Only Human (32 page)

Stands to reason.

Particularly since it's huddling there saying HELP! and refusing to be talked down off its ledge. First, she had to get it unclenched.

How?

Easy.

She wriggled her fingers to get them loose, stretched them and typed in

The screen cleared. Just like that.

>You took your time answering, didn't you? Sometimes I wonder what I pay you people for. Actually, I don't know the answer to that one. Yet. But as soon as things have settled down a bit, I reckon I ought to find out. Now then—

‘Oh no you don't,' Karen said aloud. Then she typed it in.

>Now what? Really, this is important, and you took so long.

‘What I want is pretty important too,' Karen interrupted, typing the words as she spoke them. ‘Maybe more so. Have you any idea—?'

>Look, it won't take you a second and then we'll sort out whatever's bugging you. Can't say fairer than that, can I?

‘All right.'

>What I want you to do is find out which police station is holding a girl called Maria. Then I want you to hire as many lawyers as you can get and send them round there. Keep sending 'em until they let her go. Got that? Right then, carry on.

‘Is that all?'

>Yes. For now.

‘Phone round police stations asking if they've got a girl called Maria. Maria what?'

>Sorry?

‘I said Maria what?'

>Oh Lord, it's one of those human politeness things, isn't it? Maria, please.

‘No, that's not what I meant,' Karen replied, and in her haste she typed meant with three m's. ‘What's this Maria's other name? There could be hundreds of Marias in custody just in SW1. How am I going to know if it's the right one?'

The screen was blank for a moment.

>Yes, I see what you mean. Tell you what, let's not prat about, do them all. Anywhere you find a Maria under lock and key, flood the place with mouthpieces. There's enough of the perishers, God knows. I get the impression I employ about a hundred thousand of 'em in Europe alone.

Karen shrugged. ‘All right,' she said. ‘I'll see to it right away. And then you're going to help me with my problems, okay?'

>I suppose so. If you insist.

‘I insist.'

The screen flickered. The fan cut in and whirred, like the slipstream of a sigh.

>I dunno. Humans!

 

I dunno, muttered Kawaguchiya Integrated Circuits to itself. Humans!

Outside, it assumed, the sky was blue, correction the sky was black but it would normally be blue if it wasn't for the damn eclipse, and the birds were singing. Under the gently swaying boughs of coconut palms - did they have coconut palms in Melanesia? The information would be on file somewhere, but he couldn't be bothered to check - bronzed and healthy youths and maidens with powerful torches were probably disporting, or carousing, or whatever it was they did. Being human. Pursuing happiness. That's if they had the time, in the intervals of subsistence agriculture.

It cut the temporary link with London, and paused for a moment to taste the sensation of being all in just one place - novel experience for a multinational company. It still wasn't sure how it worked, but it knew that under normal circumstances it was supposed to be in each of its offices and places of business simultaneously; omnipresent, like God. Up to this moment it had been doing countless things in every part of the world simultaneously: making circuit boards in South Korea, planning its marketing strategy in Switzerland, wangling its tax returns in Buenos Aires, firing a director in Chicago, arm-wrestling the government purchasing agents in Tierra del Fuego, while the part of it it thought of as it had been urging an animated picture to throw cakes at the cops in Trafalgar Square. A sweep of the consensus of world opinion suggested that this was perfectly possible, in the same way humans can have a conversation with the car radio on while driving down the motorway. Now, though, it was suddenly reduced to one point of awareness, herded together with itself like the British Army in Dunkirk. Not that it was a bad feeling, being just one; quite the reverse. When you're a company two's a crowd.

On the other hand, there wasn't anything to do.

Or at least, not right now. Fairly soon, once a few carefully placed calls had gone through, there was going to be all sorts of excitement, but that was going to take its time. Meanwhile, time to kill. Ho hum. And not even a corporate thumb to twiddle.

Well, this is a nice office, I must say. I perceive a desk, and a chair - two chairs, in fact, one on either side of the desk. And that's a telephone, and that's another telephone, and that's another telephone (query: human being has three telephones on his desk, only two ears on his head, don't understand), and that's a dictating machine for dictating letters into and that's an empty coffee cup, and that's a calendar and that's a door and that's the floor. Elegant but sparse. If a human being were to pursue happiness into here, he'd have no trouble finding it, unless it chose to hide under the desk.

And what's that? Oh, that's just a great big box of computer stuff where they keep all the other limited companies who live here for tax reasons. They'd be no fun, though, because they're not alive.

At least . . .

There I go again, making assumptions. I have a note on file that says this place is different; something about the locals and their attitude to limited companies. I wonder.

Hello?

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

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

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

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?

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

Ah. Dead men's shoes, in fact.

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?

Except me. I see.

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?'