The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [506]
“What if I don’t get him back, Mr. Schitt?”
“Well,” he said, looking at his watch, “if you have any grievances about the quality of our contrition, you had better take it up with your appointed Goliath apologist. I don’t work here anymore.”
And he smiled a supercilious smile, put on his hat and was gone.
“Well!” said the new apologist as he walked around the desk and started to arrange his possessions in the new office. “Is there anything you’d like us to apologize for?”
“Your corporation,” I muttered.
“Fully, frankly and unreservedly,” replied the apologist in the sincerest of tones.
15.
Meeting the CEO
Fifty years ago we were only a small multinational with barely 7,000 employees. Today we have over 38 million employees in 14,000 companies dealing in over 12 million different products and services. The size of Goliath is what gives us the stability to be able to say confidently that we will be looking after you for many years to come. By 1980 our turnover was equal to the combined GNP of 72 percent of the planet’s nations. This year we see the corporation take the next great leap forward—to fully recognized religion with our own gods, demigods, priests, places of worship and prayerbook. Goliath shares will be exchanged for entry into our new faith-based corporate-management system, where you (the devotees) will worship us (the gods) in exchange for protection from the world’s evils and a reward in the afterlife. I know you will join me in this endeavor as you have in all our past endeavors. A full leaflet explaining how you can help further the corporation’s interest in this matter will be available shortly. New Goliath. For all you’ll ever need. For all you’ll ever want. Ever.
Extract from the Goliath Corporation CEO’s 1988 Conference speech
I walked to the main desk and gave my name to the receptionist, who, raising her eyebrows at my request, called the 110th floor, registered some surprise and then asked me to wait. I pushed Friday towards the waiting area and gave him a banana I had in my bag. I sat and watched the Goliath officials walking briskly backwards and forwards across the polished marble floors, all looking busy but seemingly doing nothing.
“Miss Next?”
There were two individuals standing in front of me. One was dressed in the dark Goliath blue of an executive; the other was a footman in full livery holding a polished silver tray.
“Yes?” I said, standing up.
“My name is Mr. Godfrey, the CEO’s personal assistant’s assitant. If you would be so kind?” He indicated the tray.
I understood his request, unholstered my automatic and laid it on the salver. The footman paused politely. I got the message and placed my two spare clips on it as well. He bowed and silently withdrew, and the Goliath executive led me silently towards a roped-off elevator at the far end of the concourse. I wheeled Friday in, and the doors hissed shut behind us.
It was a glass elevator that rose on the outside of the building and from our vantage point as we were whisked noiselessly heavenward, I could see all of Goliathopolis’s buildings, reaching almost all the way down the coast to Douglas. The size of the corporation’s holdings was never more demonstrably immense—all these buildings simply administered the thousands of companies and millions of employees around the world. If I had been in a charitable frame of mind, I might have been impressed by the scale and grandeur of Goliath’s establishment. As it was, I saw only ill-gotten gains.
The smaller buildings were soon left behind as we continued on upwards, until even the other skyscrapers were dwarfed. I was staring with fascination at the spectacular view when without warning the exterior was suddenly obscured by a white haze. Water droplets formed on the outside of the elevator, and I could see nothing until we burst clear of the cloud and into bright sunshine and a deep blue sky a few seconds later. I stared across the tops of the clouds that stretched away unbroken into the distance.