by Max Barry
They stare at him. They are, of course, aware of no such thing; nobody mentioned five-year projections last time their objectives were updated, or the time before that, or ever, not even back when this nightmare began and they were all human.
Darryl clears his throat. Simon knows what's coming. Darryl will explain their position, and this pinstriped man will frown and say he can't understand how this happened, and after five minutes of excruciating dialogue, during which it will be explained that their work of the last thirty-four hours is basically useless without five-year projections, they will agree to keep working, just this one more time. To cut this short, Simon stands up. His pants make a peeling sound as they separate from his office chair. Everybody looks at him, dull surprise on their faces, as he walks unsteadily around the table.
“Yes?” Blake says.
The feeling starts in Simon's calves and comes scampering up through his legs. It floods his torso. He doesn't completely identify it until it hits his right shoulder and funnels into his arm, then he realizes: it's violence. He has about a quarter of a second to think, Do I really want to punch this guy in the face? and the answer is nonverbal: his fist rocketing out and smashing Blake's face. Blake yelps, pinwheels back, bounces off the door frame, and sprawls on the carpet. Simon just stands there. He is quietly prepared to go ahead and kill Blake, but this punch feels so good he takes a few moments to savor it.
“Simon!” Helen shrieks. He turns. They're a line of circus clowns, their mouths all hanging open.
“Ug! Ug! Jeebus Chrised!” Blake yells. He tries to scramble away and to catch the blood dribbling from his nose from dripping onto his shirt.
“This meeting,” Simon says, “is over.”
Karen stands first. The others are slower to react, but then, one by one, they rise, pushing back their damp, sweaty chairs, and grope toward the doorway. They mill there a second, then they hug. Helen's eyes fill with tears. They emerge from the darkness, squinting against the unexpected fluorescent light.
Jones shoves his hands into his pockets and inhales deeply. It's a bright, crisp Monday morning, the kind that gives you a little taste of the Seattle winter on the way, laced with an echo of the fading summer already passed. Jones stamps his feet on the plaza tiles. He's out in back of the Zephyr building. Around him are four or five loose groups of smokers, sucking down their first workplace cigarette of the day. He is here to watch them.
Ten minutes past ten: almost to the minute, that's when they turn up en masse each day. It took Jones a while to figure out why: that's when the morning snacks used to arrive, before Catering was outsourced. Now they're delivered anytime between nine thirty and eleven (the cookies either brittle or soggy, the fruit as cold and hard as blocks of ice), but the smokers have a tradition and they're not changing. Now he's aware of it, Jones finds it amazing. He has positioned himself in various strategic locations around the building and it happens the same way everywhere: it's as if there is a silent siren, inaudible to all but the smokers, who suddenly and simultaneously get restless. They shift in their chairs. They drift out of conversations. Their hands, not quite consciously, probe their pockets for lighters and packets of cigarettes. And by ones and twos, they detach from their departments and flow down the elevators to pool here, outside the rear doors. Then their mood improves: they greet each other and smile and talk about things not related to work at all. While they are here, they are the happiest people in the company.
Jones finds this fascinating. Is it just the nicotine hit, or could all employees benefit from regular short breaks? This should be a project, he thinks. He could try it with a group of nonsmokers. If he's right, it could end up in The Omega Management System. It could end up in companies around the world.
He has loitered here for about as long as he can without attracting suspicion, so he turns and heads back into the building, feeling excited. He pulls open the door and it leaps toward him, revealing that Freddy is on the other side of it, pushing. “Jones! What are you doing here?”
“Just getting some fresh air. What about you?”
Freddy checks that they're out of earshot. “She's not at the desk this morning. Thought I'd come hang out with the regular Joes.”
“Ah, good, good.” Jones steps aside to let him pass.
Freddy squints at him. “You're not still poking around, are you?”
“What? Oh, no, no. I'm over that.”
“Why, did you find something out?”
With heroic effort, Jones restrains himself from saying, Why do you say that? “No, not really. I just decided . . . you know, it doesn't really matter what the company does. I have my own job to do.”
“Oh-oh. They got to you, didn't they? Let me check your belly button.”
“What?”
Freddy laughs. “I'm just messing with you, Jones. It's good you're settling down.”
He intends to go directly back to Training Sales, but when the elevator doors open and there's nobody else inside, he decides to duck into level 13 and make some notes about his ideas. He swipes his ID card, presses 12 and 14 together, and watches the screen with his thumb resting on DOOR OPEN. The more he does this, the more fun it is. He jams the button at the right time: ding! Level 13!
The monitoring room contains four computers for agent use, so Jones logs in among the banks of TV monitors and opens up a new project file. Ten minutes later he is so lost in his thoughts that when Eve Jantiss breathes in his ear, “Interesting,” he jumps about a foot out of his chair.
“Whoa.” He laughs. “Don't do that.”
“Look at you,” Eve says. “All full of ideas. Daniel was right about you.”
“Thanks.” A grin surfaces on his face, which he is powerless to suppress.
She slides her butt onto the desk. Eve is dressed relatively formally today, wearing a gray skirt that goes below the knee. “Hey, let me ask you something. Are you free Thursday night?”
“For what?”
“We have a corporate suite at Safeco Field. Do you like baseball?” She smiles. “From that expression, I will assume yes.”
“Are we having a function?”
“No. I just thought you might want to go.”
“Okay. Sure. That'd be awesome.”
“I'll pick you up at six thirty. Barker Street?”
“You know where I live?”
“Jones,” she chides. “We know everything.” She stands and begins to walk away. Jones resists the urge to watch. Then she says, “Oh, Jones, one thing . . .”
He turns.
“Now you're working for Alpha, you can't intervene in Zephyr. You're an observer. That's it.”
“Yeah. I understand that.”
“You understand the concept. You don't understand the implications. When you realize the difference . . . don't do anything stupid, okay?”
On Wednesday Jones, Freddy, and Holly head to the café across the road, Donovan's, for lunch. This is Jones's third month at Zephyr and he's eaten here almost every day; so, too, it seems, has most of Zephyr. Beginning at noon each day a steady stream of suits gushes from the elevators and bubbles across the lobby; it momentarily pools at the sliding doors then bursts across the road, where it stands in line for bagels and sandwiches, and discusses corporate politics. Jones looks around at them, these workers from Communications and Finance and Compliance and Travel Services and Corporate Supplies, who are not exactly his co-workers so much as his test subjects.
“Did you guys notice Megan?” Holly says. “When we left, she was staring at Jones.”
Jones looks at her, unsure if she's joking. Freddy says, “Megan, really? That's weird.” He turns his attention to a row of sandwiches under glass.
“I saw her in the gym again this morning. She's really doing well.”
“You know, ever since they outsourced the morning snacks,” Freddy complains, “I'm hungrier at lunchtime. I think they must be less nutritious.”
“They'd better not be,” Holly says. “I'm on a contro
lled intake plan.”
“They cut out donuts,” Jones points out. “That's not less nutritious.”
Freddy says, “Oh God, can we not talk about donuts anymore? I get enough of this from Roger.”
“Roger can't still be obsessing over that donut,” Holly says uneasily. Freddy looks at her incredulously. “Anyway, that's done with. Wendell took Roger's donut, Wendell's gone.”
“Roger doesn't think Wendell took it,” Jones says, looking around for a table. “Now he thinks Elizabeth did. Hey, do you guys ever sit with people from other departments?”
Freddy and Holly look at him blankly. Freddy says, “That's not really how it works, Jones.”
“Says who?”
“It's just . . . new chimp, Jones, new chimp.” They are at the front of the line. Freddy slaps down five bucks and smiles at the man behind the counter. “The usual, thanks.”
Alone in West Berlin, Roger stretches out at his desk. He folds his hands behind his head. His eyes lose focus. His mind is filled with Elizabeth and donuts.
It is obvious to him that this was a setup from the very beginning. Elizabeth knew he would leap to the wrong conclusion and accuse Wendell. She played him. Now it's too late to point the finger of blame where it belongs, because Wendell has been sacked—not, technically, for stealing Roger's donut, but that's not the point; the point is he's an ex-employee, and thus will be blamed for all departmental problems. Roger is better aware of this than most, since he secured his transfer to Training Sales by off-loading several particularly heinous accounting disasters onto ex-colleagues. No one has ever left Zephyr Holdings without being subsequently unmasked as a liar, thief, and fool. Ex-employees are revealed to be responsible for approving horrific cost overruns, for fraudulent orders and dubious expense claims. They are posthumously assigned leadership of doomed projects. No one will want to hear that Elizabeth is responsible for a crime that can be blamed on Wendell, because Wendell is gone and Elizabeth is still here.
She has backed him into a corner. A part of him admires her political skill. But a different, much larger part churns with worry. It would be one thing if Elizabeth was acting out of hurt and anger that he never called her after that time they slept together. That Roger could deal with; he would be pleased if that was the case. Roger has no problem with people hating him. What bothers him, what really unsettles his guts, is the idea that she is disrespecting him. Roger is a powerful, confident, good-looking man kept awake at nights by the heart-gripping fear that other people don't think he is powerful, confident, and good-looking. As part of the Zephyr Holdings interview process, he filled out a questionnaire that asked, “Which is better: to be successful or respected?” Roger wrote the now-legendary answer: TRICK QUESTION!!
Lately he has noticed Elizabeth throwing him surreptitious glances. At one point she simply stared at him, her expression blank, for several seconds. He felt a stab of fear: there could be no doubt that she was mocking him.
He doesn't know what he will do. Not yet. But a response is demanded. His honor requires it. His integrity requires it. Oh yes. Elizabeth will regret that she ever laid eyes on his donut.
At four thirty on Thursday, Megan is summoned to Sydney's office for her six-month performance evaluation. Megan isn't worried; for her, these have always been casual and perfunctory. The only reason she has them at all, she suspects, is because Zephyr doesn't want to come right out and admit that PAs aren't real employees. So her reviews are mandatory but unimportant, which means they are usually conducted at the last minute, when something else has been canceled, in the elevator on the way to somewhere else.
She adjusts her bear ensemble—the Gone Fishin' bears work better on the far left of her desk, she decides, where their little ceramic rods can dangle off the edge of her desk—and knocks on Sydney's door. There is a pause, which Megan knows is Sydney waiting for Megan to deal with whoever it is knocking. After ten seconds, she knocks again.
“Who is it?”
“It's me.”
“Come in.”
Megan swings open the door. Sydney is sitting behind her desk. The desk is open-backed and Megan can see Sydney's little legs dangling down from her chair. She can't see Sydney's head or upper body: they are hidden behind her enormous computer monitor. Megan wouldn't want to suggest that Sydney is compensating, but she has the biggest monitor Megan has ever seen. “Is it time?”
“Yes.”
She takes a seat in front of the desk and crosses her legs. Now she can see Sydney. She can also see the expanse of Sydney's desk, which is a snowstorm of papers. There is a shocking lack of knickknacks. Megan feels Sydney could do with a few bears.
“Okay.” Sydney shifts a few papers around on the desk, apparently at random. Then she looks up. “You may not like what I have to say.”
“Oh. Why not?”
“Because I'm managing you out.”
“Out where?” Megan says, but realizes this is stupid.
“Out of the company.” Sydney's eyes hold hers. “I'm sacking you.”
She is too stunned to process this properly. “But . . . why?”
“Well, frankly, your performance. I had to give you the lowest rating: ‘Needs Improvement.'” Her eyes flick around Megan's face. But Megan still has no reaction. Sydney seems to lose interest. She collects a few papers and begins searching for a stapler. “It's company policy to lay off any employee in that category. I have to follow the policy.”
“Why do I need improvement?” Megan says. Her throat is closing up; only thin, strained sounds make it out.
“You know performance evaluations . . . there are criteria, I score you on them.” Sydney locates her stapler. She positions it on her papers, then snaps it closed. She peers at the result. “Damn it all.”
Megan has never heard of these criteria. “Last time you said we didn't need to do a formal review.”
“The company's cracked down on that.” Sydney frowns, as if Megan has gotten them into trouble. “They want me to do proper evaluations. And you failed in a number of key areas. First, tidy desk. Your desk is always covered in bears.”
Megan's mouth drops open. “What's wrong with my bears?”
“Desks should be free of clutter. That's what the criteria say. Here, look.” She passes across the papers. A staple hangs from the top-left corner.
“You never complained about my bears!”
“Megan, it's not me, it's the criteria. Listen to what I'm telling you. Second, you don't show any teamwork.”
“But I work alone! I'll work with people if you want! I'd love to work with people! I'm stuck by myself!”
Sydney folds her hands on the desk. “Well, there's no point in complaining now.”
“Then . . . why are you telling me these things?”
“It's part of the feedback process. I'm showing you what you need to work on to improve.”
“So if I improve—”
“Not here. You can't improve here. You're being fired, Megan. This is just the process we go through. It's really for your benefit. A little gratitude wouldn't be out of place.”
Megan's mouth works. What finally comes out is: “Thank you.”
“You're welcome,” Sydney says. “Anyway, those two categories hurt your score. But the clincher was your failure to achieve any goals.”
“What goals?”
“Well, you didn't have any.” Sydney picks up a silver pen and waggles it. Little daggers of reflected sunlight flash into Megan's eyes. “During your last evaluation, we were meant to agree on goals for you, but we never did. So where it says ‘Goals Accomplished,' I had to tick ‘None.'”
“I would have accomplished goals if you'd set some!”
“Well, you might have. It's hard to say.”
“How can you sack me for not accomplishing goals I never had?”
“You don't want me to say you accomplished goals when you didn't, do you?”
“But this is wrong!” Megan's shock is wearing off. Her body begins to r
eact properly: she starts to cry. “I do a good job! I do!” She covers her face with her hands.
Sydney is silent. Megan cries into her hands, her body shaking. She is ashamed at doing this in the boss's office, but can't stop herself. Then an awful idea grips her: that Sydney is smiling at her across the desk, not embarrassed by Megan's shame but amused. This is such a terrible thought that her head jerks up. It takes Sydney by surprise. The smirk drops from her face too late. Her lips tighten. “If you're going to argue, there's no point in wasting my time. The decision's been made. It's out of my hands.” She crosses her arms. “Security's waiting for you.”
Megan floats from the chair. She drifts to the door and sure enough, there are two blue-uniformed men by her desk. The rest of Training Sales, including Jones, is peering over cubicle walls. “Megan Jackson?” one of the Security men says.
They stand beside her as she puts her bears into her bag one by one. When she reaches out to close a letter she was writing on the computer, a blue-sleeved Security hand seizes hers. “Please don't attempt to operate the computer.”
When her corporate-worldly possessions are stowed, Security escorts her through East Berlin. Megan can feel them all looking at her, these people from Training Sales she has worked alongside and never got to know. Even through her humiliation, she almost laughs: it is the first time they have really noticed her. She looks at Jones as she is marched by his cubicle: gangling, beautiful Jones, whom she will never see again. His face is pale and shocked. And his eyes are locked onto hers: he is finally, truly seeing her.
It's different than in August, with Wendell. He was gone by the time they left the meeting room. Today, Security arrived and plucked a person out. They feel like a herd of impala after the lions have finished their chase and are dragging away a limp carcass. They unconsciously huddle together, their ears twitching and their nostrils flaring, as Security returns and begins to remove her computer, piece by piece. They wipe down her desk. They spray something on her chair and tuck it in. Jones cannot look away.