Company

by Max Barry

  Tom stops beside them. “You own dresses you've never worn?”

  “Oh yeah. Lots.” The elevator arrives. Before Jones steps into it, Eve says to him, “We'll talk later, okay?”

  Elizabeth exits the elevator on level 11, her new home, with a certain wariness. But it is, of course, an exact replica of level 14. The carpet is the same retina-scraping orange. The sign on the frosted glass door says STAFF SERVICES instead of TRAINING SALES, but it's in the same position and the same HR-approved company font. In the actual department, the fluorescent lighting is just as cheap and there is even a single flickering fixture (bink! bink bink!), although it's in a different position. There's the bathroom on the left, the manager's office and meeting room straight ahead (their glass walls shrouded by vertical blinds), and between them and her is the grand open pasture of the cubicle farm.

  Here, at least, is a major difference: no Berlin Partition. Instead there's an ugly mess of two dozen cubicles jammed up against each other, as if the large ones of East and West Berlin had given birth to a litter. There's no sense in the arrangement, as far as Elizabeth can tell, which suggests there is no seating plan, and a land grab is in progress. She should have arrived an hour ago; by now she is probably stuck next to the xerox machine.

  But before she can tackle that issue, she has a personal matter to attend to. She enters the bathroom, which is indistinguishable from the one on level 14 right down to the little black-and-orange tiles and pools of water around the basins left by careless hand-washers. She smiles at a woman she's never seen before, enters a stall, and closes the door. She sits on the closed seat, pulls out a nail file, and begins to trim. She does her left hand, then the right. She spreads her fingers and inspects them. Only then does she realize something important: she isn't nauseous.

  She freezes. She has followed this routine long enough to know how it goes. Right now she should be flipping up the seat and retching. She stands and begins to pull up her skirt, which first requires unbuttoning a jacket because these days her work outfits are elaborately crafted to conceal a growing belly. She struggles out of her tights and checks her underwear. Nothing. Relief hits her like a gust of wind. She claps a hand over her mouth to suppress a burst of laughter.

  She rearranges her skirt, sits back down, and rubs her abdomen through the fabric. She cannot stop smiling. If her morning sickness is over, then maybe her body is getting used to her new arrival. Maybe she and it are beginning to get along. It is both obvious and unbelievable: she is going to have a baby. The idea fills her with silent joy.

  Jones presses 11 for Staff Services, his new home, and looks expectantly at Tom Mandrake. “Seven,” Tom says. “Compliance is part of Business Management now.”

  Jones presses for level 7. “Compliance was on 6, wasn't it? You guys have gone down a floor.”

  Tom smirks. “No doubt that will be the subject of intense discussion today.”

  “So people really do care about their floor number.”

  “Absolutely. Anytime you rank people, they care. Doesn't matter what you rank them on. And you know what, they believe it, too. At least a little.” The elevator stops at 11, and Jones steps out. “Have fun,” Tom says. He winks as the doors slide closed.

  Jones looks down the corridor at the frosted glass doors. Vague, person-sized shapes move about beyond them. These are the people Alpha is interested in, of course: the survivors. The rest are of no apparent concern. Jones wonders how this can be: How can you excise a human being from the company's tiny but fully developed society so easily? How can you excise hundreds? In Alpha it is common to compare Zephyr Holdings to a tribe, since both are self-contained social structures with hierarchies, etiquette, and norms—indeed, this is the basis for many amusing sidebars in Omega Management System books, describing (for example) how departments fight to protect resources in terms of warriors, meat, and feathers. But if this analogy is true, then this morning a rockfall left two hundred tribespeople trapped in a cave, and nobody gives a crap about them.

  Jones can understand, at least a little, the behavior of the survivors: creating a lot of noise might trigger more rockfalls, and trap them, too. On top of this, their social order has mutated, and they are trying to grab a fingerhold in the new hierarchies. But why are the victims so accepting of their fate? This is beyond him.

  He looks at the elevator button. Then he presses: DOWN.

  On the screens in the level-13 monitoring room, the tiny figures of the recently redundant looked blurred and meaningless, cartoonish. So as he exits the lobby doors, Jones is surprised by their sheer presence. There are a lot of people crowded onto the plaza outside the building, talking and shuffling their feet and fogging the chill air with their breath. Jones looks from face to face as a fresh bay wind whips up Madison Street and ruffles everyone's hair.

  “Hey,” a man says. At first Jones doesn't recognize him. “They got you too, huh?”

  It's a smoker. Jones has seen him out in back of the building. Once again, Jones realizes, he's an impostor. “Ah, no. I just came to see what was going on.”

  “Oh,” the man says.

  “Sorry. You don't deserve this.”

  The man looks at him quizzically. “Why do you say that?”

  Jones is surprised by the question. He realizes Tom Mandrake was right. And this is why they are fatalistic; this is why Alpha can safely ignore them. They think they deserve it.

  Jones says, “Because you don't.”

  The man considers this. Then, unexpectedly, he laughs. “Well,” he says. “Maybe we don't.”

  Freddy surveys the new Staff Services department with horror. He hurries into the farm, hoping someone (anyone!) from Training Sales arrived early and reserved a bunch of good desks. He pauses at the coat stand to shrug off his jacket, then realizes his usual hook is taken. Of course, it's not his hook: his hook is (or was) two floors down. But Freddy is peeved anyway. He has so little; now they want to take away his hook? He flings his jacket over the top of the one already there.

  “Ah, Freddy. Just who I wanted to see.” It's Sydney, in a sharp business suit so black it's like a hole in reality. “Tell me, is that dead pool still going?”

  “Yeah, I guess. Why?”

  “Oh, no reason.”

  “I thought everyone in Training Sales was retained,” Freddy says, alarmed.

  “Well, you never know,” Sydney says. “You never know what might be necessary in this new environment.”

  “Not Holly. Please, Sydney, not Holly—”

  “Who said Holly?” Sydney says, irritated. “I didn't say I was sacking Holly.”

  “You asked about the dead pool—”

  “Look, forget I mentioned it. I might not sack anybody.” She checks her watch, a glittering gold thing that dangles from her tiny wrist. “If you don't mind, I have an important meeting to get to.”

  Freddy stands aside. He watches her wend her way through the crammed cubicles to reach the meeting room, knock once, and step inside without waiting for a response. Then he cups his hands around his mouth and calls, “Holly?”

  Holly pops her head over a cubicle only a few desks away. “Hey, there you are.”

  Freddy scurries over. The entire remaining Training Sales department bar Jones—that is, Holly, Elizabeth, and Roger—is squeezed into a single cubicle, leaning against desks or sitting in chairs with their knees touching. Freddy looks around in dismay. “Is this all the space we get? We should call Relocation Services.”

  “We are Relocation Services.” Elizabeth points at a memo that Holly, her brow furrowed, is now reading. “Or, at least, they're one of the departments we've been consolidated with. They arrived an hour ago and took all the best spaces.”

  Holly gasps, her fingers tightening on the memo. “We've merged with Gymnasium Management!”

  “‘Merged' is one way of putting it,” Roger says. “We're much more important than them.”

  Freddy says, “Um, I just ran into Sydney . . . and I kind of got the i
mpression she was thinking of sacking someone.”

  Everyone falls silent. Then Elizabeth and Roger speak at the same time. Elizabeth says, “Why?” and Roger says, “Who?”

  “She didn't say. But she asked if the dead pool was still on.”

  “Oh, God.” Holly's eyes widen. “Oh, God!”

  “Why would she sack someone now?” Elizabeth says.

  “I have no idea.”

  Roger rubs his chin. “I understand that Senior Management hasn't appointed a manager for Staff Services yet. Maybe the managers of the old departments have decided to elect an interim leader.”

  “Oh boy,” Elizabeth says.

  “What?” Freddy's eyes flick between Elizabeth and Roger. “Is that bad? What does that mean?”

  “Well, it'll essentially be an arm-wrestle,” Roger says. “If Sydney wants the job badly enough, she might offer to sack one of us as a trade-off.” Holly moans. “Or two of us. Maybe all of us, who knows.”

  They look at each other. “Well,” Elizabeth says finally. “We can't have that.”

  Outside, something is happening to the newly unemployed. At first they were shocked and miserable; they milled around without purpose. Then Jones said You don't deserve this and this strange, oddball idea jumped from person to person, spreading through the crowd. Soon naked anger is visible on several faces. An accountant pulls a logo-stamped Zephyr Holdings binder from his briefcase, drops it to the concrete, and stomps on it. People cheer. An engineer has a Q3 High Achiever coffee mug; he smashes it on the concrete. A graphic designer tugs off his shoe and throws it as high as he can. It bounces off a tinted window. A pale, worried face appears at the window, then quickly retreats. The crowd roars.

  It is a dull day, but overhead the clouds are darkening; the air is thickening. Jones backs away toward the safety of the lobby. He feels as if he just rubbed a lamp and now a genie is coalescing out of blue smoke: a big one, with rippling biceps and violence in his eyes. He tastes a mixture of joy and terror.

  The lobby doors slide apart before he reaches them and Security escorts out a woman with a neat blue scarf and a leather clutch bag. Jones stands aside to watch it in amazement: the mob hurling its fury against the twenty-floor colossus of Zephyr Holdings even as the company delivers a steady stream of new recruits.

  On level 11 Elizabeth produces a plan to save Training Sales that is so breathtaking in its audacity and so ferocious in its wrath against Sydney that everyone immediately endorses it. Then Roger says, “Very well, I'll play the main role, then.”

  Elizabeth says, “Well . . . I assumed I'd play the main part, Roger. Since it's my plan.”

  “Oh. I see. Well, if you want to pull rank, that's fine. I was just offering. If it's that important to you, do it.”

  “I'm not pulling rank. It's just my plan.”

  Roger holds up his hands. “Forget it. I'm just trying to be helpful. I didn't mean to get between you and your ambition.”

  Elizabeth's cheeks darken. “Roger, if it's important to you, then come out and say that. Just say it. Because I really don't care one way or the other.”

  “Well, if you want me to, I'm happy to do it. But it's no big deal, I don't mind either way.”

  “If neither of us care, why are we having this conversation?”

  “Elizabeth. Please. Can we just make a decision?”

  Elizabeth's face flushes. Little beads of sweat stand out on her hairline. She begins to breathe deeply and her hands rhythmically clench and open. Jones arrives at the cubicle just in time to see this and he stops in shock, thinking he's watching a heart attack. “Elizabeth?” Holly says, alarmed.

  “Fine. Fine. You do it.”

  “So . . . let me get this straight,” Roger says. “You want me to do it?”

  “Yes.” This is so strangled it is barely decipherable as a word.

  “Well, all right, then.” Roger's eyes flick to the sales assistants to make sure they all caught this. “I'm glad we got that settled.”

  It's quiet in the lobby, for by now every employee has been either accepted into the Zephyr fold or manhandled outside. The Security guards stand in a line along the glass wall with their hands folded behind their backs, watching. Gretel sits at the reception desk. She feels exhausted and tainted. She feels as if she has executed two hundred people and still has their blood on her hands.

  There is a rising commotion from outside, so she gets up and walks over to one of the guards. She peers out the green-tinted glass wall. “Looks nasty out there.”

  The guard doesn't respond. His eyes are fixed on the mob.

  “Maybe they'll storm the building,” she suggests. “Maybe they'll smash the glass.”

  “You're perfectly safe, ma'am.” He still doesn't look at her.

  “Maybe the company shouldn't have fired so many people,” Gretel says. She is surprised by the bitterness in her own voice. “Maybe we brought it on ourselves.”

  The guard blinks once, slowly.

  “‘First they came for the Communists. And I didn't speak out, because I wasn't a Communist.' You know how that ends?”

  The guard turns to look at her. Gretel takes a step backward, because the guard's eyes are hollow.

  “Please, ma'am. I'm just doing my job.”

  “Sorry.” It comes out as a whimper. She hurries back to her desk, feeling the guard's empty stare on the back of her neck. She takes her seat and hugs her arms across her chest.

  A few minutes later, Roger knocks on the Staff Services meeting-room door. There's no response. He glances at the others. “Well, here goes.” He turns the handle.

  Inside, five managers including Sydney are arranged around a circular table. There's a piece of paper in the center of the table, and when she sees Roger, Elizabeth, and Holly, Sydney reaches out and flips it over. “Excuse me. We're busy.”

  Roger frowns at her. Elizabeth has to credit him; he's very convincing. “Sydney, wait outside, please.”

  Sydney blinks. “What did you say?”

  “Out.” He jerks his head toward the door. “We'll discuss this later.”

  Sydney looks lost for words. One of the other managers, a woman with thin, natty glasses, says, “This meeting is for department heads only.”

  “Right,” Roger says. “I'm manager of Training Sales.”

  Sydney says, “Pardon me?”

  “Sydney is . . . ah . . . ambitious.” Roger winks at the woman. “You'll have to forgive her.”

  “I'm the head of Training Sales,” Sydney says.

  “No, I am,” Roger says. “Have been for months.”

  The other managers look at Elizabeth and Holly. They point at Roger.

  Sydney's cheeks flush a deep, angry red. “It's on file. Check the files!”

  “Well, the network is down, so you know we can't do that.” Roger doesn't even glance at her. He smiles engagingly at the other managers. “I'm sorry for this. But you can't blame Syd for trying, I suppose.”

  The managers look at each other. Two have no idea whether Roger or Sydney is head of Training Sales: There are a lot of departments and a lot of turnover and who can keep track? It does seem plausible that the manager is the tall man with good hair rather than the five-foot-one woman. One of the other managers knows very well that Sydney is the Training Sales manager, because she once sent an e-mail, copied to Senior Management, that accused him of incompetence, laziness, and, memorably, alcoholism. He reacts first. “I'm sorry—Roger, is it? We didn't realize.”

  “Not a problem.” Roger smiles. Then he looks down at Sydney. “What are you hanging around for?”

  Sydney opens her mouth, then shuts it. She looks from one face to another and finds no sympathy on any of them. She stands and walks out.

  Elizabeth and Holly step back to let her pass. Elizabeth looks back at the managers. “We'll leave you to it,” she says and gently closes the door.

  At first they hang around, in case a bloodied hand paws against the glass, or a body is slammed against the blind
s. But when it becomes apparent that this battle will go the distance, Elizabeth heads off to call on some customers and the sales assistants go to lunch. Or, rather, they attempt to go to lunch, because the mass of angry ex-employees in front of the building has gotten everyone nervous, and Security won't let them out of the building. By one o'clock, hunger is increasing the possibility of a riot inside the building, too, so Human Resources makes some calls and manages to get a truckload of sandwiches delivered to a back entrance. These are cold and rubbery and make everyone feel guilty, because as they pick them up from the reception desk, the unemployed stare at them through the tinted glass.

  “Ahhh,” Freddy says. Jones follows his gaze to see Eve stepping out of the elevator with a man in a gray suit from Alpha. Neither looks happy. Jones's heart starts thumping.

  Holly smirks. “Thought she'd been canned?”

  “She wasn't at the desk this morning, I thought maybe she had been.” Freddy sucks in a breath. “I'm so high on adrenaline, I could ask her out right now. You know how people who survive a life-threatening experience form a bond? That could work in my favor.”

  They watch Eve walk to the reception desk. “I don't get it,” Holly says. “What is it about her? She's not that fit, you know. One time I saw her at the gym, she looked like she was about to pass out.”

  “You're right,” Freddy says. “You don't get it.”

  Jones says, “That's true, though. You don't really know her. She could be an ax murderer for all you know.”

  “With those spindly little arms?” Holly says.

  “Before you were telling me to ask her out. Now what are you saying?”

  “Just . . . maybe she's not right for you.”

  “Jones likes her,” Holly teases.

  “No, that's not it. Don't be stupid.” Jones forces himself to stop before: Why do you say that? “I'm just saying, maybe Freddy could do better.”

  Freddy snorts. “No I couldn't.”

  “He's right,” Holly says. “Look at him. Short, glasses, working in the same crappy job for five years . . . if Eve Jantiss agreed to date him, I'd buy lottery tickets.”