proves nothing in terms of their social relations it does prove that information from the University database is relatively easy to obtain, I mean in comparison to the data that I work with on the day to day. To day to day. Today, I have cross-referenced the vector information of their rooms on the campus from a 3D model interpolated from the building blue prints with certain combinations of figures in their main and ancillary bank accounts over the period of their graduation to the present day which is now, now now. Accurate up to approximately 5.05am this morning, the results were inconclusive which makes me feel that a third algorithm will be required to harness the original data and provide me further details of the management dynamic that immediately surrounds me.
I’m Hugh by the way. I went to Cambridge and did pure maths. Physics and computing are just a hobby. My methodology may sound haphazard to you but we take a holistic approach here in U Section. I am not military intelligence and as far as I’m aware we answer to no branch of government (in the UK at least) although most of the models we run and the data that is produced is available to them. There are a lot of names for what we do. Cyber-crime, Anonymous, hacking, a whole movement sprung out of 4Chan. I’ve never been involved with that, I don’t take part in the activity of individuals. This society is no longer managed that way.
You wouldn’t understand. In Iran (maybe Egypt) in the 70s there was a movement, a statisticians ripple that swelled and then contracted, the numbers supporting the myriad of extremism that would cascade through over the next 30 years, a shadow. That’s how this department was formed really, the models are technically classified but if you excel as a student in certain maths departments around the country you may be invited to ruminate with a professor over a brandy on the implications of these figures and the modules derived thereof. Interpretive statisticians, quantitative creatives. You wouldn’t understand.
My father was a military man but I never knew him, the way that things have unfolded in my life, the way that I am. I sometimes think I have been influenced by his career choice, perhaps he saw it as a calling. I am whether directly or indirectly a servant of the military and the work that I do furthers their cause, society at large needs us. Liberals may argue differently but they know what we are and why we are here. The money that flows through the fingers, that trickles down and oils the most dejected in our society. I keep the tap running, government, military, industrial, sociological concerns are a by product of a system that is running above optimum efficiency, overclocked. I have to keep working, I don’t know what my father has to do with this…
