by Max Barry
It looks just like all the other stairwell doors. He's a little disappointed; he was half expecting golden gates, fluffy clouds, and bright light spilling out. Oh well. He puts his hands on the metal bar and pushes it down. Ker-lack! In the stairwell, it sounds like a gunshot. Down below, the Security guards start shouting. Because of the echoes, it's hard to make out individual words, but Jones gets the impression that there are dire consequences in store for him. Jones knew that already. He just hopes there are no Security guards on level 1. If he's gone through all this for nothing, he will be very disgruntled. He shoulders open the door.
The wind nearly pulls him onto his face. He has to grab at the door for balance. It's so different from what he expected that for a second his brain fails to comprehend it; he just hangs there, gulping air, his eyeballs struggling for focus. His first stupid thought is: His office is huge!
Jones is on the roof.
“You know my name,” Freddy says. “You asked me to come here.”
“State your name,” the voice says again.
He swallows. He guesses this is for the record. Whatever record that is. Or maybe—another idea occurs to him—it's to calibrate their equipment. When you have a polygraph test, Freddy has heard, they ask simple questions first, to get the parameters right. They save the real questions for later.
“Freddy Carlson.”
“State your employee number.”
“It's 4123488.”
“State your department.”
“Training Sales. Level 14.” He clears his throat. “All this is on my application.”
“You have a disability.”
Freddy shifts on the chair. In the mirror, his reflection does likewise. To Freddy, his reflection looks very guilty. “Yes.”
“Your disability is stupidity.”
“I can't help it. I mean, I tried hard at school and everything, I'm just not naturally bright.”
“It seems there is an error on your application.”
“Probably,” Freddy says. “I'm such a doofus, there are probably several.”
“Your application states that you are stupid.”
“Right.”
“We think you mean to say that Human Resources is stupid.”
“Oh, no. No, of course not.”
“You know Human Resources' policy on disabilities.”
“I . . . might have heard it somewhere.”
“You know Human Resources complies fully with state and federal law.”
“Well, I assume.”
“You know Human Resources is proud to ensure that Zephyr Holdings is an equal opportunity employer.”
“Sure.”
“You know no employee of Zephyr Holdings has ever been discriminated against on the basis of a disability.”
“I didn't, no, but that's great.”
“You know that an employee with a recognized disability limits Human Resources' natural ability to terminate that employee.”
“I guess it does,” Freddy says.
“What's seven times three?”
“Tw—” Freddy catches his tongue. That was crafty! It was Human Resources' first question. “I'm not sure, I don't have a calculator.”
“What's the opposite of east?”
“Left.”
“Which go up, stalactites or stalagmites?”
“No idea,” Freddy says, truthfully.
“Teamwork is the lifeblood of the company, true or false?”
Freddy hesitates. This feels like a trick question. No one, no matter how mentally deficient, could not know Zephyr's position on teamwork. “True.”
A pause. When the voice resumes, it is deeper, even angry. “You know no disabled employee of Zephyr Holdings has ever been discriminated against on the basis of disability.”
“You just said that.”
Silence.
“Yes,” Freddy says.
“They have been transferred.” The voice adds a slight but clearly detectable emphasis. “They have been passed over. They have been demoted. They have been docked. But they have not been discriminated against.”
He swallows. “Oh.”
“They have received promotions that carry increased responsibilities but no extra pay. They have been integrated into teams with incompatible personalities. They have been assigned projects with mutually exclusive goals. They have been made supervisor of the Social Club's finances. They have been put in charge of cleaning up the customer database. They have been asked to train graduates.”
“Okay. Look—”
“They have failed to receive recognition for their accomplishments. Rumors have sprung up about them and unattractive co-workers. Their monitors have begun to strobe. The spring-loading on their chairs has failed. Their pens have gone missing. They have been given multiple managers. They—”
“Enough!” Freddy says. “I get it, all right?”
There is a pause. A pause to savor the moment.
“What is seven times three?” the voice says.
Holly returns from lunch (a salad eaten alone at the counter of the local deli) to find East Berlin deserted. Jones is nowhere to be seen, and Freddy has vanished, too—GONE TO HUMAN RESOURCES, according to the Post-it on his monitor, but she assumes that's a joke. She sighs. She feels restless.
She gets up and walks to the watercooler. Holly is at the tail end of an eight-week aerobic plan; it's important to keep hydrated. She tugs out a paper cup, fills it, throws back her head, and keeps swallowing until she's drained it. When she lowers the cup, she is treated to the sight of Roger walking past, looking at her breasts. His eyes flick up to her face. He winks. “Holly.”
“Roger.”
He walks away. Holly puts down her cup. This is something she cannot get used to: the sheer shamelessness of businessmen. Holly doesn't want to be a bitch about it, but she doesn't understand why sagging, pot-bellied, out-of-shape assholes with overinflated senses of their own importance should think that they have a chance with her. Except that's the whole problem: within the company they are important, or at least more important than her. So a creepy, wet-lipped manager in Order Processing is entitled to flirt with her. Not to come right out and proposition her—that would be a gross violation of the company's policy on inter-employee relationships (short version: they're banned)—but that almost makes it worse. She has to pretend it's all friendly, harmless banter, when if the environment permitted a more honest response, she could tell them to go screw themselves.
If she was higher up the corporate ladder, this wouldn't happen: she would be too important for men to dare to flirt with her. And if the men were better-looking (or, in Roger's case, not such a complete prick), maybe she wouldn't mind so much. But they all think the best way to deal with a bulging belly is not to spend thirty minutes a day on the treadmill but to stretch a thin business shirt over it. (Sometimes there is a gap, the belly dragging the tie away from the shirt; sometimes the tie practically lies horizontal.) If they choose to take no pride in their own appearance, why are they entitled to enjoy hers? There is a lot Holly doesn't understand about Zephyr Holdings, but the rules of the corporate flirtation game irk her more than anything else. She can't accept them. Now people say she's unfriendly.
She walks back to her desk and pulls a couple of pages from her in-box. It seems that Elizabeth dropped by. She wants Holly to compile a summary of the summary she wrote for Sydney a couple of hours ago. Holly feels a migraine coming on. She wonders what would happen if she just walked out and went to the gym for the rest of the day.
Freddy arrives and collapses into his chair. She looks at him, waiting for an explanation, but he just stares at his keyboard. “What's the matter?”
“Didn't you see my note?” He pulls the Post-it off his monitor and begins slowly tearing it into strips.
“Yeah, but seriously.”
Freddy doesn't say anything.
“You really went to Human Resources?” She sits up. “What was it like? What do they do? Do they have
cubicles?”
“I don't want to talk about it.”
“Oh. Okay, be that way.” Freddy remains silent. “Come on, tell me something.”
He shakes his head.
“Oh, fine,” Holly says. She turns back to her computer.
Jones takes a few tentative steps out onto the roof, letting the door rest gently against the frame so it won't close and lock him out. He is standing on a gray concrete slab stained with the excrement of about a million pigeons, many of whom are currently observing him from the tops of various aerials and vents. The upper sections of half a dozen skyscrapers that are particularly tall or situated farther up the hill or both are visible to one side, each window a tiny, tinted glimpse into a miniature corporate world. He walks to the barrier at the roof's edge and finds himself looking down at lunchtime traffic crawling along First Avenue. At this altitude, it's surprisingly quiet. Jones stares at it while the wind pulls at his hair and freezes the sweat on his back.
It's a minute before his brain starts to work again and points out that if he's quick, he can make it back down to level 2 before Security arrives. He can return to the original plan, modifying it only slightly to add asking Senior Management why the hell Daniel Klausman's office is the roof. He hurries back to the door. As he does, he sees there's a service elevator right beside it. He also hears suspiciously loud noises from the stairwell, and tugs the door open to find himself facing two sweaty, red-faced men in blue Security uniforms.
“You,” one of them says. Jones gets the feeling this is the start of a two-word sentence, but doesn't wait for the denouement. He slams the door and slides the bolt home, locking it. He stabs at the elevator call button (which is red and made of rubber) and waits. “Mr. Jones,” one of the guards says through the door, “if you don't leave Mr. Klausman alone right away, there will be serious repercussions.”
The elevator arrives. Jones jumps into it. He stabs 2—SENIOR MANAGEMENT—and to his great relief the doors ease closed.
He exhales. He checks his cuffs and straightens his tie. He raises his chin. He may currently be in breach of any number of HR and Security policies, but the company is clearly practicing some kind of vast deception on its workers, so Jones figures that makes them even. He waits for the ding, for the doors to open.
They don't. He looks up. The elevator screen says 4, and even as he watches, ticks over to 5. Alarmed, he reaches for 2 again and realizes it's not illuminated. He presses it: it lights up, then goes dark. He tries 5, then 6, then he runs his hand up and down the columns of buttons. All illuminate for no longer than a second. He puts his hand on the elevator wall to steady himself. Is this thing accelerating? In a flash he realizes that this must be how Zephyr disposes of employees who are no longer useful: the elevator free-falls them into the basement.
He feels the elevator begin to slow. So maybe not. The screen shows 11. That winks out and is replaced by 12. It appears he is headed for 14: Training Sales. He exhales in disgust. Security is probably waiting for him there with all his possessions in a cardboard box.
The number 12 blinks out, and the elevator comes to a complete stop. There is a curiously long pause. Then two things happen at once: the elevator goes ding and the screen shows 13.
Jones looks at the button panel, just in case he has recently lost his mind. But no. As he thought, there is no button for 13.
The doors slide open.
The first thing he notices is the lighting. It's not fluorescent and stabbing at his retinas, oh no; this is a soft, muted light that glows from invisible recesses in the ceiling. Second: the carpet is not the usual violent orange but a gentle, soothing blue. Third: the elevator opens onto a corridor—no surprise there—but this corridor is made of glass, and beyond it Jones can see glass-walled offices everywhere, offices with walls. These are the things that really grab his attention. It's only when he has recovered from the shock of these that he notices less significant things, such as the group of people standing in front of him. Front and center is the janitor. Beside him is Eve Jantiss.
“Mr. Jones,” the janitor says. “I'm Daniel Klausman. Welcome to Project Alpha.”
“Standard procedure, of course, is to throw you out of the building.” Klausman is still wearing his gray overalls, but it's his shock of steely-gray hair that Jones can't stop looking at. That's enough to convince him that this man really is the CEO of Zephyr Holdings: he has management hair. Klausman puts a hand on Jones's arm and steers him down a corridor. “We'd be spreading the word that you'd been caught stealing a computer and that'd be the end of you. Wouldn't be the first time.”
Jones glances at Eve, who smiles brilliantly. The sight of all those gleaming teeth makes him more nervous.
Klausman stops walking, and, dutifully, so does everybody else. “But there's something about you, Mr. Jones. Something special. We noticed it right from the start, didn't we?” He looks at Eve. She nods, then, when Klausman turns away, winks. “But this roof thing clinched it. Nobody's ever made it that far before. Curious fella, aren't you? We like that, Mr. Jones. We like it a lot. It would have been interesting to study you. But since that's no longer possible . . . we're going to make you an offer.”
“You pose as a janitor,” Jones says. He realizes this is not particularly insightful, but he needs to establish some facts they can all agree on.
“Some executives, they make a big show of working on the front lines every now and again. You see those McDonald's managers? They flip burgers one day a year, taking breaks every five minutes to call back to the office, and think they're getting frontline experience. I, Mr. Jones, live in the front line. No one's closer to his employees than me.” He smiles, as if expecting Jones to say something appreciative.
“And Eve is not really a receptionist.”
“She is as much a receptionist as I am a janitor.” A smile twitches around the corner of Klausman's lips.
“She is a receptionist, but she's mostly something else.”
“Keep going.”
Jones looks around. Through the glass walls, he sees banks of monitors, displaying pictures from around the company. “You're watching. Everything that goes on in the company.”
“Almost there. Can you hit a homer?”
He takes a breath. “The purpose of Zephyr Holdings . . .” He hesitates. If he's wrong, everybody in this room is going to kill themselves laughing. Eve nods encouragingly. He decides: What the hell. “Zephyr is a test bed. A laboratory, for trying management techniques and observing the results. Zephyr's an experiment.”
Nobody laughs. Klausman looks around. “What did I tell you? Huh?”
“You've done it again,” one of the suits says.
Klausman spreads his palms. “I am the Alpha and the Omega.”
Now they laugh. Eventually, Jones gets it. “The Omega Management System.” He feels unsteady. “You created it. This is where you come up with the techniques.”
In Training Sales, something terrible is happening to Elizabeth: she is finding Roger attractive. It must be a joke, arranged by her treacherous body and pregnancy-fueled hormones. But Elizabeth is not laughing. Roger? Anybody who would set her up with Roger doesn't know the first thing about her. Elizabeth is shocked by her body's opinion of her.
She hasn't decided what to do about her situation. At first it seemed obvious. There's no place in her career for a baby. But that initial reaction has tempered. A hidden, furtive part of her mind, the part that vetoed the condom, perhaps, is growing in influence. It is seeping into her marrow. Elizabeth is losing ground to it. It is a shocking process, or would be if it weren't so anesthetizing. She only glimpses the true extent of its power at moments like this, when she realizes that she is gazing across the aisle at Roger with her mouth hanging open.
Roger catches her gaze. He blinks in surprise. Elizabeth snaps her mouth closed and wheels around to her desk. She clenches her hands into fists. No! Please, God, not that!
“I don't know why it's such a surprise to everyone,�
�� Klausman says. He is seated behind the biggest desk Jones has ever seen. Two walls of his office are glass, and low-lying clouds drift by. Jones feels as if the building is in the process of toppling over; he keeps realizing he's leaning to the left, seeking balance. “I'm simply applying scientific methods of investigation to a business environment. We don't expect scientists to work on live human beings. They use labs. They experiment in controlled conditions. It's the exact same concept.”
Jones says, “But you are practicing on live human beings.”
“No, no, no. Zephyr Holdings is an entirely artificial company. It has no actual customers. Oh, wait, I see, you're saying the staff are live people. Yes, that's true. But it's not as if we're hurting them. We give them jobs—essentially pointless jobs, yes, but they don't know that. And when you get right down to it, most jobs are pointless. Pick any single position in a company and eliminate it, and the remaining staff find a way to cover. It's true. We proved it in Logistics.”
“Still . . . isn't there some kind of ethical—”
“In fact, Zephyr employees are better off because they don't have to deal with customers.”
“What's wrong with customers?”
Klausman laughs. The suits behind Jones chuckle. “Forgive him. He's young.” He leans forward. “Customers are vermin, Mr. Jones. They infect companies with disease.” He says this with complete solemnity. “A company is a system. It is built to perform a relatively small set of actions over and over, as efficiently as possible. The enemy of systems is variation, and customers produce variation. They want special products. They have unique circumstances. They try to place orders with after-sales support and they direct complaints to sales. My proudest accomplishment, and I am being perfectly honest with you here, Mr. Jones, is not the Omega Management System and its associated revenue stream—which, by the way, is extremely lucrative. It is Zephyr. A customer-free company. Listen to that, Mr. Jones. A customer-free company. In the early days, you know, we tried to simulate customers. It was a disaster. Killed the whole project. When we started again, I cut every department that had external customers. It was like shooting a pack of rabid dogs. Now, I'm not claiming Zephyr Holdings is perfect. But we're getting there, Mr. Jones. We're getting there.”