Still, it is in the nature of being human to discover and to unravel, and as time went on the mysteries that had ignited the myths and the legends began to fall to the endless thirst of their curiosity. The gods they had construed for their own sanity collapsed upon themselves into one great, confused deity, and after a brief period of dominance it, too, fell away into decay and the realm of tale.
Now, for some reason perhaps inherent to their nature, along with these figments of the imagination all sense of spirituality and connectivity with Nature also fell away from their daily existence. Now that they could find explanations for every event of their lives, every force that seemed to act upon or within them, the wonder of their existence ceased to amaze them. Their eyes glazed over and, no longer being able to perceive anything greater than material wealth, which was the only obvious boon to their otherwise empty existence, they became driven entirely by greed.
Little by little, the life of the humans, too, receded from all influence of the Universe that spawned them. The wide open fields were replaced by huge cement lots. The vast, sprawling forests were cleared until the only trees that remained on the planet were occasional, solitary, and overlooked. In their places rose huge, angular buildings of uniform hue and architecture where the humans toiled or slept. These they noticed! Big, huge, vast structures that were constantly rubbing up against each other, their entrances hardly giving out to open air before the gaping jaw of another presented itself. There was hardly a difference between light and day, except that the light that came during the day was harsher and almost putrid tasting. The sky alternated between regular intervals of brown-greenish tinted sunlight and a uniform greyish smear that was occasionally punctuated by the faint throbbing of the moon. Not that anyone remembered the moon. The sun was having trouble being noticed as it was. Spurned, sulking, Nature turned her face from her prodigal child and wept in seclusion. The other children had never behaved so selfishly.
The humans moved like ants. They walked in straight lines one after the other and at the same pace. They went from the same places to the same places every day except when they were busy working, eating, sleeping, or dying. Most never knew what for, nor did they think to care. They were simply following orders. But they followed these orders without complaint, because some long time before the humans had learned to modify their own natures. Oh, don't worry, Mother Nature wasn't upset simply because her painstaking work was being tampered with. The original nature she had devised provided for this very kind of introspection, and she didn't see why it couldn't have been used to smooth the edges, as it were. But it would be wrong to suggest she was not disappointed. In herself, for giving them an inclination to remove all the color and beauty from their own lives. But as she had so often done before, she would mark down the mistake and keep it in mind for the next time. Still, it's hard to let a child go.
The humans did not smile. They did not speak to each other much. They did not dream at night. They did not enjoy their food, they did not have children, and they did not laugh. Oh, some did, of course. There were also the directors and executives of the big companies that gave purpose to the great, grey buildings and all the comings and goings of the workers and the products and services that were produced there. But there weren't enough of them to really make it worth commenting on them extensively, or describing them, except to say that these were the few humans left, as far as they could tell (no one was sure), whose genetic code was nearly of the original strain.
The directors and executives lived at the top of the choicest buildings, which were located where the remaining weather patterns were most favorable. The upper stories of these towering metallic structures were far less wide than the bases, and there was far more space in each room and occasionally looking out a window even an impression of elegance. Unless one really tried, unless one really looked and listened and smelled, the dull world that they had created below them was not present that high up. Still, even there the sky was dreary and the colors bland and the air quality poor at best. Not that they noticed. The sky had so long been reduced to a slowly moving sludge that even they had forgotten what, if anything, lay beyond it. Perhaps nothing lay beyond it. There was the sun, of course. Nasty thing. It hurt the eyes if one looked at that disturbing splash of brightness for too long. Fortunately, the swirling patches of smog and filth obscured it often enough that, unless one really looked for it, it could rarely prove a nuisance.
As it so happened, at the very top of one of the tallest buildings in the northern hemisphere of the planet lived a very small woman. And this was a very tiny woman indeed! Rida was so small, in fact, that even when standing she could only see the solid, putrid mess that obscured the sky not far enough away. She had a stepladder, of course, that she kept outside her balcony, and if she stood on it she could see far enough over the railing to catch the tops of some of the neighboring buildings. But she was embarrassed of it and never took it out when anyone was around. Rida hated the sky, in fact, and would from time to time stare at it accusingly. But the sky would only stare back and maybe belch at her insultingly. And there was nothing she could do about it. The sky was everywhere, but everywhere out of her reach. That fact in particular bothered Rida. The sign on her desk clearly read: "Director Assistant to Chief Security Officer, Europa Corporation, Sundays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, Except Holidays and Leap Years". So did the one marking the space reserved for her in the Council Chamber tucked about a mile away from the Central Platform. Clearly, security was a matter of importance to her, and who knew what sort of sordid plots the sky could be hatching. Humans had brought law and order to the planet long ago. Only the sky remained.
One day looking critically from one of the tiny windows set deep in the walls of her spacious apartment, Rida experienced a rather unsettling shock. Although for years now she had acquaintered herself with the deceptions of the sky (she felt that she was universally regarded an expert), she was in no way prepared for this. Yes, there is was, out there.
"Up, up up. No, not the sky, silly, it's always been there. Beyond it. Yes, beyond it!"
Kilranalan was not impressed by her discovery. "Sixteen billion crates of cream colored Antillian shoe mits are to arrive this morning on Landing Doc 4 from Asia Corporation," he told her quite frankly.
Rida stood stolidly in the center of her living room, a tiny creature standing at the bottom of a vast sea of space, red and black curtains sloping dramatically from corners, hands on her hips, staring out one of the windows. She was thinking. She stood that way for some time, breathing in, breathing out, pondering, considering. Was it a trick? Or maybe an indication of some surprise attack? Oh, that would be terrible. There hadn't been war in millenia, not since those first terrible mistakes they made with genetic engineering. Oh, the things they had produced then. No, no, that was long, long ago, and only a shade of their memory persisted. Now everyone behaved properly. No one complained. But this, this could mean trouble.
"Who would fight?" Rida asked herself out loud.
"Fighting would only disrupt the transport of the - " a quick glance into his handheld " - one hundred and eighty-six comma six eight null null three quintillion kilograms of valuable products and services currently en route to their destinations at this time." Kilranalan looked at Rida through the vidphone and blinked slowly. "Approximately."
As Rida stood pondering, chewing on her lower lip, she realized that perhaps it was a bit far-fetched to assume in the absence of any supporting evidence that the sky was engaged in any sort of aggression. The sky had, of course, been there since as far back as any of them could remember, and it had never behaved in anything but the most civilized manner aside from the occasional bolt of lightning or hail. And ever since the planet was relieved of the agony of real weather patterns with the covering up of the oceans, not even these things troubled them. So, if anything, the sky was milder and less threatening now than it ever was. A concerted attack of any proportion was, if the situation were analysed by any calm intelligence, completely unlikely.
Rida breathed a sigh of relief and called for her dictaphone. A tiny, metallic robot emerged from a corner and brought it to her. Her decision made, Rida issued the required memorandums and filled out the proper forms, all of which were sucked into a vaccuum chute and whisked away.
Rida stood a moment longer in the center of her elaborately decorated cave, enjoying the relief that had swept over her as soon as she had come to a decision and executed a course of action. She wondered, in fact, whether or not she would find herself the subject of a special commendation from one of the Head Committees that fell under the umbrella of the Chief Security Officer's jurisdiction. A proud smile took hold of her pudgy lips. Elegantly, on deft feet, she approached one of the windows and began to cover it up with one of the flowing, red curtains that hung beside it.
She was still enjoying the little parade in her honor taking place in her mind when she was startled by a harsh sounding but familiar buzzing. A moment later, a canister was deposited neatly in her inbox. Rida moved away from the last remaining window (all the others had been covered by now) and glanced at the message headers displayed above the mailbox apparatus and found herself startled once again. Could it be true? The message had originated from the Office of the Chief Security Officer, himself. Straighening out her clothing, Rida barked an order. She couldn't contain the excitement that was coursing through her.
At that moment, Kilranalan's bony head appeared on the vidphone. "Wasting your superiors' valuable time is not a wise carreer move, Rida," he told her, at the same time waving a bony finger at her through the screen. About one and a half by two meters, it hung suspended from the ceiling and was tilted in her direction. It towered over her, and Kilranalan's tone made her feel like a schoolchild.
Rida straightened herself up. Lifting a tiny chin in his direction, hands clasped behind her back, Rida responded. "You worry about the Five Year Plan and I'll worry about giving you the public support to execute it. See there? No, of course you can't. Well, it's a message from the Chief Security Officer himself. No doubt to congratulate me." In her mind Rida was already considering a promotion.
Kilranalan waited calmly, manipulating figures in his handheld and then issuing the appropriate orders when he was satisfied they told him what he wanted to hear, while Rida fetched the canister and looked inside. Sure enough, it was a message from the Office of the Chief Security Officer. But it wasn't quite what she expected.
"Fifty-seven seconds ago, five hundred smelters at the sheet metal plant in Gamma District fell into the combine and were terminated," Kilranalan told her as she clambered into the middle of the room and into his view. "It took thirty-five seconds to replace them. As a result, eighty-five comma six null one one eight kilograms of the expected grade A titanium and thirty-seven comma seven two seven three eight kilograms of the expected grade B titanium have not been produced."
"They didn't like my suggestion," Rida told him frankly.
"Fortunately, there is some eighty-seven thousand kilograms of spare grade B titanium in a nearby warehouse. However, thirty-five comma six percent of the grade A titanium was to be used to meet the requirements of regular infrastructure maintenance in Psi District. The remaining sixty-four comma four percent was to be used to make various subparts for various subparts for various orders destined for a variety of places and purposes."
"They called it impractical. Not everyone has curtains, and too many resources would have to be diverted from current projects in order to provide them."
"Projects must be executed within budget and on time. There is no room for exceptions. Workers can be produced as required. But natural resources are scarce. Delays are not to be tolerated."
"Well, I still think it's a perfectly good idea. The perfect solution, in fact." Rida puckered her lips childishly.
"The idea could not be fulfilled within current working parameters and therefore is a poor one."
Rida snapped her fingers at the vidscreen. "Well, have you seen it?"
"I have no time to see it. I must calculate the resulting supply chain anomalies that will result from the dearth of grade A titanium."
"Well, I can't wait to see what they eventually come up with. I'm just overflowing with curiosity. What genius will come forward and steal my promotion?" Rida rolled her eyes. "There are so many."
"Otherwise," Kilranalan warned, "we could find ourselves in a State of Emergency."
Rida jerked to attention and glared, lips parted, at the vidscreen. Kilranalan stared emptily back at her, fingering his handheld. The fingertips there seemed to be itching to press the tiny buttons. A cold, silent moment passed. The stricken look eventually began to fade from Rida's features.
"Well," she finally said, and at the same time she began to proudly smooth the folds of her suit with her wide, fat hands. "Do you have time to meet with me on my balcony?"
"Another closed, spontaneous, interdepartmental meeting?"
Rida tried not to smile and nodded her head.
Kilranalan jumped up suddenly and clapped his hands together. "Excellent! I haven't been out of doors in months. You make the necessary arrangements. I'll be right up."
| * | * | * | * | * |
They stood together on the rigid, rectangular balcony. It was a closed, tight space, neatly folded and compacted, stolidly suspended in front of two great sliding glass doors with ornate handles much too large for Rida's grip. The view into the apartment was obscured by more of the thick, red curtains that Rida seemed to love so much. They were draped across the far side of the glass, large, exaggerated gestures that suggested coldness. There were no ornaments. There was little furniture, no plants. When Rida entertained out on the balcony, everyone was required to stand. Which, incidentally, she was doing at the moment. She was leaning as if fatigued against the thick plank of silver-painted titanium that separated her from the vast sea of space beyond. Rida's head did not even reach the top. She had to take everyone else's word for it. On the very top of this outer wall there was a simple plastic bowl painted with a boring, pink and blue striped design. Inside the bowl were small, round objects similar to coins, finished and polished and complete with markings, each of exactly the same shape and weight. Rida couldn't see the bowl, but she knew where it was and she knew what was in it. Every so often she would restlessly reach into it and pull one out. If she were speaking, she might hold onto it for a moment or roll it about between her fingers while she elaborated on an important point. But eventually, inevitably, as if trying to accentuate herself, she flicked the object out into space and absently waited to hear the commotion when it landed.
"Eight replacement workers to ball bearing plant C5 and two replacements to textile engineering plant AA." Kilranalan was standing next her, towering over her. His head extended well past the outer wall. Rida's world on the balcony was confined to walls and glass and the dreary sludge of the sky. And, of course, the noise, but even that was muted. Kilranalan, on the other hand, looked out onto an immense gulf of lights and sound and huge metal structures that shone and reflected, glittering, a terrible cacophany. They were huge, arrogant giants shoving each other out of the way, engaged in a perpetual but impossibly slow tournament of epic importance. Searchlights crisscrossed the empty world this high up, scouring the sides of the buildings. Large, glowing orbs, too, topped the thin, tapered out crowns. An occasional helicoptor buzzed past, speeding along the wide lanes between skyscrapers, turning this way and now that. Down below, far, far below, masses of the workers could be seen on the move. There were so many of them, in fact, that it simply looked as if the ground were melting, running together as if in a mudslide. The flows of workers were varied but organized, little rivers joining and then splitting up again. Except, of course, where the little objects crashed among them, tossed with an insolent flick from Rida's grip thousands of meters up.
"Six replacements - no, hold on, eight, I repeat, eight replacements - to information reprocessing plant QV. What? Zeta department, yes."
It was the only sight to be seen on the entire face of the earth. Everywhere on the planet it was exactly the same. The towering fortresses, squat at the base and thinning to needles at the top. The vast, throbbing noise of products being produced and services being rendered. The vents of pollution that billowed into the air. The helicoptors from the Ministry of Security racing between the buildings, spotlights trained on the masses of dull workers on the way to some new task or the few moments rest that for biological reasons was permitted them. Above them, framing it all, was the putrid smelling sky. The vents of pollution extended upwards into it like broken fingers, thinning, melding into it, feeding it, as it were. It was nighttime, so the indignant patch of yellow light that was the sun was not to be seen. The sky was brownish, obscure, opaque, unobstructed...
No, wait, there it was. Rida kept throwing resentful glances in its direction. Kilranalan considered it without emotion. Yes, it could be seen. There, almost directly overhead: a single point of reddish light shining through the curtains of filth above them.
With a disgruntled snort, Rida tossed another disc over the edge of the balcony. She was looking at Kilranalan. "Would you like one?" she asked.
"No." The reply was short and curt. "I'm trying to cut down. We have to talk about the supplies you need for the next news broadcast." And then, leaning over the balcony, he spoke into his handheld. "Two replacements to Landing Dock 11."
"Oh, but you had time for the new boy in Logistics before you came up!"
Kilranalan shrugged. "He's good with his tongue."
Rida grunted. "Yes, I know. I've tried him out myself a few times."
"Now," said Kilranalan quite briskly, "from what I understand this morning was quite boring. No viral outbreaks, no worker breakdowns, no AI revolts. We're getting better at this."
Rida, though, was staring at the floor. There were slits and transparencies through which she was able to catch a shy glimpse of the destruction she was causing below. Tiny, billowing clouds of smoke and doom that would suddenly appear accompanied by the faint but satisfying sounds of beleaguered shouting. "Can you believe," she asked no one in particular, "that we used to actually have to curry their favor?"
Kilranalan frowned. "Whose favor?"
Rida pointed. "I mean, can you believe that such slovenly creatures ever had such enormous influence in the way we ran things?"
"Rida," Kilranalan told her frankly, one hand going to a hip, "are you beginning to believe your own propaganda?"
"What?" Rida looked up, startled. "No, of course not! But that's not propaganda. I came across some old tapes once, in the Archive."
One of Kilranalan's eyebrows raised slightly. "What were you doing in the Archive?"
"Confidential," Rida told him, her face expressionless. "Business of the Ministry of Security."
"Well, I don't believe it. Maybe it was a left-over propaganda tape from the disordered past."
Rida shrugged and picked up another disc out of the bowl. "We used to actually waste resources educating them. It was on there, too."
"Education?" repeated Kilranalan. "For workers? Nonsense! There was never any such thing."
"Did you know that they typically had over one hundred free days a year where they didn't have to work at all?"
"Rida, can we focus on the task at hand? I need to know what supplies you need to fabricate this evening's news broadcast."
Rida waved her hand. "Don't worry, we'll use something from last year."
Kilranalan frowned. "That's not like you. You are usually quite thorough. It's why I like you."
Rida looked up at him and winked slyly. "You mean it's not my butt?"
A small smile cracked Kilranalan's otherwise stone face, suspended far, far above her own and looking ominously down. "Well, that, too. Anyway, if you aren't careful you might get a visit from Population Control." He had meant it only as a joke - granted, a poor one - and the smile had widened, but Rida simply remained still. Her eyes dropped to his knees and she began to finger the disc in her hand intently. "Wait, you don't actually think -" he began, but she cut him off.
"No, I don't actually think. But making mistakes like I made this morning might cause a file to be opened on me."
Kilranalan considered that a moment. She was right, really. Such things happened. Some friends of some friends had disappeared after it became apparent they were more of a drain on the common resources than contributors. The policy made sense to him (he decided not to mention that for the moment), but he really didn't think one isolated incident was cause for alarm. What was cause for alarm was the despondency he saw behind her grimness. If she allowed her disappointment with herself to get a grip, if she started to second guess herself, more mistakes might arise out of the uncertainty.
Above them, the glowing pinpoint of light echoed distinctly from somewhere inside the cover of haze. Rida had stood on that balcony for days, pondering that light, from the moment she first noticed it. Up, up, up, she had looked, looked to where none of them ever thought to look anymore. She couldn't help but look up, of course, but that wasn't her fault. At first she had tried to convince herself that it didn't exist. At first it was much fainter. Fainter? No, silly. Of course not. How ridiculous. Once, she had wondered what was up there beyond the haze cover. But she had shaken the delirium briskly from her head. She knew, of course. The haze cover never ended. A few meters inside and everything was brownish-grey or -green and it was like that forever.
Kilranalan rambled on matter-of-factly about supply and demand. His was a world where goods had to be received, broken down, and reformed as quickly as possible into other goods that were then shipped to one of the other Corporations on the planet, where the entire process would begin again. The constant exchange of goods was the solid basis of their prosperous existence. Long ago they had realized that the most important thing in life was a good economy, and the most essential quality of a good economy was that goods exchanged hands as often as possible. Money itself, they found, was not even necessary. It did not matter whether the goods were actually useful. Some were, of course. Food and clothing, for example, and some building material as well for the purposes of maintenance. Aside from that, there was nothing really much they required. Every square inch of the planet was covered up. The population of each Corporation was rigidly kept at a constant number. The useful personal possessions were maintained and passed down to the next generation. And there was no need for medical equipment, since everybody knew that injury and sickness were signs of displeasure and should not be tampered with.
At about that time, as Kilranalan rambled dryly on to Rida's short, crouched back and she commiserated with herself about her failures, an insistant buzzing noise could be heard from within. Rida snapped to attention and glanced at the glass doors, as if she could see through them. She spoke out loud: "Where is it from?"
A young man's pleasant voice responded, drifting over and engulfing them from nowhere, from all around, perhaps from the sky: "Office of the Chief of Security."
Kilranalan interrupted his calculations a moment. "I've never heard that voice before. Did you program it yourself? "
Rida rubbed her hands together. "Well, let's have it then. Transmit the contents out here."
The young man's voice sounded again. "I cannot. The contents of the message are restricted."
"To my retina then."
"The transmission may be tapped into."
"It can be tapped into if I'm standing inside, too. There's no need to worry about Kilranalan."
"Section 44 Article 3 paragraph B subsection 12 of the General Protocol defines the acceptable risk levels for the promulgation of communications of each of the various levels of sensitivity defined in paragraph A subsections 3-15 of the same Section and Article and explicitly prohibits on penalty of disfigurement on your part and disassembly on my -"
Rida almost burst with disgust. Kilranalan looked at her and smiled. "You should know better than to argue with the AI."
"Fine!" she spat at the wall. She was briskly approaching the glass doors, her face a mask of tension and pessimism and frustration. "I'm coming."
| * | * | * | * | * |
When she returned, she was ecstatic. She glided between the thick, velvet curtains, arms outspread and fingertips brushing against the fabric. Her face beamed with triumph. "It doesn't exist," she pronounced solemnly. The smiled deepened. The doors behind her were still gaping open when she pounced across the balcony floor, seized the bowl of little, shiny disks, and - all in a single motion - tossed the contents in a heap and a rain of tiny missles over the edge of the balcony. Kilranalan looked at her aghast, over the railing, and then back again. She was still holding the bowl, waving it in front of her like a stage prop. "Ignore it. That's what the message said. Five words, the most beautiful words there are! 'It doesn't exist. Ignore it.' The secretary to the Chief of Security commended me himself."
Down below, the heavy echoes of a booming and a thudding could be heard, several times in quick succession, and the chilling sound of wailing, lost and forlorn among the regular cacaphony of their civilization. A helicoptor buzzed past quite closely, heading very quickly downward, and the unusual sounds were swallowed up.
"Rida - " began Kilranalan, shaking his head.
"Oh, I know, Kilranalan. I shouldn't have been so wasteful. I know. But what's a bit of indulgence now and then?"
Looking over the edge of the balcony, Kilranalan said, "It's going to be difficult to figure out where all the replacements are needed. And I think some maintainence work -"
"Let's go inside and fuck," suggest Rida warmly. She was already backing up between the gaping glass doors.
The look on Kilranalan's face did not change. "Okay," he agreed, still staring over the edge of the balcony. He enjoyed fucking Rida because she was so small. No one else was so small that he knew. "I'll be in in a minute." The handheld was already rising to his lips.
Rida giggled like a little girl. "I haven't had sex with a real person in a long time." It was true. Fucking the AI was much better because everything was the way you wanted it and afterwards there was no obligation to pretend. "Of course," she continued, as if the realization had just struck her, "you just did this morning. Is this going to be too uninteresting for you?" She giggled again.
But Kilranalan hadn't heard. He was already speaking quickly into his handheld.
| * | * | * | * | * |
The light above them which did not exist grew steadily over time. Oh, not quickly, not at first. At first it simply hung in the sky, usually when the sun was gone somewhere else, faint, far away. It was a pinpoint of light of some vague, hardly detectable color, a pinprick, a hole in the curtain of smog and filth. If anyone had actually bothered to pay attention to it, they would have noticed nothing new or dynamic the first few months. Eventually, though, the pinprick came to share the sky with the sun more regularly, and as the two grew closer together the pinprick became less and less discernible, until at some point it had been entirely swallowed up by the sickly yellow smudge which did exist and which they all knew was the sun. Weeks later, though, the yellow pinprick appeared on the other side, except it was a pinprick no longer.
Now it had dimension. No longer a mere singularity, this smudge of light had thickness. And how it burned more brightly! Thank goodness no one looked up.
But it did not stop there. As time got on it began to expand faster and more quickly, growing and growing, until it was the size of the sunsmudge, and now greater. And brighter and brighter and angrier and angrier it began to burn above them, swallowing up the filthy, smoggy sky. It was a healthy orange-red, angry, fierce. And still, it grew. It grew and it grew until it had blocked out the sunsmudge entirely. Bloated, it filled half the sky, and seemed every now and then to quiver and shake. The earth responded, too. Disasters such as had not been witnessed in centennia reappeared. Earthquakes, mostly. And the consequences were disasterous. It was all the Ministry of Logistics could do to keep up with the destruction.
And still, no one looked up. No one paid attention to the great, bloated doom which roared above them. No one paid any attention whatsoever to the eerie, red light that filtered down and bathed them all, even during the day. Half the sky was lit up like a carnaval, and yet not a single person below on the face of the planet so much as threw a critical glance upward.
As it so happened, on a day in which that cancerous tumor of flame above them seemed to throb and hum with unusual excitement, the Chief Executive Officer of Europa Corporation came out onto the great, black, shiny platform suspended about mid-level between four opposing skyscrapers (it was the closest thing to a public square known at the time) that was used for only the most important guests and receptions. In this case, the Chief Executive Officer of Europa Corporation had come to welcome his counterparts from all the other Corporations on the planet. Like himself, they all commanded more than supreme executive power; they commanded all legislative and judicial power within their own Corporations as well, handpicked the ministers of their pleasing and installed their own, most obsequious servants as heads of the police and the media. Like himself, they were not used to listening to what others had to say. Generally, they made known what they wanted to hear before anyone was allowed to speak. It was a very nice system to be at the very top of.
The Chief Executive Officer of Europa Corporation sat at a raised dais at one end of the platform in a great, curule chair. It's thick, imposing back stretched meters above him, tapering to a thin needle in the same way as the buildings around them. The armrests were massive and ended in great, snarling gargoyles, the polished heads of which he gripped calmly as he surveyed the scene below him. Immediately surrounding him were all his ministers, his mouthpiece and his eyes. He looked them over for a brief moment. Yes, there they were, some looking off ahead patiently (these were too arrogant) and others trying not to seem like they were yearning for his attention (these were just right). The Chief Executive Officer did not associate with many other people than his ministers and perhaps their deputies. Therefore, he had to trust them. And he did trust them. They were as flexible as wax and thankful for it. Still, even if he never heard it the Chief Executive Officer knew that there were opposing opinions flitting around. Even if they were never voiced nor otherwise comunicated and remained, rancid, in the heads of the purpetrators, an opposing opinion was an opposing opinion.
Long ago the Chief Executive Officer of Europa Corporation had wanted to attempt to remove all sense of willpower from the remaining people on earth. He didn't mean the workers, of course, because someone as important as the Chief Executive Officer never referred to the workers. No, he meant the small, tiny society of directors and executives that remained, the crust of his civilization. They smiled at him, but he couldn't change what went on inside their heads. In the days when the great Corporations of earth were still conglomerating, they way they kept score against each other was called "profit". During that long, tumultuous period, there were many who refused to accept that their Corporation owned them. Now there was no question, but there it was: it still bothered the Chief Executive Officer that his directors and executives could have opinions of their own. Smiling to himself as he looked behind their eyes for their utter dependence upon him, he longed to reach inside their heads and pull out those sticky strands of brain that had anything to do with a sense of identity.
Ahead of him, arranged below him, was the great platform. It was ringed with throngs of people, all cheering, all waving. Some held colorful flags which they cast wildly about themselves. Most of these flags were the colors of the Europa Corporation. But a few isolated, carefully choreographed groups - each in one of the widely dispersed corners of the platform - were displaying the colors of the visiting Corporations: there was the grey and blue of Asia Corporation; there was the black, yellow, and green of African Corporation; there was the yellow and green of Latin Corporation; and there was the solid black of Anglo Corporation. The noise was loud and tumultuous. The wild gesticulations of the crowd had all been prepared. Around the outside of the platform, enormous searchlights had been placed and were spouting their powerful beams straight up into the air, creating four illusionary white walls that extended into the ceiling of pollution above. The effect was tremendous. It it weren't for the fact that everything was bathed in an eerie red light, one might have felt indoors. At the far end of the platform there was a huge post rising high into the air. At its very top there was tacked the crude, wooden image of an eagle. Its head turned, one strong, all-seeing eye seemed to look down and stiffly observe the happenings below. Beyond it, the ships of the arriving Chief Executives swarmed along with their vast escorts.
It was time for the five Corporations of earth to come together and make a new Five Year Plan. In it, they would plan their economies for the next period. It would be decided which Corporations would be responsible for the production of which products and services and the schedules upon which they would be delivered. The task was a daunting one, because the only way to create new products was to break down old ones. The whole supply-chain had to be carefully mapped and rigorously double-checked. And because it was the only time in five years that the Chief Executive Officers of the five Corporations of earth saw each other, it was also time for them to mate. There was at this time only one female Chief Executive Officer. She ruled her harem with a certain bravado that even the reptilian Chief Executive Officer of Europa Corporation found exhilarating.
The ships were approaching. The Chief Executive Officer of Europa Corporation watched with disinterest. Directly beneathe him, his ministers and their entourages chattered. The Chief Executive Officer glanced at them with thinly disguised hatred. Sometime during the meetings he would bring up his ideas about -
His thoughts were interrupted by a violent shaking. The whole platform lurched. The Chief Executive Officer was nearly wrenched from his comfortable chair. Confused, startled, angry, he looked around him. It was difficult to make anything out because the platform was shaking so violently - no, it wasn't just the platform, it was everything! The skyscrapers around him jilted and tilted and waved and bended in ways that had never been seen before. People were being thrown from the quivering platform. Not just workers, but real people. I'm sure there was lots of screaming, but all that noise was lost amid the cocaphony of the shaking and the screeching coming from above them and below them and all around them.
The air was filled with a great, unstoppable booming. Above them, the sky brightened menacingly. The eerie red light flickered and strengthened. But no one looked up. If they had, they would have seen the sky melting. The pollution was peeling away, and the light, the mad light, getting brighter and brighter along with the shaking, the unstoppable tremors. Pieces of the buildings around them began to hurtle into the crowds, tearing off chunks of the platform.
"Do you see the ships?" the Chief Executive Officer called to whomever was standing next to him. "No, stay here by me! Do you see them?"
The reply was difficult to understand.
"It is imperative that those ships land!"
"It's going to be difficult, sir! The platform is breaking apart. I'm not sure why. It might be a flaw in the foundation."
The Chief Executive Officer of Europa Corporation pursed his lips grimly. If it was a flaw in the foundation, it would be a matter for Population Control. "Are there any other locations where they can land?"
A pause. "It's difficult to tell, sir! It seems the flaw, whatever it is, is effecting the entire planet."
"The entire planet?" The Chief Executive Officer stopped for a moment to think - and almost lost his balance. Above him, there was a sound like two mountains colliding. "Do you think it could be some carefully hidden artifact civilization from the past, hiding all this time in an effort to -"
This site and all its contents are the result of the tumultuous workings of the mind of one Adam Wasserman.