Jack

Archetype: Corporate Gatekeeper

The technician who guards dangerous secrets

Jack embodies the corporate gatekeeper archetype - the employee who knows dangerous secrets but chooses to maintain them rather than expose them. His role in "Weapon" demonstrates how ordinary people become complicit in extraordinary dangers through normalization and compartmentalization.

Basic Information

• Full Name: Jack
• Aliases: None known
• Occupation: ToxPower Technician
• Status: Alive

Physical Description

• Black man with smooth skin and trait-perfect features
• Described as being under one hundred years old but showing his age
• Wears a navy ToxPower jumpsuit with the company logo and his name in white cursive
• Has tobacco-stained yellow teeth
• In peak physical performance despite his age

Story Appearances

• Weapon: ToxPower technician who explains the Feynman batteries to Tricia; indoctrinates her into keeping the dangerous secret

Connections

• Tricia: New colleague; he indoctrinates her into keeping ToxPower's secrets
• Roger: Superior at ToxPower who selected Tricia for her position

Subversion of Archetype

Jack subverts the technician archetype in several key ways:

• The Complicit Technician: Unlike the typical whistleblower technician who exposes dangers, Jack helps maintain the dangerous status quo.

• The Casual Gatekeeper: He treats world-ending technology as just another day at work, showing how extraordinary dangers become normalized.

• The System Maintainer: He represents how individuals become complicit in maintaining dangerous systems through normalization and compartmentalization.

Role in the Corporate Game

Jack functions as a maintainer of the corporate system. His technical knowledge makes him valuable to ToxPower, while his willingness to keep secrets makes him trustworthy to those in power. His casual attitude toward the potentially catastrophic Feynman batteries demonstrates how corporate culture normalizes extreme risks in pursuit of profit and power.

His role in indoctrinating Tricia shows how the system perpetuates itself by bringing new people into the circle of secrecy, creating shared complicity that prevents whistleblowing. His comment that he "never gave it too much thought" regarding what would happen if a Feynman battery escaped containment reveals the dangerous compartmentalization that allows such systems to persist.

Notable Quotes

• "What you are looking at is the world's most sophisticated form of battery. Three thousand eight hundred and four of them." - Explaining the Feynman batteries to Tricia
• "You know, I never gave it too much thought? Best to just ensure it never happens. Those things generate so much gravity I… ah, well, I'm not a scientist." - When asked what would happen if a Feynman battery escaped containment
• "Roger said I would like you. I think he's right." - To Tricia after she agrees to maintain the secret