When Workplace Surveillance Goes Terribly Wrong

This story is part of Future Tense Fiction, a monthly series of short stories from Future Tense and Arizona State University's Center for Science and the Imagination about how technology and science will change our lives. Amanda sat at her desk, picking at the same $30 Little Gem salad she ordered daily, suffering a small burning sensation in her gut that was triggered either by acid reflux or the dying embers of her rapidly expiring conscience. Of course, it was standard procedure for her husband to demand that the security firm Dark Metal surveil potential new hires for any of his multibillion-dollar companies, but this was the first time Amanda had been involved in contracting the private intelligence agency herself. Seedlings is your venture, Reid had promised her, even though he'd named himself CEO. I want you to take the lead on this. Amanda was COO of Seedlings and reported to her husband, who dismissed Amanda's concerns about the legal ramifications of their actions. Worrying about the law was something poor people did, Reid insisted. Besides, she'd never seen Reid do anything that nefarious with this type of information. But Maggie Everett was the type of candidate that pleased Reid. Amanda had done her job, which was to find Maggie, and the people at Dark Metal had done theirs, which was to surveil her and create a comprehensive biographical profile. This seemed like overkill to Amanda. Maggie wasn't in the running to become a high-profile executive at one of Reid's billion-dollar firms. She was being interviewed to work at a preschool. Certainly, Seedlings differed from other private preschools--there was the possibility Maggie would be exposed to confidential information. But this was what NDAs were for. Unleashing a network of spies upon a poor teacher who would ultimately be responsible for 10 toddlers seemed like an absurd waste of resources. And this was just Phase 1. Phase 2 would have to wait until after Maggie was hired, of course. Amanda reopened Dark Metal's inch-thick dossier. The logline: Maggie was smart but stupid. Smart: She'd majored in English at Yale, then received an MFA in creative writing from Brown, and finally a master's in early childhood education from Columbia. Stupid: She'd accumulated $103,345 in student debt, which she'd never pay off unless she took a job somewhere like Seedlings.