“No!” Sean said.
“I’m docking you for this on your next performance review,” Noel said unhappily, then put the suppository back into the bottle.
“Go ahead and dock me then,” Sean said. “See if I care.”
Just then, there was a knock at the door. Noel stood up, electrified, but before he could reach the door, it swung open. Dinero, Herman, and Winston walked into the laboratory. Winston barked, jumped up onto Sean’s lap, and started to lick his face.
“Hello, Winston,” Sean said happily, and lifted the panting dog up. Winston wagged his tail aggressively.
“Mr. Dinero,” Noel said, standing as stiffly as an anarchist. “We were just thinking about coming up to see you.”
“Can I have money?” Sean asked.
“Stop asking that,” Dinero said, between bites of a large, silver mushroom he was holding. “Sheesh, you remind me of my bankrupt brother, Nils. No, you can’t have any money.”
“Oh, that’s too bad,” Sean said. “I like money.”
“So do I. That’s why you can’t have any.”
Dinero finished off his mushroom with a few more bites, his pupils dilating as he did.
“Have you completed your task?” Herman demanded of Noel.
“Yes,” Noel said. “Despite attempts by our competitors and enemies at General OmniAll and the Mandatory Organization of Anarchists to stop us, we have recovered and successfully reprogrammed the three defective people.”
“Good,” Herman said stiffly. “Your labors on behalf of the father company have not gone unnoticed, Director Schwartz.”
“Thanks,” Noel said.
Meanwhile, Dinero had wandered over to the brain reprogrammer. Sean followed him, Winston in his arms.
“So this is where it all happens, huh?” Dinero asked. “How did they react when you reprogrammed them?”
“They kinda went like this,” Sean said, shaking his head and sticking his tongue out. “Then, they smoked.”
“Smoked like, cigarettes, or, like, pot?”
“No, I mean, caught fire.”
Dinero nodded. Herman and Noel moved in behind Sean.
“What was that question you just asked me, Sean?” said Dinero.
“If gophers have the power to extend winter for weeks and weeks, why don’t they use it to go skiing?” asked Sean.
“That’s groundhogs, and I’m fairly sure you never asked me that,” said Dinero. “I meant the one about money.”
“Oh, right. I asked you if you were going to pay me, and you said no.”
“Yes. Two more reasons for that. First, I told you to get all the defective people before the end of business hours today, and you didn’t. It’s more than an hour and a half after closing time, not that we ever actually close around here, since we force all employees to work triple shifts, but it’s the principle of the thing.”
“Sorry about that,” Sean said. “We had to infiltrate a building filled with our bitter and homicidal enemies, though, so it took longer than I expected.”
“Second, do you remember when I told you there were three defective people?” Dinero asked.
“Yes?” Sean said. “You might have said there were three one time, along with a lot of other numbers...”
Dinero turned dramatically and stared off into the distance.
“I lied,” he said. “There are four defective people. Only one remains.”
“Okay,” Sean said helpfully. “Let’s go get him, then.”
“There’s no need to go get him,” Dinero said. “He’s already here.”
He stared intently at Sean.
His meaning suddenly sunk in.
Sean gaped and put down Winston.
“Winston!” Sean said reproachfully. “You never told me you were a defective puppy! Bad dog!”
“It’s not Winston; it’s you, you idiot,” Noel snapped. “You’re the defective one and have been all along!”
“Yes, I knew you were defective from the very beginning,” concluded Dinero. “It was I who gave your former boss at General OmniAll, Mr. Clarence Pittward, a tip-off that you had mugged his fish.”
“I never mugged his fish,” Sean said. “I like Goldie. Besides, Goldie wasn’t even in the time I robbed his tank, so how could I have mugged him?”
“The point is that he believed me, and fired you. I knew no one in the world would ever hire you, so I just had to wait until you started getting acceptance letters from UC Riverside’s Sociology Department and became desperate. Soon, you were willing to accept a job anywhere, so I gave you a job here.”
“But why?” Sean asked, baffled.
“Brain resonance,” said Noel. “All my defective person detectors, including both the stationary model and the magic wand, need a defective person in order to work, because one defective person’s brain causes resonance with the others. Therefore, we needed a defective person to find the other three!”
“It was the perfect plan, if I do say so myself,” said Dinero. “Now, the three other defective people have been caught and repaired, and there’s only one left. To complete our product safety recall, all we have to do now is reprogram your brain.”
Sean threw up his hands over his brain protectively.
“No!” he said. “The first time you reprogrammed me wasn’t very pleasant. My cerebellum still sorta hurts.”
“Too bad,” Dinero said.
Herman, Dinero, Noel, and Winston started to advance menacingly on Sean. Sean took a step back.
“This is part of your duty to the father corporation,” Herman said, reaching for him.
“But when I took a job from an evil company to reprogram defective people by zapping powerful currents across their brains, I never thought it would backfire on me!” Sean complained.
He took another few steps back, then turned around and grabbed one of the phones. He started to dial wildly.
“Security!” he shouted. “Help!”
“Like that’ll work,” Dinero said. “Security works for me, remember. Now, come over here and let us turn you into a productive member of society.”
“No! Anything but that!” Sean cried.
Sean turned to run, but Noel threw the net over him, entrapping him. Sean slipped and fell.
“Works every time,” Noel said. “Always trust the net.”
With that, they hauled Sean over to the brain reprogrammer and stuffed him in the tube. The sliding glass cover fell down over the top of the tube. Sean started to hammer against it with his fist.
“Wait!” he said. “Didn’t you say if you reprogrammed my brain again, it would explode?”
“I’m willing to take that chance,” Noel said with a shrug.
“I’m not!”
“Quiet, you.”
“Don’t worry,” Herman told Sean. “You will be sacrificing your life for the greater good of the father company.”
“We’ll be able to call our legal dolphins and tell them the product safety recall is complete,” Dinero added.
“And if you die in the line, we will add your name to the employee memorial to be preserved as one of the fallen heroes of the company,” said Herman.
Sean screamed.
All four of the others, including Winston, put on tinfoil hats.
Noel started to move over to the panel, but Winston ran forward, tail wagging, and jumped up on the computer console.
“Looks like Winston wants to do the honors,” said Dinero. “Good boy, Winston.”
Winston pawed at the computer console and selected a menu option that said, “Preset #4: Sean Gregory Woods, brain liquidation.”
Winston pressed the start button. Electrical current started to zap across Sean’s brain, tickling him, if tickling were horribly painful and caused one’s brain to smoke. Everyone else crowded around the brain reprogrammer and leered at Sean. Sean thought this was rude and resolved to file a Human Resources complaint if he survived. Maybe he would complain to Lefty and deranged nutcase Ted about it arou
nd the water cooler.
Green electricity arced around Sean’s brain for several minutes until the brain reprogrammer made a dinging noise and the glass tube slid open. Sean fell face-first onto the floor, hair and forehead smoking.
“Ow,” Sean said.
“He’s not dead,” observed Dinero.
“We can fix that,” said Noel, and reached into his pocket to produce a suicide pill, although Sean was too potentially permanently paralyzed to reach up to take it.
“Inform the legal dolphins,” Dinero said to Herman. “The product safety recall of humans we accidentally manufactured with defects is complete. For this batch, anyway.”
He kicked Sean with his foot.
“Ow,” Sean said.
Winston ran up to Sean, barking happily, and started to lick Sean’s face.
Groaning, Sean stood on trembling, knocking knees.
“That should have gotten rid of what remained of your kleptomania and compulsive lying from the last time we reprogrammed you,” said Noel.
Then, the door to the laboratory slid open. A column of heavily armed Humancorp security guards, wearing spiked shoulder pads and armed with a variety of weapons, most of which were pointy and sharp and also had guns in them, waded into the room. One stood stiffly at attention.
“Are these men bothering you, Mr. CEO?” he asked stiffly.
“Nah,” Dinero said as he nibbled on a second mushroom.
“Not you,” the head of security said to Dinero with annoyance, then moved over to help up Sean. Sean leaned on him a little as he regained his footing.
“Thanks,” Sean said to the head of security.
“No problem, Mr. CEO,” said the head of security. “Anything else I can do for you this evening, Mr. CEO? What should I do with these people?”
“Throw them into Humancorp Town,” Sean said.
The armed security guards seized Herman, Noel, and Dinero.
“Wait,” Noel said in consternation. “What’s happening?”
“This is mutiny,” bellowed Herman.
“Get your hands off me,” shouted Dinero. “Don’t you know I’m the CEO?”
“You’re not the CEO,” the head of security said quizzically. “Mr. Sean Gregory Woods is the CEO and has been for years.”
He indicated Sean.
Dinero’s eyes went very wide.
“What did you do?” Dinero bellowed at Sean.
“Simple,” Sean said. “I stole this from your office earlier.”
Sean produced a paper file labelled “TOP SECRET: Defective Persons Briefing,” from inside his jacket. Dinero gawked at it.
“So, I knew all along that you would try to reprogram me,” Sean said. “Since Noel had used Preset #1 on Mr. Eats, and #2 on Isaac, and #3 on Meyer, I also knew he was going to use #4 on me. When I was using the panel to arrange Meyer’s reprogramming, I took the opportunity to change mine as well.”
Noel was aghast.
“You didn’t!” he shouted.
“I did,” Sean said. “I changed it so that instead of making my brain explode, it would make me CEO of Humancorp.”
“You made it reprogram your brain so you would think you were CEO of Humancorp! That way, by brain resonance, everyone else would think you’re CEO of Humancorp too,” exclaimed Noel, aghast. “And that means-”
“I am CEO of Humancorp,” said Sean.
“You could never have come up with this on your own,” Herman growled at Sean. “You don’t have the guts or the initiative or the continence. There must have been an inside man.”
Winston jumped up into Sean’s arms and started licking his face.
“Winston!” Herman screamed. “I should have guessed you were the mastermind behind this! I always knew you would betray us! I’ll destroy you for your treason!”
Barking happily, Winston turned and stuck his tongue out at Herman, wagging his tail as he did.
“Nice doggie,” said Sean, and patted Winston on the head.
“You’ll never get away with this,” Dinero screamed.
“Take them away,” said Sean, and the security men hauled Noel, Dinero, and Herman, protesting, out of the room.
“Anything else I can do for you, sir?” asked the head of security.
“No,” Sean said. “You did a very good job. You may go.”
“Thank you, Mr. CEO,” the head of security replied. “And may I say, sir, your stink is particularly pungent and authoritative today.”
“Great,” Sean said with a smile, and the head of security turned and left, leaving Sean alone.
Chapter 30
After successfully executing his corporate coup, Sean wandered through the building.
“Hello, sir,” Lefty had waved cheerily as he’d walked by.
“Good to see you again, Mr. Woods,” added fat Ted.
“I’ll kill you, you bastard,” screamed deranged nutcase Ted. “Also, could I have a raise?”
Sean had waved and smiled to them all, floating in dazed wonder through the many Humancorp departments that were now his own, until at last he made his way outside. The sun was setting in the west, creeping down behind the hills and bracketing the Humancorp buildings in a halo of orange and yellow light. Watching this wondrous scene, Sean advanced slowly down the grassy hillside and found himself face to face with the donkey cart and its driver, who were slowly plodding along the lawn.
“Would you like me to take you on a tour of the grounds, Mr. CEO?” the cart driver asked Sean.
“Sure,” Sean said, and piled into the back.
The cart driver cracked his whip and the donkey started to walk in a slow circle around the Humancorp buildings, steering clear of Humancorp Town.
“I know what you did,” the cart driver said with a smile. “That trick with the brain reprogrammer was very clever.”
“Thanks,” Sean said.
“So,” the cart driver continued. “You successfully conducted a product safety recall of defective humans produced by Humancorp, then executed a corporate coup in a stunning masterstroke and took over the company. Quite an accomplishment. Have you learned anything?”
Sean scratched his head.
“Why would I have done that?” he asked.
“Human nature,” the cart driver said with a chuckle. “Think about it. What have you learned?”
“Don’t take suicide pills?” Sean guessed quizzically.
“Other than that.”
“Don’t trust a dog with your finances?”
“I wasn’t really looking for that either, but it’s probably good advice. I’ll put this another way. Think about the pyramids.”
“You mean, the Egyptian Pyramids?”
“Yes,” the cart driver said. “The Great Pyramid at Giza, for example. Was it worth it?”
“I don’t understand the question,” said Sean.
“The Great Pyramid at Giza was constructed by the Egyptian pharaoh Khufu as a tomb. It is six million tons in weight and stands almost five hundred feet high, and is seven hundred and fifty feet to a side. It took a workforce of, perhaps, a hundred thousand men - free men, skilled laborers, and slaves - twenty years of around-the-clock toil to build it, and remember this was a time when Egypt only had one or two million people. The only records that survive of Khufu’s reign suggest he devoted all his time and attention to building the pyramid. All other projects fell by the wayside. We can postulate that all persons not directly working on the pyramid were in some way supporting its construction. Khufu’s other policies during his reign were to find raw materials, like stone and wood - all for the pyramid. Think of it. The entirety of Egyptian society was for twenty years dedicated to doing nothing more than building one colossal tomb for a single man.”
The cart driver’s eyes briefly flickered over to the vast Humancorp towers that loomed over them.
“Remind you of anything?”
Sean thought about this.
“Dinero told me that those towers were all empty, and that all th
e actual offices and manufacturing facilities were underground,” Sean recalled.
“More than that, the entirety of Humancorp is just one giant-” the cart driver chuckled “-pyramid scheme. Have you stopped to think about what Humancorp really does? It produces humans as a permanent underclass and workforce, wringing every possible dollar out of them, all for the benefit of Richard Dinero, so he can afford to build bigger yachts than the CEO of General OmniAll, not unlike the pharaohs of old obsessing over building a bigger pyramid than the previous pharaoh. So, I ask you again, was it worth it? Was Khufu right to build the Great Pyramid? Was Dinero right to build three palaces for his dog?”
“No,” Sean said. “Winston sold him out.”
The cart driver chuckled again.
“Forget Winston for a moment,” he said. “What do you think?”
Sean thought for a while.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But you’re not just an ordinary cart driver, are you?”
“You’re cleverer than you smell,” the cart driver said, smiling a little.
He pulled back on the donkey’s reigns, and the cart ground to a halt. The cart driver plunged one hand into his pocket and brought out a business card, which he handed to Sean. Sean stared at it in disbelief.
The business card said: “Cato Conroy - Co-Founder, Humancorp Incorporated, and Donkey Cart Driver.”
Sean continued to gape at it as the donkey turned its head, reached into its saddle-bag, and, using its teeth, handed Sean another card. The donkey’s card said: “Arnie the Fifteenth, Co-Founder, Humancorp Incorporated, and Time-Space Turbodonkey.”
“We lost majority control years ago, and Dinero took the company from us in a bloody corporate coup,” Conroy said quietly. “I survived and stayed on with Arnie as a cart driver. That’s given me a lot of time to think. Let’s have a philosophical discussion.”
“Oh God no,” Sean said, cowering in fear. “I knew I would get a comeuppance in the end! I’ll give you anything you want; just don’t make me talk about philosophy.”
“I’ll keep it simple,” Conroy said, looking at Sean, unimpressed. “Do you think that just because certain people are manufactured rather than born justifies treating them any differently? Are any people really mindless automatons? Are you familiar with Randian objectivism?”
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