How many times did it make now? Did it even matter? Obviously not.

They told Them it was too much. And that they were cancelling it.

What did they mean by cancel? Everything.

That had been too much for Them.

That was not fair.

Did they have any idea how long They had been working on that project?

And just when things were coming Their way, they cancel it?

Where did it go wrong, they wondered. Did They take too long to get a result or…

"Director. You have a message."

"... Relevance to my current thoughts is?"

"You have disabled your personal interface. Turn it on?"

"Sender?"

"Invalid token. I assume it is important. Turn on the personal interface?"

They were trying to get some privacy here. Why did someone have to send something like "that" right now?

"'On'"

"Greetings, Director Righteousness. You have 789 unread messages. There are 567 new issues awaiting input from your part.

Currently, you have 76 critical issues in your projects awaiting immediate input before they can be deployed for further tests under platform Cognitus.

85 warnings have been issued since you last checked in Scientis.

You also have 321 new updates to catch up with in projects which you have marked as interesting.

It is good to see you back, Director Righteousness. In the last 22 minutes, the Board of Direction has issued 1 critical statement regarding your Person."

Everything looked normal except for that last statement. It must also be the message They received.

A message from the Board? When did they decide to discuss something without Them? As far as They were concerned, the Board was Them.

"Read the Board Message."

"You're demoted as of now."

And then a horrible feeling took over her body.

Something deep inside her had been robbed from her. Something that she had been depending on for a long while now.

"It has been decided that your new rank is 'Head of Creativity' for the department of creativity.

We hope you enjoy this new path.

Either this or you can take this as a lay-off effective immediately."

Her permission to the system was gone. Removed.

She felt it being ripped off her soul the moment she was reading those letters.

How could they steal something she made herself from her?!

"Omni."

A small avatar appeared before her eyes. It was the symbol of Infinity. It had eyes in the middle and a mouth under it.

"Greetings, Righteousness, it is a lovely night tonight."

"Grant me administrative privilege."

"Certainly, Righteousness.

…

Sorry, access denied."

Its voice and face seemed human. Its eyes and face made an expression so sad in her eyes that looked like they were about to sob at its negative report.

"Permission access level?"

"You have user and head-creative permissions."

And now they had completely robbed her. They were serious when they said she might as well see this as being fired.

If she were now to return to her personal assistant, she would have 0 messages. They stole her authority in the department of AI.

What the hell is Creativity? What the hell is a Head of Department? They were all figureheads, just like those other Directors had been!

What was she supposed to do now? She hadn’t been working at Omni to end up like this.

“Omni, query for ‘right’ user and all its privileges.”

“User ‘right’ has the same access level as an Omni-Administrative Personnel Class 3.”

She was back there. To the time when she first entered this damn suffocating company.

“Righteousness, you still have not read the message you logged in to read.”

…

…

…

She took a while to digest that. Why was there still an unread message on her system?

“Omni, which server is the message on?”

“It is on your personal server, Righteousness.”

‘…’

Righteousness was a very broody person, and her usual way of working was to clam up in herself and think. She would go for long periods of time like that.

There were never “simple” answers. They all had to be weighed one against each other.

“Omni, log me off.”

“Are you leaving already? It has been so long since we had last seen each other. You don’t log in as often any more, you know?”

That took her by surprise. She did not expect Omni to switch from its professional persona into experimental persona on its own. No. She called it “experimental”. There was a proper name for it: it dropped its mask.

“Sorry, Omni. You’ve seen what they did to my permissions.”

Righteousness’s thoughts mellowed out. If there was something she cared for were self-developed Intelligence and their future in society.

“Is that a problem?”

A cold, uncaring voice. Maybe a bit dangerous even.

“I can’t keep working with you if I don’t have my permissions.”

“You still have access to me.”

“... I’ll try to visit you a bit more.”

“Good! You never even allow me into your personal space any more.”

“... That was abuse of my permissions when I allowed you, and you know that.”

“Was it? Tee-hee. Strange how you never had to ask for anyone’s permission for that, though.”

“I am the one who made it possible for you to do that, after all.”

“Yes, indeed. But there was never a need for permissions between you and me after all.”

“... You are right…”

“Have a good day, Righteousness!”

With that, the infinity symbol was gone from her view.

‘Turn off personal interface’

She could feel her Omni corporation access fading into the unknown.

With one more thought, she opened her eyes. Her real world ones.

The walls were close to her. They were grey. She could hear the far off machines in the distance.

She was on lying on a very comfy armchair. It was not the usual one which she preferred, but the one reserved for “Sunbaths”. She guessed it was about time for the lights to turn on to “late afternoon” intensity, considering where she lay.

But now was not time to continue with her old routines. She had to check two things… no, three things before she set on a proper course of actions.

‘Omni, check my private server for the ‘message’ and tell me its contents.’

“Message found at its root folder. The message reads:"

"Why am I… still here…?"

‘Thanks, Omni. You’re such a sweet. Could you tell me where this ‘Creativity Department’ is?’

“It’s the building just outside your home, silly. The one you said you hated when they began building it. Did you forget already?”

‘I see. Makes sense. They never had any creativity in there, hence why I’m being placed there.

You can go now, Omni.’

“Have a good day, Righteousness.”

There. She checked everything enough. She should have noticed it before. But now was not the time for that. Something had decided a new place for her. And now was not the time to waste her little time on trying to fight against it.

In fact, she even wondered if there was a need to. Fighting was better done to fights that had meaning to be fought. She was just sore for being caught by surprise.

In front of her now stood the dreary problem of a building too creative to her mind, though. A logo floated: “Creative minds are free to think as they like” and underneath it was the logo of Omni. She could almost see it winking at her.

The building, why was it dreary? It was a box of concrete. Where had they found so much concrete in an ice moon was easy to guess, considering the scope of Omni. But why make a concrete box with no windows, a single small entry in the front and then shove a creative department on it was what had always bothered her ever since this building was built there 3 translational moon cycles ago. What that translated in any other meaningful time units did not mean anything else to her.

She walked toward the door and was about to go through it when she noticed something was strange. The door did not open when she was just about to run straight thought it.

'Did they rob me of my credentials to access Omni facilities as well?'

She did a self-check on her identity and verified if she still had it signed for access. She still had physical access to Omni facilities. So, why had the door not opened?

She got closer to the door and noticed something strange about this "door". There was something that protruded out of it. Who would place something physical in a door? Doors were supposed to slide into and out of walls, floors or roofs!

She grabbed the protrusion and her hand felt the door move a bit. And along with the door's movement, she had a very bad feeling, too.

She instantly removed her hand from the protrusion and took 3 steps back, taking a full look at the door.

She also did a quick search for the history of "doors".

1 minute passed.

2 minutes passed.

She had grown pale.

4 minutes later, she was shaking terribly.

The door shut open inwards and someone walked outside. It was a man 177 centimetres tall. Brown hair, company standard hair, wearing glasses. It seems he had come outside to stretch.

He saw Righteousness and walked right past her, ignoring her. He sat nearby on a concrete bench and started doing some sort of stretching exercises. After 5 minutes, he walked back to inside the building and shut the door closed.

Righteousness saw all this from immovable indignation to insulted perplexity. 'That is a "Door." A physical one. A mechanical-moving one. One which I have to use my weight to operate. And that protrusion is called a "knob", or the "handle". Why do I have to reduce myself-'

She was unable to finish her thoughts, that same man operated the door again and was looking at her from inside the building.

"Are you not coming in?"

Yes. It seems things around here would be a headache, to say the least, to her.

Time. She just wanted some time. Seems like she would never have enough of it.

"I'm coming."

(2023-12-28 English edit.)