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"Are they still-"

"Yes, Mr. Steinbeck, they're still chanting 'we want more pay'."

The head of the Astronomical Observatorium paced about the floor even more nervously. He read his watch, said "forty-two hours to impact, seventeen to zero hour". He grew increasingly agitated in the span of a microsecond, walked out to the window of the hotel room in the affluent Grand Central District, looked at the crowd of assorted technicians, janitors, and astronauts below him, and shuddered. "This is bad."

"Well, that's what capitalism gets you, sir."

His assistant looked noticeably less flustered, but nevertheless adjusted his tie self-consciously every twelve-point-six-six-seven seconds, rounded off to three decimal places.

"Indeed, Jenkins. I wonder why we didn't just give up the idea of a meritocracy, put down our grudges, embrace our fellow men as equals, and completely forget about scientific progress of any sort back in the day."

"Sorry, sir. Just my thoughts."

"Pah. Bloody capitalists."

In a few moments, they would be (representing the Astronomics Institute) presenting their case to the LaFerge Corporation as to why the latter should raise their workers' wages in order to get them willing to work in their capacities as rogue-asteroid killers.

"It's preposterous, Jenkins. An asteroid big enough to make the sixty-five million bee-see-ee one look like a golf ball, and they're talking profit fucking margins."

Jenkins merely shrugged. He had met his fair share of money-wringing pricks in his life, being deputy head of the Institute, and thus in charge of acquiring funding from time to time. This was nothing different, albeit the result of the conference would affect (i.e. kill off) the entirety of living organisms on the planet Earth, down to the smallest protozoan and dirtiest bottom-living shit-kissing scum-sucker bureaucracy could produce. Naturally, it didn't mean much compared to a potential cutting of four billion New Yen a year, compounded by new hirings, off a three-thousand-quadrillion profit. No, the very idea was horrible. Still, the ethical implications of killing off ten billion people were enough to make the Executive-Chairperson-Of-The-Company-And-Generalissimo-In-The-Highest-May-His-Name-Be-Hallowed-Forever Bob stoop to holding a conference with the two astronomers , with the intent of "assessing the pros and cons of acceding to the union's demands".

"Fuck their unions!" Steinbeck was getting slightly agitated. "Fuck them and their fucking cunt fucking profit margins! It's the whole damn world at stake, and all they fucking care about is their fucking profit fucking margins! What the fuck is happening to Earth?"

Jenkins nodded sagely, repeated. "I tell you, sir, it's capitalism."

The old, balding, and tall-but-skinny-with-frazzled-sideburns head of the institute glared at his deputy, looking as though he belonged in another institute- one with padded and soundproof walls. He turned at length back to his watch, continued pacing about the room.

"And you know what makes me sick, Jenkins? It's the fact that we're wasting so much bloody time waiting for those- those- scheisskopfs to prepare their agendas and settle on an equal representation of shareholders and whatnot- Hell, we're here with this much time to spare only because I volunteered to use agency funds to secure the venue- when all this while that rock half the size of China comes ever closer, just waiting to kiss our ass goodbye. And those fucking unionists aren't doing a fuck about it! Don't they fucking understand the importance of global extinction?"

"Well, they've got to make a stand, sir. Besides, it'd be illegal. Misappropriation of private property, and the like."

"Mis-a-fucking-pro-fucking-priation my ass! It's the fucking world! Arrrgh!"

He threw his arms in the air helplessly and flailed like a fish on a marble countertop waiting for a sushi master to gently dice its guts apart. The subtly horrendous attempts at art strewn gratuitously about the room didn't help much. He put his posterior into a strange chair that looked as though it had come out of one of Picasso's nightmares and had been painted by Pollock. It felt unsurprisingly shitty.

"Another thing that makes me feel like shit is the fact that our only case is the fact that letting the asteroid hit Earth will cause a greater loss in terms of insurance and work-hours lost. Makes me feel like utter doggy-doo-doo.

Jenkins ignored the last statement. "Sir, I included the human cost in our first estimates, but I don't think they'll buy that, so I've got another estimate disregarding the cost of 'trauma' and 'psychological impact', et cetera."

Steinbeck looked wide-eyed at Jenkins for a moment, then started choking out laughing sounds.

"Let's just use the second estimate, eh? Besides, all that 'emotional grounds for compensation' bullshit's been outlawed ever since twenty-thirty-six, eh?"

"Aye, sir."

"I didn't want an answer, Jenkins. It was rhetorical."

"Of course, sir."

He sighed and slumped further into the already-uncomfortable-enough chair. He tried again half-heartedly to rouse a visible enthusiasm in Jenkins.

"Don't they have any common sense, Jenkins? Don't they fucking see what they're doing?"

"I suppose they do, sir. After all, they're bucketfuckloads richer than us."

Steinbeck left his mouth open for a few minutes, thinking of a possible reply, but gave up because his mouth was getting dry in the air-conditioned room, and also because the shouts of the unionists outside demanding more pay before they went back to work interrupted his thoughts every few seconds, making it impossible to think without inserting a profanity every now and then.

"Fuck."

"Fuck what, sir?"

"Never mind, Jenkins. You know, there used to be a time we would get beaten by our parents (back when we had parents) for saying that sort of thing. It's become a perfectly acceptable addition to any sentence. Nowadays you kids take it so literally."

"No other way to take things, sir."

"No, indeed, you slimy piece of shit."

"Sir, I'm not slimy, sir."

"Fine, you piece of shit."

"Aye, sir."

He gave up and resumed waiting for the conference to begin. He checked his watch again.

Sixteen and a quarter to zero hour.

After another ten minutes or so, he got up and dragged Jenkins to the conference room they had booked, eventually arriving three minutes and one point one four one five nine two six five three five seconds early, rounded to ten decimal places. He sat down in one of the chairs at the exact moment it turned three minutes to noon. The significance of the moment lost to him (at that exact moment, a faulty alarm clock rang in a mechanic's office for no good reason, startling him and making him drop his sandwich, a crumb of which would eventually be hurled into space along with its cargo of bacteria, ready to colonize the barren world it would land on and eventually develop into a civilization pondering where the hell exactly they came from), he grumbled, having nothing better to do.

"I agree, sir."

"What the fuck, Jenkins?"

"I agree with you, sir."

Jenkins grumbled.

Steinbeck merely went "gah" and went back to grumbling.

Eventually, twelve representatives arrived in the conference room and took their seats around the table. One of them (he assumed correctly to be the one really in charge) volunteered to explain their unorthodox timing.

"You can call me Ms. Delahue. We're sorry we're late, professor, but we had to, you know, all the formalities and dress codes our company advocates."

Steinbeck murmured under his breath to Jenkins: "bloody women". Jenkins chuckled. Misogyny had not yet been outlawed, purely because misandry had also not been outlawed, and the constitution demanded equal rights between the sexes. In fact, Ms. Delahue, upon seeing Steinbeck's lean towards Jenkins and the latter's subsequent chuckle, leaned to the lady on her left and said "I bet those chauvinist pigs are saying something like 'bloody women'". Steinbeck, observing Ms. Delahue's comment and her partner's subsequent chuckle, leant once again towards Jenkins and muttered "I bet they're talking about us". Ms. Delahue motioned to her friend and said out of the corner of her mouth "I think they're talking about us".

One of the auxiliary representatives unwittingly cleared his throat, and everyone sat up straight in the chairs designed to promote back comfort with a recline of one-hundred-and-thirty degrees between the back and the thighs, self-adjusting to any body shape and size, easily available from Jackson and Sons for the bargain price of ninety-nine New Yen apiece.

Steinbeck broke the nervous silence.

"And where the fuck is Bob?"

"We're sorry, professor, but he's busy with business. We here represent the interest of the company and it's shareholders, in his place."

He groaned. So they weren't worth the time after all. Even worse, they probably wouldn't make any decision. They would probably just feed everything they heard back to whoever was in charge, who would deliberate in the comfort of his golf course, or in bed with whichever mistress he had slept with the previous night- depending on the time zone he was in.

"He is, however, observing the meeting via airwave."

His face grew brighter. Finally, something was going right.

"Very well, let's begin, shall we, Ms. Delahue?"

She nodded.

"Okay. Today, we are examining the issue of the workers' wages, specifically in the rogue-asteroid-killing department-" here, a representative whispered "actually, it's a segment" and Steinbeck glowered before continuing- "- segment- and the potential costs if the demands of the union are not met. First, an estimate by our institute as to the potential cost of ignoring the asteroid: nineteen billion and twelve million, give or take two million. In any case, it is far greater than the four million the proposed wage increases would cost; certainly enough to get you to reconsider."

At that, the representatives let the good professor ramble on for a while. When he looked as though he had finished, they dropped the bomb like a B-29 creeping up on an innocent, unwitting, happily merrymaking city suddenly drops a twenty-one kiloton atomic bomb as some sort of practical joke.

"Actually, professor, we've done our own estimate, and it shows to be three billion nine-nine-nine million nine-nine-nine thousand ninety six New Yen. It is obvious to us that we will be making a loss of four New Yen a year if we agree to their increased wages."

"And how the anointed flying fuck did you get that number?"

"Same way you did, professor. We added up the costs of life insurance and potential work-hours lost of those people working in our company."

"Fuck! You didn't include other people in your estimates?"

"They work for other companies, professor." She explained a basic concept of economics and management to the professor with an indulgent smile. "We don't pay their wages or insurance companies' claims for reparations. By the way, professor, I am curious. Fuck what?"
Steinbeck looked flustered for a moment, then at a loss for anything to do, ignored the last question and tried harder.

"Didn't you include the human cost in your estimates?"

"To the best of our knowledge, professor, emotional grounds for com-"

"-pen-fucking-sation was outlawed back in the thirties. I know, you cunt-face, I know. You fucking Nazis don't fucking give a royal flying fuck-fingered rat's ass about the people."

The representative appeared unperturbed.

"To be exact, in thirty-six, the fifth of November, at around twenty-one hours, though sources differ."

The professor floundered for another minute or so, his mouth trying to find words (and his hands helping, trying to grasp some to put into his mouth). Ultimately, he failed. All this time, the representatives had been waiting patiently for a reply; seeing none, they made a motion to close the meeting.

Suddenly, as though hit by a dead fish, he found the words he wanted to say.

"But it'll fucking kill everybody, you assholes!"

The representatives stopped, leant slightly (almost imperceptibly) forward.

"Wait, wait." The man on the screen spoke for the first time. "Did you just say everybody?"

"Yes, YES! EVERY-FUCKING-BODY, YOU CUNTFACE! YOU SLIMY PIECE OF-"

"Good! Then it's settled. If their next of kin are dead as well, they can't claim insurance, which brings our estimate to-" behind him, some cogitors (the smartest people in the world, mechanically augmented) clanked as they calculated- "one billion twenty-three million one-hundred and seventeen New Yen. Thank you so much for reminding us of that fact, professor- we are indebted to you. Now we can safely refuse the union with a greater margin of error. Good-bye."

Steinbeck stared at the table, jaw agape. Already the company's representatives were packing up their things and leaving by the front door. When he regained conscious control of his body and had stopped making any woman walking past him blush and any man look at him in admiration, some raising a cap like a sailor would greet another sailor, others replying in kind because of the stream of profanities issuing forth from his larynx, he wept into his hands.

"Jenkins, God, Jenkins, how could they?"

Ever the observant one, Jenkins merely replied, "they just did."

He gazed about. Somehow Jenkins had managed to drag his (admittedly only fifty-seven kilo) body back to their hotel room. Everything seemed to slow down, and even the various postpostpostmodernist crocks of shit in the room looked a lot prettier now that his imminent death had just been assured. The watch read three-thirty-nine in the afternoon, which translated to around thirteen hours to zero hour. He sighed.

"Jenkins?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Know any good orgies in town?"

Labels: prose