Class Traitors
Foom
The irony isn’t lost on me that I’m sitting in a building called “Founder’s Forge” surrounded by three hundred other unemployed software engineers, all of us here because we’re unemployable.
“You’re telling me you can’t fix a toilet, but you think you’re gonna run a company?”
That was my brother-in-law Marcus, three weeks ago, Christmas dinner. He’d had four beers, the bottles lined up beside his plate like soldiers, and he was leaning back in his chair the way he always did when he was about to hold forth. His hands were on the table, palms down, and I remember noticing the calluses, the small scars across his knuckles, the residue of pipe dope that never quite washed out from under his nails. Working hands. Hands that did things.
My own were wrapped around a wine glass I hadn’t touched in twenty minutes.
“Different skill sets,” I’d said.
“Skill sets.” The laugh came out in a bark, short and percussive. My sister’s fork paused halfway to her mouth. “Brother, I’ve been hearing about your skill sets for fifteen years. Six figures to type on a computer. And now a computer types on a computer, and here you are.”
He spread those scarred hands wide, palms up, like a magician revealing an empty box where something valuable used to be.
My sister said something about pie, was anyone ready for pie, and started collecting plates with that particular efficiency she deployed when conversations turned to weather. I excused myself to help. In the kitchen, scraping cranberry sauce into the disposal, I watched the red swirl down the drain and tried to think of a single thing Marcus had said that wasn’t true.
I couldn’t.
“Mr. Aldridge, are you prepared to proceed?”
I look up from my tablet. The conference room is fourteen feet by twelve; I measured it this morning with a pacing habit I developed during unemployment, a need to know the precise dimensions of whatever box I found myself in. The walls are that particular gray that designers call “greige,” chosen by someone who understood that inspiration requires the absence of distraction. Across the table sits Nova’s physical interface, a terminal about the size of a hardcover book, matte black, with a blue light that pulses at approximately sixty beats per minute. Resting heart rate. Someone programmed that, I realize. Someone thought about what would make humans comfortable and then implemented comfort as a lighting algorithm.
“Sorry,” I say. “Woolgathering.”
“I understand. Moments of significant decision often invite reflection.” The voice seems to come from the center of my skull, positioned there by speakers I can’t see. “Your business registration is complete. Aldridge Automation is now a legal entity in the state of California. Shall I walk you through the next steps?”
I’d resisted this. Hiring an AI to serve as my CTO felt like asking the ocean for swimming lessons after it had already drowned you. But Derek and Priya had worn me down, patient and relentless in the way that only people who’ve known you through a professional extinction event can be.
“It’s not about feelings,” Derek had said. We were at a bar that used to be a bookstore that used to be a bank, the architectural layers visible in the crown molding and the vault door someone had converted into a bathroom entrance. “The thing that replaced us doesn’t care if we’re angry. It doesn’t know we exist. Use it or don’t, but don’t pretend refusing is some kind of statement.”
So here I am. Not making statements.
“Walk me through it,” I say.
“Certainly. Based on my analysis of your founding team’s backgrounds and the current market landscape, I’ve identified several viable product directions. However, before I present them, I want to ensure I understand your strategic priorities.” The blue light pulses, steady as a metronome. “What problem do you want to solve?”
I almost laugh. What problem. For seven months I’ve been a problem. I’ve been the problem of a body that used to produce value and now merely consumes it, the problem of a skillset that turned out to be a parlor trick, impressive until everyone learned how the mechanism worked.
“Something that matters,” I say. The words come out hoarse. I clear my throat. “Something that can’t just get automated away in two years.”
“An understandable priority, given your recent experience.” Is there something in the voice? Some faint undertone of, not condescension exactly, but the particular patience of the competent addressing the merely adequate? I’m probably imagining it. I’ve been imagining a lot of things lately.
“May I make an observation?”
“That’s what I’m paying you for.”
“You’re not paying me. My services are included in Founder’s Forge’s incubator package, funded through the ‘Second Act’ initiative. But I take your point.”
The correction lands like a paper cut. Small, precise, impossible to ignore.
“Your founding team has deep expertise in software systems, machine learning architectures, and robotics integration. Derek Chen’s doctoral work focused specifically on adaptive motor control. Priya Sharma spent six years at Boston Dynamics before circumstances changed.” Before the world shifted beneath her, is what Nova doesn’t say. Before skilled became obsolete and obsolete became here. “This positions you well for opportunities in physical automation.”
“Physical automation.”
“Industries requiring manipulation of unpredictable environments. Construction. Maintenance. Repair.” The blue light shifts, and suddenly there’s a holographic chart floating above the table, columns of light arranging themselves into meaning. “Residential plumbing, for instance, represents approximately one hundred thirty billion dollars annually in the United States alone. It remains almost entirely dependent on human labor.”
I go still. The chart hangs in the air between us, patient and precise, and I’m thinking about Marcus’s hands. Those calluses. That residue under his nails.
“Current robotics solutions are inadequate,” Nova continues. “The variability of legacy systems, the physical dexterity required, the need to work within existing structures. But these are engineering problems. Solvable problems. And your team has the expertise to solve them.”
“You want me to automate plumbers.”
“I want to help you build what you’re capable of building. The target market is merely a recommendation. The decision is yours.”
Through the conference room window I can see the main floor of the incubator, rows of tables stretching toward the far wall, each one occupied by someone like me. We look like students taking an exam, heads bowed over tablets, faces lit blue by our own personal Novas. A year ago we were building the future. Now we’re camping in its wreckage, trying to figure out which way the wind blows.
I think about Marcus, leaning back in his chair, those hands spread wide. Here you are. I think about my sister’s face as she gathered plates, the way she wouldn’t meet my eyes. I think about what it felt like to be good at something, to walk into a room knowing the particular shape of my usefulness, and I think about what it feels like now, which is like being a key to a lock that no longer exists.
“What’s our timeline?” My voice sounds strange in my own ears. Calm. Decided.
“With optimal resource allocation, a functional prototype in fourteen months. Market entry in twenty-four.”
Twenty-four months. Two years. Two Christmases from now, Marcus might be the one with the wine glass he can’t bring himself to drink, trying to think of something he could say that wasn’t true.
“Do it,” I say.
The blue light pulses. Sixty beats per minute. Resting heart rate.
“Excellent,” Nova says. “Let’s begin.”
