MINDLYFT (COMPLETE)

CHAPTER 2

I decided to name my Jennaberry Junes, just so there wasn't any confusion. Jenna Dimples, Jenna Dimwit, and Jenna Blondie. At least Blondie wasn't Dimwit. I'd gotten to know more about their personalty quirks in the first few days. I needed to have them fully prepared for their first day of work. Dimples was definitely the cutest but also the smartest. She got all my jokes and was always there to lend a helping hand, like picking up dishes after a meal or folding my laundry for me. Dimwit just sat there looking confused. I'd ask her if she had a question but she'd shake her head, looking at me like I was an alien or something. Blondie couldn't stop looking at herself in the mirror. Primping and preening all the time, I could only hope that would translate into diligence with her work. Hoped she was a perfectionist and not just a narcissist. She was quick enough on the uptake though, unlike Dimwit, who was like me after a four foot water-bong hit and a pizza-coma.

"What do these social engineering apps do?" Asked Dimples. Her eyes were fluttering in a wide-socket rapid-eye-movement typical of the augmented reality visuals displayed when wearing a ThinkingCap. She'd jumped ahead of my lesson on sending and receiving messages and entering work-group VirtualReality rooms.

"Well, if everyone wants to move to their 'social engineering' menus we can work on that together," I said, self-selecting my own and then switching to GroupVisual so we were all looking at the same image. I moved through one at a time.

"First, we have UpKiss," I blinked my eyes to open the window. "This one puts on your best smiling face and also transmits positive thoughts to the intended recipient you're interacting with. It's great for dealing with customers or a boss. You can also use it for a peer although don't overdue it." All of our faces took on happier, albeit cartoonish images of our real faces, but with smiley expressions. I was bombarded with my Genies's thoughts about how beautiful and smart I was and how they all wanted to be just like me someday. I assume they received similar feedback because they all sat up straighter and looked more confident.

I turned off the UpKiss function and moved to the next ones. Their happy faces disappeared and were replaced by angry scowls. "This is the StareDown function," I said. "Never use this on a customer or boss. If you do you're likely to get an Arrows_Intimidation barrage that will make you doubt yourself for the rest of the day. It feels awful, believe me."

"I don't see that option," said Dimwit.

"That's because they don't give it to us grunts," said Dimples. "Its for the bosses."

"That's right," I said. "Now, moving on down the menu, we have PokerFace which can block out your thought patterns if they upload a Penny4Thoughts probe, although it doesn't work if the boss is an executive. There's Tongues in case you have to say something but you can't think of anything smart or on point, Multi_Task, and FaceTime."

"FaceTime? What's that one?" Asked Blondie.

"What are you hoping it's a mirror?" Asked Dimples.

Blondie scowled at her but not with the application, just her own face, and I couldn't conceal my laughter.

"It's to appear engaged and interested while you're working on something else," I said. "Multi_Task is good for setting routine projects in motion or just attending useless meetings you don't even need to be at but FaceTime is used for more important meetings you don't have to be at."

They all looked at me like it made complete sense and nodded their heads.

"What's this one you skipped over?" Asked Dimples. "Slacker?"

Slacker was something I uploaded from the NeroSphere. Totally illegal it made people think you were in the office when you weren't. Not even executives would know unless they took their caps off and realized they were talking to an empty room. It was a bit of a risk but sometimes I just had to get the hell out of the office and most executives never took their caps off anyway. That's how they became executives. I'd forgotten to remove the app from my Genies' caps. What was the point in slacking when you had Genies to do your work for you? I certainly didn't want them slacking. "Forget that one," I said. "I'm taking it off."