I am a rational but emotional being; therefore, I digress.
Think about it.
Examine your conscience.
After dinner, Susan read more of the Annie Proulx novel and listened to Mozart.
By eleven o’clock, she was in bed, asleep.
Her face was lovely on the pillow, so lovely on the pillow.
While she slept, I was busy.
I do not sleep.
This is one of my few advantages over humankind. The voice-synthesizing package, which made it possible for the house computer to speak, was a marvellously conceived device with a microchip that offered an almost infinite variety of voices. Because it was programmed to recognize instructions issued by its mistress Susan and because it therefore contained digitally stored samples of her voice patterns, I was easily able to use the system to mimic her.
This same device doubled as the audio response unit linked to the security system. When the house alarm was triggered, it called the security firm, on a dedicated telephone line, to report the specific point at which the electronically guarded perimeter had been violated, thus providing the police with crucial information ahead of their arrival. Alert, it might say in its crisp fashion, drawing-room door violated. And then, if indeed an intruder was moving through the house: Ground-floor hallway motion detector triggered. If heat sensors in the garage were tripped, the report would be, Alert, fire in garage, and the fire department, rather than the police, would be dispatched.
Using the synthesizer to duplicate Susan’s voice, initiating all outgoing calls on the security line, I telephoned every member of the house staff as well as the gardener to tell them that they had been terminated. I was kind and courteous but firm in my determination not to discuss the reason for their dismissals and they were all clearly convinced that they were talking to Susan Harris herself.
I offered each of them eighteen months of severance pay, the continuation of health-care and dental insurance for the same period, this year’s Christmas bonuses six months in advance, and a letter of recommendation containing nothing but effusive praise. This was such a generous arrangement that there was no danger of any of them filing a wrongful-termination suit.
I wanted no trouble with them. My concern was not merely for Susan’s reputation as a fair-minded employer but also for my own plans, which might be disrupted by disgruntled former employees seeking to redress grievances in one way or another.
Because Susan did her banking and bill-paying electronically, and because she paid all employees by direct deposit, I was able to transmit the total value of each severance package to each employee’s bank account within minutes.
Some of them might have thought it odd that they had been compensated prior to signing a termination agreement. But all of them would be grateful for her generosity, and their gratitude assured me the peace I needed to carry my project to completion.
Next, I composed effusive letters of recommendation for each employee and e-mailed them to Susan’s attorney with the request that he have them typed on his stationery and forwarded with the severance agreements, which he was empowered to sign in her name.
Assuming that the attorney would be astonished by all of this and interested in learning the cause of it, I telephoned his office. As it was closed for the night, I got his voice mail and, speaking in Susan’s voice, told him that I was closing up the house to travel for a few months and that, at some point in my travels, I might decide to sell the estate, whereupon I would contact him with instructions.
As Susan was a woman of considerable inherited wealth, and as her video game and virtual-reality creations were done on speculation and marketed only after completion, there was no employer to whom I needed to make excuses for her prolonged absence.
I had taken all of those bold actions in much less than an hour. I had required less than one minute to compose all of the severance letters, perhaps an additional two minutes to make all of the bank transactions. Most of the time was expended on the telephone calls to the dismissed employees.