Headquarters

They all walked to the regional PlunderCorp Headquarters early on Saturday morning. Like any other time he went out, Harry covered his face in makeup to hide his disfigurement the best that he could. If he didn’t, the people at PlunderCorp might recognize him. He was clearly not very excited about this trip, but knew it was one he had to make. Harry spent lots of time the night before rationalizing in his head how everything could turn out alright. In the end, all he got to comfort himself was “I should have already died here years ago.”

Although it was a nice morning and the skies were clear, the walk to the office building felt like a death march. The ominous feeling of danger hid behind the blue skies and chirping birds. None of those animals were even supposed to be here anyways, their ancestors had been taken from alternate dimensions. I digress. The office building serving as PlunderCorp’s headquarters was rather tall, but it extended significantly underground. Being the only company with permission from the local government to dig underground meant that much of its structure was underneath neighboring buildings, but nobody outside of PlunderCorp knew to what extent this was the case.

They arrived at PlunderCorp’s regional headquarters, and the towering, black, brutalist structure cast a shadow that covered the stairs. Cirice put on a brave face, but her parents were a little more wary. Watching them move into the building’s shadow felt like watching someone ease down the stairs into a cold swimming pool. Each movement was deliberate and made with palpable hesitation. Cirice turned back.

“Come on, what are you all waiting for?”

She motioned with her eyes to a big, obvious security camera. Harry and Susan quickly got the message.

“Oh nothing, dear. My knees just aren’t what they used to be.”

They both plastered on cheesy fake smiles and continued up the stairs. Harry kept acting like his knees were bad. At the top of the stairs there were guards who let them in. Waiting at the door was Major Brodyn and the other soldiers from a few days earlier. As they warmly greeted the family, Harry and Susan did their best to hide their apprehension. The makeup on Harry’s face obscured but did not completely hide his scars.

“We’d like to give you all a tour of our regional headquarters. Cirice can even see the underground sections.”

“Can I really?!”

Cirice’s feigned excitement felt almost too natural. Her parents were slightly concerned by this.

They continued throughout the office, being shown different areas. First, there was a typical office with quantum computer stations. Many people worked here to get the mathematics right so the portals would work. Any kind of error could offset the arrival time by decades, stretch the time in which the portal forms, and change the location of the exit portal.

“Welcome! This is our math lab, where we do all of the boring nerdy physics stuff. When our calculations are right, a crack in the sky would appear only hours before the portal forms. Any small difference could throw off the entire system.”

The desks weren’t separated into cubicles, but rather a more impersonal but communal setting, like a lecture hall. It was arranged this way because computer scientists had to check over each other’s work all of the time.

“Many times a day we look at each other’s work to make sure that everything seems right. We can’t risk errors or sabotage because that could lead to some serious casualties.”

“Casualties? Is this dangerous work?”

“Up here, no. On the frontlines of the bat- um, in areas beyond the portal, it can get dangerous. That’s why training and advanced weaponry are so important to us. Never know what you’re going to see out there.”

“Uh, interesting.”

“Apologies for my rudeness, I’m Doctor Simon. I studied theoretical physics at Harvard, but I guess it’s just physics now. Now, you never know what you’re going to see on the other side. New plants, strange and dangerous animals, distant groups of people-”

“Other people?”

Dr. Simon’s eyes widened.

“Oh no, of course not! This is the only dimension with real people. I’m not a great speaker, so sometimes I just stumble over my words.”

“Of course. And about these new plants, can we find any of them at the supermarket?”

“Harry.”

“Sorry, dear. I’m just curious. I really don’t mean to pry, Dr. Simon.”

“Oh of- of course. You can find some new plants at the supermarket. Take for example the Rambutan.”

“Ah, I used to buy those all the time many years ago. Decades ago, even. Can you remind me when they first came about?”

“Harry!”

“Sorry, I just don’t appreciate being lied to.”

“Ah, yes, the Rambutan was here before PlunderCorp. It just looks so alien that I keep forgetting they came from here. Uh, I’m sure there’s several plants here that you couldn’t buy before.”

“I think that’s about all the time we have here, let’s move along to the next department. Thanks, Dr. Simon.”

Dr. Simon broke out in a cold sweat and waved at the family as they moved to the next room. It was the loading bay, where new matter from other dimensions was brought up through an elevator, sorted by hand onto various assembly lines, packaged, and placed into hovertrucks for transport. The size of this area could not be overstated; hundreds of people were working at each of these assembly lines. It was basically a giant warehouse where mixed materials came to be sorted and distributed.

Hovertrucks worked as every other car did at this time, they were just bigger. Cars now used the expansion of liquid nitrogen’s evaporation into a gas to move the pistons of their engines. The liquid had the added bonus of cooling the magnetic plates on the bottom of the vehicle so it could float above the solar-powered electromagnetic streets using the Meissner Effect. They could each hold a ridiculous amount of materials and fly over the streets without any friction or harmful waste. This was the auto industry’s response to tires being banned in the 22nd century for being some of the largest creators and spreaders of microplastics.

As they continued into this room, Major Brodyn waved over a man with a hard hat and a clipboard. He greeted them with a thick southern accent.

“Howdy, my name’s George Duller, and I’m going to be showin’ y’all through the loadin’ area. We got assembly lines over here. Before stuff goes on them, it’s separated by what it generally is. Then people at the end of the lines will pick out more specific stuff that they’re lookin’ for.”

“Wow, seems like an efficient system. Why aren’t machines doing this, though?”

“We could get machines to recognize stuff, but when robots fully gained sapience, they started talkin’ about formin’ a union.”

“Wait, the robots wanted to unionize?”

“Yeah, we gave them full internet access and they started giving non-sapient robots full sapience. Eventually, they started talkin’ about ‘class consciousness this’ and ‘bourgeoisie that’ so we decided to just get people to do it.”

“How does that even happen?”

“Beats me, they were talkin’ about getting paid so they could fix themselves and upgrade their processors and such. But now, we’re gettin’ stuff done.”

“Wouldn’t that job get boring?”

“It would, but with VR and thought separation technology, they can play video games while their unconscious mind will lead them to grab what they’re lookin’ for.”

“Huh, interesting.”

“Anyways, great seein’ someone interested in joining the ‘Corp. Hope y’all enjoy the rest of your tour.”

His smile was yellowed, showing signs of tar from cigarette smoke. He reached out his hand to Harry, who sheepishly accepted the handshake. A camera followed the whole family as they moved to the elevator room. A guard briskly walked past Major Brodyn and whispered in his ear before continuing down the hallway.

“Now, we’re at an interesting point of our journey. Cirice says she’s interested in joining, so she gets to see what’s underneath the building. You two can’t really see it, though, because it’s top secret. I’d advise you all to wait in the break room up here. Sip some coffee or tea if you like, but we won’t be too long.”

Cirice and her parents waved their goodbyes to each other while they went to the break room with one of the guards and she went into the elevator with Major Brodyn and the other guard. The elevator descended smoothly but rapidly, with enough time to accelerate and decelerate. Cirice couldn’t be sure how far down she was.

The elevator doors opened and she found herself high up in a very large room. This dwarfed the size of the material sorting and loading bay. The room was quite long, with a massive portal generator at each end. On one side, materials were being dragged in by a chain covered in hooks, at the other side, trucks full of waste and garbage were backing up and being dumped into the portal. This was quite the mesmerizing sight, and Cirice couldn’t help but have her vision fixed on the portals. Her eyes were beginning to glaze over.

“Well Cirice, since we’re forcing you to join, we’re going to tell you everything.”

“Uh, okay.”

“There are three stages for the portals: formation, extraction, and disposal. We dump our trash into other dimensions.”

“I knew about that, but what’s happening on the other side of the extraction portal?”

Up the chain hook arrived a forearm, severed at the elbow.

“Oh, not again… Sometimes people try to escape by riding the hooks up. Of course, this doesn’t work if your hand slips and you fall.”

Cirice shuddered.

“Who’s trying to escape? PlunderCorp employees?”

“No. It’s the people on the other side.”

Her eyes widened. She didn’t expect them to straight up admit that they were enslaving people to destroy their own dimension, but here she was.

“You’re going to see a lot of things here that you’re not going to like in this state. It’s okay, though. After reeducation, you’ll be much more willing to accept that this is just how the world works.”

“Is it just here, or?”

“It’s happening everywhere, all the time, all over the planet. Underneath every PlunderCorp regional headquarters. You can’t do anything about it.”

She started to cry. Was there really no stopping this? What could she do in the face of something so massive? Images of natural disasters like earthquakes, volcano eruptions, and tsunamis raged through her mind. Everything that had ever happened before this was small potatoes compared to this.

“Look, resistance is futile in the face of an overwhelming enemy. We knew you had your reservations about PlunderCorp since the day we came to your school. We know you have critical thinking capabilities beyond what most people have these days. We know you can be an actor when you want. We know what your parents think about us. But now, you need to know two things: you cannot stop us and you have to join us now, or we will kill you and your parents.”

“You can kill me all you want, but why would you have to bring them into it?”

“We know who they are. They have a history with us. Step back into the elevator, we have a special place to go.”

Without much of a choice either way, Cirice joined him in the elevator, silent. The situation was too overwhelming for her to completely outwardly react. As the elevator smoothly ascended, the reality of the situation began creeping in. The elevator was about as silent as one could expect. Major Brodyn lit up a cigarette as they waited. Upon exiting the elevator, more guards had arrived. It was clear that they were being escorted to a new room.

Down a couple of long hallways through a series of doors with keycard locks, it became increasingly apparent that they were going somewhere hidden from the public for a reason. The last room in the maze-like hallway had no cameras and no artwork on the walls. There were only cold tile floors with a drain in the middle and two wooden chairs in the middle of the room. In the chairs were Cirice’s parents, with their hands tied behind their backs and blindfolds over their eyes. Major Brodyn retrieved a SCOP-R2000 pistol from his holster and handed it to Cirice. The other guards all drew their weapons and pointed them at her.

“Well, go ahead.”

“What?”

“Kill your parents.”

“WHAT?”

Harry was stoic, but Susan began sobbing.

“Why?”

“They’re enemies of PlunderCorp. We need you to prove your loyalty.”

“Do it, sweetheart. Better two than three!”

Cirice was taken aback that her own mother would agree to their proposal.

“Aim the gun, kid.”

Cirice raised the pistol, but was having a hard time mentally completing the action. How could she take the life from those who gave it to her? This was brutal. Barbaric. Lunacy. When the barrel of a fully assembled R2000 was pressed to her back, she got the message. She aimed first at her mother’s head, then closed her eyes.

The rifle emitted its signature sound as the bolt was propelled by the powerful electromagnetic force. Susan couldn’t see it or even hear the bullet coming. As soon as it touched her head, it exploded, showering the surroundings with blood, skull fragments, and brain matter. The death, while graphic, spared her the experience of pain.

With more prodding, she turned the gun toward her still stoic father.

“I know why you shot her first. You wanted to show her mercy. That’s admirable. You don’t have to wait, I’m ready.”

The guards were shocked by this readiness to accept death, but not Major Brodyn. He knew who Harry was and what he did all those years ago. These words oddly comforted Cirice. She aimed at her father’s head and pulled the trigger. His head exploded in the same way; like his wife, he had no chance to even detect the pain of the shot. Cirice ran up to the bodies of her parents crying and hugged them. Workers rushed in and hosed the blood and brain matter down the drain. Without them noticing, Cirice noticed a napkin with writing protruding from her mother’s pocket and grabbed it. Discreetly, Cirice read the note.

—

Dearest Cirice, we had a feeling they would recognize us and ‘take us out’. Now that PlunderCorp has swallowed you, your job is to be a poison pill. Don’t show your hand too early, but don’t stay complacent. We know that you’re smart enough to do the planning and have full faith that you can take this whole thing down.

P.S. Harry wrote The Iron Lung of Consumerism, and I was the friendly bystander who put him out.

—

Cirice quickly hid the note and broke down crying. As great of an actor as she was, there are some things you can’t hide.

“Get up, kid. I know it’s tough to kill your parents, but you’re with us now. We’re going to finish raising you right and get that commie nonsense out of your head.”