Theodor Ventskevich - Buy or Die. There cometh a time of ruthless advertising

“Where clouds of steel

Scar dead red copper soil,

And electrical seals

Dance in rivers of oil.

Where rains run an acid

And the air has teeth,

Where steel soul is placid

And a man cannot breathe.

Where masters have gone

And lie neatly in rows

Hugging rotten old bones

In a cemetery doze.”

Toy was ready. Gray and faceless, he patiently waited for the last missing part – his driver. There was something else… Z looked closely and winced: there was a dead man in the back seat. Gray, like all Undo employees, but dead. For some reason, the whites of the dead cook’s eyes had not stained and remained dirty yellow. It looked monstrous. Z pulled out old glasses from the glove compartment and put them on the dead cook. There was a distinctive stink in the cabin already. Artificial flesh, Z remembered, decays faster than natural flesh.

“Splendid!” Z said aloud, carefully fastening the dead man in with a seat belt. “I have lost my ear and I have the dead cook in the car instead. Okay, Toy, let’s go. And open the windows, please. I can’t imagine how you can be sitting here.”

Of course, Y was late. Having received his penalty bill, he habitually moved towards commandant’s office to get the injection, but the guard suddenly stopped him.

“Director was asking for you,” he said.

“Are you sure?” Y was surprised. “Director? Asking for me?”

The guard consulted with something within himself.

“Absolutely,” he confirmed. “Director is waiting for you and has already asked twice if you had arrived.”

“Well, I have arrived now,” Y said with dignity. “And I am quite ready to visit our old dear Director. Where did you say he is?”

Having worked in the Undo service almost since childhood, he not only never saw Director but had not the slightest idea what he could be like.

“He occupies the top floor.”

“How will I recognize him?”

“He is alone there. It would be hard to miss. Good luck anyway.”

Y nodded and moved towards an elevator.

***

Director turned out to be a pleasant young man with unpleasant manners.

“That is probably from the need to manage everything at once,” Y found him an excuse immediately. “The power spoils…”

“Sit down,” Director waved his hand impatiently. “Tea? Coffee?”

“Coffee, please.”

“Sugar?”

“Thank you.”

“Milk?”

“A bit.”

Director smiled.

“Or maybe you prefer a brandy?”

“Certainly I do,” Y agreed, returning the smile. “But the Charter…”

Director waved his hand casually.

“Never mind. You have a day off today. I have already signed an order.”

“Really?” Y said, trying hard to remember if he had really woken up in the morning.

They waited in silence until the secretary brought them brandy and coffee.

“Well, let us take the bull by the horns,” started Director, pouring the brandy into glasses. “The thing is that we have lost the head of the analytics department.”

Y made a sympathetic face.

“My condolences.”

“Ah, come on,” Director shrugged. “I hardly knew him. However, let’s drink to his health. Wherever he is now, he will certainly need it all.”

Director drank and continued.

“Yesterday, at nine o’clock in the evening, his personal signal disappeared from the monitors of the Service of Employment and Demography. Five minutes later the relevant… specialists were at his home. At ten in the evening, I was notified that he no longer works here. Well, that is, you understand, eh?”

“I do not.”

“Ah, come on, nobody hears us here. Naturally, the rat had run away. Not a big deal, of course, as every month we have another hundred idiots running from the city to nowhere. You understand, I hope, that our conversation is private, because the information is rather sensitive…”

Y nodded.

“However, I don’t remember this ever being by an official of such rank. This, I would say, is somehow… indecent. And yet. He ran away and did not even leave a note. Probably. Because, if he left the note they would never give it to me anyway. State security and all that stuff, you know. Well, it does not matter. I do not give a shit about that bloody note! The note is not a problem. Forget the note. The problem is that we need a new head of the analytics department and we need him now! The escaped one had not troubled himself with making children who could inherit his post directly. He didn’t even have any relatives. In such circumstances, the Charter entitles me to assign his successor by myself, choosing from the worthiest employees. Not a bad task, eh? Now, here, what would you do in my place?”

Having not received an answer (and apparently not expecting to get it), he continued:

“Personally, I went to Xavier.”

“I thought, he was…”

“As a matter of fact, he was not.”

Director drank.

“Between you and me,” he lowered his voice and looked back, “I hate the old dude. I have a nasty creepy feeling every time I see him. Well, this does not matter. What really matters is that the old tin can has given me the name of the right man. Your name.”

He looked at Y’s face and smiled.

“I was surprised too. Have a drink, it helps.”

Y, without tasting it, drank his brandy.

“I was surprised, yes,” Director went on, “and then I thought it over and drank it over and slept on it all over and, you know, I agreed. You are exactly the man we need.”

Y raised his eyebrows.

“I will explain.” Director began to count his fingers. “First, you need money badly. Do not argue, I have done inquiries. Having three children is not a joke. Second, we do not need you here in your present state. It’s true. A pedestrian officer is an anachronism. It’s indecent, inappropriate and, finally, it’s just silly. To tell the truth, I was going to get rid of you long ago; I just did not know how to do it. All these laws about the heritability of a job position… It is such a headache, if only you knew. But now, at last, I know how to do this. You will take the place of the head of the analytics department. You will no longer hang around the streets and disgrace the Service. Your salary will be about ten times more than it is now. Your apartment will be larger than the entire floor of the house in which you live now. Your car… Ah, fuck the car! The idea is that you are going to have a completely different life for you and your family. It’s going to be as if you moved to heaven right out of hell.”

Director looked directly into Y’s eyes.

“So what?”

Y was silent for a time.

“Are you serious?” he asked at last.

“Absolutely.”

“But I can’t do it!”

“Come on. Why?”

“There are lots of ‘whys’. Lack of experience, lack of inclinations, lack of abilities, lack of motivation, lack of competence, lack of weight… That was for a start; the complete list is much longer and includes lack of desire, for one.”

“It’s nothing,” Director said tenderly as if speaking to a child. “It’s all awful, I agree, but this is really nothing.”

“I don’t understand,” Y frowned.

“Well,” Director smiled friendly. “There is nothing easier than to rid you of all these small drawbacks.”

Y’s face froze.

“Correction surgery. You are talking about correction surgery, right?”

Director nodded.

“Excuse me,” said Y after a pause, “but do you happen to know Jimmy… I do not remember his identifier… from the fifth department? Well, the one who spends his eight working hours in guarding the light switch in the corridor. He turns on the light in the morning, then he waits eight hours and turns it off in the evening. That’s all he is able to do now. Ah, also he can smile, yes. The result of correction surgery, if you did not know.”