Company

by Max Barry

  “Why did they sack Megan?” he finally bursts out. “What's the point? Why?”

  “It's okay, Jones,” Holly says awkwardly. “It just happens. There's nothing you can do about it.”

  Roger's head appears around the Berlin Partition. “Hey. Freddy. Freddy.”

  Freddy knows what's coming. He hunches his shoulders. “What?”

  “The pool. Who had Megan? Who won the pool?”

  “Nobody.”

  “Oh.” Roger's eyebrows rise hopefully. “So we're all still in it?”

  “Yes,” Freddy says. “We're all still in it.”

  Eve knocks on Jones's apartment door for five minutes straight. “Come on,” she says, her voice muffled. “This is ridiculous. I know you're in there.”

  Jones doesn't even know how she got in the building. There is an intercom, which he studiously ignored when Eve buzzed it ten minutes ago, and no way to enter without a key.

  “You hardly even knew her. You've been at Zephyr three months and you spoke to her about four times. People get fired, Jones. It's part of the great business cycle.”

  Jones digs into the bag of potato chips on his lap and pulls out a handful. He is sitting on his ragged brown sofa in front of a muted TV, which he zapped when Eve started rapping on the door. But apparently he's fooling nobody, so he stuffs the chips into his mouth and crunches down on them.

  “You know what this is? It's petulant. I asked you three days ago if you understood your position. You said you did.”

  “If they're working for no reason,” Jones shouts, “why do we need to fire them?” This sends a lot of wet chip fragments flying across the room.

  “Because it's part of the study, Jones. We watch how people are recruited, how they adapt, how they work, and how they exit. We're not there to provide a corporate fantasy land where everybody gets a job for life. We're modeling the real thing.” She pauses. “Let me in and I'll explain it to you.”

  “I understand,” Jones says irritably.

  “Then come to the baseball game.”

  This annoys him so much that he stands up. “Megan had friends at Zephyr. It was part of her life.” Jones is actually not sure about this; he is making a few assumptions. “She was a nice person. What happens to her now? Do you even know?”

  “She receives a redundancy payout and looks for another job. And we spread it around that she was hired by a competitor.”

  “Assiduous.”

  “Right. It's better if there's no contact between former and present employees. So we invented a bogeyman.”

  “You're not even going to tell her, are you? These people who work for you for however many years, they never even find out.”

  “Of course not. God, can you imagine what they'd do? Think about it, Jones: how soul-destroying would it be to discover that everything you've done over the last few years was fictional? All the late nights, the missed dinners, the stress, the deadlines, the grind—the only thing keeping these people sane is the belief that their work means something. You want to take that away?”

  Jones stands in the middle of his living room with a bag of half-eaten chips dangling from one hand and says nothing.

  “Look,” she says, her voice softening. “I'm sympathetic to your position. Firing people sucks, no doubt about it. But what are you going to accomplish by throwing a hissy fit? Jones, if this concerns you, you're in exactly the right place. Right now a thousand middle managers are driving home listening to an Omega Management System audiobook, and if we tell them something works, they all try it. So don't complain about it, improve it. Find a better way.”

  Jones strides to the door and wrenches it open, drawing in a breath to expel a few caustic observations about the ethics of changing corrupt systems from the inside, possibly drawing on examples from the Nazis. Then he sees her and this bubble of air pops right out again. Eve is wearing—wearing, in the sense that delicate pieces of gossamer fabric have coincidentally drifted together to cover key parts of her body—a jet-black satin dress. Diamond earrings glitter at him; a necklace sparkles. The honey-brown skin of her chest tries to lure his eyes lower and her calves sing an idyll. She doesn't look like a Nazi. Not even a little.

  Eve says, “And come to the baseball game, because I've already dressed up.” She spreads her palms.

  Eventually, he says, “This doesn't mean I agree with you. I'm still not happy.”

  “Okay.” She smiles. Then her eyes wobble down to his Budweiser T-shirt and stained tracksuit pants. “Are you going to . . .”

  “I'll get changed,” he says.

  Jones wasn't a baseball fan in high school. He didn't play it well, didn't enjoy watching it, and didn't like the way girls sat in a tight clump to the left of the field, watching boys take practice swings. But something happened in college, something to do with the rec room's big-screen TV and the groups that would cluster around it. It didn't happen all at once; he just became increasingly engrossed by the ebb and flow of the game, the glory and the tragedy and the split-second difference that separated them, until one day he realized he loved it. Jones has been to Safeco Field more times than he can remember, but on none of those occasions did he drive down a ramp to an underground valet and find himself escorted to a set of private elevators; never before has he trod the gentle cream carpet that leads down a corridor marked simply: CORPORATE.

  The—concierge?—leads them to a door marked ALPHA and holds it open for them. Inside it is all leather sofas and shadows and tall, glowing fridges. The far wall is lightly smoked glass and offers a view across the field so astonishing that Jones stops to soak it in. He realizes he will never be able to enjoy a baseball game from cheap seats again.

  “Ah, a fan.” Eve drapes her shawl over the coat stand. “I wondered why you went quiet. First time in a suite?”

  Jones can't tear his eyes away. “Yes.”

  “I hate baseball. But I like the suite. Peaceful, isn't it?”

  “I can't believe it's just us. Didn't anyone else want to use it?”

  “Nah. In fact, most of the time it sits empty.” Jones turns around, too outraged to speak. “Aw, what, you think we should open it up to the public? Maybe find some kids with cancer, loan it to them?”

  “Well,” he says. “Why the hell not?”

  She snickers. “Jones, what makes this place special is not the leather furniture, or the catering, or the view. What makes it special is that we are in here while they—” she gestures to the crowd “—are out there.”

  Jones grimaces. “Didn't your parents teach you to share?”

  “Oh, they did.” Eve walks to the bar area and studies the rows of bottles. Jones can see her face reflected in the mirror behind them. “In fact, Mom forbid my sisters and I to have individual possessions. Everything was everyone's.” She reaches up to grab a dark, squat bottle of something Jones doesn't recognize and two delicate, bulbous glasses. “What do you think, is my whole life a rebellion against hippie parents?”

  “That would explain a lot.”

  “The thing is,” she says, sliding onto the sofa and patting the space beside her, “possessions are fun. For example, I'm not into cars. I have no idea how many cylinders my Audi has, or, now that I think about it, what a cylinder is. No idea. But when I look at it, Jones, I love it. I love it. Because it's mine and it's nicer than everybody else's.”

  Jones says, “That's one of the worst things I've ever heard.”

  She holds out a glass of brown liquid over ice and he takes it. “There's nothing wrong with enjoying life. In the end, what else can you do?” She raises her glass and takes a gulp.

  He sits beside her. “Well, I don't want to get too radical, but what about helping other people? Leaving the world a better place?”

  Eve coughs explosively. She puts her glass on the table, which takes two attempts, and digs in her bag for a tissue. She dabs at her eyes. “Jesus, you nearly killed me.” She takes a deep breath. “Whoo. Okay. Tell me how you justify buying a new pair of sho
es.”

  “What?”

  “When there are starving people in Africa, what kind of person spends two hundred bucks on shoes? See, once you buy into that paradigm, it's a bottomless pit. You can never feel good about yourself while there's anybody in the world poor or hungry, which there always is, Jones, and has been since the dawn of time, so you feel guilty and hypocritical all the time. I'm consistent. I admit I don't care. You want me to reassure you that Alpha is ethical, but I'm not going to do it, because ethics is bullshit. It's the spin we put on our lives to justify what we do. I say, be big enough to live without rationalizations.”

  Jones sips at his drink. It's Scotch, and heats him all the way down. “Just because I believe in ethics doesn't mean I have to be Mother Teresa. There's a middle ground.”

  “Ah, the famous middle ground.” He gets the feeling that Eve is enjoying this, but then, if he's honest, so is he. “Jones, you're one of those people who's never had to make a decision between ethics and results. You went to college and learned that companies with satisfied employees tend to be more profitable, and you went, ‘Oh good.' Because that let you off the hook; you didn't have to decide what you'd do if it was a choice between one or the other. You won't work for a tobacco or gun manufacturer because those are bad companies; you'll only work for good ones, helping them to improve customer satisfaction and produce better products and—oh hey!—just by coincidence, those things increase company profits and get you promoted. Well, you're in the real world now, and soon enough you'll realize that sometimes you do have to choose between morals and results, that companies do it every day, even the ones you thought were good—and it's the managers who choose results who get the promotions. You'll fret about this for a few days or months or maybe even years until finally, one day, you'll decide you need to make the tough decisions because this is business, and that's what everyone else is doing. But because you feel guilty about having a six-figure salary and a current-year car, you'll sponsor a child in the Sudan and give ten bucks a year to the United Way and you're still being ethical most of the time—that is, when it doesn't get in the way of doing your job—and just because you lied a little or stole a little or took a job at a company that makes money off the backs of fourteen-year-old factory workers in Indonesia doesn't mean you're not a good person. But you'll stop bringing up the subject of ethics. That, Jones, is the middle ground.”

  There's a knock at the door.

  “Come!” Eve calls. She looks back at Jones. “You should thank me. I just saved you years of wrestling with your conscience.”

  “You are unbelievable. It's like you're evil.”

  A man enters wheeling a mobile hanging rack of plastic-encased clothes. She rises from the sofa, inspects the rack, and seems pleased with what she sees. The porter is dismissed, looking happy and dazed, but Jones can't tell whether this is because of Eve's tip or just Eve. Or maybe the porter is not dazed at all; maybe that's Jones projecting. “Come here,” she says.

  He gets up and looks at the rack. “You said to ignore Blake.”

  “Then. In the meeting. But he has a point.” She pulls out a jacket and holds it in front of him. Even through the plastic, Jones can tell it's expensive. “For your eyes, I'm thinking something in charcoal.”

  “I can't afford a new suit.”

  “Suits. You need more than one. Don't worry, you'll pay me back.” She holds it out to him.

  He doesn't move.

  A smile tugs at her lips. “I'm only offering you clothes. You don't have to take my morals.”

  “Look, I'm not an idiot. I understand that business is about making money. I just want to know that we treat our employees properly. That we, you know, care about them.”

  “Honestly? We don't. But maybe that's what you can change.” She lets go of the suit.

  Jones grabs it out of reflex. “Okay. Maybe I will.”

  She smiles, turns, and walks to the smoked glass. “Try it on.”

  He hesitates, unsure how revealing his reflection will be in that glass. Then he starts undressing. As he peels back the plastic, he gets a whiff of the suit's fresh, confident scent.

  Eve says, “They're dusting the mound. Why do they need to dust? It's made of dirt.” She shakes her head. “You know, you and I are working on similar projects at Alpha.”

  Jones threads his belt through his pants. “Really? What's yours?”

  “Pregnancy.” She turns around. “Are you done?”

  Jones zips. “Pregnancy?”

  She walks over and looks him up and down. Then she starts fixing him: correcting the folds of his jacket, straightening his tie, tugging his shirt into place. “It's a major cost. Maternity leave is just the tip of the iceberg. The more pregnant a worker gets, the less she works. She's drawing the same paycheck, but taking more breaks, leaving earlier, concentrating less, making more personal calls, and chatting longer to other co-workers, mostly about what it's like to be pregnant. Which, incidentally, results in a small but significant increase in the desire of her co-workers to also get pregnant, so she's effectively contagious. Then there's maternity leave, paternity leave, increased absenteeism to look after sick kids, decreased willingness to work overtime . . . Management needs to take note of effects like that. They'd be negligent not to.” She reaches around him and yanks up his trousers. “What are you doing here? These aren't hipsters.”

  “You can't discriminate against employees because they're pregnant,” Jones says. “Jesus, that's illegal.”

  “Same as it's illegal to discriminate against smokers. Like I say, we're working on similar projects. We're trying to discourage workers from activities that cost the company money.” Her hands slip down Jones's butt, in a way that he suspects is not strictly necessary to adjust his pants. “Although, on a personal note, I don't see why I have to effectively subsidize every woman on the payroll whose life is so dull that she needs to inject children into it.”

  “I'm not really comfortable discussing pregnancy while you're squeezing my butt.”

  “I'm not squeezing. This is squeezing.”

  “Doesn't Zephyr have a policy on inter-employee relationships?”

  “Of course. But we're not in Zephyr. We're in Alpha.”

  “Does Alpha?”

  “We're surprisingly open-minded.”

  “You're still holding my ass.”

  “Is that a bad thing?”

  He suddenly realizes he could kiss her. In fact, given that she's currently groping him, it's probably what she's expecting. But Jones still has a bad taste in his mouth from the pregnancy thing, and he reaches back and removes her hands from his butt.

  “Oh, come on.” Her eyebrows jump. “Really?” She looks bewildered. She turns, walks to the sofa, and drops onto it.

  Jones says, “Sorry. I think that would be a bad idea.”

  “You're right. You'd get the wrong impression of me; it'd be awkward at work . . . we should keep things professional.”

  “Right.”

  “More Scotch?”

  “Sure.” He walks over to the sofa.

  Eve refills their glasses. He can actually see her regaining her composure. By the time she hands him his glass, she is smiling. She looks so beautiful that he starts to wonder whether he made the right decision. “Well!” she says. “I can tell it's going to be interesting to have you around.”

  He smiles. “I hope so.” They clink glasses.

  Eve nudges the Audi over to the side of the road and takes her hands off the wheel. “Damn. I think you were right. I am too drunk to drive.”

  Jones looks around. He has some trouble focusing, but manages to conclude that they have arrived back at his apartment. “Want me to call you a cab?”

  “Maybe I should sleep it off.” She doesn't lean so much as slump in his direction. “At your place.” Her lips form a rubbery smile. Jones studies it for a second.

  “Okay.”

  “That's it? No ‘We have to keep things professional'? No ‘It's better if w
e're just friends'?” She gestures extravagantly, and whacks the rearview mirror off-kilter. “Ow.”

  “You said those things.”

  “I did?”

  “And I just said you could stay. I didn't invite you to get naked.”

  Eve finds the door latch and spills onto the road. “Ha.” She drags herself back into Jones's field of vision. “I don't believe for a second that you don't want to sleep with me.”

  Jones levers his body out of the Audi. This sends a rush of blood to his head, where he feels there is far too much of the stuff already. He comes around the car and helps Eve to her feet.

  “Everybody does,” she confides. “Every one of them. I don't see why you should be any different.” She pokes him in the chest with her finger.

  Jones fumbles to connect his keys with the apartment building's door lock. “Everybody wants to sleep with you? How do you know this?”

  “When you do some investigating,” she leans on him heavily as they negotiate the doorway, “you discover the minimum standard of what a man will sleep with is very low.”

  “So it's not that you're irresistible. It's just that men are sluts.”

  “It's both.” They are in the stairwell now, and Eve abruptly stops. Jones has one arm around her waist, so this requires him to stop, too. “Kiss me, Jones.”

  Jones's mind says: It's a trap! The message races out to his lips, which pay no attention because they are in the process of kissing Eve. Her lips are soft and delightful and then they curve under his and she starts giggling. Jones pulls back. Eve starts up the stairs, and Jones has to catch her. “That's not fair. I wasn't ready.”

  “Said the slut.”

  “Aren't you trying to seduce me? How am I the slut?”

  They reach Jones's apartment. He managed to put his keys in the wrong pocket downstairs, so now he has to release Eve to fish them out again. She slumps against the corridor wall. “Because you are lowering yourself. Whereas I,” she begins to slide down the wall, “am already . . . lowered.” Jones catches her. She looks up at him and smiles. But her head keeps moving, gathering pace, and then it flops back, so Jones is blinking at her neck and holding her limp body.