Chapter I.6

Loofah followed the receptionist through corridors—carpeted arteries of pulsing power—and open plan offices where computer screens flickered and telephones buzzed. Young men in white shirts with polished shoes ignored him, while power dressed businesswomen and mini-skirted secretaries looked at him blankly, with hard plastic faces. Everywhere was the blur of corporate activity, the metabolism of organisation.

They turned into a more significant corridor: apparently the aorta of the organism, this was wider than the others with deeper carpets and a soft throbbing silence. 'Miss P R M Leggett,' said a discrete brushed aluminium nameplate on a door at the far end, 'Under Manager'.

The receptionist knocked. After a long pause, there was a muffled 'come', the impatience distinct even through three inches of wood. Opening the door, she ushered him in.

'Your visitor, Miss Leggett,' said the receptionist with a deferential smile, her voice sweet and respectful. Then she was gone, the door closing quietly behind her.

Loofah was standing on a thick pale grey carpet, surrounded by potted rainforest plants and white wood furniture. At the far side of the opulent room, a woman in early middle age sat at an acre of desk in a grey leather executive chair, scrawling red ink comments in a ring-bound report. The muffled silence was disturbed only by the quiet heartbeat of corporate might.

After long enough to be uncomfortable, the woman closed the report and looked up.

'Well?' she snapped.

A plump body squeezed into a dark suit, short dark hair in a loose perm. Her face was flesh-heavy with small, hard eyes. Loofah looked at her blankly.

'I am extremely busy and I am sure you are too,' said Miss Leggett, 'I suggest we don't waste any more of each other's time than is absolutely necessary.'

Loofah nodded in acquiescence and smiled weakly. She watched him with irritable expectancy for a few moments, and then grunted.

'Close the door after you,' she said, returning to her report.

Without thinking, he turned to go. But as he reached for the door handle, he stopped.

'Erm—.'

With sigh of profound irritation, the Under Manager looked up.

'What is it?'

'I think—.'

'Yes?'

'—that it was you that wanted to see me.'

The porcine eyes narrowed menacingly.

'Ah… you,' she said, as if mouthing a morsel of dog's excrement.

Laying down the report once again, she got up and came slowly round the desk, tight pin-stripe stretching over ample thighs, and looked Loofah up and down as if he had just disgraced himself on her carpet. He winced under the baleful glare of her naked hostility.

'You,' she repeated, 'You've been giving us a considerable amount of trouble, haven't you?'

'I… er…'

'You—and the other one.'

Something clicked in his fuddled consciousness, triggering a shudder of cold dread.

'The—other one?' he asked, in a small voice.

She stared at him hard, without replying. Then, turning her back on him, she returned to her seat.

'I don't know why you've come here, you and the other one,' she said, 'doing what you're doing, behaving like—that.'

'Which other one?'

'What right have you, coming here, upsetting everyone, causing all sorts of unpleasantness?'

Again she stared at him, waiting for an answer. Loofah cringed into his jacket, shivering with guilt.

'Well?' she demanded.

'I'm—I'm sorry,' he stammered.

'And I'm sorry too. Sorry that I'm now going to have to waste my valuable time sorting out the mess that you've caused, the pair of you, coming here where you don't belong and where you're not wanted.'

'The pair of us?' he whispered, stabbed by another shock of the weird dread.

'But sorry's not good enough, is it?'

'It isn't?'

'It makes me angry, that's what it does. When I think of all we do, me and my people, working tirelessly, giving of ourselves for the Company—' The Under Manager paused, savouring her indignation. 'And Mr Stobart,' she continued, edging towards some sort of climax, 'What about Mr Stobart?'

Loofah grinned lamely, wishing he had something to say.

'Do you have any idea, any inkling, of the importance of the work of that noble man? Not just for his staff and customers, but for the whole community, for every single one of us.'

Staring at the carpet, he braced himself for the next blast of righteous wrath. He could feel his cheeks glowing, twin beacons signalling his guilt.

'Well?' she demanded.

'Oh, sorry. I thought that was a rhetorical—.'

'I want you to think about that, I want you think about that very hard. About Mr Stobart and his work, and about the rest of us, his people, all doing our duty, all toiling our socks off. And then I want you to think about what you're doing—coming here without so much as by your leave and throwing a great big spanner in the works.'

The Under Manager paused, giving Loofah the opportunity to squirm in silence under the white heat of her outrage.

'Not to mention the other business,' she went on, shuddering with revulsion, 'You don't think you'll get away with it, do you? You won't, you know, people like you never do.' Giving him one last long look of abhorrence, she pressed a button on the desk telephone. 'There's nothing I can do for the moment. I have to discuss the whole matter with Mr Stobart—as if he didn't have enough on his plate already. In the meantime I'm putting you in Market Realignment. Report to Mr Sutton.'

The door opened and a secretary sidled deferentially into the room.

'Do try to make yourself useful,' Miss Leggett said as he was leaving, 'It would be nice if you could make some form of contribution, however minimal—to make up for at least a fraction of the trouble you've both caused.'

Loofah sat on a small swivel chair at a desk wedged between two padded room dividers. Brutal fluorescent light had turned his hands into poor quality plastic mouldings, blue and purple. A computer hummed to itself on the desk in front of him, with goldfish, newts and sea-horses swimming aimlessly in its aquarium monitor. He was in the midst of a swirling sea of room dividers, desks and busy people, all jagged and flat under the white flickering light. The air was a stifling buzz of urgent exchanges, air conditioning, and business machines.

He sat uselessly, acutely aware of his own unworthiness, struggling to prevent an explosion of panic or a slide of despair. The Under Manager's castigations jabbed through his brain again and again, tearing at the anxious veil of his consciousness like a leopard's claw. He cringed under a broadside of guilt—could he really be as awful as that?

People rushed by: the men all identical with immaculate hairstyles and razor-creased trousers, the products of some junior executive cloning kit, and the women hard-faced viragos in shoulder-padded suits. They cast him silent looks as they passed, their mannequin faces masks of hostile curiosity.

Then the interminable nagging in his head changed its script: 'The other one—the pair of you— the other one—the pair of you'. Loofah convulsed with cold dread and his mind veered away in desperate avoidance. Shrinking into his seat, he stared into the screen-saver fish tank, blanking his thoughts and wishing himself into a newt, wriggling happily behind the glass.

'Settling in OK?'

Loofah spun round to face a tall young man with dark hair, a neatly trimmed moustache, and a sunset-red tie.

'Um—fine, Mr—er…'

'Sutton. David Sutton. Dave.'

'Pleased to meet you. My name is—.'

'Yeah, right. We don't stand on formality here. Do the job and do it well, and no-one will care how you do it. Initiative. Individual responsibility. Results count, not appearances. Clear? Clear.'

'That's great—er—Dave.'

'Mr Sutton to you. I run a tight ship in this department. Familiarity breeds contempt and all that.'

'Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean—.'

'Just remember who's in charge round here. As long as you're on my manor you do what I say and you do it exactly how I tell you to. Jump to it, ask no questions—got me? You want to do things your way, then say so now—and sling your hook. Clear? Clear.'

Fluorescent light glinted unpleasantly on the lenses of the marketing executive's window-sized tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles.

'Clear as crystal, Mr—um—Sutton,' said Loofah, with an appeasing smile.

'That's great—let's keep it that way. And if you have any problems, just ask. You're one of the team now. Part of the family. Know what the Chief says? "Our biggest asset is our people", that's what. Just think about it.' The marketing executive paused to flash a greasy smile. 'Now—how are you doing with those figures?'

For a good five minutes Loofah stared blankly at the twin anxious faces that peered out of him from Sutton's eye sockets.

'W—which figures?' he eventually managed to stammer.

'The figures for the Pre-Strategy Planning meeting—that I needed two hours ago.' Sutton leaned forward menacingly, wafting him with aftershave: petrochemical, like an industrial accident. Loofah grinned, trying not to scream.

'Well?' Sutton demanded, when no response was forthcoming.

And then, to Loofah's amazement, his mouth opened and he started to speak.

'Oh, those figures,' he said, not recognising his own voice, 'No problem, no problem whatsoever. Already in hand. Ready in no time.'

'Great. One hundred and ten percent performance. I like it,' said Sutton, 'But never forget that nobody's indispensable. That means me. That means you. You're not up to scratch, you're out. No arguments, no second chance. Clear?'

'Er—I think so—.'

'By the way, you got any ties?'

'You mean—a family?'

'Informality. Initiative. Results, not appearances. But wear a tie, OK? The Chief can't stand shabbiness. Sloppy dress equals sloppy work, right? Right.'

'Oh, I see. But I haven't got a—.'

'Cup of coffee?'

'Yes please,' said Loofah quickly.

'Brilliant,' said Sutton, 'Go to it.' And he was gone.

Loofah stared at the computer screen in a state of rising panic. The whole might of the Company was bearing down on him and he didn't even know where to begin. He had already searched through the foggy corridors of his mind for inspiration, but without success. And so he gazed into the monitor-aquarium, wondering what it would be like to be a water snail or a piece of duck-weed and to live a harmless aquatic life free of the cares of corporate existence.

The goldfish swam to and fro aimlessly and the sea-horses hovered, more like ceramic decorations that living animals. Three or four newts hung suspended in the water, perfectly still, gripping slender weed fronds with tiny suckered feet and watching the fish with bored dog-like faces. A large black tadpole wiggled up to the front of the screen and looked out at him.

'Bloody—bugger,' it said in a high pitched electronic squeak with a distinct West Country burr, 'Bugger—bloody—damn and bugger.'

'What's wrong?' asked Loofah.

'Nothing's wrong. I'm the buggering cursor, aren't I?' said the tadpole with a titter, 'That's a good one, ain't it? I always likes that one.'

'It is a good one. A cursing cursor—very funny indeed.' Loofah forced a laugh, for inane though it was, the tadpole did offer a tiny glint of hope. 'I wonder if you could help me,' he went on after the merriment had died down, 'You see I need some figures for Mr Sutton and I don't really know where to begin.'

'No problem, my dear,' squeaked the tadpole. And suddenly the aquarium was gone and the image of a young woman appeared—circa 1964, Bond girl sex appeal, wearing nothing but a lurid pink bikini with yellow frills—mincing seductively forward, lips pouting and hips swaying. The scene froze with the screen completely filled with sun-tanned belly and confectionery breasts. Then, like an emergent tropical parasite, out of her navel wiggled the tadpole.

'This what you wanted?' it squeaked, trying to suppress a giggle.

'A figure—ha! ha!—I get it.' Loofah's grin was beginning to hurt. 'But I was actually hoping for some numbers.'

'Numbers? Well, why didn't you just say?'

They were back in the aquarium. Something was sinking slowly through the water: white shapes, like pieces of spaghetti. And indeed it was spaghetti, in the shape of numerals; there was even a slight tinge of tomato sauce in the water towards the top of the screen. The tadpole took a quick bite out of a passing '5', while an ill-fated '9' was savaged in a piranha attack by three of the goldfish. The newts looked on with haughty indifference.

'That's great,' said Loofah as the tadpole chewed contentedly, 'But I think I'll need to do some calculations. You know, sums, stuff like that.'

The tadpole swallowed and then peered out at him.

'My dear, this is just the screen-save,' it said, as if speaking to a child, 'You can't do sums in the screen-save, now can you?'

'Everything on target?' said a voice from behind, announcing the unwelcome return of the marketing executive.

'Yes. Completely. One hundred percent,' said Loofah, grinning, 'Just working on a few—um—ideas.'

'Ideas? Brilliant. I like ideas. Run 'em up the flagpole, see if anyone salutes, right? Right. The Company needs ideas, the lifeblood of innovation as I always say. And where do ideas come from? From our people, that's who. You and me. The team.'

The computer screen was reflected in Sutton's glasses, hiding his eyes.

'Only little ideas, mind you, nothing too—.'

'But remember this: in my department we worship one god and one god only. The bottom line. That's where it all happens. That's all that counts. Sales. Targets. Results. You want to daydream, you do it in your own time. Clear? Clear.'

Sutton flashed an assassin's smile, goldfish swimming across his eye sockets. Then, in a billow of aftershave, he was gone.

When Loofah looked back to the computer, the tadpole too had vanished. Although it had been little if any help, now he was completely alone. And so he gazed into the screen, drifting gently among the ceramic sea-horses and inscrutable newts, attempting to apply the nebulous mist that was his mind to the problem of what to do next.

Amazingly it was not long before a shaft of light, albeit a faint one, managed to penetrate the fog. Computer, screen, cursor: Loofah realised that there was a vague familiarity about the combination. Although wasn't there usually something else? He glanced down the desk. Ah, of course: keyboard. He'd done this before, he was sure of it now. Sensing his sudden surge of confidence, the screen cleared, the fish, the newts and the water all collapsing to nothing to leave a plain black background with a small blinking vertical bar in the top left-hand corner. Another tiny clear thought emerged from the swirling mists: 'log in'. Loofah smiled and started typing: 'HELLO. MY NAME IS—'.

But the computer interrupted him.

'I know who you are,' displayed the screen in sharp white lettering, 'Let's get going, shall we? We've got a lot to get through.'

'Oh. Right,' said Loofah, taken aback by its assertiveness, 'Of course, let's get going.'

He took his hands off the keyboard and waited.

'Well?' displayed the screen, eventually.

'Well what?'

'Jesus!'—the expletive flashed briefly—'Look, just get on with it, will you? I'm a very busy machine, I haven't got all day.'

'Oh. Sorry,' Loofah stammered, then struggled to remember what he was supposed to be doing, 'Of course, that's it. I need the figures. The figures for Mr Sutton.'

The computer's cooling motor changed pitch in a sigh of exasperation and it blinked the cursor on and off as if drumming its fingers on the desk. The screen, however, remained blank.

'The figures?' Loofah repeated, very tentatively.

'I don't believe this,' the screen flashed, apparently to itself, then adding, 'Haven't you ever used a computer before?'

'Yes, of course I have. Lots of times.'

'Then you should know that you can't talk to me.'

'Oh, yes. Sorry.'

'And do you know why that is?'

'Um—'

'Because I'm a fucking machine, that's why. I haven't got any ears, have I? I can't fucking hear you.' It paused to let the words sink in, before finishing, in bold capitals, with: 'USE THE KEYBOARD, WILL YOU?'

Loofah did not like this machine one little bit. Now completely flustered, he could hardly think straight, and yet he had to keep going; the marketing executive would be back soon and progress with the required figures was minimal to say the least. And so he struggled with his swimming thoughts, like a manic fisherman groping for eels in a muddy pond. Soon he felt something slithering past his fingers, grabbed it and pulled it, wriggling, into the daylight. It was a clear, concise sentence, right there in the front of his brain ready for typing: 'Please let me have the figures for Mr Sutton'. Sighing with relief, he reached for the keys.

'PLEASE—LET—ME—HAVE—THE—,' he typed, the words flashing neatly onto the screen. Suddenly—in a reflex—he jerked his hands away. Teeth snapped shut, missing his fingertips by millimetres. It was only then that he noticed that the keyboard was non-standard, not a Qwerty model. In fact it was a huge grinning mouth, with two rows of yellowing tombstone teeth, flecked with saliva and rimmed with purplish lips, the full lips of dissolution, a Sybarite's lips that quivered in excited expectation.

An angry beep came from the machine and under his half-finished sentence, the words 'What? Let you have what?' appeared.

'The fig—,' Loofah began aloud, but stopped himself. He looked down at the keyboard. The teeth glinted in the light from the screen, waiting for him.

'For God's sake, get on with it,' flashed the screen, 'or I'm shutting down.'

Oh no, he couldn't have that. The keyboard smirked ominously, but he didn't seem to have much choice. He stabbed at a tooth near where 'F' should have been—and to his delight the screen showed an 'F'! Hardly believing his luck, he went for 'I'—and got an 'I'. Then a 'G' and a 'U'. Then a… the teeth snapped suddenly, brushing his fingertips as he snatched his hands away. The mouth grinned up at him, enjoying the joke.

'"PLEASE LET ME HAVE THE FIGU"—What the fuck's that supposed to mean?' flashed the screen.

Loofah looked from the screen to the keyboard, and then back to the screen, squirming with repressed panic.

'Right. That's it,' flashed the screen after a few seconds, 'I'm shutting down. You'll find paper and a pen in the top drawer.'

'No, wait,' Loofah cried, but then—quickly recollecting—he dived for the keys, managing to type out 'RES' before the teeth snapped again.

'"RES?"' flashed the screen, blankly, 'Not a command I know. If it's Fortran or Cobol or anything else from the Dark Ages, forget it. I'm state of the art, me, I'm not pissing around with any of that dinosaur crap.'

Loofah tried again, pecking out the letters on the snapping teeth: 'FIGURES'.

'SYNTAX!' flashed the screen in bold capitals, adding for its own benefit, 'What a fucking game.'

Loofah sighed deeply.

'PLEASE LET ME HAVE THE FIGURES,' he typed, nearly losing a finger after the fourth word.

'What? Any figures? Be more specific, will you? I'm a computer, not a mind reader.'

'THE FIGURES FOR MR SUTTON.'

There was a pause and then the hard disc engaged, whirring hopefully for a second or two.

'No can do,' flashed the screen.

'I don't believe this!' muttered Loofah, slumping into his chair like a melting jelly.

'Don't get shitty with me. It's in another programme, that's all.'

'Which programme?' he snapped.

'Key—board,' it flashed, in a sing-song sort of way.

'WHICH PROGRAMME?' he typed, still dodging the teeth, which never seemed to tire of their jolly little game.

'Syntax.'

'GIVE ME THE PROGRAMME WITH THE FIGURES FOR MR SUTTON.'

The hard disc engaged briefly. 'Specify a path.'

'WHAT?' typed Loofah, exasperated.

'You must specify the path for the programme you require, giving the correct Directory, any Sub-Directories and the appropriate file-name. Please ensure you use the correct syntax at all—.'

'Just give me the bloody programme, will you!' he shouted, nearly banging his fists down on the keyboard—though thinking better of it.

The screen swam with indignation. Loofah immediately regretted his outburst; it was going to leave him high and dry. And indeed after a few moments of silent seething, the machine became deadly calm.

'Programme requested: Skylight 3.4,' it flashed coldly, 'Operating system closing down. Have a nice day.'

'No, wait…' But it was too late—the screen cleared and was then immediately filled by a cheery looking window, framed by floral curtains. The view out of the window was of a trim little garden, with rolling green hills, blue sky and fluffy white clouds in the background. Two bluebirds sang in the hedge and lambs gambolled in the nearest field.

But despite the pristine prettiness, Loofah cursed silently. A nice view was all very well, but without the figures he was done and he knew it. Squirming with frustration, he searched the screen, hunting desperately for some clue. And then, with a quick flood of relief, he saw it, floating in the sky just above the bird table: a tiny little pictograph comprising some symbolic numbers superimposed on each other and under this the crucial identifier: 'The figures for Mr Sutton'.

Loofah prodded the screen hopefully, touching the icon. Nothing happened. Perhaps it needed a typed command. But as he went down for the keyboard, he saw that the whole mouth had closed and vast pair of lips was now smirking up at him like some warped cosmetics advert.

It was then he noticed something else on the screen, poised over a rose bush to the left of the lawn: an ornate Gothic arrow. Of course, the pointer!—it was all coming back to him. Problem solved… well, nearly. Oh no, not 'nearly' at all—for how was he going to move the pointer? As his tiny flame of hope guttered, he looked glumly from the Playschool screen to the depraved keyboard.

And there beside it, sitting on a neat pad in grey plastic, was a large brown rat.

It was squatting on its haunches with its skin-and-gristle tail curled behind it, cleaning its front paws. It paused briefly when it noticed Loofah watching, cast him a disinterested glance, and then returned to its grooming.

Somehow he knew what to do.

With a hard swallow, he gritted his teeth, then reached out and snatched hold of the surprised animal. Squeaking furiously, this struggled frantically to get its head round to bite him, but Loofah was too quick for it and held its head between thumb and forefinger so that it couldn't turn. As he eyed with distaste the vicious yellow teeth, impotently bared, and felt the hot wriggling body in his hand with the coarse greasy coat against his skin, a wave of giddy nausea rolled languorously up his gullet. Modern technology isn't all it's cracked up to be, he thought, grimly. Then, fighting his revulsion, he swept the indignant animal over the plastic pad, guiding the pointer across the screen towards the 'figures' icon.

Which promptly dodged out of the way, sliding down across the sky and coming to rest on the lawn. Loofah sighed with exasperation. The rat again struggled to escape, but he tightened his grip and swept it back over the pad. But again the elusive icon skidded away across the screen, this time ending up under one of the lambs.

And so he gave chase. To a chorus of angry squeaks, he swept the outraged rodent to and fro, pursuing the icon across the lawn, into the hedges, and back into the sky. He chased it around the bluebirds, through a rose bush and across the window sill. At one point it even hid behind the curtains and he had to flush it out, probing blind with the pointer.

At last, as the icon hovered at the edge of the lawn panting for breath, he saw he had it cornered. Loofah eased in a little closer and then, with an anguished howl from the rat, he hurled the pointer across the grass. The icon dodged—he swung to intercept—it dodged again, but this time it had no escape. As he pounced, certain of success, it hurled itself back into the edge of the screen—

And slid off the glass onto the plastic casing of the monitor, leaving the pointer quivering uselessly on a flowerbed.

Loofah watched, flabbergasted, as the errant icon slid down the side of the computer and down onto the desk. In a last effort of desperation he tried to swat it with the rat itself, dispensing with the stranded pointer. But he missed and the icon skidded effortlessly across the white wood veneer of the desk and down a metal leg onto the floor, before skating across the carpet between the legs of a passing secretary and away into the depths of the office.

Sudden pain stabbed in Loofah's left thumb; the rat had finally managed to get its head free and had sunk is yellow incisors into his flesh. Stifling a cry, he dropped it onto the desk, while the secretary stared at him with puzzled disapproval.

'Technical problems,' he said, grinning sheepishly. With a contemptuous flick of her bob, she turned and stalked away.

As he sucked at his injured thumb, there was an insistent purr from the desk behind him. He turned to answer it, but it was a fax machine not a telephone. The ringing stopped and the machine began chuntering to itself, spewing shiny paper onto the desk.