Mirror Sphere

22 minutes

Language

Enjoy this excerpt from “Other Minds: 13 Tales of Wonder and Sorrow”. This collection of speculative fiction may be purchased here.

Prologue: Nelphel-Crmer

There you see her, still clutching the shard.

Why does she clutch it still? Does she believe its components will function in isolation?

Nothing of the sort. Have you not attended to their natures?

Yes. They are rational beings, but subject to many fallacies, such as that of composition. Perhaps she believes the whole is still contained in the parts?

[A pause, as the Seraph considers.]

In a sense, that may be true. It is not a matter of reasoning, but of the inner spirit. What they call 'the heart.' You see how even their words for the immaterial are bound up in solid energy.

Then teach me, Wise One, for I do not comprehend the riddle.

She clutches the shard because it helps her spirit to remember. It is as with your peoples, when you go to bathe in nebulae, that you might taste the Beginning, and remember. So does she. So do all of worth among them. She clutches the shard that her spirit — her heart — might not forget that from which the shard came.

[The questioner is silent. He ruminates.]

I suppose I was unwise to send it then.

No, little one. You were only reasonable, and so could not conceive that it should fail.

Wise One, tell me true: If He knew I would fail, why permit my folly?

To teach you, little one. To teach your peoples.

[Something like a sigh passes through the energy that gives him form.]

I see it now. Why we must contain them. Why we are not permitted to embrace them. Still, I do not understand my failure. I only see that it is a failure.

Then do not lean on understanding, but on true sight. Enter into my energy, and behold it again. This is not to chide you, but to teach you. That is why He let you try and fail. Not to chastise you — for your energy is pure — but to confirm you in your work, until all is accomplished.

Yes, Wise One. Show me. Tell me again the tale of my Mirror Sphere.

Felizitas

"Two hours a day? Just for this subject?"

Dr. Felizitas Chandra-Wright looked patiently at the incredulous undergraduate. She reminded herself to respond cheerfully, so as not make her response an embarrassing public correction. After all, the young man should be commended for actually admitting his surprise at the true cost of academic excellence. It was an incredulity shared by others of his generation. In this country, where university was only a box to check, standards often fell victim to cultural expectations.

"Two hours," repeated Felizitas, her German accent making her words crisp, "is the academic standard."

There was a long pause.

"Oh," said the young man.

Felizitas, still smiling, let her gaze pass over the other freshmen. She was a thin woman with sharp features. The bones of her face and hands were angular, and quite prominent. She kept her dusty brown hair very short. Her neck was just a tad longer than it ought to be, and her nose was small and hooked beneath black eyes that seemed lit from behind. The students called her "Professor Stork," and that amused her.

"Now then," she said, wrapping up her introduction, "while every academic discipline requires immense time and study, exobiology, because of its multifaceted nature, demands still more. We are, after all, a subject in search of its subject, if you will permit the pun. For that very reason, the student of extra-solar life must be the master of several disciplines. All science, all knowledge, really, proceeds from the known to the unknown. That is doubly true for us, since we must proceed from practical knowledge of astronomy, physics, chemistry, and the study of life here, to the theoretical search for the conditions under which it might flourish elsewhere.

"And that means mastery in those subjects. There is a very real possibility that you will never see, in your lifetime, the practical realization of this discipline's goal: the discovery of life external to this planet. On the other hand, you may enjoy a long and prosperous career writing all kinds of popular rot about what life on other planets may look like, and, it is unlikely that any aliens will come along to contradict you."

About a third of the students actually laughed at the joke. That seemed a promising sign for the year.

She sat down then, and began going through her notes. The undergrads, by degrees, recognized that the class must be over, for the professor was no longer teaching. They began filing out of the auditorium, but Felizitas was already absorbed in her work, and hardly saw them leave. She was preparing two articles. One was about an exoplanet called CoRoT-24 b. She'd submit it to an academic journal. The second was a sidebar piece entitled "Other Earths." If Discover decided to publish, it would cover a dinner out with Yatnesh, and not much else. Teaching distracted her from her real work, and it took her a moment to find the train of thought she'd abandoned just before class. It was just coming back to her, when her phone vibrated.

She'd have ignored it, but saw it was Yatnesh. Felizitas huffed, then answered the phone.

"Ya, my love," she said.

"I am sorry to disturb you in your work," he said, perhaps reading her tone.

She smiled. His cultivated Indian accent held a constant charm, which dispelled her momentary annoyance. "Macht nichts," she said. "How are things?"

"The day passes well," replied Yatnesh. "But I called, at this inconvenient time, for a reason."

He paused.

"I stopped by the house after Philosophy of Mind 201," he began. "When I did, there were two men at the door. They appeared to be government officials. Anyway, I invited them in, and we spoke. They would like to see you. They are here now."

She frowned, half puzzled, and half annoyed at another interruption.

"Is there some kind of trouble?" she asked.

"We are not in trouble, but you'd better come home anyway. I would...characterize the matter as urgent."

Felizitas drummed her fingers, then, sighing, closed her notes, and began stacking papers with her free hand.

"Can you give my some idea what this is about?" she asked.

There was a pause, and Yatnesh seemed to mute his phone. After a moment, her husband's voice returned.

"I can say nothing on the phone," he said. "I'm going to hang up now. See you soon."

#

Felizitas sat on the couch beside Yatnesh, watching the live feed. They were bookended on the sofa between two agents, plain-looking men who reminded her of somebody's uncles. As she watched the screen, her small mouth fell open, and her hand slipped into Yatnesh's. They both squeezed tight.

"Do they..." she began, not knowing what she wanted to ask. She tried again. "Has anyone approached it? I mean the astronauts?"

"No, doctor," said the man to the right of Yatnesh. He was the larger of the two, and had identified himself only as Sam. The slighter, dark-haired man to her left never spoke. He was almost featureless, but for a thin blank spot on his left eyebrow. Of the two men, Sam was by far the more personable.

The footage from the drones wasn't blurry, but it was taken from far enough away that she couldn't be sure of what substance the object was composed. Only of its shape.

"Why don't you move them closer?" she asked.

There was a pause. Sam answered laconically.

"Not authorized. Approach could be perceived as a threat."

She frowned. The dark sphere in a high orbit around Earth did not seem to be doing anything at all. It was hard to tell, but she saw no lights or apertures on its surface. If anything, it reminded her of an eight ball, but one that reflected the lights from the drones more brilliantly than it would if the surface were really black.

"If you won't bring them closer," offered Yatnesh, "why not wait until it's out of shadow? That is a poor place to get a look at it, where the Earth is in night."

The agent to Felizitas' left, the one who hadn't yet spoken, made a sound like a small chuckle. The other, as if interpreting for him, stood and walked over to the coffee table. He crouched down, and waved his finger around the screen.

"It's always in shadow. In fact, it moves to stay in the Earth's shadow, but slowly. We almost never observe it move."

Felizitas drew a sharp breath. "I thought you said it was orbiting?"

"I said it was in orbit," replied Sam.

"But it moves only to stay concealed?"

"Not exactly," said Sam. "When the drones first approached, it was moving slowly against the Earth's rotation, but it stopped, and changed direction. It moved toward the drones."

"And then?" said Felizitas. Her heart was pounding in her chest.

"The drones were told to keep a distance of a thousand clicks. They moved back as it approached, to maintain that separation. The object then matched them, and it's maintained that distance ever since, still adjusting course to stay in darkness."

Yatnesh cleared his throat. "So, whatever is controlling it wants it to be seen by you, and yet, it both detects and respects the boundary you've set for the drones."

Sam looked at Yatnesh, and gave a small nod.

"But," Yatnesh continued, his brow furrowing in confusion, "if it wants the drones to see it, why does it stay in shadow? That is the first riddle we should be trying to read."

Felizitas leaned forward and inhaled sharply. Sam and her husband both looked at her. She said nothing.

"Dr. Chandra-Wright?" prompted Sam.

Suddenly conscious of their attention, she felt strangely reticent to share the notion that had come, fully formed, into her mind. She tested the idea first, to see if it was sensible.

"It's just that," she began, "well you're afraid to approach it, but maybe it wants to be approached."

Sam looked at the quiet agent. The other nodded back.

"We think so too," said Sam. "But considering its behavior — concealing itself in darkness — this could be some kind of a ruse. A trap."

"A trap?" she said.

"A bomb, perhaps.

Felizitas shook her head. Another look passed between Sam and the silent agent.

"But you don't think so," Sam prompted. "You have some other idea."

"Yes," she said, carefully.

But the question hung in the air, unanswered. Felizitas wasn't sure they were ready for what she thought. But they had come to her, and Yatnesh, and she could think of only one reason why.

"Sam," she began, pronouncing the agent's given name with thinly veiled skepticism, "why did you bring this to me? I'm an exobiologist. Yatnesh is a philosophy professor."

Sam nodded, expecting the question. He sat down on the other couch.

"You have an English father and a German mother," said Sam. "Professor Chandra is Indian. And your father, I'm sure you knew..."

"Yes," she said. "His work was privileged. But he didn't work for the U.S."

Sam smiled. It was a chiding smile, like she ought to have known better.

"Nations..." began Sam, but he seemed to think better of it. "The point is, as his daughter, you understand discretion. So that's one reason. Another is the...international character of this investigation."

"But those aren't the main reasons," she pressed.

"No," admitted Sam. "I think you know what it is."

Felizitas looked at Yatnesh, and saw by his expression, that was thinking the same as she.

"It's our paper," said Yatnesh, speaking to her, more than to Sam. "Alternative Modalities of Conscious Experience."

"That's the one," said Sam.

Felizitas felt a sensation like electric ice creeping through her veins.

"You...you think it might be conscious?" she said in a whisper. "Alive? Not a ship, but a lifeform?"

Sam looked again toward the quiet agent, seeming to ask permission. He nodded.

"But that's just what I've been thinking!" she said, almost shouting. "The whole time we've been watching, and when you described the way it approached, then hung back...the way it's hiding in the shadows, but wants to be seen. It's like it's...it's..."

"Hunting," said Sam.

"Flirting," said Felizitas, at the same time.

They stared at each other across the table, while the dark sphere floated on the screen in her periphery. Sam was frowning at her. She frowned right back at him. When he began to speak, she talked over him.

"If it were hostile," she said, "it would not be going out of its way to let itself be seen."

"Then why hide in the shadows?"

The voice came from so close to her, that Felizitas almost jumped. The quiet agent beside her had evidently spoken, though now his expression was as placid as a lake. The blank spot on his eyebrow changed the shape of his eye, making him asymmetrical and inhuman.

"Predatory behavior is fairly universal," she began. "Even across species and the kingdoms of life. Predators generally ambush their prey, or run them down from a short distance. A rattlesnake lies in wait, and strikes quickly. If it rattles, if it let's you know it's there, then it is trying to avoid conflict. Eagles, tigers, trapdoor spiders...they all prefer surprise and a quick kill. They don't advertise. Predation is a niche, which is to say, we are likely to find it wherever there is life, and it's bound to have certain similarities, even in life that works on totally different principles. This thing is not hunting."

"Then why conceal itself?" asked Sam. "What does it have to hide?"

Felizitas smiled. "Maybe it's hiding because it wants to be found."

Sam looked at her as if she had eagles, tigers, and trapdoor spiders growing out of her head. He shook his head.

"I'm not sure I know what that's supposed to mean," he said.

Felizitas tested the thought again, wondering if it were really as crazy as he seemed to think it was. As it almost sounded to her. She looked back at the screen, mesmerized by the dark sphere moving in a sea of night inside the shadow of Earth. The more she looked, the more certain she felt. It was not hostile. It wanted to be seen. How could she prove it? Yatnesh came to her rescue.

"There is a simple test we could make," he said. His accent, musical and refined, drew all the attention. He continued, "but you'll have to risk a drone."

Sam shook his head. "They're a few million a piece. And if it thinks our intentions are hostile-"

"-Just...hear me out. Please," continued Yatnesh. "I do not think you will lose the drone. Now, then, we have two working hypotheses: one, that the sphere is hostile, and two, that it is friendly, and that it, or its controllers, wants to establish contact of some kind. If the first is correct, then upon approach, the object will react in some way, perhaps destroying the drone once it's close. Like a Venus flytrap, you see, attracting only so it can do harm. But if so, we will then know it is hostile, and will also have some data on its structure and armament. And this knowledge will be far cheaper now, when it is orbiting, then later, should it choose to descend to the surface."

Sam clenched his jaw, clearly disturbed at the thought of it entering the atmosphere.

"However," continued Yatnesh, "if the second hypothesis is correct, then the object may make some peaceful sign or gesture. And either way, we'll better see its structure."

Sam pressed his lips together, and leaned back into the couch. He stroked his chin for a moment, then looked over at the quiet man. She turned to the silent agent, but Felizitas didn't detect the slightest expression on the other man's face. Evidently, he had made some sign, because Sam suddenly stood, took out his phone, and left the room. They sat in silence until he returned a few minutes later.

"Very well," he said, looking first at Yatnesh, then at her. "They're sending one in, with the others holding back to transmit."

Sam retook his seat by Yatnesh. After a few moments, the screen split. Now there were two feeds. On one, she saw a single drone drift away from the other, and slowly creep toward the distant sphere. The second feed was the approaching drone's own POV.

It took several minutes for the drone to reach the object. Felizitas stopped breathing. As the light from the drone touched the object's surface, she realized why the dark shape had seemed so bright. It was not dark after all.

The surface was perfectly reflective, radiant, like a mirror of diamonds. The drone looked back at itself in reflection, its headlight bouncing off the glossy exterior, so that the beam cut a path through the darkness behind it. It was a large object, but how large was difficult to say. Evidently the NASA controllers were wondering too, because the drone projected a measuring laser onto the sphere, and began to move upward toward its pole. It made circuit about it, moving at a quick clip. It disappeared behind the sphere for a several minutes, then finally came up from the bottom pole, returning to where it had begun.

Throughout the drone's circuit, the object remained stationary. Felizitas saw no sign of external markings or ports. Nothing that would indicate a weapon, nor any system of propulsion. It seemed woven without seam from top to bottom. The drone put out its beam again, and was preparing to measure the sphere's equator, when something happened that made the silent agent beside her shout in alarm.

The sphere rotated. Gently at first, then more quickly until it seemed to match the very speed at which the drone had moved over it before, the sphere rotated on its axis, moving beneath the red beam. Its movement was unambiguously intentional. It was helping the drone in its task. The four of them stared at it, dumbfounded. Numbers came up in green on the bottom left of the screen. Measurements.

She stared at the numbers. Something stood up inside her brain, and did a cartwheel. Two numbers. 1.21439 km; its equatorial circumference, and 1.21236 km; its meridional circumference. It was not a sphere. Not quite. Fireworks were going off in her mind, the sign that her subconscious had already reached a conclusion, and was waiting impatiently for her intellect to catch up. With shaky hands, Felizitas reached into her purse for her phone.

"No pictures," said the man on her left.

"I need the calculator," she said, speaking hoarsely.

She fumbled with the key code, and quickly pulled up the app. It only took a moment to do the calculations. When she was finished, she starting laughing.

"What is it?" all three men asked together.

She looked up at Yatnesh, tears in her eyes, though she was smiling. She did not know why she cried, except that she was in awe.

"The sphere...it makes a ratio with the Earth. It's 33,000 times smaller. Exactly. What does that mean?"

Yatnesh looked at her, and squeezed her hand. He started to say something, but whatever it was died quickly. On the screen, the sphere was moving. It wasn't rotating anymore. Instead it dropped, plunging gently into the atmosphere, like a stone into the sea.

Dante

Dante put a hand out.

"Slow it down," he said, the flat of his palm against Aliyah's chest.

She was four, and not much for listening. The girl drove hard left, then suddenly spun off his hand to the right. They were in the Sheep Meadow in Central Park, and now she was running free toward the Mirror Sphere. He ran to catch up with her.

"Oh, so you a little athlete, huh?" he said, catching her hand.

Aliyah looked up and pouted, but he kissed her chubby cheek, and sat her on his shoulders.

"I want! To! Walk!" she screamed.

"Maybe you wanna go home," he said, mildly.

"No, no, no!"

"Alright, then, listen up," he said.

He walked forward under his little burden. She'd stopped resisting, but locked her small hands around his forehead, partly covering his eyes. The crowd about the object was large and quiet, people swaying like cornstalks. Pilgrims, he thought to himself. They reminded him of a documentary he'd seen about Muslims going to the Kaaba. This was the same thing. Everybody starting up at it, like it was magical. A woman with her face painted in neon colors, and feathers stuck into her hair, was dancing before it; a slow, artless, twisting movement, like she was trying to climb out of a sack underwater.

"What she doing, Daddy?"

"Being a weirdo," he said, and walked around the other direction.

The Mirror Sphere floated about four feet off the ground. It was a hundred twenty feet around, but the news said that it had shrunk a lot. Nobody had seen it shrink though. Dante had never been over to see it, though it had been here a month. Of course he was curious, but he worked fifty hours a week, and the rest of the time he was with Aliyah. And it was New York, so the thing was always mobbed. But this was a Tuesday, and the crowd was lighter. He was off work, and it was Educator Development Day at Aliyah's school.

"What's a weirdo, Daddy?"

"That lady," he said, absently.

"Is that guy a weirdo too?" she asked, at the top of her lungs.

Aliyah pointed at an obese, shirtless white guy wearing a gas mask. Gas Mask turned to look at Dante, as if awaiting his diagnosis. Dante looked him over, and chuckled.

"Yep. That's a weirdo too."

It was quiet. Not New York quiet, but quiet quiet. He could hear people breathing, and the sound of their feet on the grass as they moved slowly about it. About a dozen people buzzed around the Mirror Sphere on their personal drones, flying up beside it, or hovering high above it. The buzz was the only sound to speak of. Aliyah had gone quiet too.

Dante stepped closer, and people made room for him. He was beside it now. In its reflective surface, he caught sight of his daughter, sitting on his shoulders.

"Oh," he said, very quietly.

Aliyah was a young princess, seated on her throne. He hadn't realized that his shoulders were a throne, or that his daughter was royalty. He saw himself, a young warrior who daily strove to provide for her. They were sort of beautiful. Gas Mask appeared on the left, beside his own reflection. It was strange to think, but the very largeness of the man's belly was fascinating. So many different parts to balance in a human body — stomach, esophagus, intestines; lungs, blood vessels, bones...and skin that stretched to accommodate it — all balanced and one. The different organs all worked together somehow, even when they were shifted around by time and eating habits. Like they were on a team or something. He'd never thought about it that way.

Dante moved closer, and stretched his hand up toward the Mirror Sphere. His fingers hovered inches from it. He knew it was safe to touch. He'd heard the object even let itself be moved about, provided there were no obstructions. He went ahead and touched it.

It wasn't cold. Touching it felt like shaking hands, or like he was giving it five, only a lot more personal. Something brushed his leg, and he stepped back. There were people crawling under the sphere, or lying on the grass and looking up at it. It was mostly kids. He imagined that, for them, the Mirror Sphere was a fort. A magic mountain. Their presence below it didn't interfere with whatever suspended it in space.

"Daddy," said Aliyah. "Daddy?"

"Huh," said Dante.

He took a step back, sensing that it was someone else's turn to get close. A man in a suit, a frosty-haired banker type, looked at him with deep gratitude, and filled the gap.

"Daddy, is it a alien?" asked Aliyah.

"What? Yeah, I guess so," he said.

Aliyah made a speculative sound, then suddenly leaned forward, trusting him to keep a hold on her thighs as she craned her head over top of his.

"If it's an alien," she said, looking at him upside down, "where's its teef?"

She curled up her lips, making a beaver face as she tapped her teeth for emphasis. He reached up, and gently sat her back on his shoulders.

"I don't know," he said, shrugging under her. "Maybe it don't need teeth."

She made a clucking sound.

"It's teef, Daddy. You say teef."

"No," he said. "You don't."

She protested weakly, but he reached up and patted her back. She was quiet for a while, looking at it. Everybody was. And Dante thought of Elmer at the shop. He was a Mexican immigrant who worked at the garage, and only seemed to know enough English to be an asshole most of the time. But that was before. Elmer was easy to get along with now.

"Daddy, I want to go down," said Aliyah.

"Baby, there's a lot of people here. I don't want you getting lost."

"I'm not gettin' lost," she said. "I'm wanna go undewit."

Dante stood deciphering for a moment, then understood. She wanted to be with the kids playing in its shadow. He didn't feel like chasing her down there when she invariably refused to leave. But it did look fun. He stepped back, considering. The buzzing from the personal drones drew his attention again, and he watched in particular the people who were flying above the Mirror Sphere, more than a hundred feet in the air. They zipped past each other, trying to take it all in at once. He wondered what would happen if they collided, and landed on top of the floating object. Personal drones were just the kind of thing there'd be a rule against, if the authorities could make rules about the Mirror Sphere. They didn't try. Being a dad,  he thought he understood that. Make a rule you can't enforce, and they know you're not really in charge anymore.

"I don't think you need to go under, Aliyah."

He expected her to scream about it. Instead, two soft, chubby hands pressed warmly against his cheeks. Her salty little fingers poked into his mouth. She whispered in his ear.

"Iz otay, Daddy. I want to."

Smiling, he reached up, and set her down on the grass.

"Okay, baby, but don't run away from me."

She looked up and shook her head in a firm promise. If she were a soldier, she'd  have saluted.

"Yeah, alright. I'll be right here."

She gave a little excited jump, then bent down where she landed, and crawled under the sphere. Once there, she came up to a crouch, and sat Indian style. The pink beads in her braided hair were only about six inches from its underside. She reached up, placing her palm flat against the diamond-metal.

There was a loud crash. Dante couldn't believe it had happened so quickly. He had a sick feeling, like some good angel had given him a warning, and he hadn't listened. He looked up just in time to see two personal drones collide in the air above the Mirror Sphere. Their drivers got tangled together, turned head-downward, and then rushed toward its upper pole, propelled by the drone motors. Something in Dante's gut twisted. He tried to move toward Aliyah. The fliers hit the Sphere hard. Yielding to human pressure, it fell toward Aliyah's head. Then stopped on a dime.

Dante threw himself to the grass, and crawled toward her. Aliyah, her palm still flat against the surface, now giggled, and nuzzled the rounded metal with the top of hair. She squeezed into herself, a little shiver of delight rushing through her.

"Baby!" he said, breathless.

She looked over to him, and then laid her chubby fingers over his lips.

"Iz otay, Daddy. It won't hurt me. It was giving me a kiss."

Disincorporation

"There's one aspect of disincorporation that I'd like to have better explained," said Marsha Brown.

She was sitting near the head of the long boardroom table, across from Boka Ngundu, head of Maples' legal staff. Boka smiled, and gestured for her to continue. John Ricardo II, Chief Production Officer at Maples Corporation, looked on, hoping Marsha's question was the same one he wanted to ask.

"Well," Marsha began, "when Maples disincorporates, what will guarantee that the new policies are reflected in every local store? That is, how can we be sure that a Maples in, say, Brussels, will follow the new policies once it's an independent entity?"

Ricardo looked at her, scowling. That was her question? Not, "Why on Earth would a multi-billion dollar corporation divide itself into hundreds of independent franchises operating under strict 'ethical' constraints?" but, "How can we make sure they all do just that?"

The lawyer nodded, and reached into the briefcase at his feet. He withdrew a small tablet, swiped through it for a moment, then flicked a document onto the common screen. He zoomed in. John read the heading, seeing that it was a section of the Franchise Distribution and Disincorporation Act. Some version of it had passed in every major nation, state, or polycentric legal cooperative. Britain's version, being the model, had all the worst characteristics.

"Take note of Section III, subsection A," Boku said in his rich Nigerian accent. "You will notice that it ties franchise distribution to a given legal entity — in this case Maples — which entity is tied, in turn, to its policies, so that the two are bound together, provided that the act has been passed within said sovereign legal community."

John saw other board members nod, as if it were all perfectly clear. Marsha smiled politely, still apparently skeptical, but not for the same reasons as he. She waved her finger in a slow circle.

"Unpack that for me a little more, please," she said.

"Certainly," said Boka. "In concrete terms, after we disincorporate, a Maples in Brussels, in order to call itself Maples, and to make use of the contacts, supply chain, network, infrastructure, legal identity, branding, etcetera that belongs to Maples, must also follow the new policies, provided that Brussels — or, in this case, Belgium — has passed its own Franchise Distribution Act. In effect, disincorporation replaces an international legal person, the corporation, with a set of internationally coordinated firms operating under the same set of rules. There will be local variations, of course."

"Okay," said Marsha, bobbing her head, as if what Boka had said was music. "That's great. That's just great."

John Ricardo, the only member of Maples' board of directors to whom this was not great, stared at Marsha like she was something growing in a petri dish. A year ago, she'd been weaving webs, positioning herself for a future career as CEO. Now Marsha, like every other bobble-head at the table, was rushing to break Maples into dozens — maybe hundreds — of smaller companies. Vinod Bach, reigning CEO, at least until the company went bankrupt, cleared his throat. A tall, thin man with an olive complexion, he looked around the table, making eye contact with each board member. John saw what passed among them. It was the Look. He'd seen it before. When Vinod met his eyes, John squinted back at him.

"Well," Vinod said, "it appears that we've addressed all the questions. All that remains is to vote. So if there are no objections-"

"I have an objection," said John.

The other board members turned to him, their smiles fading a little, as if he'd yanked them all from a pleasant dream. Vinod opened his hands, inviting John to speak.

"Maples is one of the largest, most stable companies in the world," said John. "We operate on every continent, and in nearly every major country. Our supply chain is second to none. Our profits have increased steadily nearly every quarter for the last ten years! So please tell me why we're committing suicide?"

The last sentence came out in almost a shriek. Under other circumstances, John would have been a little embarrassed. Not today.

The others looked at him patiently. He saw something like pity in their eyes. It made his blood boil. Vinod stroked his chin with one hand, and gently drummed his fingers with the other.

"John," he began, "let me address your question from two angles. First, practically, and then, if I may, philosophically."

John bit his lip to avoid frowning. He could care less about the second angle. Vinod continued.

"It has been demonstrated many times that, as an institution becomes large and centralized, it becomes less efficient. Inefficiencies of scale emerge that equal or exceed whatever efficiencies come with the centralization of resources and leadership. Local action is therefore slow to respond to local conditions, since all important decisions must pass through a higher bureaucracy, which bureaucracy generally becomes a creature of its own, preserving its priorities and excesses at the expense of everything else, including the long-term welfare of the institution in question.

"Meanwhile, smaller organizations can afford to be supple. They can respond quickly to changing circumstances. They can better calculate the needs they are serving, and the customer base for which they are competing, because their scale is more human. They innovate better. Their leadership, being local, is subject to local conditions, and has a stake in the local community. They're also more likely to see employees as stakeholders, and to pay them accordingly. When a company pays an employee a wage upon which he or she can thrive, that employee is happier, and works harder. Employee theft, product loss from carelessness, and the costs of turnover all decrease precipitously. In short, if Maples still provides the service our customers expect, it will be no less stable once distributed. Much more likely, profits will actually increase, though that increase will be localized, rather than concentrated in the hands of shareholders."

Vinod folded his hands, waiting to see that John was following him. John noticed that Vinod didn't look around for support, as people tended to to do when they were being radical at a board meeting. Vinod was a true believer. They all were now.

"Philosophically" Vinod continued, "'we' are not committing suicide, as you term it, because Maples is not alive. The legal fiction that a company is a person, immortal and amoral, and serving only its — that is to say, the current leadership's — interests, is one of the great errors of modern times. It has led to all kinds of anonymous, mindless injustices and irrationalities. As a business leader, Maples has an opportunity to do something rare: to set a good example. That's what we're proposing here."

Vinod settled back into his chair. He was calm. John had heard plenty of self-righteous pronouncements at board meetings. He'd been the first to jump on board every train of progress that passed through Maples station — at least when it was clear that that was where the wind was blowing. This was not that. It was more than a progressive fashion, adopted by the wealthy to soothe their consciences and stroke their egos. Vinod had nothing to prove. He had the truth. They all did. They were all humming a tune he couldn't hear. But John thought he knew the cause. If he was right, there was little point in bringing the matter up. He brought it up anyway.

"You've been to see it, then?" John said.

Vinod looked at him a moment, then nodded. John crossed his arms, then stopped himself, and placed his palms flat on the table. He stared at each of them in turn.

"You've all been. Haven't you?"

His voice was high again. He could barely restrain himself. That they looked back at him with something like compassion; that they knew what he'd meant, and didn't even bother denying it, made it worse.

"You've all got that look!" he croaked. "You've all been gazing into that crystal ball in London Square!"

Marsha Brown sighed.

"John," she said, very quietly, "there's no need to shout."

"Of course I'm shouting!" he shouted. "I didn't bust my ass for twenty years to have my salary indefinitely frozen at three hundred K, or to have the same medical benefits as fucking cashiers and shelf-packers!"

Marsha looked to Vinod. The CEO appeared troubled, and leaned in toward him.

"John, we all worked hard to make this transition painless. No one's taking anything away from you," he said. "Your salary and benefits are the same as before. It's just that the cashiers and 'shelf-packers' will now enjoy more competitive salaries, and similar benefits."

John scoffed; shook his head.

"Where's the money for that Bach? Who's being robbed to pay Paul?"

With unaffected humility, Vinod made a slow, bashful nod. John felt the air go out of him. Could it possibly be?

"You? You're giving up your salary?"

"Not all of it," said Vinod, "but everything in excess of three-fifty. Marsha, Catrina, and Bill Dawes have done the same."

John sat back, dumbfounded. There had to be some catch. There had to be a second stream, or a secret ladder that all of them were in on. Nobody would give up that kind of money just on principle. If it were true, it would change the whole game. So it couldn't be true.

"You're not gonna..." he began, then stopped — considering how it would sound — before beginning again, "...not gonna attract top talent with that low of a ceiling."

Vinod frowned. "Meaning?"

John laughed. Vinod knew exactly what he'd meant.

"Meaning," said John, deciding to be crass, "that if Maples offers less money to execs, it won't get the best and brightest. It'll attract the castoffs. The second-raters."

Vinod closed his eyes, pondering the comment.

"No," he said, "I don't think so. For two reasons. One, because, as you surely know, major corporations are voluntarily disincorporating at a rate of about seven a day, and they're implementing policies similar to these. Two, the world is different now. People are different, John. There are things we're all starting to see, that we didn't before. People are changing, John. Laws and policies...they're just an instance of that change."

John stood up. The chair legs groaned and stuttered with the violence of his movement. They were all looking at him. Pitying him.

"This isn't what I signed up for," he sputtered.

"Oh," said Vinod, a trace of heat in his voice. "You didn't 'sign-up' to be part of the leadership of a successful company? To help foster and oversee it's growth? Then what?"

John smiled down at Vinod.

"I'm not greedy, if that's what you're implying."

"I do not recall suggesting this," replied Vinod, mildly.

"Yeah, but you think it. You all think it," said John.

No one bothered to contradict him. They just kept looking at him with a condescension so sincere, they might have been parents watching a child's hungry tantrum.

"Fine," said John. "Call me selfish. Call me greedy. They're just words. Words used by a helpless mob to tear down the capable. The world runs on merit, Bach. That's reality."

They were all silent, letting him talk. They seemed genuinely concerned. He was the madman. They were the orderlies. For a while, he just stood there, not knowing whether to sit back down, or to walk out right then and there. Marsha cleared her throat.

"Uh...John, have you considered...visiting the Mirror Sphere?"

That did it. He leered at her, and shoved the chair hard into the table.

"Not a chance," he said. "I resign. But don't worry. You'll be seeing me around. Maybe when every Maples is bought out by Olden Mart."

He turned, and walked away. He was halfway to the door, when he overhead Marsha's comment. It hadn't been meant for him, but he heard it anyway. He grabbed his phone, and checked to see if it was true. And it was. Olden Mart was disincorporating too.

© 2021 Joseph Breslin All Rights Reserved

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