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Brain implants for the purposes of recording brain activity was not a particularly new technology. Intracranial EEG and functional MRI had been around for decades, and Alex had seen them before used to measure worker performance. He had rarely seen them used on such a large scale, mind you, but they had been used routinely in research settings to determine what made some workers perform better than others. Usually it was for cognitively-intensive tasks or those where, say, concentration was fundamental to performance. In other cases, a small chip might be laid on a key part of the brain that was needed for certain tasks, such as short-term working memory. The information was interesting and sometimes useful, but Alex couldn't remember an example where it had been used to help generate a three hundred percent productivity increase. But then again, brain imaging research wasn't exactly his specialty.

The free health care and intense concern for the workers now made more sense, Alex realized. They truly were treating their workers as an investment. Liu had not been kidding. But gathering the data was only part of the puzzle. "What do you do with the data?" Alex asked.

The tour was now pretty far off-script from the canned presentation Liu had prepared, so his role had morphed more into translator between Alex and the mine's Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Deng. Liu relayed the question, and the answer came back: "We record all of the data and store it here," Liu said. Deng pointed to a computer terminal next to the bed.

 "But how do you translate the knowledge into improved worker performance?" Alex asked. They had been going around and around with these questions for the past hour and Alex was having a hard time telling when the translation was a problem versus there being deliberate obfuscation at work. But he could see that the mine executives were looking nervous.

"Better training," was the answer.

"Okay," Alex said. "Show me. I want to talk to some miners."

This they were clearly prepared for. They marched into another part of the headquarters building and there, waiting, were a panel of mining representatives. A shift foreman. Three union bosses. And two "average" miners, as representatives. Alex had no doubt they had clearly all been hand-picked.

Pleasantries dictated that they spend nearly forty minutes allowing the union bosses and shift foreman to go through their planned spiel before Alex could get into the question of the brain implants. He was becoming increasingly impatient, but Alex reminded himself that there was nothing dictating that he depart tonight. The company jet would wait for him as long as he needed it to. He was there to do a job, and he would get it done.

On the subject of the medical experiments – and yes, Alex reminded himself, it was fair to call them that – the union bosses clearly had strong views.

"We were promised that these opportunities would be afforded to every worker," the chief union boss, Mr. Xi, said angrily through a translator. "But this has not been the case. Only a very small number of workers have the—" and here the translator faltered and had a short back-and-forth with the union boss "—medical procedure," he concluded. Xi tapped his head to make his point.

"How many?" Alex asked. "How many workers have had the procedure?"

This prompted a lengthier discussion between the union bosses, the shift foreman, Dr. Deng and the mine managers, but the answer came back: "Twenty." Which was the same answer Deng had given Alex an hour ago in the infirmary. "We were told this would be afforded to everyone," Mr. Xi said. "And they have lied." Here he pointed dramatically at the mine managers, who shifted in their seats at the far end of the table, clearly uncomfortable with this entire discussion.

"But what about the follow-on procedure?" Alex asked, probing. "What about the additional training?"

This generated some confusion, as Alex suspected it might. Twenty workers might be enough to generate data on performance, particularly if they selected top-performing workers, but in order to actually increase mine productivity they had to then translate that knowledge into changed business practices or mining methods. He had an idea how they did it, and why they would want to keep it secret.

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