K44 - Coercive Management
All Frank's coworkers were murmuring as they walked into the announcement room. It was the only part of their day they were not pushed to frantically keep the assembly line going out on the manufacturing floor. "They say we have a new shift manager," he heard someone say. "She's a K44," someone else offered anonymously into the group. K44s were shrouded in rumors and mystery so few knew what they truly were, and none had ever met one.
They filtered into the room, sitting in their seats. This was an unruly bunch, and they sat in a very dis-orderly fashion. Some turned the seats around, others moved them out of their neat pattern. One guy sat in the back laid across three seats as if he was sleeping. It had to be for show, these seats were not that comfortable. Frank needed this job, so he played by the rules, sitting more appropriately in a seat in the front.
Beind him, Fred heard plastic and metal scraping the floor as seats adjusted when she walked in. She was tall, unreasonably tall. Dark hair, vaguely asian features. She looked Ameripak, the name for children of the new quasi democracy created when India, Pakistan, and the United States became one country. Or maybe not. She held her hand out towards the group.
"Please, don't get up. I'll keep this brief. Management has had some trouble with your line. I'm the kind of manager they bring in when they want the trouble to stop. Trouble doesn't happen when I'm around, not unless i create it that is." She pointed past Fred, and he turned around to see she was referencing the guy lying down. "You, in the back. What's your name."
"Darlin, you can call me anything you like when you come over here and suck my cock." Fred was a little shocked, but the rest of the room just roared into laughter. The woman stood silent. A moment later a loud crash sounded off in the back of the room, the three chairs hand somehow flipped over, landing him on the floor.
"Tell me mister 'suck my cock'," She said the words with no emotion, as an insult to him. "Have you ever met a K44?" He didn't respond. "I see you have not. Thank you for making my selection of a demonstration participant easy." She raised her hand, and all three chairs floated into the air and back into their neat orderly locations. Her fingers made a little crawl motion, and he started sliding across the floor, like he was pulled towards her. Only there was nothing to do the pulling.
"What the fuck!?" The man tried to right himself, as he continued dragging along the floor towards her. His arms scrambled for something to hold onto, and the chairs he could reach dragged along with him.
"There are some new rules around here." Her hand was still held out, fingers still crawling, the man still sliding across the floor towards her. "You make me happy, I'll make you happy. You make me unhappy, and well, i'll make an example of you." The man had reached her now. She turned her hand palm up, and in an instant he was lifted off the floor, turned and held upright floating in the air in front of her.