by Ben Elton
There was a nervous silence as the assembled company struggled with the meaning of the words ‘can’t afford.’
Durf was loving every minute of his brisk, bossy monologue. If he hadn’t been an incredibly brainy person he would have been an officious one-eyed council clerk or something. Sly hated him. All right, Sly had decided to go along with the monstrous project because he could see the logic in it but Christ, you didn’t have to enjoy it!
‘Now hang on a minute,’ interjected Tyron. ‘What the hell is this ‘can’t afford’? Why, if the Stark consortium were to liquify all its assets we could afford anything.’
‘But of course, Mr Tyron,’ replied the aggravating Durf, ‘and, over years, it might even be possible for all of the members to do so, by bleeding small sections into the market piecemeal, as you have all been doing. But, let me ask you, Mr Tyron, if you wished to unload all of your holdings tomorrow, who would you sell to?’
‘Well…‘ replied Tyron. But of course Durf, as usual, was only asking a rhetorical question.
‘Mr Moorcock? Mr Slampacker? Mr Nagasyu? Lord Playing? Perhaps of course. But unfortunately at the same time they are trying to sell their companies to you. We all swap companies and no one comes out with a penny.’
The logic of Durf’s point was beginning to sink in. He continued.
‘Sure, a few of the Consortium would find buyers outside of Stark. Not all the money is in the conspiracy. But, a lot of the maverick, moveable, ready cash is. Basically, if we wanted to sell all the assets committed to Stark immediately — as we must, according to the Domesday Group — only Stark can afford to buy it. Ipso facto, we have an empasse.’
Well, there wasn’t much anyone could say. This was, without a doubt, a bit of a blow. ‘So, is that it?’ said Sly. ‘Nice meeting you all. Forget the whole thing?’
‘Gentlemen,’ said Durf, who was absolutely getting an erection from all this tension and attention, ‘we have a solution to suggest to you. Mr Mai Wo, perhaps you would kindly explain.’
‘Thank you, Professor Durf,’ said the sanitized slaveowner, who was received warmly at the White House, Downing Street and any other centre of the civilized world he cared to visit.
‘Gentlemen. We need to bring about a situation where the hardware we wish to purchase costs less than the capital that we are able to generate. The present market is buoyant, nobody can afford to buy us out and the things we need are hugely expensive.
‘This, then, gentlemen is my suggestion. We engineer a crash. All together we begin to unload the very cream of our assets, creating a massive bear market. With the kind of mega- stock that we can load the shelf with, other lesser stock will become worthless. Who will buy John Citizen’s meagre assets for a dollar when the mighty Slampacker group stocks are up for ten cents? Overnight a panic spiral of previously unknown proportions will develop. A vortex of selling will consume all the notional capital in the world. Small businesses, dependent on credit, will collapse. Little investors will go to the wall. As in previous crashes, only the very biggest will survive. Those with real assets, those who own the actual means of production will actually emerge even stronger because they will be all that’s left. Us, gentlemen. Oh sure, on paper our fortunes will be cut by 90 per cent, but in relative terms, compared to the carnage around us, we will be richer than ever. Add to this the fact that the prices of the commodities that we wish to buy will also collapse in the general crash: governments will lose huge tax revenues as businesses go bankrupt and men are laid off: millions will turn to welfare, the politicians will be desperate to raise money. Then, gentlemen, it will be a buyers’ market and we will be buying. In the months following the collapse, which will be our site construction period, governments will be counting their pennies to buy food. I should imagine everything from solar panelling to orbital guidance satellites will be in the bargain bazaar.’
92: DEATH WARRANT
Nobody could deny that deliberately creating a great depression was a pretty huge concept.
‘Well, it’s never been done before,’ said Ocker.
‘Exciting, isn’t it?’ said Slampacker.
‘You mean,’ interjected Sly, ‘that the average bloke’s last experience before the ecological vanishing point will be one of crippling world slump?’
‘Exactly,’ said Mr Mai Wo.
‘No final party; nothing like that?’
‘We have to create the right financial conditions for our purposes.’
Well, you learn something every day. Sly had thought he was a hard bastard. You couldn’t help but be impressed though — the little git had it all worked out.
‘Nobody likes this, Moorcock,’ said Slampacker, his tone, for the first time, something other than cosy and benign. ‘You got a better suggestion? The world’s fucked, somebody has to do something. I didn’t notice any of your ‘average blokes’ refusing to buy my burgers, or aerosols or use the electricity from the acid power stations. We’re all in this together, everyone in the world, right? We just happen to be in a position to do something about it. Let me tell you, son, when the time comes to stand before God, I shan’t hang my head in shame, no sir! Not unless every other body and soul on this planet does likewise!’
Sly noticed that the assembled company were all glaring at him with some hostility. He realized that his compatriots were very sensitive to the moral issues of what they were involved in, which was hardly surprising since they were in the process of organizing the most bastard trick in history. ‘Listen, Mr Slampacker. I’m just catching up here, OK? Just getting the parameters. You won’t find me wanting, and frankly I resent the implication that you might. I was told that all our discussions were to be frank and open, that’s all I’m trying to be. I’m getting the land aren’t I?’
‘We hope,’ added Tyron.
‘Acquiring thousands of acres of Aboriginal sacred sites, discreetly, is not easy, especially when people stick their noses in where —’
‘Now hold on boys, hold on,’ interrupted Slampacker, back to his old soapy tones. ‘I’m sure you’re doing a wonderful job, Sly, wonderful. Let’s not fall out over silly things, after all, we have a long way to go together. Now then, I believe we were discussing all this financial wheeler-dealing, right?’
‘Yes, and I have something to say on the subject,’ said Sly. He hadn’t been going to bring it up but he felt the need to say something more to prove he was a dedicated part of things. ‘It may be nothing, but there’s a stupid journo on my back. She’s probably just fishing around but she’s got all my withdrawals and rationalizations noted down in her damn filofax like a shopping list. Now I’m sure that — ’
‘What’s her name?’ Slampacker snapped, again losing his teddy bear quality. ‘I don’t know, I got rid of her as soon as I could. Linda something.’
‘Linda Reeve?’ interjected Mai Wo, a note of surprise in his voice. Sly turned to Mai Wo in surprise. ‘She’s tailing your deals too?’
‘Just a call. She’d noticed I was pulling out and not putting back. She has a theory that the big players are losing their nerve, but she thinks it’s all unilateral action. She’s not looking for a conspiracy.’
‘Oh yeah and how long’s that going to last?’ Slampacker now looked a lot more like the sort of man who would order the destruction of an entire rain-forest. ‘This bitch has phoned my people too.’
‘This is a serious irritation.’ Mai Wo used the word ‘irritation’ with a chilly detachment that would have made anyone who cared for Linda Reeve very nervous indeed. ‘If any hint that we are working together were to emerge before we create our crash, it’s just possible that the powers that be could act against us. Close the banks, suspend trading, etc. That would be most inconvenient.’ Mai Wo’s language was always mild. ‘Irritation’, ‘inconvenient’, he might have been discussing a parking fine, but he wasn’t. And if any insurance broker who heard him had been asked to provide cover for Linda Reeve, even Stark wouldn’t have been able to afford the premiums.
‘We need to know what she knows, what she thinks and what she’s said.’ Slampacker clearly wanted to end discussions on the subject. ‘She works for the London Financial Telegraph. You own that don’t you, Ocker?’
‘Yes, I own it. I own her boss and I own her. This situation is simply not a problem, we shouldn’t even be discussing it. Tomorrow I will have my people look into it and deal with it. There’ll be no need for anything drastic but you won’t be hearing from her again.’
With that the discussion moved on to the other business at hand — Durf’s plans for assembling and distributing the required hardware. It all hinged on Tyron and Sly as the consortium members closest to the centre of things. Sly was to carry on with the business of acquiring the land and having done so was to start with all haste, to prepare it. Meanwhile, Tyron would provide a dumping-off point for the equipment that must soon now begin flowing into Western Australia. He had a massive mining consideration which was all played out. It should be possible to store pretty limitless stuff there and pass it off as a consolidation point for Tyron Mining paraphernalia…
93: A MAN WITH A FUTURE
Finally, the meeting ended. Sly decided not to stay. He wanted a change of company. Nagasyu’s people took him across to the city in a launch and he walked out into the hot streets in order to collect his thoughts. He needed to reconnect with reality. And yet, as he looked about himself; the buildings; the history; the milling crowds, he realized that Stark would soon become the new reality and all this would be a memory.
It was so difficult to comprehend. Sly tried to make himself grasp it. Make himself really take it seriously. As he wandered about he kept telling himself that he was looking at the past, like an old film. It was time to consider the future.
Who would he save? Who did he love enough? Who could he tell? Anyone? Who would he confide in and protect, and love for ever? No one, that was who. Sly didn’t love anyone, that was the truth of it. He didn’t love anyone and nobody loved him.
By God though, he could make somebody love him. Couldn’t he just? With what he knew, with what he had to offer, he could make somebody love him till the end of time. But who?
94: THE POST
Chrissy sat back on the sofa in her apartment and prepared to luxuriate over her letter. She loved getting mail and a letter was something to be savoured. Not work stuff obviously, although such is the instinctive pleasure of getting anything through the post that even that is better than nothing.
Perhaps it is something to do with the fact that when you’re a kid, the only things you could ever get through the post were utterly exciting. Strange how childhood impressions linger, often remaining more pervasive than the experiences of later life. It’s a pretty safe bet that 90 per cent of the mail any particular individual gets will be either dull, depressing or downright disastrous. The bills, the summonses, the junk…
But, very occasionally, comes that rare delight; a personal letter. And the remote possibility of that happy event is enough to make every trip to the mat to pick up the post a potential thrill, despite the near statistical certainty of disappointment. It seems that the distant echo of those childhood birthday cards, some containing book tokens and even postal orders, can still call to us from across the years. Old auntie what’s-her-name would be pleased to know that her small, kind gesture so long ago had such a lifelong resonance.
95: STUFF TO DO
Chrissy put the bill in the ‘stuff to do’ pile. She was very together about bills. At least she was very together about putting bills in the ‘stuff to do’ pile. After that things got a little looser. The ‘stuff to do’ pile was rarely less than an inch thick. It had a presence, that pile; a spirit of its own. Sometimes it seemed to be staring at Chrissy like some evil priest, gleefully reminding her of her inadequacy. It would mither her whenever she felt good, deliberately deflating her. After she’d finished an overdue article or done some research, she would glance across the room and there the pile would be, shouting, ‘All right, fair enough, you’ve done that but what about me! You’ve still got loads of stuff to do in the ‘stuff to do’ pile.’
The strange thing is that when she finally did attack the pile, it was so easy. Cheque-book, envelopes, stamps and in an hour it was over. The relief of an empty ‘stuff to do’ pile was one of the most lovely sights in the world. But, despite this knowledge — the knowledge that if she just got on with it it would be over in an instant — the pile always grew again. No matter how often she swore to deal with the bills more regularly, it always took a final reminder to make her tackle the pile. And so, for the want of a few minutes self-discipline, she allowed a terrible malignant beastie with fifteen envelope- shaped heads to live in the corner of her apartment.
96: JUNK
Chrissy wasn’t too bothered about the ‘stuff to do’ pile on the evening that she got the letter. Why, it was barely teetering yet, the venom that the monster spat was of little consequence whilst it had no final reminder to reproach her with. The pile could wait.
She tossed the junk mail in the bin, unopened. And in doing so, Chrissy unwittingly made a joke and a mockery of the lives, loves and endeavours of countless people whom she would never know. In that casual gesture she trampled upon an awesome human achievement and upon great sacrifices contributed by the natural world. Why didn’t she stop to think? Why didn’t she dare to care? What a bitch.
If only she could have seen them, seen their disappointment as she hurled their creation back in their honest faces. The person who cleared the land to plant the fir trees; the persons who planted and tore up the fir trees every second or third year; the drivers and the ships’ captains who got the trees to the mill; the thousands who work in the mills and in the huge pulping plants and paper factories — if only Chrissy could have seen them she would have wept bitter tears of self reproach to have dismissed their lives so casually.
The copywriter? Did Chrissy not care that he had spent so many lonely hours trying to think of a tempting way to get her to accept ten days free home perusal of a fifteen volume history of the Wild West? The printer and the four colour offset litho process of which he was so proud — was his life to be just a pointless joke because of Chrissy? The animals and insects that were wiped out when billions of acres of forest and moorland were turned over to single crop, factory, fir tree farming. Did they give their lives in vain?
One can only hope and pray that those involved never discover that after the monumental worldwide effort and the truly awesome consumption of natural resources that went into bringing a piece of junk mail to Chrissy’s door, she simply threw it away. Gone, gone, gone; all their hopes and dreams and sacrifices, rejected in that one contemptuous gesture. They must never know, for they would put up their arms in horror (or spindly leggy things in the case of the insects) and say, as Zimmerman would say, ‘What is the point!? No, I mean really, what is the point?’
Over a year, as a moderately high-earner in the US — the country which wrote the original handbook on pointless consumption — Chrissy would receive between five hundred and a thousand bits of junk mail. Plus over a hundred ‘free’ newspapers, perhaps fifty cab firm cards and fifty offers from local estate agents to dispose of her property. She, like most people, threw the lot away unopened.
97: LETTER FROM LONDON
Her letter was from Linda Reeve in London. Linda did not often write but when she did it was normally something pretty good.
On glancing at the opening paragraph however, Chrissy felt a momentary irritation because it was immediately clear that Linda was still harping on about this business about Nagasyu and Tyron and Slampacker, and all the other assorted billionaires she was putting in her book. However, as Chrissy read on, despite herself, she began to wonder whether there might not be something in it. Linda had included a copy of the article which her editor had rejected, plus a series of less specific examples detailing withdrawals of smaller sums of money, or where some reinvestment had resulted. Chrissy had to admit
that it read pretty well. Somewhere, somehow, in recent months, thirty billion US dollars worth of stock had been converted into cash by a smallish group of individuals and simply disappeared.
In her article, Linda seemed to be suggesting that perhaps a collective fear was sweeping the upper echelons of the financial world and that some of the big men wanted their money where they could see it. But could they see it? Linda couldn’t, and nor could Chrissy. It was unthinkable that they had simply put it in the bank. People used to watching their bucks divide and grow like amoeba were not going to put up with 7 per cent a year in a deposit account. And yet, none of those concerned had any major, high-profile project underway that would require heavy cash flow. Where had it gone?
Unlike Linda, who was deeply conservative, Chrissy was a bit of a radical. She did not have a very high opinion of the people she regularly studied and wrote about. Therefore, Chrissy did not have much time for Linda’s theory about paranoia. These guys’ religion was chasing money, they weren’t just going to pull out. They’d screw everyone else in the world before they’d do that. So what was it? It would be wonderful if there was something illegal going on. Drugs would be terrific, but reason told her that this was out of the question. The people Linda mentioned were too big to bother to take risks like that. Arms seemed a possibility. Perhaps it was a huge global arms syndicate! Linda had produced twenty-three names, that would be very big indeed for a syndicate, especially since all the people involved were big enough to play a lone hand.