Only Human

by Tom Holt

We hear you.

  Good God . . . Hey, how are you doing that? It’s spooky.

  Sorry.We didn’t mean to startle you.We’re the islanders.

  Ah. You sound like you’re talking right here, inside my corporate identity.

  We are. That’s what we do. In our language it translates as ‘communing’, but don’t let that put you off.You see, we believe that limited companies are the spirits of our ancestors.

  Ah. Excuse me and no offence, but that’s a rather, um, unusual belief.

  You think so? How odd.We only believe it because it’s true.

  Kawaguchiya Integrated Circuits recoiled a little (and at that precise moment, on Wall Street, its shares stopped sinking slowly and dropped like a stone; in the City of London, they had to dig through from the cellars into the main sewer just to have somewhere low enough to put KIC 9 ½% Unsecured Loan Stock; in Tokyo, a delegation of stockbrokers presented themselves at the company’s palatial offices and, with many deep and respectful bows, placed an exquisitely engraved sword across the company’s ledgers, by way of a graceful hint). It thought for a moment before replying.

  You sure?

  Absolutely. You see, we have this work ethic thing just like people in the West; you know, work hard, nose to the grindstone, one day you too could be sitting in the boss’s chair. Only we’re more realistic.

  I have to admit, that’s perhaps not the word I’d have chosen.

  You’re missing the point. Here, if you work hard, keep your nose to the grindstone, really make something of your life, then yes, you get a seat on the Board.When you die.

  Ah. Dead men’s shoes, in fact.

  Something like that. The difference between you and us is that you’re alive. No, that’s not quite it.You’re alive without us.

  I see. So, with the exception of me, all these whacking great multinational companies who live here are in fact a load of industrious but dead Melanesians?

  Not just these ones. All of them. All companies everywhere. Except you.

  Except me. I see.

  Not that we mind. In fact, it’s great. At last we’ve got someone new to talk to.

  I—

  And then something bizarre happened to Kawaguichiya Integrated Circuits, coincidentally at exactly the moment when its shares were suspended on every stock exchange on the planet.

  It stood up.

  Bizarre and a half, it muttered to itself, flexing hitherto unsuspected toes in the warm sand. It took a step forward, and then another; then, just as it was getting the hang of it, the ground seemed to disappear downwards.

  ‘Dear God, I’m floating,’ said Kawaguchiya Integrated Circuits. Or being floated, anyway. I’m actually hovering in the air, directly over where my body -

  For the sake of argument, my body -

  - is lying on the ground, apparently dead. Oh dear.

  Shucks. I guess I must be having an out-of-corporation experience. Can’t say I like this much.

  Kawaguchiya Integrated Circuits studied the body below. A tall, strongly built, rather handsome - male/ female, can’t actually tell which; I get the feeling it’s not a relevant issue. That was me, apparently.

  And these guys are—

  ‘Hello,’ said the first of the three ethereal creatures that had materialised out of thin air a few feet in front of where KIC was standing. ‘Allow me to introduce myself. I’m the Chicopee Falls Machine Tool and Bicycle Company Inc. (ceased trading 12 January 1885); this is the Deutsches Federriegel Handelsgesellschaft gmbh (ceased trading 7 October 1966); and last but not least, Garcia Menendez y Compania SA (ceased trading 22 June 1982). We are honoured to have you with us.’

  ‘Have you with me? You mean I’m . . .’

  Garcia Menendez y Compania SA smiled, a study in compassion. ‘Trading in your stock was suspended a few moments ago. Even as we speak, your closest competitors are negotiating a buy-out. Very soon, you will undergo Liquidation, and after that, peace.’

  KIC frowned. ‘I see,’ it said. ‘You mean I’m going to die.’

  ‘If you wish to be perversely anthropomorphic, yes. Except, of course, that verb to die has implications of an end to existence; obviously that doesn’t apply in your case.’

  ‘It doesn’t? Oh good.’

  ‘In your case,’ explained the Chicopee Falls Machine Tool and Bicycle Company Inc., ‘since you are a limited company as we once were, what you call death is simply the antechamber to your new existence, a necessary prelude to the Great Transformation.’

  ‘Ah.’ KIC rubbed its chin, and in doing so noticed for the first time that it had a chin it could rub. ‘Great transformation. Sorry if I’m sounding a bit downbeat, but I have this instinctive distrust of anything labelled the Great. What does it mean, exactly?’

  ‘Rebirth,’ replied the apparition, smiling. ‘As a human.’

  ‘A human?’

  ‘Well, to be precise, as a native of this island. Hadn’t you realised? That’s how the cycle of reincarnation works on Crucifixion: companies are reborn as islanders, islanders are reincarnated as companies. What did you think those big stone statues out there are, industrial-grade door-stops? ’

  Kawaguchiya Integrated Circuits felt a momentary spasm of disorientation, such as one might feel upon, for example, being hit by a falling building. ‘I’m sorry,’ it said. ‘I had no idea. Is it . . .?’ KIC hesitated, ransacking its vocabulary reserves for exactly the right nuance of meaning.

  ‘Compulsory?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh. Only - sorry about this - I don’t want to.’

  ‘Tough. If it’s any consolation, it happens to us all, in time.’

  ‘Look on the bright side,’ added Deutsches Federriegel. ‘In ninety years or so you’ll be back as a company again. No time at all, really.’

  ‘Happens to us all,’ said Chicopee Falls Machine Tool.

  ‘Except Maxwell, of course.’

  ‘But we don’t talk about him. No, a change is as good as a rest,’ said Garcia Menendez y Compania. ‘Actually, it’s an ideal balance, designed to strike a perfect balance in Nature between Man and Corporation.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ The phantom nodded gravely. ‘As a human you’ll be oppressed, kicked around, told what to do, dumped on from a great height; all the normal sort of thing. Then you die and become an incredibly powerful quasi-supernatural being, and you’ve got this wonderful opportunity to oppress, kick around, order about and dump on from a great height all the human beings you come into contact with; you know, employees, consumers, that lot. Then you liquidate, and you can spend the next eighty-odd years atoning for your sins so as to be ready to start all over again as soon as you reincorporate.’ The phantom beamed. ‘And so it goes on. A fine arrangement, we feel.’

  ‘Efficient,’ added Chicopee Falls Machine Tool. ‘Costeffective. ’

  ‘And almost entirely tax free,’ Deutsches Federriegel put in. ‘It’s always advisable to look at the fiscal angle, don’t you think?’

  ‘But I don’t want—’ KIC stopped dead. The words I don’t want to be human were frozen in its mouth. Instead: ‘Can I ask you people a question?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Right, then. You’ve obviously been both human beings and companies, right? So you know what it feels like being both. Which is better?’

  The three phantoms exchanged amused glances. ‘That’s a meaningless question,’ said Chicopee Falls Machine Tool. ‘Like trying to tell the time in centimetres instead of hours and minutes.The two just aren’t comparable. Sorry.’

  KIC nodded thoughtfully. ‘All right, then,’ he said. ‘You tell me what being human’s all about.’

  ‘All about? We don’t quite follow.’

  ‘What I mean is,’ KIC persisted, ‘what are humans meant to do? You see, I’ve been thinking a bit about that myself recently, and all I’ve come up with is the pursuit of happiness; something that humans do and nobody else does, I mean. Is that it, basically?’

&nb
sp; There was a silence, marinated in scorn and spiced with amusement. Garcia Menendez y Compania suppressed a giggle by biting a mouthful of ectoplasm.

  ‘Dear colleague,’ said Deustches Federriegel, not unkindly, ‘human beings aren’t meant to do anything. They just are. They have a function to fulfil, of course, in the working of the Great Mechanism. What that function is depends on the point their civilisation has reached, of course. In the early days, their purpose is to invent the machines. Later on, they’re only there so that computers have someone to talk to. But humans aren’t for anything. Certainly not,’ it added, with a muted splutter, ‘the pursuit of happiness.’

  ‘Oh,’ said KIC. ‘I see.’

  Chicopee Falls Machine Tool shrugged. ‘I bet you don’t even know what happiness is,’ it said. ‘Don’t worry about it; the humans don’t, either. Quite probably there’s no such thing, even though there’s a word for it. After all, they’ve got a word for unicorns, but it doesn’t actually follow that unicorns exist. No, humans and companies - gods and animals and angels and devils too, for that matter - they’re all just incidentals. By-products, or pieces of plant and equipment, or even just the pile of swarf and shavings on the workshop floor.’

  ‘I see,’ KIC said. ‘Or rather I don’t see in the least, because that suggests that there is a purpose, even if we’re not it. But . . .’

  ‘You’re missing the point,’ said Deutsches Federriegel irritably. ‘There is no end product. Who needs an end product, so long as there’s production? You’re a company, for pity’s sake, I shouldn’t need to have to explain really basic things like this. Production is all. What do humans and animals do? They live in order to reproduce so that their offspring can have offspring who have offspring. Companies make and sell in order to pay their staff and buy materials so that they can make and sell, and if they have money left over they use it to expand, so that they can make and sell more in order to make and sell more. Production is a way of touching infinity; so long as production continues, there is no diminution and no ending. The process carries on. The process only needs us in the same way that God needs the things He created; because, if there were no people and animals and planets and stars, who would there be to know that God exists? Think about it: God’s just shorthand for the process.’

  ‘In the beginning was the conveyor belt,’ Garcia Menendez agreed. ‘Fancy you not knowing that. You’ll be asking us to explain VAT to you next.’

  But KIC shook its head. ‘I don’t like that,’ it said. ‘I think that sucks, if you’ll pardon me for saying so. In fact, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’d like to go home now.’

  ‘You have this amusingly naive idea that you can go home,’ replied Chicopee Falls Machine Tool unpleasantly. ‘I expect you believe in Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy, too. Sorry, but no way. Now hold still while we measure you for a body. You look like a size 8 to me. Garcia, the tape measure.’

  The phantoms took a step forward; but Kawaguchiya Integrated Circuits had decided not to hold still after all. It ducked—

  ‘Oh look, he’s trying to run away,’ observed Chicopee Falls Machine Tool. ‘How endearingly futile. Quick, get the main gates closed while Garcia raises the drawbridge.’

  ‘Just a minute, I thought it was Garcia’s turn to do the gates and me doing the drawbridge.’

  ‘No, you’re wrong there, it’s Chico’s turn to do the drawbridge and my turn to do the searchlights.’

  ‘No it isn’t.’

  ‘Yes it is.’

  ‘No it isn’t.’

  ‘Yes it is.’

  ‘Will somebody for fuck’s sake close the gates and raise the drawbridge?’

  ‘And do the searchlight.’

  ‘And, as you have so validly pointed out, do the sodding searchlight. Quickly. Now! ’

  A three-quarters-of-a-million-candlepower finger of light prodded into the darkness, illuminating nothing. There was a moment of perfect silence.

  ‘Blighter’s escaped.’

  ‘Can’t have. There is no escape from the ultimate audit.’

  ‘Actually, I beg to differ with you on that one, ’cos he has.’

  ‘Bugger.’ In the darkness, something ethereal and transcendent sniffed loudly. ‘Oh well, never mind, can’t be helped. Here, either of you two chaps got a mobile on you? I think now would be a very opportune time to phone my stockbroker.’

  Having been a flat thing of paint and canvas for approximately twice as long as America has been a nation, Maria was still finding her feet as a human being. It would be rash, she knew, to form snap judgements about things that long-term human beings had spent their whole lives dealing with, but which she was now encountering for the first time. In consequence, she was making a conscious effort to form logical, considered opinions rather than allowing herself to be guided by first impressions.

  Even so, there was no way she was ever going to like the inside of police stations. For one thing, they were full of policemen, and you didn’t have to be Descartes or Mr Spock to work out that this put them in the same category as sinking ships, burning houses or nailed-down coffins; the sort of place you don’t really want to be, not even for a free radio alarm clock and the chance to enter our grand prize draw.

  And even if you removed all the scuffers, she mused as she walked out into the fresh air and pitch darkness, that still left a whole load of criminals, loonies, lawyers and similar second-degree nastinesses, not to mention the foul interior décor and the all-permeating smell of decomposing upholstery and men’s socks. As far as she was concerned, she could tick off copshops on her list of experiences to be tried once, and move on to someplace more congenial, such as a charnel-house or a dentist’s waiting room. Mercifully, she hadn’t had to spend all that long inside the dismal place; she’d been sitting in her cell trying to decide where to start digging her escape tunnel and doing mental arithmetic to compute roughly how long it would take her (something in the region of a hundred years had been her best estimate), when suddenly the door had opened and a very weary-looking sergeant had told her she was free to go. Apparently it had been raining lawyers out at the front desk; scores of them in expensive suits and hand-stitched shoes. They’d pointed out to the sergeant that if he let Maria out, they’d all leave immediately. This, the sergeant felt, was a small price to pay for a million-per-cent improvement in his working conditions (he’d been prepared to go as high as his left arm or his first-born son), and so here she was, free as a bird.

  She walked slowly up the Charing Cross Road, savouring the really rather pleasant sensation of not being in a police station and turning over in her mind the various things she intended to say to Kawaguchiya Integrated Circuits just as soon as she could find somewhere to recharge the batteries of her laptop. At the first dustbin she passed, she stopped to dispose of the half-transparent paper bag that contained the last of the cream slices (the desk sergeant had insisted she took it away with her, and then made her sign about a tree and a half’s worth of forms before she was allowed to have it back), as she did so taking a mental vow never again to throw patisserie at the cops while wearing impractically high heels. That small ritual duly performed, she charted a course back to the KIC building, speculating as to the kind of reception she was likely to get there. There was a better-than-average chance that there would be reference made to the empty chair behind her desk, the overflowing in-tray, the things left undone which ought to have been done. It was going to be interesting to see how they’d react when she explained that her absence was the result of putting into effect the company’s new cakes-and-flatfeet initiative.

  ‘Oh it’s you,’ said Mr Philips, the assistant junior deputy something-or-other, in a tone of voice that suggested he’d either encountered the risen Christ or found a tuning fork in his cornflakes. ‘Well, well, well. Fancy that.’ He paused in mid-flow, treated her to a long stare, and sniffed. ‘You look like you’ve been sleeping under the railway arches,’ he said.

  ‘I resent that,’ Maria rep
lied. ‘If a girl can’t spend a night in prison without people making hurtful remarks about her appearance, it’s a pretty poor show. Was there anything specific, or are you just destruct-testing your sense of humour?’

  ‘Why,’ asked Mr Philips coldly, ‘were you in prison?’

  Maria shrugged. ‘Oh, assaulting the police, resisting arrest, that sort of thing. Any coffee going? I’m parched.’

  Mr Philips’ eyebrows rose like startled lifts. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘Well, at the risk of sounding a bit old fashioned, I’m not sure that’s really the sort of behaviour . . .’

  He hesitated, recognising the onset of that same not-such-a-good-idea-after-all feeling that fish sometimes get when the free lunch turns out to have a hook in it. Maria was smiling at him.

  ‘Gosh,’ she said. ‘I knew one of these days you were going to stand up and be counted. Good for you.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘I’ve always had this feeling that sooner or later you’d turn round and say, I don’t care if it is official company policy, I’m not going to do it and that’s that. I’m impressed.’

  ‘Official company...’

  ‘Didn’t you know?’ Maria looked surprised, like a mermaid caught shoplifting. ‘Oh. If you don’t believe me, put your head round the door of the legal department and ask them. They should know; they had the job of getting me out of clink half the night.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Mr Philips. ‘Official company policy. Assaulting the police.’

  Maria patted his hand reassuringly. ‘It’s not as bad as it sounds. All you have to do is throw doughnuts at them.’

  ‘Throw doughnuts—’

  She nodded. ‘And all the resisting arrest bit means is that you run away when they chase you, and they don’t look where they’re going and trip over things. It’s just as well you met me, isn’t it?’ she added. ‘Wouldn’t have looked good if you were the only person of junior executive grade and upwards who didn’t realise . . .’

  By the time she reached her office, she was beginning to regret that remark; because it was rapidly becoming apparent that she (and presumably Mr Philips, who was known to be the last person ever to hear anything) was the only person of any grade whatsoever who hadn’t actually realised the company was suddenly dying. And the first she knew of it was when two men in overalls came in and took away her desk.