Have you ever been “downsized?” Have you ever felt like your boss and your job were just sucking your time and your pitiful life right out of your helpless body?
If so, this story is for you.
Carter Damour, editor and publisher of the Planet Alpha Sentinel, was running late. He was always running late. It’s impossible to be Punctual Pete when one man is given enough work and responsibility to kill an entire colony, he often thought. The company InstantMail reminder was popping up repeatedly in the micro reader installed in the outer peripherals of his corneas.
Damour was a strong candidate for this career. The long hours, the challenges of operating in this hazardous environment, relocating light years away from his family, none of that really kept him from enjoying the four hours of chemically enhanced sleep that the company allowed every 36-hour work cycle.
But these terrifying meetings—those horrible, disembodied corporate faces—were the worst. On more than one occasion he exited the virtual boardroom of the AlphaZoom meeting and bolted straight to the Bio-Recycling Chamber with the hurls or the squirts.
With the last of his information files uploading to the AlphaNet cloud, Damour switched laptops and logged into the Weekly Flash Report Conference. When he arrived, the meeting was already well in progress. There they were, looming large and frightening on his HD-enhanced monitors, surrounding him like a pack of jackals. On one side, in six, neatly geometric boxes, were the bald, tight-lipped, pasty faces of the Board of Directors and Chief Investors. To the right, the misleadingly kind and understanding faces of the Chief Medical Officers and HR (Human Resources—what a joke, he thought). And dead center, looming largest and most frightening of all, the hawk-like, predatory face of Stephen A.A. Morris, VII, CEO and General Manager. An editor back on Earth had once joked that the “A.A.” in Morris’s name was short for “Ass-kissing Asshole.” His InstantMail eye reader implant picked up on that, however. HR later said he was “reassigned,” but Damour never heard the guy’s name mentioned again, nor could he be found anywhere on the company directory after that.
As he expected, his tardiness was duly noted.
“Damour, not only are you late for the Weekly Department Head Summit, you are also late with your Fiscal Flash Report,” Mr. Morris snapped, in his usual sharp, intimidating tone of voice. “Where is it? I need to cut a head. You promised me a head.”
“My apologies, Mr. Morris, Board,” Damour stammered. “It’s been hectic and crazy down here. I’ve got a reporter drone down for repairs, a Human Resource Level II out with some type of exotic local bug that’s going around, and on top of all that there was another series of anti-government and anti-police riots down here to report on. We’ve been covering that all cycle…”
“The report, Damour,” Morris repeated.
“Coming to you right now, sir.”
Damour wished he had another second to look over the numbers, double check them, find some tiny piece of revenue that he might have overlooked, but with 13 malevolent faces staring down at him he dared not. He punched the wrong key several times in nervous anxiety, sent one email without the attachment, and then finally typed the right combination of keys that transmitted his Weekly Financial Flash Report. Millions of bits of data were disassembled and rearranged electronically, wirelessly, then beamed from Planet Alpha to Earth. It was out of his hands now, nothing to do now but tighten his sphincter, choke down an acid burp, and wait. He didn’t have to wait long.
“Damour, these numbers are unacceptable!” Morris snapped. “Your expenses are, once again, four points too high. Why didn’t you notify us about this in advance? We don’t like surprises.”
Who would want to have this conversation with you?, thought Damour.
“We’ve had a lot of repairs and unplanned down time, sir. This isn’t exactly the most hospitable environment. Do you know what acid rain and sand storms do to computers and devices…?”
“Damour, the most alarming problem I see here is your revenue. You are currently down 15 points. Your property unit is flashing to come in at only 82 percent of goal for the quarterly cycle. Damour, we have investors, and these investors have obligations and profit expectations, and this is has been going on for too long. This is totally unacceptable.”
Damour felt like he always felt during these meetings—like one of those crickets his father often used as bait on the family fishing trips long ago, before fishing for recreation was outlawed by the food conglomerates. You take the hook, stick it up the cricket’s ass, work it through his guts, and then snap it out of his head. That way he will stay on the hook. And then, hook and all, you make the cricket explain expense and revenue projections.
All I ever wanted to be was a writer, he thought. A stupid damn writer, not a business manager. But if I ever get back to Earth, I’m taking a normal job. Some dumb, mindless, minimum-wage job. Boy, my wife would really love that, wouldn’t she?
“Damour, wait here while the Board meets in Executive Session.”
This is not good, he thought frantically. Executive Session? What the hell is this? I’ve never heard of…
A pair of hypodermic needles, strategically installed in the office’s central command chair, darted in and out of Damour’s body so quickly that he didn’t feel the stings until after security bars had encircled his torso and his forearms and completely restrained him. Within milliseconds, the chemical agents rocketed through his bloodstream, shutting down his nervous system.
Wait here, it turned out, seemed to be an unnecessary command, as Damour sat completely paralyzed from the neck down while Stephen A.A. Morris, VII and the Board of Directors and Chief Investors decided his fate.
“We’ve lost too much money this quarter,” Morris argued to the Board. “We can’t stand to continue on this downward revenue trend.” The Board mumbled something in agreement. “By downsizing here, even with severance pay, we can save $30K a cycle on the expense side, which would bring the profit margin back to goal, while we get the replacement up and running.” The Board mumbled something else, obviously in agreement.
“Damour, do you have anything else to share with us in your defense, before we make a decision? Do you have any brilliant ideas that will somehow, miraculously, bring in 18 points of revenue before the end of the quarter?”
Damour stuttered, drooled. The paralyzing agent may have been designed to work on all nerve endings below the neck, but he somehow found it difficult to move his jaw and produce the words that could save his future.
“I don’t know what to tell you, sir,” he managed to stammer out. “You don’t know what it’s like out here. People here don’t want to pay for news from Earth anymore. They don’t care what’s happening a hundred light years away, they don’t care what products are on sale back on the home planet. They don’t need us—not when everyone has InstantMail readers in their eyes and SmartPalm implants in their hands. You’ve got to understand… this newspaper, all newspapers, we are dying…”
Morris silenced him with a wave of his hand.
“Carter Damour, Employee Number 006841-A, it has been ordered by the Board of Directors of Martin Communications that you be downsized immediately. In accordance with the Planet Alpha Bio-Recycling Accord of 2032, your remains will be recycled in a legal, environmentally friendly and humane manner. In accordance with the Industrial Cloning Compact of 2028, your DNA will be harvested, shared and utilized in a manner that meets all local and federal Union Requirements. Finally, in accordance with the Interplanetary Employee Severance Compensation Act of 2030, your family will be reimbursed one cycle of your salary for every year of service you have given to this company. Do you understand, Damour?”
Damour managed to nod his head weakly, but he had stopped listening at the word “downsize.” Another pair of needles darted in and out of his skin silently, pinching painlessly, seemingly without added import or consequence, but he knew that they delivered the death punch. He knew that it would only take moments to die. He knew that, and he knew that no one on this planet or planet Earth would really care.
A larger pair of needles entered his body. These probes stayed longer, as if to enjoy their visit, as they removed crucial blood, tissue and DNA samples. The InstantMail viewer opened in the outer edges of his corneas. A kind, female face emerged on the bioscreen to both comfort and inform him. For some reason, HR was always female, he thought.
“Carter Damour, you have been a valuable human resource to this company, but your term of service is complete,” the virtual HR lady said sweetly. “I will be here to escort you on your journey into retirement.”
The darkness began coming, slowly at first, foggy around the edges, like he was looking down into a tunnel and you could see a circle of light at the end, but that circle kept getting smaller and farther and farther away.
“Your Employee Severance Package has been Electronically Deposited into your wife’s account. Your DNA, organs and bone marrow will now be harvested in accordance with….”
Damour’s mind whirled dizzily, drunkenly. It’s all about money, this world. This planet, every planet, it’s all about money. This whole stinking universe, it’s never about art or love or the simple joy and satisfaction of doing your job and helping your fellow man, it’s only ever been about money.
Damour knew that he had to die because it would cost Martin Communications entirely too much to transport him back to Earth—unacceptable losses, they would say. He knew his viable organs would go to the highest bidder. He knew his body would be recycled into organic matter—not because anyone cared about the environment on Planet Alpha, but because it was cost-effective. He knew that his DNA sequence was being digitally duplicated and transported via AlphaNet to his wife’s SmartPalm, should she opt to purchase it and reconstruct a clone of her husband. He doubted she would. She had her eye on this new home management system that could be palm- or cornea-operated. You could blink your eye and adjust the temperature in your fridge while checking the expiration date on your soy milk, boasted the commercials.
He knew that the majority of his DNA would be used to incubate an improved, enhanced clone of Carter Damour. He knew that Employee Number 006841-A would not be missed and Employee Number 006841-B would soon be staring at the face of Stephen A.A. Morris, VII and trying to explain revenue losses to a passel of assholes with dollar signs implanted in their brains.
He knew all this and more, then moments later, he knew and thought and felt nothing at all.
The human resource had been downsized.