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  Dinero reached under his desk and pulled out a very large bag of money, which he dumped haphazardly onto the table. The result was a pile of money that towered above Sean’s head. Sean had to crane his neck up to look at it. It mostly consisted of hundred dollar bills, interspersed with some bigger and mythical denominations that Sean had never heard of before.

  “Would you like this money?” Dinero asked, poking his head around the pile to look at Sean.

  “Yes,” Sean said eagerly.

  Dinero took a can of lighter fluid out of his desk, squirted it over the pile of money, chucked the can of lighter fluid away, then struck a match from his pocket and tossed it into the pile of money. The pile of money started to rapidly burn in a massive conflagration.

  “Too bad,” Dinero said. “You can’t have it.”

  Sean, who liked money, was very distressed to see this. He started to try to grab burning bills and stuff them down his shirt.

  Dinero chuckled.

  “I love it when they do that,” Dinero said.

  Sean was starting to see why the cart driver had offered Sean a gun when he said he was going in to see Dinero.

  Meanwhile, the woman with the glasses from the other desk in the office walked over to Dinero, and with a world-weary sigh, grabbed a nearby fire extinguisher and sprayed it all over the desk and Sean. The result was a lot of half-burnt bills and a singed desk covered with icy, white powder. Sean suddenly looked like a ghost or a snowman or the ghost of a snowman, possibly. He shook himself off, sending the fire extinguisher powder everywhere.

  “Thanks,” Dinero said vaguely to the woman. “This is my secretary, Marjory.”

  “My name is Candace, and I am not his secretary,” the woman said irritably as she blasted Sean with another shot from the fire extinguisher. “I’m an accountant, and my job is to keep track of how much money he wastes.”

  She jerked her thumb at Dinero without looking at him.

  “Very good,” said Dinero, who did not seem to be listening. “Tell facilities I’ve burnt another desk and I need them to send me a new one. Get another big pile of money up here while you’re at it.”

  Candace muttered some of the better swear words that Sean had ever heard as she tramped back to her desk and picked up the phone. Dinero swiveled away from her and started to aggressively ignore her.

  Meanwhile, Sean was mournfully looking at a destroyed hundred dollar bill that he had tried to salvage from the inferno. It crumbled into ash in his hands. While his job interview guide had instructed him to maintain a friendly, warm, and positive demeanor throughout, Sean was finding this part of the instructions to be more difficult than he’d imagined.

  “Isn’t it illegal to destroy money?” Sean asked.

  “Oh, very illegal,” Dinero said, spreading his arms magnanimously, like he was gifting the knowledge to Sean. “But when you’re as rich as I am, I think you’ll find little things like the law no longer matter. Here, I’ll show you.”

  Then, he slapped Sean in the face.

  “Ow,” Sean said.

  “That’s how rich I am,” said Dinero. “I’m so rich I can do that whenever I want.”

  Then, he slapped Sean in the face again.

  “Ow,” Sean said.

  “See? You’re not really responding. You’re even still kind of smiling.”

  Then, he slapped Sean in the face a third time.

  “Ow,” Sean said.

  “We need to work on that response to being slapped in the face,” said Dinero. “You might need to come up with something more original than ‘ow,’ to say. What about ‘gah?’ Eh, never mind, we’ll work on it later. Anyway, there’s a reason I’m doing all this, and it’s not just sadism. It’s because of your letter.”

  “It is?” Sean said. He made a mental note never to write any letters again. From now on, he was going all e-mail.

  “Yes,” said Dinero. “Look.”

  He took out Sean’s original letter and pointed vigorously to Sean’s writing on the envelope. The sender’s name was given as “To: Whoever Runs The World.”

  “Now, what do you know about me?” Dinero asked Sean.

  “You’re very rich and you like to burn money and hit me in the face,” replied Sean.

  “Exactly! So given what you know about me, why do you think this letter came to me?”

  There was a silence as Sean contemplated this. A big smile spread across Dinero’s face.

  “I have something to tell you, Mr. Woods, and I’m afraid it may be rather shocking.” Dinero paused dramatically. “The world is run by billionaires.”

  Sean gasped.

  “No!” he said.

  “Yes,” Dinero said, leaning in towards Sean again. “Think about it. We’re everywhere, occupying all the positions of power across the country and indeed the world. CEOs of large businesses, heads of foundations, high office holders, the President of the United States - all billionaires!”

  Again, Sean gasped.

  “Donald Trump, a billionaire?” Sean said in astonishment. “I had no idea! I mean, he never mentions it.”

  “Yes, it’s hard to believe,” confirmed Dinero, “but it’s true. Donald Trump, the President of the United States, is a billionaire.”

  For those readers of the distant future who might not understand what Sean and Mr. Dinero are talking about, let me furnish you with some small explanation. The United States was a country that used to exist in the ocean and arid wasteland that lies between the modern Ilkhanate of Megaquebec and the Communist Theocracy of Guadalajara. Similarly, a “billionaire” is a person who possesses more than a billion units of contemporary currency, which was a lot back in the 21st century, as ridiculous as this probably seems to you - obviously, you can’t even get a radioactive sustenance chip or a gallon of cloned dinosaur blood for less than a billion globobucks these days, but that’s all down to inflation during the Great Kale and Quinoa Wars. “Billionaires” used to be the absolute richest people on Earth, and is not the slang term you might be familiar with denoting the penniless electro-narc addicts who squat in the cheap tide pools on the coast. Of course, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you who Donald Trump is, because His Famousness will require no introduction.

  “And of all the billionaires, I have the most billions,” Dinero concluded snidely. “How many is that again, Marjory?”

  “My name is Candace,” she screamed at him.

  “Right, that many,” said Dinero. “And so, I am one of the rulers of the world, because the world is run by billionaires.”

  Sean thought about this quietly for a moment or two.

  “I think I already knew that,” he said.

  Dinero almost fell out of his chair with surprise.

  “What?” he spluttered as he struggled back into his chair. “That’s impossible. None of the proles like you should be aware that the world is run by billionaires. If you and people like you ever found out, there would be a revolution!”

  Again, Sean thought quietly about this for a moment or two.

  “No, I think everyone is pretty much aware already that the world is run by billionaires,” said Sean after a while. “I mean, who else would run the world? I guess I always used to kind of think the lizard people controlled the world.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Dinero snapped. “We killed off the last of them years ago.”

  “Or the Illuminati, maybe,” Sean continued hesitantly.

  “The Bavarian Illuminati couldn’t control a Playstation with four controllers and a manual,” said Dinero. “Bunch of lousy drunks.”

  He un-ironically took another few sips from his bottle as he spoke.

  Sean scratched his head.

  “Well, I can’t think of anyone who would run the world other than billionaires, then,” said Sean. “So I think everyone already knows that the world is run by billionaires.”

  “You’re full of it.”

  “No, really,” Sean said earnestly.

  Dinero stared at h
im with skepticism and disbelief.

  “But if you commoners know the world is run by billionaires, why don’t you rebel and overthrow us?”

  “The game was on?” Sean guessed with a shrug.

  Dinero squinted at him skeptically.

  “I like sports,” Sean elaborated in a feeble tone.

  There was a long silence.

  “Well, whatever,” Dinero said at last. “The point is that people with money control the world, and I have the most money. And so of all the rulers of the world, I am the richest, most powerful, most important, and may I venture to say most handsome.”

  He turned to one of the many mirrors hanging around his office and stroked his hair back with his palm, making it curl a little at the ends.

  “I just wanted to make sure you understood that I’m better than you,” Dinero said.

  “Right, thanks,” Sean said continuing to give Dinero his interview-grade smile. “Can I have a job now?”

  Dinero smacked himself in the forehead with his palm. Sean was disappointed to see that he did this with considerably less force than he’d used to smack Sean earlier.

  “Of course,” Dinero said. “The job interview! I knew I was forgetting something. You didn’t look like the usual guy I drag in here to insult. I think he’s the EVP of operations or something. I was probably confused because you have the same smell. Marjory-”

  “Candace,” she said angrily.

  “-tell the director of HR to get in here. I want him to sit in for this. He knows all the - things.”

  “You mean company policies,” said Candace.

  “Yeah, those,” agreed Dinero. “And the other things.”

  “Laws?”

  “Spot on,” agreed Dinero. He turned back to Sean. “Take five,” he told Sean, slapping him on the shoulder again. “Recess. We’ll reconvene when HR gets here.”

  He took another swig out of his bottle.

  And, since there was nothing within grabbing distance worth stealing, Sean could do nothing but lean back in his chair and wait.

  Chapter 6

  While they waited for the head of HR, some workmen arrived in Dinero’s office to replace his desk with another, less burnt one and handed him a new sack filled with hundred dollar bills. This gave Sean a minute or two to reflect on how he’d gotten here.

  Sean always had difficulty keeping down a job. It didn’t matter if it was working for Clarence, or the local grocery store, or the movie theater, or Al Qaeda, nothing Sean ever did seemed to be good enough for his employers. He scratched his head and collected his scattered thoughts on his past - his family, for example, growing up as the son of an out-of-work anti-begonia pundit - his education, and obtaining his BA in English - his early work, padding his resumé with cotton - Sean quickly ran through it all in his mind in case Dinero asked about any of it.

  In the mean time, Dinero had switched to smoking something that, judging from the odor, was probably marijuana.

  Eventually, the head of HR arrived. He turned out to be a short man with dark hair, wearing an equally dark and suspiciously neatly pressed uniform.

  “Ah, here’s Herman,” said Dinero. “Herman, have a seat.”

  “Yes, my leader,” Herman said, sitting down in his chair with unnatural stiffness.

  “Herman isn’t just the head of Human Resources; he’s also my most loyal subordinate,” said Dinero. “He named his children after me. He’s the only person in this company I trust absolutely.”

  At this, Herman sat up even straighter.

  “Everything for the company,” said Herman. “May its market cap last a thousand years! Also, leader, I wish to discuss your security arrangements with you. I have discovered another two plots against your life. I have the details here.”

  He produced, from under his arm, a pair of thick dark-colored binders.

  “Put them in there with the others,” said Dinero, pointing to the trash can next to his desk.

  Herman tipped them into the can.

  Sean was still smiling, and he remembered the advice from his internet printout that said he should be friendly with his interviewers.

  “So, what’s it like being head of Human Resources?” asked Sean.

  “One quickly comes to realize that employees are but another type of materiel to be expended in pursuit of glory for the father-company,” said Herman.

  “That’s very interesting,” said Sean.

  “We can make small talk later,” said Dinero dismissively, waving his hand at them to silence them. “For now, let’s get this job interview underway before I forget again, since I’m pretty baked right now. It turns out we’ve got a lot of vacancies at the company. I had one in particular in mind for you, Sean, but we might as well see if you’re suited for any others while you’re here. Oh, by the way, I ought to mention before we get started that I can’t allow anyone outside the company to gain access to proprietary Humancorp information, and you’ve already been exposed to a lot, so if you fail this job interview and I don’t hire you, I’ll have you shot. No pressure, though.”

  “No problem,” said Sean, remembering that he should maintain a positive attitude.

  “Great! That’s what I like to hear,” said Dinero. “Now, I just have a few standard questions so we can get to know you better, Sean. First, tell us a little about yourself.”

  “No!” Sean replied cheerily.

  Dinero raised an eyebrow.

  “Why not?”

  “I would, but my lawyer says I shouldn’t.”

  “Maybe I should be more specific,” Dinero mused. “Describe yourself in five words.”

  “Hi, I’m Sean Gregory Woods,” Sean said immediately.

  “What are your strengths as an employee?”

  “I don’t have any,” Sean said enthusiastically.

  Dinero found this so noteworthy that he jotted it down on his notepad.

  “Good, good,” he murmured. “And what would you say are your weaknesses?”

  “I interview badly,” said Sean. “Also, I steal stuff.”

  “Like, how much stuff are we talking?”

  “I’m stealing your garbage right now,” said Sean, pointing down, where he was currently rooting through Dinero’s trash with his feet.

  “Interviews badly and steals stuff,” murmured Dinero. “Well, that’s a start, but I feel I ought to tell you we contacted your references, and your previous employer, a Mr. Clarence Pittward, described you as a -”

  He produced a lengthy piece of paper.

  “-lying, cheating, stealing, treasonous, smelly, lecherous, womanizing, lazy, narcoleptic, insane, forgetful, insubordinate, goldfish-hating, profane, cruel, evil, drug-addicted, sociopathic, sadistic, loud-mouthed, foul-smelling, turkey-brained, terrorist-sympathizing, satan-worshipping, hairy, fat, incompetent, incontinent, simian, procrastinating, obstructionist, morally bankrupt, felonious, unemployable, perverted, destructive, malevolent, demonic, foul-mouthed, idiotic, reckless, feckless, loveless, brainless, sickly, ignorant, carcinogenic, phony, walrus-toothed, sycophantic, deluded, cursed, plague-bearing, qualitatively awful, tapioca-gargling maniac with all the charisma of a tapeworm with anger management issues. What do you say to that?”

  “I’m also ugly,” said Sean, recalling that he wasn’t supposed to deny his weaknesses. Then, also remembering that he was supposed to show willingness to improve, he added:

  “But I’m working on that.”

  “How?” asked Dinero. “Plastic surgery?”

  “No, I plan to - uh - blind and disfigure everyone around me. Uh, present company excluded, of course.”

  Meanwhile, Dinero was running through Mr. Clarence’s lengthy letter of recommendation with his finger.

  “Hey, lazy, thieving, drug-addicted, incompetent, and insane. You’ll fit right in here!”

  “Great,” Sean said with obvious enthusiasm.

  “Let me ask you a few more standard questions,” pressed Dinero. “Why do you want a position with us?”

/>   “I’m not looking forward to starving to death,” said Sean.

  “Now that’s motivation,” Dinero said appreciatively. “And what do you feel you can bring to the company?”

  “How about all the stuff I stole from my old job?” offered Sean. “I have like, two tons of it.”

  “Excellent. And where do you see yourself in five years?”

  “Dead,” said Sean a little too truthfully, then remembered he was supposed to keep it upbeat. “But look on the bright side - at least that means you’ll be rid of me.”

  “No need to pay into the pension fund,” said Dinero appreciatively.

  “We don’t pay into it anyway,” Herman whispered confidentially to Sean.

  “Please, Herman, I’ll give you a chance to speak when I’m done.”

  “Yes, my leader,” Herman said, and sat up stiffly in his seat.

  “Where was I? Oh, right. What’s your previous work experience?”

  “Uh, I think my old job was working for a front company for a Peruvian cocaine cartel,” said Sean.

  “I can’t do much with that,” Dinero said. “We got priced out of the cocaine market years ago. What do you consider your greatest workplace achievement, Sean?”

  “Getting fired?” Sean said.

  “And what do you do outside of work?”

  “Uh, I mainly watch the TV news and sports, and when I get bored of that I go out to the highway and throw rocks at cars,” said Sean.

  “Now that’s initiative,” said Dinero.

  “So, am I going to get the job?” asked Sean.

  “Don’t get too excited yet,” said Dinero. “We still have to figure out what job to give you. Now, it says here under your education section that you have a BA in English.”

  “Yes.”

  “Hm... Let’s talk about something more elementary. How did you do in arithmetic?”

  “Failed it,” Sean admitted.

  “Well, that rules out Chief Financial Officer,” Dinero said, drawing a line through a position on his notepad. “What about reading?”

  “Nope.”

  “That rules out Chief Legal Counsel too,” Dinero said. “How about writing?”

  “I’m illiterate,” Sean admitted.