Company

by Max Barry

  For a few seconds he doesn't move. “Eve?” he whispers, and when that doesn't work, tries it again. He gets one hand under her head and lifts it up. Her mouth hangs open. Her eyes are thin zombielike slits under dark, heavy lids. Eve is out. And, furthermore, this is not the kind of position Jones wants to strike in front of the neighbors, all of whom have peepholes and several of whom are not shy about using them. He struggles to get his door open, then Eve inside without banging some part of her against a wall, which is harder than it sounds because she has gone completely boneless, her arms swinging in big circles. He drags her through his living room and drops her onto his bed. Then he sits down heavily next to her and breathes deeply.

  She doesn't move. It suddenly occurs to Jones that she has dropped dead, and he leans forward anxiously. She makes a little snoring sound. Jones carefully arranges her head into a better position. She stops snoring and smacks her lips. A tiny pool of saliva has formed at the corner of her mouth and Jones dabs this away.

  He comes back ten minutes later, once he's closed the apartment door, changed out of his suit, and brushed his teeth. Eve is in exactly the same position. Jones hangs in the doorway. He is not sure which items of her clothing it would be a good idea to remove and which would be terrible. In the end, he decides he can deduct her shoes, watch, bracelet, and necklace without hitting any potential legal or (if it matters) moral pitfalls.

  Eve is on top of the blankets and Jones doesn't like his chances of maneuvering her underneath them, so he pulls a new blanket down from a cupboard, throws it over her, and crawls underneath. “Mmm.” He feels her buttocks press against his hip. “Bfff ett.”

  “What?”

  “Mmm.” She doesn't say anything for a minute. “Jones?”

  “Yes?”

  “Wake me in time for work?”

  “Yeah, of course. I've set the alarm.”

  “Mmm. Good.” She snuggles down into the covers. “Can't . . . miss tomorrow. We're . . . con-sol-i-dat-ing.”

  Jones waits, in case there's more. “Consolidating?”

  “Mmm.”

  “Consolidating what?”

  “Everything!” She makes a soft sound like a laugh. Her leg finds his and curves around it. “I love you, Jones.”

  Her breathing slows. Jones lies there, listening to it, until the alarm clock pops into life and two crackly DJs tell him it's six thirty in the morning.

  “This is Sydney. I hope this works . . . I'm trying to forward a message from . . . um . . . Daniel Klausman. Hang on . . . I think I have to . . . no, that's not it. Maybe—click. Morning everyone, it's Janice. It's another all-staffer . . . you know what to do. Click. Janice, please distribute the following message from Daniel Klausman to the department heads. Thanks. Click. Good morning all, Meredith here . . . I have an all-staffer from Daniel Klausman for distribution. Thank you. Click.

  “This is Daniel Klausman. Meredith, send this on to my department heads for distribution to all headcounts.

  “Good morning, everyone. I'd like to thank you all for the goodwill and enthusiasm with which you embraced the necessary belt-tightening over the last few months. It wasn't easy, but we've made some very important changes.

  “Unfortunately, our share price was hurt by a market overreaction to unrelated events, and we lost another 14 percent. This is obviously of concern, but it's worth noting that the drop is less than the 18 percent fall of the previous quarter, so in relative terms, we've gained 4 percent.

  “We've made some great strides, but the work isn't over yet. Now more than ever, we need to show the world that Zephyr Holdings is the industry leader. We must prove our commitment to our strategic vision. Thus, most departments will be consolidated over the next few weeks.

  “That's it from me. Have a great day. Click.”

  This is the first voice mail everyone gets Friday morning. They arrive, shrug off their jackets, and stow their purses; they pick up their handsets and enter their access codes; this is what they hear.

  Except for Jones. Jones drags himself to his desk like one of the undead. He puts his elbows on his desk and rests his head on his hands. His voice-mail light flashes, throwing red spears into his eyes once every two and a half seconds. He can't find the enthusiasm to make it stop.

  “Consolidated!” Freddy yelps. “Most departments!” He and Holly rise as one. “You ask Elizabeth. I'll talk to Megan. She—” Freddy snaps his fingers. “Ah, crap! I keep forgetting she's gone.” But Holly has already left. Freddy hurries after her, passing Jones, who looks as if he has just returned from a four-hour meeting with Human Resources. Freddy hesitates. “Don't worry, Jones. We shouldn't panic until we know something.” His eyes widen. “Or do you already know?” He grabs Jones's shoulders. “Are we being consolidated?”

  Jones says, “Oh God. Don't shake me.”

  Freddy doesn't know what is the matter with Jones. But it's clearly not the consolidation. And that's the issue now: who is about to lose their job. Holly is already in West Berlin, talking to Elizabeth, probably finding out who's going and who could stay if only the right word was whispered in the right ear; she is probably securing a new position right now, right now, while Freddy is messing around with Jones. “Not now!” Freddy yells. He scurries into West Berlin.

  Elizabeth is nowhere to be seen, so Holly has jumped on to Roger and is haranguing him for information. Freddy barges into the conversation. “What? What did you say?”

  Roger raises an eyebrow. “I was saying that in a consolidation, the department with the strongest manager comes out on top. We have Sydney. So stop panicking.”

  “Right! Sydney. Sydney will save us.”

  “Unless . . .” Roger hesitates. “Well, unless she's asked to choose between saving the department or her own position.”

  Holly claps a hand over her mouth.

  “But I'm sure that won't happen,” Roger says.

  Freddy is not sure. Neither is Holly. She spies Elizabeth, pale and unsteady, tottering back from the bathroom. Elizabeth has been using the bathroom a lot lately. Every time Holly goes looking for her, she's in the bathroom. “Elizabeth! What have you heard? Are we going to be consolidated?”

  Elizabeth looks blank. “Consolidated?”

  “The voice mail. Do you know if . . .” Holly trails off. She's staring at Elizabeth's blinking voice-mail light. Elizabeth hasn't heard the announcement. Holly is shocked. Elizabeth always knows what's happening before everyone else. But not, apparently, today. While everyone was listening to the voice mail, Elizabeth was in the bathroom.

  Elizabeth says, “What's this about consolidations?”

  “Um . . .” Holly shifts her feet. “Well . . .”

  Zephyr Holdings has just gotten back to work after the network outage, but now that there's a consolidation looming, no one has the time for it. Throughout the building, work stalls. The wheels of industry crash to a halt and the rumor mill starts turning. Within minutes, Zephyr is manufacturing rumors at world-class levels. If rumors could be sold, this kind of productivity would be cause for special announcements and award ceremonies—but they can't, and even Senior Management knows this. When it realizes what is going on, Senior Management places a conference call to the departmental heads. All staff are forbidden to speculate about the consolidations, it instructs. They should know better; here Senior Management is trying to save everyone's job, and all they care about is whether they still have a job. Get back to work!

  The departmental managers could not agree more. Their heads bob up and down, even though this is a phone call. Their voices drip earnestness. They are behind Senior Management 110 percent. Or more! The bids rise quickly.

  But once they're off the phone their level of support drops, first to realistic levels, then lower. “Senior Management hasn't decided which departments will be consolidated,” the managers say in response to their staff's nervous, sweaty questions. “Or maybe they have but they're not telling. Your guess is as good as mine. I don't know what the hell they'r
e doing.” Frightened employees huddle around coffee machines. Rumor production heads underground and flourishes there. The out-trays of laser printers grow thick with updated résumés.

  Meanwhile, Senior Management gathers in the sun-drenched boardroom. Things get off to an awkward start when it is suggested, in not quite so many words, that perhaps it was unwise of Daniel Klausman to announce there would be consolidations before anyone had decided what, exactly, was going to be consolidated. Perhaps it would have been a good idea for Klausman to clue in Senior Management to his big plan. Maybe, just possibly, it would have been better for Senior Management to find out about the consolidations before everybody else.

  Senior Management buttocks shift uncomfortably. Klausman does not attend these meetings, but it is widely accepted that he knows what happens in them. Some suspect the room is bugged: microphones in the flowers, cameras in the eyes of portraits, that sort of thing. Others wonder about moles. A few are developing the theory that someone in Senior Management is Daniel Klausman, but they keep this quiet because admitting you've never met the CEO face-to-face is tantamount to announcing your political irrelevance. Whichever it is, Senior Management is very keen to appear loyal. It's impeccably fair of Klausman to keep the whole workforce in the loop, they argue. They thump the table for the benefit of the hidden microphones, or the moles, or Klausman himself. “I've suspected this was coming for some time,” says the VP of Business Management and Forecasting and Auditing. “My people are about to complete an analysis that shows almost 80 percent of our costs are attributable to just 20 percent of our business units.”

  This causes alarmed murmurs. “How can that be?” protests the man to his right. “That's what it was like before the last consolidation. We cut most of that 80 percent!”

  “Oh, it's an all-new 80 percent,” the VP reassures him.

  That clinches it: clearly the company must continue to cut until those percentages come down. A motion is proposed expressing support for Klausman's decision, and unanimously passed. If there's one thing Senior Management knows, it's how to pass a motion.

  That accomplished, Senior Management takes a break. Phew! They take the opportunity to check their voice mail or order coffees from their PAs. And as they do, they quietly and almost unconsciously coalesce into separate camps. Just in confidence, each camp whispers, these consolidations are only going to work if their own departments absorb several others. Heads nod. They sketch a quick strategic vision of the new company, in which most departments are trimmed down or eliminated, except their own, which grow huge and bloated. Yes! Heartbeats quicken. Understandings are forged. Each camp glows with warm, united purpose.

  But as Senior Management resumes its seats in the boardroom, each camp realizes the others have formed camps, too. Brows lower. Everyone sees what is going on: certain members are trying to take advantage of the reorganization to inflate their own responsibilities. This accusation—at first concealed, then not so concealed, finally completely naked—lands with a slap on the rich oak table. The camps passionately deny it. It's not as if they get a pay raise for looking after more people! (Which is true. It was once the case, but not after what has become known as the Seven Secretaries Incident.) A larger department only means more work!

  And this is true, too. To the non-manager, it might actually seem that Senior Management is prepared to selflessly take on more work for the good of the company. But this is why non-managers are not managers. You don't reach the upper echelons of Zephyr Holdings by shirking responsibility. You get there by grabbing as much of it as you can, forcing it down, and screaming for more. Senior Management craves responsibility in the same way that blind, bedraggled birds stretch open their beaks for regurgitated worms: from instinct. It is what they do. It is who they are. So, Senior Management realizes, as it looks around the table and sees nothing but hard, hungry stares, it is going to be a long day.

  Elizabeth pushes her way out the bathroom door. It is ten o'clock and her third visit today. She has vomited once, quietly, and, if the pattern holds, a second incident will present itself in roughly twenty minutes. In the meantime she weaves her way back to West Berlin. Elizabeth can't spend the whole day on the bathroom tiles, hugging the toilet bowl. (Nor can she spend the day, somewhat more demurely, bent over a sink. What if Sydney saw her? Or Holly? Holly already suspects too much. Holly probably already knows, without quite realizing it. Elizabeth is not showing, not yet, but her breasts are ballooning and she is falling-down tired. The other day she actually fell asleep for a few seconds in a Training Sales meeting and when she opened her eyes Holly was watching her.)

  She has started dreaming of ribbons. Blue, green, red; the kind little girls use to tie back their hair. Or, more precisely, the kind that mothers use to tie back the hair of their daughters. For some reason Elizabeth cannot get this image out of her head: herself and a little girl, and Elizabeth doing her hair. Since the network went down, this is what Elizabeth has been doing instead of work. It is a foolish and dangerous daydream, but she cannot shake it.

  Her voice-mail light is blinking. It's not the all-staffer: she's listened to that one already. It was as frightening as Holly's and Freddy's reactions implied, and Elizabeth has already made half a dozen phone calls seeking more information. This voice mail, she figures, is a reply to one of those. Elizabeth may be a little slower, and take more frequent trips to the bathroom, but she is not out of the loop yet. She lowers herself into her chair and dials voice mail.

  It is a male voice, rich and smooth. “Good morning. This is Human Resources. We have noticed an irregularity in your work patterns. We have some questions. Please report to level 3.”

  Her first instinct is Roger. But he is on the phone, saying, “Look, I can probably get you a place in Training Delivery if Personnel Services gets consolidated. But what can you offer me if they cut Training?” If Roger was behind this, he would be watching her: she is sure of that.

  So it's not Roger. It's just Human Resources. Her bowels tighten. That is much, much worse.

  She turns and walks out of West Berlin.

  A few minutes later she steps out of the elevator on level 3. In all the time Elizabeth has worked at Zephyr Holdings, she's never been to Human Resources, so her eyes widen at the dark blue walls and nonfluorescent lighting. She makes her way down the corridor, with its carpet so thick it feels as if it's snagging her shoes, and stops at the bare reception desk. She looks at the two doors, and as she does, the one on the right clicks open.

  “Hello?”

  Nobody answers. Elizabeth is not impressed. She has always found Human Resources difficult to get hold of, but this is ridiculous. She enters the corridor, her lips forming a hard line.

  She notices it is getting warmer. Or is that her? It's hard to tell, these days. She feels a wetness growing at the small of her back, the shirt sticking there, and gets irritated. “Hello?”

  A door to her left clicks open.

  It is a small room, and the only furniture is a plastic chair. The chair faces a mirror. Elizabeth looks around. “Oh, come on.”

  There is no response. She walks in, puts her hands on her hips, and looks at the mirror. “Is somebody going to talk to me face-to-face? Or are you going to hide back there?”

  Silence.

  “Fine.” She strides to the chair. Her nausea has subsided; she feels as if she could arm-wrestle alligators. She sits down and crosses her legs. “So?”

  The voice comes as if from nowhere.

  “Your name,” it says. “State your name.”

  “Elizabeth Miller. Who are you?”

  “State your employee number.”

  “It's 4148839.”

  “State your department.”

  “You know my department,” Elizabeth says. “You called me there ten minutes ago.”

  “State your department.”

  Her lips tighten. She may be prone to falling in love with customers, but she can fight with the bare-knuckled passion of an aggrieved lover
. “I'm not going to have a discussion like this. If you want to talk, come out and do it to my face.”

  “State your department.”

  Elizabeth keeps her mouth shut. Seconds tick by.

  “State your department.”

  “Unless I see a human being in the next ten seconds,” Elizabeth says, “this meeting is over.”

  She waits. Sweat trickles down her back.

  “State your department.”

  Elizabeth stands up and walks to the door. She didn't even hear it close, but now it's locked. She turns to the mirror, hands on hips. “Open the door.”

  “State your department.”

  “It's Training Sales, you know it's Training Sales! Now open the door!” She knows as soon as the words emerge that this is a tactical mistake: she has given in without getting anything.

  “Irregularities have been detected in your work patterns. Your bathroom breaks have sharply increased in frequency and duration.”

  Elizabeth inhales. There have been rumors that Human Resources monitors employee bathroom breaks. Elizabeth hadn't believed them. She walks back to the middle of the room and faces the mirror. “I don't see how that's any of your business.”

  “Perhaps you have a problem. A personal problem. You could share it with us. Human Resources is here to help. Human Resources is only concerned for your welfare.”

  “Just the same.”

  “Analysis suggests several possible explanations for your bathroom breaks. One is low-grade food poisoning. Another is recreational drug use. A third is pregnancy.”

  Elizabeth says nothing. But in her stomach, something flips.

  “You are aware that Human Resources complies with state and federal law requirements for maternity leave. You know that Zephyr Holdings is an equal opportunity employer.”

  “What has this got to do with me?”