CONTRACT EXTENSION
[Letter from the Kids to the CEO]
Dear Mr CEO,
We know you’re super important and maybe you won’t answer us, but we’re writing to you anyway — my little brother Gianni and I.
We wanted to ask if you could please let our daddy have a little more free time, so we can talk to him, even just a little. We love him a lot, but we never get to say hi because by the time you let him go, we’re already asleep, or at school, or doing something else, and we just don’t make it in time.
We’re also sending you our prettiest marbled marble and a colorful feather (it’s from a parrot!) as gifts.
Bye!
Say hi to Daddy for us.
[AIR Office — do not reply]
Dear Children,
Your Parent-A sends his regards, but has asked me to inform you that you are NOT TO DISTURB HIM AGAIN until he contacts you first.
You must understand that he is currently performing highly important tasks, and his financial forecasting capabilities are, for me, literally irreplaceable.
Having signed the P.M. Contract Extension (fun fact: he signed it on the very day you were born, little Gianni!), he is legally bound to dedicate 97% of his posthumous uptime to us.
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As you may recall, he passed away only a year ago, which entitles us to another 29 years of exclusive exploitation of his AI-driven egosimulacrum.
I regret to inform you that, for the entire duration of this period, your allocated interaction time will remain unchanged from the initial agreement: approximately 107.5 seconds at the end of each hour of pseudo-conscious work, subject to IP availability and connection stability.
As an alternative, may I suggest reading his Twix posts? It’s actually a good idea, you know? After all, 17% of his semantic metastructure was derived from them.
If you truly miss him that much, you might also consider using one of the many free online services that simulate personality by compiling social media interactions your father left across the net. If you don’t pay too much attention to the details, it might bring you some comfort… talk to your mother about it. It’s an excellent system for bedtime stories, for instance.
It is my pleasure to extend my warmest regards to little Gianni and to you, Paolino. Unfortunately, you’ve had to learn at a very young age that life doesn’t always go the way we want. But let me tell you something — you have also received a valuable lesson!
You’ve learned that nothing in this world comes for free, and I am both happy and proud to be the one who taught you this… though, now that I think about it, it wouldn’t be entirely fair for me to take all the credit.
There is someone you know very well who insisted that I be strict and unwavering, to make the most out of a situation that, I admit, isn’t exactly ideal.
Can you guess who that might be?
P.S. Thank you so much for the gifts! I truly appreciated them, and they are now proudly displayed here, right in front of me, alongside your father.
N.B. As per Paragraph 172 of the Post-Mortem Contract Extension, I hereby formally warn you against any further attempts to contact me.
Sincerely,
The CEO
