Corporate Security
Open the door, Corporate Security
Whatsamatter! Its night an we's sleepin.
Open the door. You and your associates are wanted for violations of Corporate Policy 1482.982 regarding operation of a competing business and employment of persons in an unauthorized independent enterprise.
The door opened a crack, and a large swarthy man, dressed in old and torn nightclothes, looked out.
You got the wrong apartment, jobber. We ain't running nothin, and we aint got nothin to do with the thrice cursed Pleiades Corporation. We's Unemployed, as you must know. We's just trying to stay alive here downlevel, an' we ain't got no Corporate Policy here. Go 'way.
Pursuant to Corporate Policy 92839.27, we are now authorizing the use of fumigants to secure the premises and apprehend all occupants.
A moment later, an armored officer stepped up to the door with a large metal cylinder which was placed against the flimsy wood, a loud bang and within moments a thick blue smoke began to flood under the door. A few moments later and a number of thuds were heard inside. The officers waited a full minute before removing the cylinder, revealing a neat hole and heavy flow of the same dense blue smoke, then kicked in the door. Inside they found eight individuals, all members of a family, and the man who had answered the door. All were deceased, of course, from the toxins in the fumigation charge. The team cleared the apartment, seized all records, and called janitorial services to clean up the place, fix the door, and make ready for new tenants. In the later review it was found that the team had gone to the wrong block, one block off from the original target. The actual unauthorized business operation was raided three days later, successfully. The team lead from the original raid was given a minor negative review for waste of corporate resources, and the incident was closed.
There are few organizations in the year 2104 that are both more respected and more hated than Corporate Security. The enforcers of Corporate Policy for The Pleiades Corporation, Corporate Security is the closest thing to a police force in the Solar System. Corporate Security originated as a typical company security force comprised of security guards tasked with general security tasks at company offices. The expansion of the company and slow replacement of many functions of a political government caused the company to expand the service and institute training programs until by 2070 the Corporate Security forces were the equal of any political law enforcement body in the solar system. By 2080 they had replaced all such organizations, just as Corporate Policy had replaced political laws. Never particularly constrained by ethical concerns, the Corporate Security practice was always to focus first on corporate asset protection, and worry about non-corporate assets, or non-assets, later, if at all. This resulted in an interesting dichotomy where Employees of The Pleiades Corporation were treated with considerable care and respect, so long as they hadn't violated an important policy, but the Unemployed were of no consequence and the practice of dealing with any trouble among the Unemployed or in downlevel areas of the megacities of Earth was to simply fumigate the area and call janitorial to clean up afterward. If the wrong apartment, block, vehicle, or individual was cleaned, emptied, seized, or killed; well at least it wasn't a loss of corporate assets. At worst the team lead might get a minor reprimand for wasting the time of janitorial staff, or causing loss of valuable rent. When The Great Grieving came in 2128, the collapse and dissolution of Corporate Security was one of the few bright spots of that dark time.
Corporate Policy
The Pleiades Corporation, like any corporation, managed the expected behaviors and activities of its employees through corporate policies. Initially these were the typical acceptable use of assets policies, travel policies, acceptable interpersonal behavior policies, hiring, firing, and leave policies, and all the other details common to large corporations. Eventually, however, as The Corporation began to replace political governments, these policies began to read more like political laws. Policies governing criminal acts, rules of court procedure, property rights and corporate right of seizure. By the time the last of the political governments were merged into The Corporation, corporate policy was fully as extensive, detailed, and complex as any political government body of laws, and in most cases far more detailed and complex. By 2090 corporate policies covered every major aspect of life, every significant activity of The Corporation, and a disturbing amount of personal details. There were over one hundred thousand sections to the corporate policy corpus, and most sections contained roughly one thousand paragraphs. Personal details such as weight management, permitted relationships, familial activities, even the decision of a couple to have children were all dictated by corporate policy, and most required a series of approvals starting with a manager and often rising to the executive ranks (for major decisions like marriage or childbearing). Individual freedoms and personal autonomy were largely eliminated in favor of corporate control and orderly allocation of corporate resources. Escaping the tyrannical level of personal intrusion and control espoused in corporate policy was one of the primary driving forces behind the Unemployment Riots of 2106-2123, and remained a major source of civil unrest even through the reconstruction that followed The Great Grieving.
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