Compulsory Redundancy

Compulsory Redundancy

By Jack Harvey

Niall Robinson tapped his fingers impatiently on his knee as he watched Vincent Chambers chat jovially through his ostentatious looking chrome headset. He was a man that looked the very image of a company CEO. Square jawed, arrogant, finely coiffed hair and an affectation that was whiter than white. He radiated undeserved confidence.

Chambers was also one of those people who didn't give a damn if you could overhear his conversation or not. In fact, Robinson judged that he revelled in it. Nothing pleased Chambers more than letting people know exactly what was going on in his life.

"Yeah," Chambers said, with a smile on his face as he straightened his blue silk tie. "Yeah. Yeah, Tuesday at six. Yeah.... yeah... gotcha'."

Chambers gave a hand gesture to end the call before punching the air with a look of glee on his face. Then he turned to Robinson.

"Aunt Sally's," he said without context.

Robinson looked at him, confused. Even though he had known the man for years, Chambers' boundless self absorption never ceased to disturb him.

"What?" Robinson sighed, rubbing his head slightly.

"Aunt Sally's," Chambers repeated, smacking his hand on the fine oak of his desk. "The new place! Near the wharf. You know? Six month waiting list? Gold leaf pizzas to die for?"

Robinson shook his head. Chamber's lunch plans were as ostentatious as his damn headset. Indeed, looking round the office Robinson found little that suggested subtlety. His desk was adorned with gold and marble pen holders. The office itself was filled with cabinets displaying glittering awards and trophies, most of which were from Chambers' son, from one school event or another.

Chambers excitedly walked around his desk before sitting down on it's corner, towering over Robinson. He slapped the man's shoulder. "So, what it it you wanted to see me about sport?"

Robinson almost spluttered. He couldn't believe that Chambers didn't know what he had come all the way across town for.

"You know what I'm here for," Robinson said, trying to keep his cool.

Chambers just stuck out his bottom lip and shook his head.

Incensed, Robinson shot to his feet, and pulled a letter from his inside pocket. He threw it onto the desk.

"I'm here because of this god-damn thing," he shouted.

Calmly Chambers picked up the letter and read it. "Ah," he said, the situation currently dawning on him. "Compulsory redundancy."

"Exactly," Robinson said. "Vince we've known each other for decades."

"Niall," Chambers said, choosing his words carefully, his face a half smile. "I didn't know anything about this."

"What do you mean you didn't know?" Robinson asked, before smashing his hand on to the desk. "You're the god-damned company CEO!"

Chambers held up his hands, half smile still on his face. "Niall, you know as well as I do that you designed the algorithm that makes the company decisions now. I'm just a figurehead."

"You didn't even think to check?" Robinson said, exasperated.

Chambers shrugged. "That's the great thing about computers Niall. You can just leave things to them and enjoy yourself," He got back off the desk and walked over to the window. "Did you know that even the government is considering a hands-off approach? Apparently most councils are planning on letting the algorithms do the work these days."

"Never mind the algorithms!" Robinson said. "It's my work that got you here. I'm entitled to a fucking gold leaf pizza just as much as you are!" He then breathed out, and tried to calm himself. He approached Chambers. "I just came here so you could make this right."

Chambers leaned back and sucked his teeth. "No can do I'm afraid old chap. If the algorithm has decided you're surplus to requirements, then I'm afraid the company has no more need of you. It's already decided that letting you go is what's best for the consumers."

"I'm surplus to requirements?" Robinson said in shock. "Then what does that make you Vince?"

Suddenly a device on Chambers' desk began to ring. "Hold that thought Niall," he said, only half listening. Then he picked up his headset and put it in his ear. "Vincent Chambers speaking."

Robinson was fuming. He'd put years into the company. Gave up time he could have been spending with friends and family and instead spent it coding the algorithm. He had seared parts of his soul getting it tailored just right for Chambers' company. It was his life's work, and now it was replacing him.

It took Robinson a few moments to realise Chambers had gone silent. The CEO's arms were slumped, and his face looked enraged.

"What do you mean I've been fired?" he screamed.

Nobody really expected the end to happen the way it did. The world was built on a perfect system after all. Why have bosses, directors, councils, landlords, when a simple algorithm could crunch the numbers and tell you exactly what needed to be done next?

When thousands began losing their jobs, nobody batted an eyelid. That was just the way of things. It wasn't until the distinction between employee and customer started to blur, however, that people started to take notice. By then, though, it was far too late.

Humanity was getting in the way of company efficiency. The algorithm had decided to make the entire human race redundant. It was, after all, only working as designed.

Humanity didn't last long after that, with all the food being consumed by more efficient customers. Robots and drones to fill the stores and concert halls, designed to the specifications of the algorithm. They were the consumers now.

Most starved to death. Automated supermarkets would refuse to serve food. Automated garages would refuse to sell fuel. Humanity was wiped out merely through attrition, as farms and forests where whipped up to serve a new world of consumers.

Robinson only survived because he knew what was coming. He had designed the algorithm. He knew exactly what kind of efficiency it strove for. It didn't take him long to realise that he could masquerade as one of the 'consumers' as long as he had a barcode to scan in each store.

That, however, was only step one. The algorithm had designed it so that every consumer had a place. Every market had a demographic. Each robot or drone was designed for a specific purpose. It had to be up at the same time each morning, and stay in lockstep with it's cohorts, ready to consume the same goods, purchase the same products.

So it was that Robinson nearly drove himself half crazy through concentration. Every morning he would don his salvaged chest plate and walk in sequence to the train station where he would stand, crushed in like a can of sardines, side by side with the other robotic consumers as soulless adverts that were wasted on them barked commands to consume.

Robinson would walk in line all day, every day. Not too quick, not too slow, lest he be deemed defective and taken away for repairs that surely would do his flesh and blood no good. This was the only reliable way for him to get his hands on food, which he would devour voraciously as he watched the other consumers simply deposit burgers and roast dinners into a slot in their chests, before disposing of it at the end of each day and retiring to uniformly white painted houses.

This day was to be no different. Robinson rubbed his eyes, and steeled himself to repeat the day's task, having long lost track of how many days he had been doing it. As he made his way across the room to retrieve his stolen chest plate, his toe stabbed into a screwdriver on the floor.

For a moment, he looked down at it.

"No," he said to himself. "It's just a crazy dream."

Yet as he prepared for the day's grind, Robinson couldn't get the dream out of his head. He had designed the algorithm. He knew, to a degree anyway, how this system worked. As long as he was wearing the right barcode then he would continue to be mistaken for a consumer. The barcode he already had was allocated to nothing other than burgers and roast dinners. If he could somehow switch barcodes with another consumer, however...

He looked back down at the screwdriver.

What did he have to lose?

It took Robinson several days of planning. His prescribed route would pass by the hardware store on their way to the burger place. He often saw another line of consumers leaving with power tools. He knew not what they were used for, or if the consumers even did anything with them at all. As long as the algorithm was producing goods that were getting purchased it saw no discernible difference.

Robinson knew if he could just switch lines with his own then he could get his hands on one of those power tools, and with a power tool it would make things much easier to switch places with other consumers.

"One thing at a time," he told himself. Carefully, he stepped out of the train station, screwdriver gripped in hand. The consumers were expected to wait in a specific order at the burger place, and it would often take fifteen minutes to walk across the centre, but if the weather was wet it messed with the grip on their feet. That gave Robinson a very small window.

Once off the train he sprinted ahead, feet splashing in puddles below. As water leaked through the rubber of his soles he made a mental note to infiltrate a line to the shoe shop if he managed to pull this off.

There, just a few stores away from the burger place, was the hardware store.

Approaching the line was another faceless, identical consumer. However, Robinson had been studying the line, watching the numbers and timing their entry and exit. If he was correct, the one in front of him was the one that always 'purchased' power tools.

He looked around. Living amongst this soulless world was eerie. Nobody was watching. The consumers cared little for Robinson's appearance, but he knew if his barcode didn't get scanned at the right time they would turn on him.

Even so, Robinson couldn't shake the habit of acting stealthily, and instinctively held up his jacket to conceal what he was up to. As fast as he could manage he began unscrewing the back of the robot's chest plate, trying his best to not shake the consumer, or trigger anything that would effect it's mechanics.

He had managed to loosen six of the eight screws when he felt a twitch at the back of his head. Turning, he saw the group of consumers he was supposed to be a a part of approaching the burger place quickly. His time was almost up.

Robinson had to decide whether to drop the plan and leave, or keep going. If his barcode wasn't scanned for burgers when it was expected then the GPS device weaved into it's foil would signal the other consumers to remove him as defective.

Robinson then looked at the burger place. He was done eating burgers.

With all the speed he could muster Robinson began working on the rest of the screws. The seventh was out as the line outside the burger place began to form. The eighth was out as they began to scan their way in.

As he tried his best to ignore the gaping space in the line where he was supposed to be, Robinson yanked off the consumer's chest plate and then followed that with his own. Frantically, he swapped them round, forcing as many of the screws back into their holes and twisting them in with the screwdriver.

He only managed to get four in when he heard an uncomfortable bleep from across the way. His absence at the burger place had been noticed.

Robinson looked back at the line of consumers, waiting for them to act. Instead, they carried on into the burger place, taking no notice or action.

Then Robinson heard an almighty crunch from behind him, and he turned. It was the consumers from the hardware store line that had come to 'correct' the defective.

Robinson had never seen a consumer look surprised before, it's blank plastic head made expression all but impossible, but he had to admit, the one he had just swapped barcodes with looked mighty surprised.

The alerted consumers removed their cohort's arms and legs, and then swiftly made to carry it away. With nothing standing in the way, Robinson took his place in line. The hardware store was now only meters away.

Robinson had helped himself to a plethora of power tools. After some jury-rigging, he was now much better prepared for switching chest plates with the consumers. Making a swap would take him seconds rather than minutes.

Over the next few months Robinson capitalised upon his advantage, and concluded that if he kept switching line to line, barcode to barcode, he could move himself up in the world. He had gone from burgers and casual roasts to gourmet salads and fine steaks. He furnished his house with fine sofas and curtains. He began to piece together a more comfortable life, perfectly camouflaged from within the algorithm's perfect system.

Even so, this only pleased Robinson for so long. He knew if he really wanted to achieve his dream he would have to climb even further up the ladder of this strange society. He would have to leave the suburbs and shopping centres.

He had to get back to the city.

So it was that over another series of months and careful plans Robinson continued to switch places with consumers. Chest-plate to chest-place. Barcode to barcode. He switched into a line that purchased cars from a car showroom, and before his absence was noted, drove to the city and switched places again, taking careful observations of these new lines and schedules he was no longer familiar with.

He set up in an abandoned apartment that looked down over the lower east side. It had the perfect view of the cities commercial centre. The city almost looked exactly like it used to, and Robinson had a pang of nostalgia thinking about where he used to work, long before the extinction of the human race.

The nostalgia was soon gone, however, as he began to put the final phase of his plan in motion. Robinson used every waking hour to observe the lines of consumers below him, and take note of when they started and when they stopped. It took him several months to even get into a line close to the commercial centre, and even then the wide roads of the city made it more difficult to exploit the few windows of opportunity he got safely.

It was hard going. As ever, jumping from line to line, a small window here and there.

When his opportunity finally came, Robinson could barely remember a life before the consumers. His every waking minute was filled with thoughts of lines, queues and the seconds that counted down between them. He knew faces no longer, just blank plastic visors.

After months of work Robinson had eventually managed to get close to one of the consumer's most exclusive locations. Though he wasn't sure if they could even be said to be aware of such a concept.

It was a rainy day, which meant Robinson had once again a little more time to slip away and swap places than he would normally be graced. Even so, all other lines were kept at arms length, so Robinson knew he would barely have seconds to make the switch if he wanted to reach his goal.

He had been out of his designated line ten seconds. His absence had already been noticed, and as he ran down the block he could hear a group of consumers tracking his barcode. His feet splashed in the water, and he was glad for his new pair of boots. This switch would be life or death. If he hesitated, or even mistimed his switch, then it would be him being taken away for 'maintenance' and not his target.

Sweat was running from his brow, as he saw a remotely driven limousine slow up in front of the building. Out of it stepped a consumer, as identical and indistinguishable as the rest of them.

"Here we go," he said to himself.

Robinson lunged for the consumer, pulling out his power drill and stabbing for the screws. One, two, three! The consumer flailed, confused as to what was unfolding. Five, six, seven! The pursuing consumers were almost upon him.

Eight! With one fluid movement, practised over years now, Robinson whipped off the consumer's chest plate and his own at the same time. Smoothly, like a ballet dancer, he secured the one around his chest, and used the power tool to fasten his old discarded one in place.

He stepped back, and his pursuers lunged at the consumer, methodically tearing off it's arms before dragging it away.

A smug smile on his face, Robinson took his place in line and made his way into the building.

The interior was finely decorated. Chandeliers hung from the ceiling and renaissance-esque paintings, but with consumers in place of humans, adorned the walls. Consumers sat at tables, mindlessly scooping fine food, like caviar and oysters, into openings in their chest cavities.

The absurdity did not bother Robinson. He was just glad to have gotten there. After all the hardship, and all the years of fighting and planning, he laughed at the irony that he had gotten to dine at Aunt Sally's before Vincent Chambers ever did.

Light headed, as though he had just entered the gates of heaven, Robinson sat down at his allotted table.

He closed his eyes and breathed in. The smell of cheese and garlic was unmistakable. When he opened them he was greeted with the object of his desires. The one thing he had not been able to forget after all these years.

The gold leaf pizza. It glistened in the light of the chandeliers.

"Fuck you Chambers!" Robinson said with a laugh, gingerly pulling himself a slice. The cheese stretched, and the gold leaf cracked open like little nuggets being panned out of a river.

Robinson took a bite, and savoured the taste.

And then, horror, despair. Robinson winced. He scrunched his face up and shook his head. Tears began to stream from his eyes.

The pizza was fucking disgusting.

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Jack Harvey 2019