Pilot episode! So, we learn right away that Incorporated is set in the future, and corporations run everything. There’s the Green Zone, where corporate employees live, and the Red Zone, where everyone else lives. Green Zone is the clean, manicured lawns of the suburbs, and Red Zone basically looks like a war zone, with people scrounging to live at all.
Our main character is Ben Larson; a corporate climber looking to get ahead in the company he works for–SPIGA. Right away it’s clear there’s something not quite honest about him. We figure out later that he’s a fraud; he’s someone with an ulterior motive for being in the Green Zone (other than the obvious). He’s lost someone (a girlfriend? That part’s not quite clear) and we find out he’s been using his corporate connections to look for her for the past six years.
Ben is married to Laura, a plastic surgeon who also happens to be the daughter of the CEO of SPIGA. Tricky Ben. He’s coming from a place of advantage. I feel sorry for Laura, though, as she’s blissfully unaware of who Ben really is, and it’s also not clear if he’s only using her, or if he actually loves her. He obviously loves the woman he’s been searching for. Plus? Laura breaks the news that she’s gotten the permit to have her IUD removed and get pregnant. Yikes.
He finds the woman he’s been looking for–Elena–at an executive sex club, where she’s basically a slave. Ben needs to get to the 40th floor to even get in. So, he needs to create an opening.
Ben’s been working with Chad (played by the awesome David Hewlett) on technology called Everclear. Everclear basically reads minds. This is creepy, since it could be used for interrogation purposes. Chad is kind of uptight. Ben gets the guys to go clubbing in the Red Zone, and they take Chad with them. He uses this opportunity to steal a little of Chad’s blood.
The technology at SPIGA is obviously pretty well secured, since it takes DNA as a password. Ben uses the blood to get into Chad’s files, and copies proprietary information onto a storage device Chad takes home. Chad gets caught by security ‘smuggling data’, and this creates the opening Ben needs.
We also meet Julian this way–he’s the corporate ax-man. He interrogates Chad, and talks ominously about something called ‘The Quiet Room’. Eep. Creepy much?
JL Jamieson is a strange book nerd who writes technical documents by day, and book news, reviews, and other assorted opinions for you by night. She is working on her own fiction, and spends time making jewelry to sell at local conventions, as well as stalking the social media accounts of all your favorite writers.