Humancorp Incorporated Page 9

  Dinero pointed to a group of bulky men wearing spiked shoulder pads wielding chains and whips.

  “I was thinking of giving you a job here. It’s not too late. We could still transfer you,” Dinero summarized.

  “If transferred, you will need this,” said Herman, offering Sean a net. Sean refused to take it, as he was busy stealing a motivational poster from the wall.

  “Good choice,” Herman said confidentially. “We have reason to doubt the loyalty of the Security Department.”

  He surveyed them suspiciously with narrow eyes.

  Winston broke away from Dinero and rushed up to a different department, and started to yip.

  “Right, and that’s Recruiting,” Dinero said, indicating a department filled with computers and suited men. “They’re charged with finding the best candidates for the job.”

  “How do they do that?” asked Sean.

  Herman quietly offered him the net again.

  “And Marketing and Sales are over there,” concluded Dinero, with a few more vague gestures. He indicated a room with a heavy metal door and a metal wheel on it like the seal of a ship’s bulkhead, from which Sean could faintly hear the sound of screaming. It was marked “Customer Relations” in ominous black letters.

  “They’re charged with rounding up enthusiastic customers to purchase our products,” said Dinero.

  Sean listened to the screaming a bit apprehensively.

  “And, uh, how do they do that?” asked Sean.

  Herman quietly offered him the net again.

  “The IT Department is over there,” Dinero said. “Mail room... E-mail room... shipping and receiving... we moved legal out of here since we started hiring dolphins as lawyers; they’re in tanks on the lower floors now... What else?”

  “Where do you make the humans?” Sean inquired with interest.

  Dinero looked surprised by the question.

  “The factory floor is much deeper,” he said. “That’s another five floors down.”

  “Can we go see it?” asked Sean.

  Dinero gave a hollow laugh.

  “Of course not. The technique for manufacturing humans is Humancorp’s most closely guarded proprietary trade secret. General OmniAll keeps sending corporate spies to try to steal it from us. No one’s allowed down there.”

  “What about like... factory workers?” Sean suggested.

  Dinero responded with another sardonic laugh.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Sean. You can’t trust people to manufacture humans! It’s much too important! It’s all done by robots, of course.”

  Sean contemplated this quietly as Dinero continued to progress through the floor.

  “Over here’s the only bathroom that low-level employees, like you, are allowed to use,” Dinero said, pointing to a single, grubby bathroom. “And next to it’s the kiosk where we sell you toilet paper, if you need toilet paper.”

  There was indeed a red-colored kiosk next to the bathroom that was stocked with nothing but Humancorp-branded toilet paper. A series of flashing numbers over the dispensers showed the prices for different sizes and qualities.

  “Uh, shouldn’t you provide free toilet paper to your employees?” Sean asked, eyeing the kiosk.

  “What are you, a communist?” demanded Dinero. “You ought to hang out with Lefty. Around here, employees pay for their toilet paper. Also, you can only use proprietary toilet paper in company bathrooms. No outside toilet paper.”

  Sean scratched his head. He didn’t have to use the bathroom right now, but what if he had to later? He’d better buy some toilet paper. Besides, he didn’t want his new bosses to think he wasn’t a team player.

  Acting quickly, Sean pick-pocketed a wallet from a passing employee and stole a few bucks, which he fed into the vending machine and selected the “Cajun-Style Spicy Enchilada with Jalapeños” sized toilet paper roll. A huge roll of paper dropped out of the machine. Sean went to pick it out of the depository slot, but the moment he touched it, it caught on fire.

  “Yeah, that happens sometimes,” Dinero said unconcernedly as the paper burnt to ashes in Sean’s hands. “It’s a manufacturing defect with the toilet paper. We accidentally made it out of paraffin and liquid white phosphorus. Our bad.”

  He took another swig of alcohol out of his bottle.

  “Shouldn’t you fix that?” asked Sean.

  “No, we found a marketing solution,” Dinero said, then pointed to a nearby wall. A poster on the wall read, “Are you tired of having cold toilet paper? Humancorp has the solution!”

  Then, beneath the lettering was a depiction of a huge flaming pile of toilet paper and money.

  “I really ought to give the marketing guys a raise,” Dinero said, observing this. “But I won’t,” he added after a minute.

  He took another swig of alcohol, draining the bottle, then flung it against the wall, where it shattered, glass spreading over the floor.

  “Anyway, executive cafeteria’s over here,” said Dinero, gesturing to a pair of white double doors with the words “Executive Cafeteria - Managers Only” written across it, with a familiar card scanner to bar low-ranking employees from access.

  “Where do the regular employees eat?” asked Sean.

  Dinero pointed to a large trash can next to the executive cafeteria. It had the words, “Non-Salaried Employee Cafeteria” sprayed painted across it.

  “That’s where you plebs eat,” said Dinero.

  “Our cafeteria is a trash can?” Sean said, thunderstruck.

  “You’re welcome,” said Dinero. “But we charge for eating out of that trash can. You gotta put your money in a slot on the side.”

  Sean looked at it skeptically.

  “Are you feeling peckish?” Dinero prompted.

  “Uh, no thanks,” Sean said.

  “Suit yourself,” Dinero said with a shrug, and turned away.

  But the moment Herman, Winston, and Dinero had turned their backs, Sean sneaked over to the trash can and extracted a banana peal, then stuffed it down his shirt. He didn’t pay for it though. Sean chuckled to himself. That had showed them!

  “Human Resources is somewhere over there,” Dinero said with a vague gesture down a corridor lined with government-mandated posters. “And this way’s Customer Service and the rest of the floor. Herman and I talk about the customer services situation a lot. It’s been a little crazy in here ever since the Customer Service Department rebelled two years ago. The problem was I staffed it entirely with sociopaths, misanthropes, and people despairingly overcome by the pointlessness of it all.”

  “Why did you do that?” asked Sean.

  “They’re the only people who would agree to work in a call center,” said Dinero. “But anyway, they all hated our customers so much and I paid them so little that they took up arms and rebelled. The trick is to pay employees slightly more than whatever amount causes them to do that, but I don’t always get it right.”

  “Who did you staff the department with after the rebellion ended?” asked Sean.

  “Ended?” Dinero repeated quizzically.

  Someone down the hallway distantly shouted, “down!” There was a loud explosion and the sound of shattering glass as a Molotov cocktail hurtled around a nearby corner and smashed into the wall, then burst into a vibrant plume of fire. Flames raced across the carpet. The loud rat-tat-tat of automatic weapons fire and disgruntled employees hurling customer service scripts broke out.

  “Yeah, better give that a miss,” said Dinero. “Let me show you outside, then I’ll take you down to R&D and get this tour wrapped up. It’s almost time for Winston’s 1:00 PM brushing.”

  Winston barked.

  “Yes, I know you want your hair combed. You be a nice puppy,” Dinero said, and picked Winston back up. Winston stuck his tongue out and panted, looking thrilled to be in Dinero’s arms again.

  “What’s your agenda?” Herman hissed at Winston, puffing some smoke from his cigarette in the dog’s direction.

  They got back i
n the elevator and Dinero punched the button for the ground floor.

  “Conditions on the ground floor are temperate and dry with a small chance of human contact, oh brave commandant,” said the elevator voice. Then it catapulted them up at eye-pressing speed.

  Once the elevator let them off in the lobby with the couches, through which Sean had originally entered, Dinero led them outside. It was the middle of the day, and although it was summer, the sun seemed warm and joyless, and it was slightly overcast. The cloud cover made everything appear slightly darker than it should have been, and the shadows were shifting and weird.

  Dinero led them through the main gate, through which Sean had entered with the donkey cart driver, and before they had walked a hundred yards, a new structure came into view. There was a dip in the terrain, like a valley beneath the main buildings of the Humancorp corporate campus. Inside the valley was a sort of a shanty town. Sean squinted at it, his eyes struggling to adapt to the outside light. It was like a sea of corrugated iron, decaying wood, and cheap plastic, and it was ringed by a ten-foot high perimeter of barbed wire atop a chain-link fence. Signs posted every few feet warned that the fence was electrified and poisoned.

  “Come on,” Dinero said, beckoning them closer to the fence.

  Herman frowned and flipped off the safety on his assault rifle. Winston barked.

  Ignoring them both, Dinero approached a gap in the chain-link fence, a checkpoint desk manned by guards armed with cattle prods and shotguns. They saluted Dinero through and held back their army of vicious, long-toothed wiener dogs, which barked aggressively at Winston and nipped at their heels. Sean spotted a large sign over the checkpoint that said, “Humancorp Town Security Point A.”

  Passing through the checkpoint, they entered what Sean could only assume was Humancorp Town. It was horrific. Everywhere Sean looked was squalid poverty. The streets were mud, to the extent there were streets. The path in front of them was more of a channel through the dirt than a street. In the tiny shanties, which were often so small that Sean would have to had to crawl to get in them, Sean could vaguely see filthy, human figures in rags curled up within, shivering. At the sound of their approach, people - thin, starving, and emaciated - crawled out of the tiny iron huts and approached them. In some places, more lengths of chain-linked fence obstructed the starving people, and they reached muddy hands through the gaps in the fence towards them, grasping at them, or palms open as they begged for money. Directly in front of them, there was no chain-link fence to obstruct the wave of humanity. Dozens, then hundreds, emerged from the little huts like rats from a maze and approached, emitting guttural, inhuman moans.

  Dinero reached into his pocket and produced some bills, which he flung towards them. The people scrambled for them in the dirt. More people, realizing Dinero had money, turned towards him with need in their eyes. Herman shouldered his assault rifle and fired a burst of shots low over their heads, dispersing the crowd.

  Most retreated back to their filthy, squalid, tiny homes. Others remained to fight over the bills that were planted in the mud. Two men tore at each other, tumbling over one another as they punched and kicked with all the energy they could muster in front of Sean, fighting over a one dollar bill. The entire area had a strong smell of sewage which bordered on overpowering. In the distance, Sean could see some people, barely clothed, drinking dirty water from a puddle. Others were collapsed in the middle of the lane, seemingly unable to move. It was one of the worst spectacles Sean had ever witnessed, and he was genuinely shocked and appalled.

  Dinero made a grand gesture towards it all.

  “And here’s where you’ll be staying,” he told Sean brightly.

  Chapter 10

  There was a long silence following Dinero’s declaration. Sean looked out over the rotting wasteland.

  “Uh, I have a house,” said Sean.

  “Not any more you don’t,” said Dinero.

  “Yes, I do,” said Sean.

  “Oh,” Dinero said. “Well, you don’t want to commute to work every day, do you? You should live here.”

  Again, Sean surveyed the minuscule iron-roofed domiciles and the filthy people who had collapsed in the streets, unable to move.

  “It is true that I hate commuting,” Sean said slowly. He approached one of the men who had fallen still in the street, unable to move.

  “Hey, sir,” Sean said, kicking the man with his foot. “What’s life like around here?”

  The man rolled over into a ditch before starting to speak.

  “I don’t have enough money to feed my parakeet, I was mugged twice since this morning and beaten up once for no reason, there’s no clean water, and no wifi signal,” the man said from the ditch. “Still, it’s a hell of a lot better than Oakland, where I used to live.”

  “I actually hear Oakland’s improved a lot, ever since they got rid of the sports teams,” said Sean.

  “It has?” the man said. “What the heck am I doing here then?”

  A second man wriggled up towards the ditch.

  “You stay the hell away from my ditch,” the first man threatened.

  “I don’t want your ditch,” remarked the second man. “I’ve got a puddle back there in the good part of town. I just heard your conversation and thought I’d come over and give you my two cents, not that I’ve got two cents to give.”

  “Isn’t it bad, living in the mud and stuff?” asked Sean.

  “Yeah, but try not to focus on the negatives,” said the second man. “In a lot of ways, it’s not that different from living in San Francisco. In fact, the housing situation is a lot better here!”

  He gestured to a tiny, nearby, rickety hut constructed from scavenged wood and plastic.

  “Is that a single?” asked Sean.

  “Yes,” both men said at once.

  “That is better than San Francisco,” said Sean.

  A third man happened to crawl by.

  “I used to live in New York, and it feels so good to get away from the rat race,” said the third man while rats raced around him.

  Sean scratched his head.

  “I thought Mr. Dinero said that most of those Humancorp buildings over there were empty,” he started slowly. “Can’t you just sleep inside the buildings?”

  “Not for free you can’t,” Dinero declared. He’d taken out a snuff box and was snorting tobacco.

  “No one inside looked muddy,” said Sean.

  “Yeah, we hose them off before we let them inside,” said Dinero. “It’s a whole thing. Anyway, you should stay here. The rent’s very reasonable. And the best part is, once you move in, there’s no escape!”

  Sean took one last look over the muddy hellscape, considering. His eye happened to catch a few plants growing by the edge of the road, and Sean frowned at them.

  “No thanks,” he said. “My dad would never forgive me if he knew I’d lived somewhere with begonias.”

  Dinero shrugged between shots of snuff.

  “Suit yourself,” he said. “I thought you’d fit in well here. You already have the right smell. Heck, you probably smell worse!”

  “Thanks,” said Sean.

  Winston barked.

  “Right, right,” Dinero said, checking his watch. “Your 1:00 PM grooming. Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten, Winston.”

  He patted Winston on the head, who started to pant with his tongue out.

  “Let’s get this tour wrapped up,” said Dinero. “I’ve got to go brush Winston and comb out his shedded hair.”

  Remember now, Winston is a dog.

  They exited Humancorp Town and started back towards the large Humancorp buildings.

  Sean looked curiously at Winston as they trudged up the sloping road towards the main entrance.

  “Is Winston a real dog or did Humancorp manufacture him?” asked Sean.

  Dinero scoffed.

  “What a ridiculous question! All dogs are real, of course. Dogs are much too complicated to manufacture.”

  Sean, again
, fell into quiet contemplation of this statement as they got back into the elevator.

  “Welcome back, oh noble lord,” said the elevator voice. “The company has mourned your absence and begged for your return.”

  “I’m flattered,” said Sean.

  “It’s talking to me,” said Dinero, and punched the fifth basement floor. The elevator careened downwards.

  “Anyway, that’s pretty much the tour,” Dinero said, yawning and stowing his snuff box. “I didn’t show you Janitorial Services or anything, but I figured you smell bad enough already without heading down there. I’ll drop you off at Research and Development, and Herman will probably get you forms to sign or something, and then you can start your job. You can start working immediately, right?”

  “Well, I could, but I’m not sure I really want to,” said Sean.

  “That’s what I like to hear,” said Dinero, who was possibly not listening as he tried to re-light his joint. “Anyway, remember what we talked about. Your job is to round up the people with defective brains who were accidentally released by the Research and Development Department and get them returned to the company for repair.”

  The elevator dinged and they emerged onto the fifth basement floor. It was very different from any of the floors above. Instead of gray carpet, the floor was white tile, and the walls were the same sterile white. Sean thought everything smelled faintly of bleach, “faintly” because his personal stench almost overpowered the local aroma. Occasionally, the walls had pictures of people in white lab coats doing things like choking on colored gasses or firing trebuchets at elephants. A sign over the entrance identified the floor as belonging to “Research and Development,” but the sign was thinly plastered over an older sign that said “Accounting.”