Headcrash

by Bruce Bethke

  Walter Duff finished chatting up some cute new hire in the document coding group, walked around the back of the table, and stepped up to the lectern. He tapped the microphone a few times, to make sure we were paying attention and coincidentally test the startle reflexes of the poor sods sitting directly under the ceiling speakers. Then he poured himself a glass of water and tried a sip. Composed himself to speak. Took a deep breath. An expectant hush fell over the room.

  “Good afternoo—”

  Ping! An efficient, gender-indeterminate voice came over the paging system. “Vanessa Schwartz, you have a visitor at the reception desk. Vanessa Schwartz, to the reception desk please.”

  The manager of Low Toner & Paper Jams stood up, whipped out her Personal Information Manager, and consulted the microscreen. “Oh, darn!” she said, in a voice just a tad too well-rehearsed. “Was that meeting today?”

  She turned to the Duffer. “I’m sorry Mr. Duff, but I’ve been trying to get this vendor in here for weeks. May I—?”

  He smiled magnanimously, made a little hand gesture of understanding dismissal, and shot Schwartz’s back full of flaming poisoned arrows with his eyes as she left. When the door finished hissing closed behind her, the Duffer turned back to us, took a deep breath, and started again.

  “Good afternoon, fellow MDE employees. I’m sure—”

  Beep! Frederico Singh, the manager of Linear Polymer-Film Adhesives, snatched his pager off his sash and stared at it in horror. His lips moved as he read the message. (Lip-reading is not my strong suit, but I do believe the message was, “Statue of Elvis found on Mars!”) Singh went over the message twice again, eyes wide, then he looked to Duff. “Sir, I—”

  The Duffer nodded, smiling. “I understand, Frederico. When things need attention, they need attention. I’ll fill you in on what happened later.”

  “Thank you, sir. Thank you.” Singh stood, hooked his pager back on his sash and, having learned from Schwartz’s example, backed out the door, salaaming.

  Butch Kopetsky, manager of Workforce Partnering, saw the opportunity and seized it. “Wait, Frederico!” she called after him. “I can help!” Without even a glance at Duff, she bolted.

  Duff’s face was still serene and cheerful, but the hands that gripped the lectern had white knuckles. He took a deep breath, gritted his teeth, and tried again. “Good aft—”

  Chirp! Zeke Jones, head of Positive Attitude Enforcement, flipped his cellphone open, turned his back to the crowd, and answered in a stage whisper just a touch too loud. “Yeah?… Honey, I thought I told you never to… I’m in a meeting now, and… Yes, tonight, I promised… yes, your old cheerleader outfit, I’ll bring the maraschino cherries… No, I… No, don’t worry, she took the kids to her mother’s for the week… But… No honey, I… Honey? Honey, please…”

  Jones snapped the phone shut and turned around. “Sir. It’s just come to my attention that—”

  Duff scowled and jerked a thumb at the door. Jones dashed out, and Duff laid his baleful glare upon the two remaining departmental managers. He smiled, or perhaps bared his fangs, and telepathically sent them a message that even I could catch.

  Well?

  That’s when That Weasel Peabody from Paper Fastening Systems burst into the room, clutching a fistful of still-steaming fax pages. “Mr. Featherstone! We’ve got a critical shortage of 9023’s in—”

  Dave Featherstone, head of PFS, stared daggers at Peabody, mouthed the words Too late, asshole, and said gently, “Oh, calm down, Peabody, I’m sure it’s not that urgent. After all, they’re just staples.” He turned back to Duff, smiled warmly, and said, “You were saying, Walter?”

  The Duffer hung there a moment, eyes narrowed suspiciously. Slowly recovering his poise, he smoothed back the hair at his temples, licked his lips, and attempted to begin once more.

  “Good afternoon, fellow—”

  He stopped short. Glared around, daring someone to interrupt. No one spoke, moved, or for that matter, breathed.

  “That’s better,” Duff muttered. Then another sip of ice water, another smoothing of his white hair, and another try.

  “Good afternoon, fellow MDE employees. I am sure by now you’ve heard many wild rumors and much unfoundered speculation. I have incented this meeting to proactively input you with the straightest possible scoop.”

  He paused to spear the four of us in the front row with a sharp glance. Then he went back to his notes.

  “The MIS department has been reorganized,” he said in a flat voice. “Hassan Tabouli is no longer with the company. If you have any questions about this decision, outplacement counselors are standing by to transition you to a postemployment state.”

  The Duffer looked up. “Any questions?” It was so quiet, you could have heard a mouse dropping. “I thought not,” he said, nodding. Then he stole a quick glance off to his left. Clearly, someone was waiting in the wings.

  Duff relaxed visibly, attempted a friendly smile, and switched to his warm and paternal mode. “You’ll be pleased to know,” he said, “that our search for the new MIS manager has led us, once again, to promote from within. In keeping with our long-standing policy of rewarding excellence, we have gone out of our way to find someone whose performance far exceeds—”

  (T’shombe leaned in front of me and whispered to Rubin, “Ten bucks says it’s Uberman.”)

  “Someone whose tremendous talents have been underutilized—”

  (Bubu relaxed, leaned back at her, and said, “Not a chance. We’re due for a minority woman.”)

  “Someone who shares my personal vision of a greater future for the A&F division—”

  (T’shombe touched herself and smiled. “Moi?“)

  “Someone who has demonstrated, time and again, a can-do willingness to go that extra mile—”

  (Bubu shook his head. “Nah, plain black is passé. I’m betting they found us a Haitian lesbian.”)

  “Someone whom it has been my great pleasure to watch grow, in both a personal and professional capacity—”

  (“You mean a disabled Haitian lesbian.”)

  “A woman who really understands the meaning of service—”

  (“I mean a disabled war veteran Haitian lesbian, with a prison record and a terminal disease.”)

  “And so, my fellow MDE employees, it gives me great pleasure to introduce to you—”

  (“You forgot practicing snake-handler.“)

  “The new manager of Management and Information Services—”

  (“Reformed Missouri Synod snake-handler.”)

  “My close personal friend: Melinda B. Sharp.”

  “Oh shit,” is what I said, loud and clear.

  Melinda gave a speech, I think. To be honest, for me the next half-hour was pretty much a blur of cringing, blushing, thinking about updating my resumé, and wishing I could turn invisible or shrink, or both. My face felt hot enough to defrost refrigerators. And every time my blood pressure began to start to edge back down toward normal, Melinda shot me a white-hot glare that left my scalp smoking and my ears bright red. I have some disjointed mental snapshots…

  (You know, this would be the perfect opportunity for hypertext. I mean, if I still had my hypereditor, I could code this all up as a bunch of hotkeys and active links, and then if you’re the real dataglut type who needs to know everything about everyone everywhere, you could click on Melinda Sharp and get the story of how I first came to MDE as a contract PC engineer, how my first assignment was to spend three months working with Melinda, and how she was having the damnedest series of totally unexplainable data failures, right up until the day I cauight her sticking a diskette to a filing cabinet with a refrigerator magnet. “But it’s so convenient,” she said in protest.)

  (Tell you what. I’m going to screw around with HTML some and see if I can’t come up with a way to embed little infonuggets in this document file. And that way, if you’re the cut-the-crap Type A sort who just wants to mainline the story, you can read around the nuggets and knock this s
ucker off in about fifteen minutes.)

  INFONUGGETS

  But if you’re the real anal data hog type, you can read the info chunks and sort of pretend like they’re hot cross-referenced windows.

  Melinda, to us: “First off, I want to assure all of you that my personal relationships had absolutely nothing to do with my getting this promotion. I am the best person for this job.” She turned her head and looked at Duff. “All the same, I would like to take this opportunity to publicly show my appreciation for my mentor and friend, Walter Duff: for the trust, confidence, and personal guidance that he has so patiently given me in many confidential, closed-door, one-on-one meetings.”

  Duff flushed bright red, looked around nervously, and began fiddling with his wedding ring.

  PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS

  Bubu, imitating Duff, whispering to T’shombe: “A woman who really knows how to use her head.”

  “Without using her teeth,” T’shombe whispered back.

  “Walter,” Melinda said brightly, “shall we say, lunch tomorrow? My treat?” I don’t think anyone but Duff was supposed to see the way she stuck out her tongue and slowly licked her collagen-enhanced lips. Duff began squirming in his chair as if his pants were suddenly much too tight.

  “Sure,” he managed to gasp.

  Melinda: “Management and Information Services. As I see it, the key word here is service. Far too many of you have complained to me that MIS can be uncooperative and difficult to work with. I know that I certainly have had that experience in the past.” She paused to give me another quick blast from her emotional flamethrower. The skin on my ears blistered and peeled.

  CLOTHING

  Actually, I was sort of blankly staring at Melinda, listening to her talk, when suddenly I realized that her prim pleated skirt, tailored navy blazer, and designer silk blouse represented about a months worth of my salary—and that was before you started factoring in her jewelry, hair, breast implants, cheekbone augmentations, liposculpting, body piercings, or Cosmetic Surgery Maintenance Organization (CSMO) fees.

  “My objective,” she went on, “is to turn MIS into a true service organization, dedicated to servicing the needs of you, our internal customers. No more excuses; no more snide remarks when someone has an honest misunderstanding and incidentally reformats a hard disk. From now on MIS will deliver the services you need, when you need them, without making you prove to the satisfaction of the network engineers that your needs fit into their unbelievably narrow definition of making ‘sense’ or being ‘possible’…”

  SERVICE

  Bubu, whispering to T’shombe: “Check out Duff! He’s got a woody! And every time she says the word service, he rubs his crotch!”

  T’shombe, whispering back: “Don’t jump to conclusions. Maybe his penile implant is shorting out again.”

  Applause. I stopped thinking about my resumé and lifted my face out of my pit of despair long enough to realize Melinda’s speech was over. People stood; a mob was converging around her, shaking her hand and offering congratulations. “Pathetic bunch of losers,” Frank snarled, sotto voce. “The giant sucking sound of a school of hungry remoras, all desperately trying to attach themselves to the new boss and hitch a ride.” Frank took advantage of the noise and confusion to make good his escape. Somebody—T’shombe, I think—took my elbow and gently led me out into the hall.

  Fifty yards down the corridor, the ambient bozon level tapered off and my head at last began to clear.

  BOZON

  Akin to photon: a quantum unit of stupidity.

  “I dunno,” Bubu was saying, “I actually think this has some positive aspects, y’know?”

  “We are goddam stepstools,” Frank growled. “That woman has no business being in charge of MIS. She is just going to walk all over our backs and grind us into the dirt, until the CEO is fooled into thinking she’s doing good and gives her Duff’s job.”

  “Oh, calm down,” Bubu said. “You sound paranoid. I’m sure all that macho butt-kicking talk was just for show. Actually, I’ve always found female managers to be maternal and patient—”

  T’shombe arched an eyebrow, but bit back whatever was on her tongue and instead said, “Why not ask Pyle? He’s actually worked for her before.”

  Frank and Bubu stopped walking, and turned around. T’shombe gave me an encouraging little squeeze on the shoulder. “Go on, Pyle. Tell ‘em.”

  “You—” My voice was barely a hoarse croak. I swallowed hard, and licked my lips, and tried again. “You guys,” I said. “Frank? Rubin?

  “You have no idea what you’re in for.”

  Charles was waiting for us when we got back down to the department. Unusual enough, in that he’d decoupled himself from his interface dock and rolled over to wait by the stairwell, but then he spoke up, and his vosynth was set for John Wayne’s voice. “Buckaroos,” he said, “you’re not gonna believe this.”

  Emitting a few clicks and a bit of a hiss, he switched himself into playback mode and retrieved a voice-mail message.

  The voice was Melinda’s. The words were, “This is a broadcast voice-mail message, for Charles Murphy, T’shombe Ryder, Abraham Rubin, Yuan Huang Dong, and—that other guy, oh, what’s his real name? You know, Pyle.

  “Well kids, I’d really love to meet with you all personally, but I’ve got commitments this afternoon. So I’m sending you this message to make sure we start off on the right foot together.

  “Charles: generally speaking, you’re doing a great job, but that Warning: I Brake for Hallucinations bumper sticker on the back of your wheelchair has got to go. People might think you’re violating the company recreational pharmaceuticals policy.”

  We all stared and blinked at him. I would have to do a deep record search to confirm it, but so far as I know no one has ever criticized Charles. I don’t think he even knew how to react. There was some peculiar screwed-up expression on the controllable parts of his face, but it was impossible to read.

  Melinda continued. “T’shombe: watch the plunging necklines, lady. What you are wearing today is not appropriate workplace attire. Trust me, I know what I’m talking about; I’ve got a master’s degree in Executive Wardrobing, and I expect to see you in appropriate business clothing tomorrow.”

  Our stares all flipped from Charles to T’shombe. Actually, to the top button of her blouse—and then we realized she was fuming mad, and we felt like a bunch of cheap perverts, and we looked away.

  “Frank and Abraham,” Melinda said. “I’ve got just one word for you: mandatory neckties, starting tomorrow.” Frank and Bubu stared at each other and their jaws dropped, but I didn’t catch any more of their reaction because—

  “And last of all: Pyle. Oh kid, kid, I barely know where to start with you—but actually, I do. DTP has an excellent book by a guy named Mallory, the title is Dress For Conformity, and the human resources library has fifty copies. Check one out. Tonight. There will be a test on it tomorrow.”

  Melinda paused, clucked her tongue. “Well, that’s about it for now, kids. Be good, hold down the fort, lock the door if you throw a party, and—oh yeah, new hours, effective immediately. I’ll see you all at seven-thirty sharp tomorrow. Bye.”

  The message ended. The recording clicked off; the synthetic voice of the VMX system came in with the traditional, “Press one to forward this message; two to delete this message; three to pickle this message in vinegar; four to—”

  Charles disconnected himself from the phone system. Abraham turned to T’shombe. T’shombe looked at me. I turned to Frank.

  “All hands stand by to man lifeboats,” Frank said softly. “Women and old Chinese guys first.”

  4: DISASTER FOULS ONE BACK INTO THE STANDS

  Quitting time: at last, thank God. I collected my raincoat and galoshes, wasted some minutes looking for my briefcase before remembering I hadn’t brought it that day, and headed lor the parking lot.

  The weather had cleared sometime after lunch, I guessed. The rain had stopped, the clouds
had passed, the sun was out, and the skies were blue and the birds were singing and the lake on the other side of Highway 5 was sparkling in the peachy keen sunlight, and the whole midwestern pastoral tableau was all just so insufferably gosh-darn nice, it made me want to puke. The gulls on Lake Elmo were obviously having a swell day, too. I wasted a few minutes in the parking lot watching them soar (after surviving the security exit gauntlet). Gulls screeched; they wheeled. They dove like Stukas to catch fish, and then flew high. Absolutely beautiful.

  Up until the moment I realized they weren’t so much feeding as refueling for another bomb run on the MDE parking lot. The cars in the far south lot were getting hit particularly hard. I especially a certain blue-and-bondo ‘95 Toyota in the last row.

  What I want to know is, how do they do it with such precision? There were plenty of primer-gray surfaces on my car, just begging for a bit of color. But no, every single one of those huge, disgusting, chunky-white splats was on a body panel that still had some original paint.

  CARS

  Melinda’s car was gone, of course, but the space where it had been parked showed the clear outline of her car in bird-poop white. Gee, I guess that new Teflon-Kevlar paint really does “shed crap better than Turtle Wax™.”

  Of course, I have to admit the real piece de resistance was the severed head and guts of a bullhead catfish, which some avian artiste left on my car’s roof, positioned so that the whiskered face was staring at me as I went to open the driver’s side door. Reminded me of a Creole dish I once ordered by accident in a restaurant in New Orleans. After recovering from the shock, I flicked the head away, opened the door, and climbed in. The windshield gasket had leaked again; the inside of the car was like a steambath. She started on the second try, and I eased her out onto Highway 5.