From His Perspective

Have you wondered how our World would look from the perspective of one who had a rather large hand in its creation? If so, read on, you might be surprised…

The Big Bang

The Boss was sitting in quiet contemplation surveying the vast expanse of nothingness beneath him. It was a very dense kind of nothingness and had been several millennia in the making but, finally, it was almost ready for the next part of his plan. As he ruminated on the blueprints piled up on his desk, he took a tentative sip of piping hot tea before reaching over to grab a pencil from a tin, which was entirely black except for a single, brilliant white stone on its lid. It was the tin that had given him his latest idea and, although he was not given to introspection, he had to admit he was feeling pretty proud of himself. After having made a few minor design alterations, he put down his pencil and reached once again for his cup of tea. Leaning back in his chair, he put his feet on the edge of his desk and closed his eyes, a small, satisfied smile on his face. Several moments later a blast, cosmological in its enormity, shook the walls of the office and The Boss found himself lying on the floor in a tangle of tea covered robes.

“What the bloody hell was that??” He scrambled to his feet, lost a few moments trying to locate his left sandal but then he was off at a run, determined to find the source of the noise.

The Boss did not have, as has been regularly postulated, a handsome benevolent face and a long flowing white beard. In fact, his face was often scowling, he was a bit podgy as a result of a proclivity for chocolate biscuits and, although he did have a beard it was short and a little scruffy. However, what he did have was an amazing turn of speed and extremely accurate hearing.

“oops!” Followed by the subtle sound of slippers departing at top speed was enough for him to guess the cause of the explosion and he set off in search of his PA at an ungainly gallop. He usually had a certain grace but running whilst trying to create a soothing breeze around his nether regions, with tea-drenched robes was no mean feat. The object of his ire came into view and he put on a final burst of speed before launching himself at his PA and tackling him to the floor of one of the many viewing platforms that surrounded the immense black space.

“Norbert, what have you done to my Factory?” The Boss was holding a short, angular man at arm’s length and was dangling him over the edge of the railing that was designed to stop people falling off the viewing platform and onto the Factory floor.

“Boss, calm down, you’ll do yourself a mischief carrying on like that.” The nasally voice was pleading. Although he was gripping his Boss’ muscular arms Norbert was increasingly aware that, if he let go, the only thing between him and extinction was his underpants elastic. Being dangled over a precipice by your pants is an unpleasant experience and Norbert was not sure if he was more worried about falling or the damage being done to his tenders by an epic wedgy. He took a deep, if shaky breath and arranged his normally untidy features into, what he hoped, was an appealing grin.

“Boss, please, if you’ll just let me down, I can explain…” He felt himself drop another couple of inches and his eyes watered.

“No, no, no. Not down, not down. Boss, I’m begging you. Up!” The final word was little more than a squeak as he clenched his buttocks as tight as possible in an effort to stop his pants from disembowelling him. He was immensely relieved when the Big Man relented and hauled him back over the railing where he collapsed in a heap. He fought to gain control of his shaking legs whilst, simultaneously, trying to extricate his pants from places that he doubted would ever be the same again.

“Norbert!” An angry red face appeared inches from his nose and the great bellow was enough to lift his wispy ginger hair out of his watery blue eyes (they didn’t normally water, but it had been a rather trying few minutes).

“Sorry Boss.” He sighed with relief as the last centimetre of pants worked its way free turned his attention to the Big Man who was still screaming at him.

“Norbert, just tell me what happened!”

“It was like this: you know I’ve been working on the black holes, trying to get them up to the right temperature, like you said?”

“As we’ve worked on nothing else for the last few aeons, yes. What’s your point?” The Boss was standing with his arms folded glaring at his sweating PA. Norbert shuffled his feet and nervously picked at a stray thread on his robe before ploughing on.

“Weeelllll, I know you said that we needed to be extra careful because we’re reaching a critical point and all that but…well the thing is…..I was peckish. It had been a long time since breakfast, and it gets a bit boring monitoring black holes after a while, so I decided to have a biscuit.” As he spoke, he slipped his hands in the pockets of his robe and grasped his underpants tightly through the material. If they were going to be the only thing keeping him from falling to his death, he wanted to make sure the elastic was still intact.

“Norbert, what do you mean you had a biscuit? You told me we were out of biscuits!” The Boss was shouting again, and his PA looked shifty “I distinctly remember asking you if we had any more biscuits when you brought me a cup of tea and an Eccles Cake this morning! You know damn well I don’t like those; they look like they’re stuffed with dead flies! ‘Haven’t we got any more chocolate biscuits’ I said, and you said ’no they’re all gone! Don’t tell me you didn’t say it because I know damn well you did!”

“Boss.” Norbert was loath to interrupt, under the circumstances, but he’d had some experience of biscuit related rants and had no wish to spend the next few decades listening to another one. “As I was saying,” he continued “everything was fine, I was being careful but then I sneezed and, well, let’s just say there were crumbs.” Norbert’s voice had sunk to a whisper and he was slowly backing away from the Big Man, shoulders hunched, and buttocks clenched.

“Please don’t tell me there’s biscuit in the black holes, not after everything we’ve been through to get them operational.” Norbert almost felt sorry for his Boss as he saw his eyes well up with tears of frustration and he reached out a hand to comfort him. ‘Wait a minute’ he thought ‘Are those tears of frustration or murderous fury in his eyes? Bugger!’ He quickly snatched his hand back and watched the Boss as he paced furiously back and forth, steam rising from the soles of his sandals.

Taking a deep breath, eyes flicking left and right, desperately looking for an escape route, Norbert continued. “No, no it’s not that bad, honestly. It wasn’t a piece of biscuit just one crumb, that’s all, I promise.” Norbert was gabbling now “One tiny crumb fell into one of the black holes and then there was a bit of an explosion but there’s no real harm done.”

“No harm done?” the big man roared “You take the last sodding biscuit and then you sneeze half of it into my black hole? You have got to be kidding me!” His white robes flowed behind him like sails on a battleship as he advanced, once again, towards his quaking employee. Sadly, for Norbert, he was already against the railing with nowhere to go but down. He held up his hands hoping to ward off his raging Boss. “I meant the black holes Boss.” He said hurriedly “Look, they’re fine.”

They both turned to look over the railing and it did appear, at first glance, that Norbert was indeed right but then the Big Man spotted something and said, “Hang on a minute, what’s that…..stuff oozing out? It’s all shiny!”

Norbert was relieved that his Boss was no longer bellowing, but he was also slightly worried that his biscuit crumb may be making a comeback. “Well, it can’t be my biscuit crumb.” he said, using the well-worn mantra of the guilty – deny everything “Biscuits aren’t shiny.”

“Yes, I’ll grant you that is true but what else would you suggest it is?” said the Boss through gritted teeth “The point about black holes is that there’s nothing in them, they’re just a huge mass of nothingness. Do you know how much planning is involved in creating nothing like that by the way? Do you?” The Boss was getting irked again and was wagging his finger at Norbert in a manner that is universally known to come at the start of a very long lecture. However, it never came as they were both distracted by a low, intense rumbling.

“Ummm Boss, I think we might have a problem.” Norbert was leaning right over the railing now, desperately hoping he wasn’t seeing what he thought he was seeing.

“We? It’s not me who took the last bloody biscuit! It’s not me who insisted on eating it while he was supposed to be working! It’s not me who…..”

“Boss! LOOK!” Norbert yelled at the top of his voice until he had the Big Man’s attention. The biscuit crumb, if that is indeed what it was, and the Boss really had no proof, appeared to be getting bigger.

“Norbert.”

“Yes Boss?”

“Ruunnnnnnnn!!!!”

The nothingness that they’d been so carefully nurturing all this time was expanding at an alarming rate. It almost throbbed with dense, uncompromising power and, as it grew, it sucked everything into its darkness. It was as though a heavy, black cloak was being dragged over the Factory. They ran. Fast.

“Shit, that was close.” said Nobert after they’d finally stopped, and he’d caught his breath. He was checking himself over, looking for possible injuries when he suddenly realised something, “Oh bugger! I’ve lost one of my slippers, they’re just not built for that kind of speed.” He said sadly.

The Boss was lying on his back, chest heaving. He hadn’t actually needed to lie down, being reasonably fit despite all the chocolate biscuits, but he’d tripped over his own robe coming around the last bend and thought it would be more dignified to pretend that his prone state was intentional.

“You’re not kidding, I didn’t think we were going to make it there for a minute, the momentum of that thing was incredible, I’ve never seen anything like it! I’ll tell you what, it’s going to take more than a dustpan and brush to clear that mess up.” He chuckled to himself, more from relief that they’d avoided the massive vortex than anything else.

“Yep, no doubt about that Boss; it’s going to take bloody ages.” muttered Norbert dispiritedly as he knew damn well that it would be him who was left to tidy up. The Boss was a great believer in delegation and he really hated housework. “Pretty though wasn’t it? Be interesting to see how it turns out once everything’s settled down a bit. Sheesh, is it just me or is it bloody hot in here?” Norbert lay down beside his Boss, fanning himself, and contemplated the swirling mass that surrounded them. For a moment they just stared, taking in the astonishing beauty that was unfolding before their eyes, gentle smiles playing around their lips. The Big Man didn’t think that he’d ever felt such a sense of peace and he would have been quite content to just lay there quietly had something not suddenly occurred to him.

“Norbert?”

“Yes?” Norbert who was still happily gazing at the blue and orange swirls cavorting in the dense blackness failed to notice the concern in his Boss’ voice.

“Where exactly did you lose your slipper?”

“It flew off as I took that sharp bend round by the viewing platform, why?” Curious, Norbert turned to look at his boss’ face and moments later said, “Oh bloody hell!”

They scrambled to their feet and took off, legs flailing madly, as another black hole spewed out what had once been a size 7 tweed slipper. They narrowly avoided being sucked into another vortex by hiding under a desk in Norbert’s office, but it was a close-run thing. Once it was safe to come out, they brushed the dust bunnies from their robes and the Boss announced that he was going to have a lie down in a darkened room while Norbert tidied up. “And it wouldn’t hurt you to sweep up under your desk every once in a while!”

Norbert reached for a dust pan and brush, his duster and a pair of rubber gloves and set about cleaning up, all the while grumbling under his breath ‘He could have given me a hand or at least found me a new pair of bloody slippers’.

After all the excitement, the subsequent millennia were a bit of a disappointment. “Why is it still so dark?” moaned Norbert. He was peering intensely at the Factory floor, but he couldn’t see a thing. “I’m sure I can hear something moving about down there but I’m damned if I know what it is, it’s irritating.”

“You’re bored, aren’t you?” said the Boss calmly. He was poring over some designs and making slight adjustments here and there. “You could give me a hand if you want something to do.”

Norbert moved away from the viewing platform reluctantly, he was determined to figure out what had been moving around down there, and wandered into his Boss’ office.

“What are you working on?” He peered over the Big Man’s shoulder. He was bored but he wanted to make sure that whatever the Boss was working on was more interesting than doing nothing before he committed himself.

“Well, as you keep moaning about how dark it is, I thought I’d do something about it. What do you think?” he passed the blueprint over to Norbert.

“Hmmm, yes, they’re very pretty, they should brighten the place up nicely.” Norbert grinned, pulled up a chair and reached for a pencil. ‘This will definitely be more interesting than doing nothing’ he thought to himself. They worked on for quite some time, refining the designs and the mechanisms needed to put them into place. The Boss had decided that, for the time being, they would stick with tried and tested methods.

“Right Norbert, are you ready?” The Boss yelled at his PA across the dark chasm that stretched between them. They were both holding on tightly to ladders that had been placed on viewing platforms that faced each other and were carefully watching pockets of gas that writhed beneath them in the Factory.

“Yep, ready when you are Boss.” Norbert replied at the top of his voice.

“OK, now don’t forget what I said, throw and then run. Leave the ladder where it is, we can come back for it later. Right, on my count – 1, 2, 3 Go!”

Norbert pulled his arm back and launched a handful of biscuit crumbs into the dark, seething mass before throwing himself off the ladder and making a dash for it. There were a number of explosions which resulted in the most spectacular light displays, the whole Factory was lit up in hues of blue and purple, yellow and red. Norbert and the Boss watched the first few but then decided that, as it was likely to go on for a while, they might as well go and have a cup of tea. When they returned, the light show was over but, in its place, was a breath-taking display of twinkling stars that rested over the Factory like tiny diamonds resting on black velvet.

“Well, that turned out alright didn’t it?” Norbert was standing on the viewing platform, his hands on his bony hips, looking out at the mass of brilliant lights.

“Yep, not bad at all” replied the Boss “looks like our calculations for cosmic gas and biscuit crumb ratios were spot on.”

They patted each other on the back and then just stared, mesmerised by the view before them; it really was quite stunning.

From that moment on the Factory took on a new energy and for the next few millennia Norbert and his Boss were kept extremely busy working out what to do with the minute life forms that kept popping into existence. Norbert wanted to keep them as pets, but his Boss had other plans; his feeling was that, with a bit of work, they could be developed into something quite interesting. As their workload increased, they expanded their labs, recruited more staff and put together revised blueprints for the Factory.

The Boss had to concede, eventually, that the biscuit crumb incident, whilst completely buggering up his original plans, had actually resulted in something quite intriguing. There would certainly be developmental and logistical challenges that he hadn’t counted on, but he was rather enjoying seeing everything blossom around him. Where there was once just an endless black chasm, there was now life and it was quite beautiful to behold. Not only that, the amoebas were really cute; he tickled one under the chin as he worked on his latest modifications.

Dinosaurs

Things had progressed reasonably well over the past millennia and The Boss and Norbert now had a large team working under them who managed stock control, product development, despatch, recycling and accounts. They also had a laundry, cleaners and a large kitchen that served meals, made from whatever they had conjured into existence that week, to the ever-expanding workforce. Their creations were always nutritious but often left a lot to be desired in the taste department as the kitchen staff were inexperienced and didn’t have an awful lot to work with. Norbert and the Boss had always just got by on biscuits so there was quite a steep learning curve for all concerned. The head chef did his best with what he had but it was all a bit hit and miss. There was almost a riot when the first batch of amoeba soup was served up; The Boss was particularly upset “They were so sweet!” he cried. Subsequently he always made sure that he always kept emergency stocks of biscuits in his desk drawer.

One afternoon, he and Norbert were standing side by side on the Factory floor and munching on chocolate chip cookies; today’s special had been escalope of diploceraspis with an algae salad and neither of them had fancied it. They were preparing for the introduction of a new species and the Factory was on stand-by. Except for their workers milling around taking measurements and making minor adjustments to the terrain, it was incredibly peaceful. The climate was warm, if a little humid and the landscape lush and verdant; the atmosphere was one of complete calm. Insects and amphibians, synapsids and sauropsids had all been set to ‘pause’ as the team prepared the Factory for a re-boot. The Boss and his PA finished their biscuits and decided to make their final inspections; they made minor adjustments here and there and eventually stopped before Nobert’s contribution to the new species.

“Norbert, I’ve got to ask, what is it?” The Boss was looking bemused as he regarded the beast that towered above them.

“I am not quite sure what to call it to be perfectly honest with you but, you’ve got to admit, it’s impressive.” Norbert beamed up at his latest, massive creation.

The Big Man looked across at his assistant with his untidy face, that was saved from ugliness by twinkling blue eyes, and wondered at his enthusiasm for the hideous beast. He was obviously incredibly proud of his creation, so the Boss tried to explain as diplomatically as possible.

“Yes, Norbert, it’s big, I’ll grant you that, but it’s not all about the size you know.” he said gently.

Despite the soft words, Norbert detected a slightly defensive tone that he couldn’t quite fathom, but he ignored it and said, “But it’s my first attempt at anything this big Boss and it’s not like we haven’t got the room is it?” Norbert waved his arms around indicating the vast space that was the Factory. He felt slightly deflated and couldn’t figure out why his Boss wasn’t more enthusiastic; he’d worked really hard to get finished on time even missing his morning tea-break.

“Yes, I know,” said the Big Man, trying and failing to remain patient “but the problem is that you didn’t stick to the bloody blueprint, did you? I spent ages coming up with the design for this particular predator and it looked nothing like this.” He slowly walked around the huge creature, examining it from every angle “The head’s nothing but teeth, the eyes are like piss holes in the snow………”

Norbert frowned “What’s snow Boss?”

“It’s something new I’m working on but I can’t get the temperature quite right, it’s giving me some real headaches I can tell you…..don’t change the subject! As I was saying, it’s got those teeny tiny little arms which are completely useless, I mean, how is it going to catch its prey?” He was trying not to get ratty, but it really got on his pip when Norbert messed about with the blueprints. It was bad enough that his original fish design had been compromised to the point that the little buggers refused to stay in the sea, and he’d had to fiddle about replacing gills with lungs before they were all extinct, but this! This was something else. His original design had been four legs of equal length, a massive head with horns and a rather attractive collar made from cartilage, and a tail. It could run at speed, its body was armoured for protection and it could both impale and tear apart its prey – what else did you need from a predator? ‘Honestly’ he thought to himself ‘the only way this monstrosity is going to kill something is if it falls on it.’ He sighed as his eyes followed Norbert who was walking over to the beast. ‘I suppose shouldn’t get too cross with him’ he thought ‘at least he’s using his imagination’.

“Umm, Norbert, what are you doing?” The Boss glanced over at his shoulder at the team who were putting together finishing touches before the reboot. “We’re not ready yet. Don’t you dare!” He lunged at his PA but he was too late.

“Ta Dah!………..”

With a beaming smile Norbert flicked the on switch which was located under the smallest toenail of the right foot (in case you were wondering). The great beast lurched and shuddered before opening its tiny eyes and then, with a terrifying roar, it took its first step.

“Oh shit!”

There was pandemonium in the Factory until the off switch, which was located in the left testicle, had been flicked. Workers were hauling their colleagues out of swamps, a maintenance crew had been called in to repair the worst of the damage and a number of chickens had discovered that they actually could fly if they had enough motivation. Eventually peace was restored and, despite his reservations, the Boss had decided to go ahead with the reboot, including the introduction of Norbert’s creation. A prototype pair were launched and quickly established themselves within the carnivore hierarchy. Despite the teeny tiny arms, the new predator seemed to be quite effective and the original plan had been to ensure a balance in nature, so the Boss was comfortable with his decision.

Several decades later Norbert knocked on the Boss’ door looking subdued. “I’ve made a cup of tea Boss if you fancy one and I found some chocolate biscuits.”

With a rictus grin he put down the tray and scuffed his toe gently along the floor, not looking up.

“How many of them are there now?” The Big Man asked through gritted teeth. He was resigned to the fact that he had a problem to deal with, but he still hadn’t forgotten the terrifying sprint round the Factory. If the toe his sandal had found the off switch, not that he’d known where it was at the time, who knows how much more damage there would have been. It would be a while before he forgave Norbert.

The Boss arranged his features into a scowl and waited for his PA to respond. He then poured a cup of tea, put his feet on his desk and reached for a biscuit.

“Umm, a few. Well, quite a lot to be honest, they’ve been mating you see. In fact, mating, eating and fighting is really all they seem to do.” Norbert sighed. “I must admit I got a bit carried away and I realise that it wasn’t my best work Boss but I honestly never thought that they’d cause so much havoc.”

Havoc was an understatement. The once tranquil terrain was being torn apart as the giant creatures searched for something small and terrified to eat. Hundreds of chickens were trapped in trees, unsure how to get down and the bigger beasts had learned, to their cost, that something with that many teeth didn’t need long arms. However, as instructed, Norbert had included provisions for a certain degree of autonomous development in the dinosaurs. The Boss hadn’t wanted another emergency recall as had been necessary when the fish decided that they no longer wanted to live in water. This meant that many of the other species of dinosaur were adapting; growing larger and more powerful with each generation, in order to redress the balance and stop the giant beasts from destroying their habitat completely. Unfortunately, the violence between the creatures had escalated to intolerable levels and there was a real risk that they would eventually wipe out all the other species that Norbert and his Boss had painstakingly created.

Norbert was feeling slightly guilty that he hadn’t paid more attention to the blueprints. He had enjoyed himself enormously creating the huge animals, but he hadn’t really given a great deal of thought to logistics. His design was certainly original, but its execution was definitely slap dash. The only brains he’d had available at the time were usually used for chickens and, as he couldn’t be bothered to draw up the necessary plans to rescale them, he’d just shoved them in and hoped for the best. Subsequent analysis had revealed that there were two types of chicken brains: one which panicked at the sight of anything that wasn’t another chicken and the other which had a pathological desire to peck everything to death. In poultry the latter wasn’t a huge concern but, in an animal weighing 20,000 kg it presented a real problem anything that moved.

Norbert’s toe scuffing continued and there was definitely a hint of embarrassment in the air. He’d had the very best of intentions, but he realised now that the Boss was in charge for a reason and he promised himself that he would stick to the blueprints in future.

“Right, so as bloody usual, I’ve got to sort out the mess, yes?” The Big Man snapped.

“Ummm, yes……. sorry Boss.” The embarrassment that had been in the air was now stuck to Norbert’s face and his bright red cheeks were clashing spectacularly with his ginger hair.

“Typical! Well, never mind, I think I might be able to work something out with the snow if I can get the temperature down a bit and we can try to use that to stop the buggers.”

Norbert looked at his Boss respectfully while, at the same time, trying to work out if there was any chance of his being offered a biscuit. He sidled a bit closer to the desk with, what he hoped, was a penitent and slightly peckish expression on his face. The big man looked up at him, thoughtful for a moment, and said “I meant to ask you, did you ever come up with a name?”

Embarrassment rescinded a tad from Norbert’s face and a touch of pride took its place.

“I did as it happens……Bastardisosaurus Reg; what do you think?”

He helped himself to a biscuit, secure in the knowledge that the Big Man’s black mood was passing, and he was on his way to being forgiven.

“I think it needs work” the Boss said “and put that biscuit back. Incidentally, next week you’ll be working on something a bit different, just until I’ve got Reg and his friends under control, you understand?” Although this was said casually, there was an underlying vibe of ‘do not bugger this up.’

“Yes Boss, anything you say Boss, have you got the plans?” Norbert slipped the biscuit into his pocket and then stood to attention, eager to redeem himself. Now he’d heard ‘Bastardisosaurus Reg’ said out loud his pride had wandered off looking a bit sheepish and was refusing to come back.

“What? Oh yes, over there. They’re called birds until I can come up with a better name and they’re a bit fiddly.” The Boss was concentrating on the carnage going on in the Factory and wondering if he had time to sort out the snow problem before the Regs wrecked the place completely. ‘If not, I suppose I could just throw some bloody great rocks at them.’ he thought.

“Is this to scale Boss? They’re a bit small.” Norbert called across the office. He’d turned the drawing round a few times, wondering if his perspective was off but it didn’t make a scrap of difference.

“YES!” The Boss roared and threw a stapler at him. Norbert jumped and ran off to the Development Lab. He was resigned to the fact that he would be making small and harmless things for the foreseeable future but grateful that at least he hadn’t been relegated to insects. He’d been arguing for years that constructing mayflies was a complete waste of his time, but no-one listened.

The Big Man eventually worked out how to get snow to the right temperature and resolved the problem of the Regs. Unfortunately, his solution wiped out all the other dinosaurs as well which irritated him as he’d put a lot of work into them. His mood wasn’t helped by Norbert who kept moaning that it was ‘bloody freezing’ or the mountain of memos from the Accounts Department complaining about the size of the heating bill. His staff seemed to have forgotten that it was all Norbert’s fault, and were moaning along with him, especially Gavin in the Returns Department whose job it was to process the dinosaurs as they came back into stock. Normally, they would have been processed and handed over to Lionel in recycling, but the Boss had instructed everyone that dinosaurs, as a species, were ‘on hold’ due to their inability to survive in temperatures below freezing. Each and every one had to be put into storage and Gavin and his team complained non-stop about their chilblains until the Boss gave in and provided them all with gloves.

Cavemen

Norbert was eventually allowed to move on from bird manufacture, despite not always following the plans he’d been given (it took several grovelling apologies before the Boss forgave him for the DoDo). Unfortunately, his subsequent assignment was giving him a few problems and he was spending a lot of time closeted in his little office, mulling over blueprints and chewing the end of a pencil with a look of extreme concentration on his face. This expression did little to help his face other than to close the miniscule gap that normally resided between his bushy eyebrows.

Several months had passed since he’d picked up the paperwork and he still wasn’t sure that he fully understood what was being asked of him. Not only that, his usual approach of ‘give it a go and see what happens’ just wasn’t working. He picked a few shards of pencil from between his teeth and wandered over to the Boss’ office; it was in another dimension but, happily, he knew a short-cut. Unusually, he didn’t bother knocking but just walked straight in, an act he would come to regret several milliseconds later.

“Ow!! Ow! Damn that stings!” Norbert picked up a glass of water from the desk and threw it in his own face; there was a slight sizzle and then the smell of smouldering eyebrows. Norbert frantically patted his face until he was sure there was no chance that he was going to reignite.

“Oops! Sorry about that Norbert.” His Boss said. “I didn’t see you there.” He looked at his PA’s angry face intently for a few moments before adding “At least it’s sorted out your little unibrow problem.”

Norbert felt his face gingerly before blurting out, “Yes, it’s now a no-brow problem. Thanks.” He wouldn’t usually use sarcasm on his Boss, but then again, he normally had two fully functioning eyebrows. “What in the name of Percy’s pimple was that?” he yelled. The Big Man had the grace to look slightly contrite even though he was trying very hard not to laugh at his PA who was still manically dabbing away at his face with a balled up hanky.

“Umm, well, it’s something new that I’m trying out; I’m calling it ‘fire’. I’ve been playing about with some old lightning bolts I found in the hall cupboard and a box of spare lava that was tucked behind the fridge and this is what I came up with. What do you think?” He sounded as though he would be genuinely interested in Norbert’s opinion and was seemingly unaware that he hadn’t really picked the right moment.

“What do I think????? What do you think I think, look at my face!” there were some stray ginger hairs on the left-hand side of his head that were still gently smouldering; Norbert was not happy. “Apart from anything else, what are you going to do with it? It’s useless! Unless you’re thinking of retiring and you’re going to burn the Factory down and claim on the insurance!”

The big man looked offended and then slightly concerned in turn; he loved his Factory and would never torch it, but he had forgotten to renew the insurance. He decided to change the subject.

“I’m thinking about giving it to the herds that you’ve been working on. How’s the new batch going? Everything alright?” He and Norbert had been working on species development using a process of minor wiring adjustments, some internal structure reorganisation and what the Boss called ‘natural changes.’ He’d noticed that certain primates had demonstrated basic organisational skills and the ability to live in small communities with other primates without giving in to the desire to rip their arms off. He had a feeling that this could be the start of something really interesting and had decided to aid the process to see what would happen. After several millennia experimenting, a wholly new species of animal had emerged, and it walked upright.

“Well, I was coming to see you about that but now…” Norbert was still feeling huffy, so he crossed his arms and span on his heel, determined to slam the door on his way out. Sadly, he had had little practice of heel spinning and he ended up doing a full 360 which left him, once again, face to face with his Boss. The Big Man turned away, trying, unsuccessfully, to smother a snigger. Norbert humphed and plonked himself down in a chair. He fished around in the pocket of his robe for his report whilst, simultaneously, trying to see his own eyebrows ‘I must look ridiculous’ he thought irritably.

“Yes, well, that’s what I was coming to talk to you about; to be honest, it’s not going well at all. I’ve managed to work out how to get rid of most of the fur and they are now ‘ugging’ rather than screeching so we’re on the right path, but I cannot, for the life of me, figure out the last section of this blueprint. What are ‘emotions’? Something new that you’ve decided to spring on me, Like the fire?” Norbert was determined not to let this one go.

“Oh right, yes, didn’t I mention that?” The Boss had the innocent expression of someone who knew damn well that he hadn’t mentioned it but had no intention of admitting it.

“No. You didn’t. How am I supposed to come up come up with all the right bits when I don’t know what it is that I’m making?” In actual fact, Norbert had often come up with prototypes without having the first clue what he was making but they were physical; he understood physical.

“Um, sorry about that. OK, it’s like this, I’ve decided that the new herd should be a little more, shall we say, complex. Everything we’ve done up until now has been great from a mechanical point of view, but we’ve never paid much attention to the brains.” He glanced at Norbert who was looking confused. “The grey jelly bit, remember? We’ve programmed in ‘flight’, ‘fight’, ‘eat’, ‘crap’ and ‘mate’ but that’s about it; I thought we’d take it to the next level.”

“And the next level is motions is it?” Norbert was still feeling perplexed although his look was one of surprise, but that could have been down to the eyebrows, or lack thereof.

“Emotions” his Boss corrected him kindly as he was still feeling slightly guilty “Feelings, like love and compassion, that sort of thing.”

“Riiiggghtt” Norbert said slowly “And you think that’s a good idea, do you? You think that they’ll be able to cope if we stuff their heads full of feelings? I’m still trying to stop them eating the fleas that they pick off each other; do you really think that they’re ready for this?”

“I do. Yes.” The Big Man frowned, whatever guilt he had been feeling miraculously disappeared in the face of Norbert’s questioning of his authority.

“Right you are Boss, I’ll get on it straight away, although I can’t see the bloody point in trying to complicate things like that.” Norbert muttered in a low voice as he walked towards the door.

“What was that?” The Big Man called out

‘Damn’ thought Norbert, ‘he’s got ears like a Dodo’ (Although a Dodo’s survival instincts were somewhat lacking, they did have extremely good hearing.)

“Nothing Boss.” he called out as he shut the door behind him and wandered back in the direction of his own office. He was deep in thought, so he didn’t see Fanny until he was almost on top of her; a situation he had sometimes fantasised about in his rare solitary moments. He blushed and swallowed hard as Fanny smiled at him ‘She’s so pretty’ he thought to himself.

“Hello Guv, what happened to your eyebrows?”

‘Damnit!’ thought Norbert ‘Of all the days for this to happen.’

“Afternoon Fanny, ummm, small accident, top secret development, can’t say anymore.” He tapped the side of his nose and winked conspiratorially.

“Oh, rightho Guv, only Dave down in Despatch told me that the Boss was messing about with some old lightning bolts and I just wondered….”

‘Bloody Dave!’ thought Norbert ‘Why couldn’t he keep his mouth shut?’

“Ahh ha ha ha! No, no nothing like that.” Norbert could feel his face growing hot and decided to change the subject “Anyway, I’m glad I’ve bumped into you, you’ve saved me a trip down to the stock room. I wonder, could send up some ‘feelings’ when you’ve got a minute? I’ll fill out the requisition form later.”

“What sort Guv? The Boss put shedloads into stock the other day so you can have whatever you like.” Fanny liked Norbert’s gauche ways and was happy to help him out; she gave him a big grin as she waited for his response.

Norbert was grinning back and desperately trying to remember what his Boss had told him.

“Love?” he said

“Sorry, what?” said Fanny’s smile dropped a little and she looked slightly concerned.

Norbert suddenly realised what he’d said and turned and fled, his face aflame with embarrassment.

“Just send up whatever you’ve got.” He called back over his shoulder. Once safely back in his office he shut the door and locked it before collapsing in his chair ‘I’m not going out there again for a while’ he thought before turning his attention back to his blueprints.

Sometime later Norbert and the Boss were hanging over the railing on one of the viewing platforms watching events unfold in the Factory, sleeves of their robes rolled up, hands propping up their chins. They’d been there for several decades, fascinated by what they were seeing.

“How many emotions did you give them exactly Norbert?” the Boss spoke slowly, not sure that he was going to like the answer.

“Ummm, I’m not sure to be perfectly honest with you; it all got a bit tricky. I started off with compassion like you said but that caused a problem with the wiring. I just couldn’t get their brains to work properly, it was almost as though they were out of whack in some way. Every time I asked Dave to send a couple of prototypes down to the Factory, they would just wander around with a soppy look on their face and then end up getting run over by a woolly mammoth.” Norbert frowned slightly at the memory of the argument he’d had with Lionel, who job it was to put the prototypes back together again. He’d made it clear that Norbert needed to find a way to stop them getting broken whilst they were in the development stages. “No matter what I tried, when the only emotions the prototypes had were joy and compassion, they had absolutely no sense of self-preservation; one of them even tried to give a sabre tooth tiger a hug! That did not end at all well I can tell you and Lionel was furious. So, to counteract all that, I had to add some different emotions to sort of balance things out, if you see what I mean.”

“When you say different….?” The Boss had an idea he knew what was coming based on the scenes playing out below them, but a kind of morbid curiosity persuaded him to probe a little deeper.

“Different as in opposite. You know, to balance out compassion I had to wire in indifference, for joy I needed a touch of misery, that sort of thing. They just didn’t seem to work properly otherwise.” Norbert was still leaning far over the railing, his sandaled and slightly grubby feet raised on tiptoe.

His Boss thought very carefully before asking the next question and tucked his clenched hands inside the sleeves of his robes in order to resist the temptation to push his PA over the railing.

“What about love? The most important one? The one I specifically said that we needed to add in huge quantities so that these humans, and, yes, before you say anything, I’m sticking with that name, would not wreck my Factory or try to destroy each other.”

“Oh yeah, I put loads in Boss, shed loads of the stuff. I got in a right pickle trying to balance that out I can tell you.” Norbert chuckled and carried on watching the scene that played out below. Had he looked at his Boss’ face he may have given the chuckle a miss and moved a step or two away from the railing.

“You’d be amazed what a combination of ingredients I had to put together to balance out love.” he continued “A bit of envy, a pinch of hate, some fear, all sorts! It took ages to get the mix right and the amount of washing up there was afterwards! Honestly, Boss, you’ve never seen anything like it!” Norbert shuddered at the thought but comforted himself by thinking about the amount of overtime he’d be putting in for.

“And the ‘balance’ aspect of the whole thing? That was absolutely necessary was it?” The Boss had gone over his original blueprints and was fairly certain that Norbert had come up with the concept of ‘balance’ simply because he didn’t want to have to completely re-do all the internal wiring. In his original plans this new species was completely docile and would have lived in perfect harmony with the other creatures in the Factory. He glanced over the railing and frowned.

“Absolutely Boss! No doubt about it! You’ve got to admit they’ve turned out well haven’t they? They’re interesting, you can’t argue with that.” Norbert look up and grinned…and then he saw the look on the Big Man’s face and stopped.

“Norbert, if I have to do a complete product recall, I’m not going to be very happy; you know I don’t like paperwork.” The Factory generated a surprising amount of paperwork and the Boss had countless assistants whose job it was to do the filing and keep his diary but there was no way he could leave a full product recall to them. He glared at Norbert before turning his attention back to the Factory floor.

In the scene that was being played out, 2 human males were in the process of dismantling a woolly mammoth, which would serve as both lunch and next season’s wardrobe, and another 24 were trying to attract the attention of a particularly well-proportioned human female. 16 other females were standing at the entrance to a large cave, with their arms folded and lips pursed, glaring at the lone female who was cause of so much interest. She was all too aware that she was the centre of attention and was trying very hard to edge her way to the safety of the cave, but, before she could reach the entrance, her undulating hips proved too much for the males and a scuffle broke out. During the fight a passing Dodo was killed by a carelessly thrown rock and a small child’s foot was stepped on, causing it to cry out in pain, which resulted in all 17 females attacking the males with wooden cooking implements. A few minutes later, after the fighting had stopped, the child was being placated with a woolly mammoth knuckle and there were noises coming from the cave that indicated the lone female had been far more interested in finding a mate than she’d made out.

“Interesting?” said the Boss “Yes, I suppose that’s one way of putting it.” He was not one given to prolonged bouts of rage so the temptation to throw Norbert over the railing had passed. In addition, he had to confess that watching the drama that unfolded before them, on a daily basis, did have a certain addictive quality. What amazed him most was seeing how quickly they had evolved. He’d been very impressed when they’d begun to fashion simple tools from the things that they found lying around in the forest and was gratified by how quickly they’d realised that fire had some very practical uses. He supposed that a diet of raw fish and whatever they could pluck from nearby trees and bushes would be enough to motivate anyone into learning how to cook but still!

What surprised both he and Norbert, however, was how rapidly they learned to see to their own comfort. When the Boss decided to experiment with the climate, to make sure they didn’t have the same problem they’d had with the dinosaurs, they started to build simple structures and kept themselves warm with the fur of whatever animal they’d killed for dinner. They worked together to protect their young from predators and they mated often to ensure the continuation of the species as, until they’d invented spears, the predators where much better armed than they were. ‘Perhaps I was too hard on Norbert for adding in all those extra emotions.’ thought the Boss and he looked over at his PA fondly. Norbert gave him a grin and then they both turn back to watch what was happening in the Factory.

It was evident that some of the humans were becoming aggressive again, only this time it seemed that the argument was over a small area of the forest.

“So, if I’ve got this right” said Norbert “the little guy with the big club wants to build a structure for himself on that piece of land but the other chap got their first, has already started building and is refusing to move?”

“Yep, that seems to be pretty much it. I can’t see why he can’t just build on that bit over there though.” The Boss pointed to an area of forest that looked, to all intents and purposes, absolutely identical.

“There must be something different about it surely…..oh, wait a minute…if you look there you can see the cave where the females are living. If the little guy was to build on the other plot, he wouldn’t be able to watch them. It’s still a bit odd though, they’ll still be there if he watches them or not and anyway, if you ask me, they don’t really seem that interested in him. I reckon it’s that big club that’s putting them off, he’s compensating for something.” said Norbert sagely.

“Isn’t it about time that you put the kettle on Norbert? I’ll have a nice up of tea and a jam doughnut if we’ve got any.” Norbert glanced across at his Boss who was looking mildly miffed for some reason.

“Right ho Boss but keep watching, won’t you? I want to know what happens next.”

“Yes, yes, yes! Go and make the bloody tea, it will do you good to have a break from watching the humans all the time, it’s not healthy.”

The Boss turned his attention back to the goings on in the Factory as Norbert scurried off as fast as his sandals could carry him. He was soon back with two half-full cups of very weak tea and a packet of digestives clamped between his teeth.

“What did I miss?” He said a little breathlessly after he’d put everything down. Ignoring his tea but helping himself to a couple of biscuits, he resumed his vigil.

“I thought I asked for doughnuts” his Boss said irritably “and call this tea? It’s more like gnat’s piss.”

“Sorry, didn’t have time, couldn’t find the doughnuts, what did I miss?”

Norbert scooped up his teacup and another handful of digestives and was hanging over the railing, a look of excited expectation on his face. Oh, they’ve stopped fighting.” He was disappointed “What happened Boss?”

“The chap who’d started building his shelter finished it and it was very nice.” The Big Man was hoping that would be an end to the discussion, but Norbert was completely hooked on the humans’ exploits and wasn’t going to let it go.

“I can’t see it. Did he change the location after all?”

“No. The little guy who wanted to be able to see the females got really annoyed and he….umm….set fire to it.” the Boss said slightly sheepishly.

“So, where are they now? I can’t see either of them?” said Norbert screwing up his eyes as he tried to focus. He tried not to have favourites amongst the humans, but he’d really enjoyed watching those two as they squabbled.

“No, well, the thing is” the Boss said slowly “unfortunately, the fire caught and then spread to the furs that they’d been saving for next year and they went up in flames. Also, regrettably, the meat for the winter was stored in a sort of wooden lean-to, so that caught as well and, let’s just say, it got a bit overdone. After that, all the other humans got a bit annoyed and beat the two of them to death with clubs. They’ve all moved back to the cave now so it’s safe to say that things have regressed a tad since you went off the make the tea. Anyway, stop hogging all the biscuits.” He grabbed the last of the digestives irritably.

“Are you quite sure that it was such a good idea to share the results of your latest experiment with them? It looks like they’re not quite ready to handle fire.” Norbert took a sly, sidelong glance at his Boss and then went back to sipping his tea with an innocent expression on his face.

The Big Man said nothing. Norbert was right and that’s all there was to it; giving them fire before they’d got the hang of emotions may have been a tiny cockup on his part. That said, he did not appreciate it being pointed out by his PA. He moved away from the railing and headed back to his office but not before he ‘accidentally on purpose’ bumped Norbert’s shoulder causing him to spill most of his tea. The resulting deluge in the Factory was never documented as the humans who drowned had no idea what tea was and hadn’t learned to write but, trust me, it happened.

Norbert stood on the platform alone for a while watching the humans. He found them curiously entertaining and was beginning to see the little differences in their characters. He watched as they fought, laughed, worked and mated (they seemed to do that a lot) and, more importantly, communicated with each other. He really didn’t know why his Boss was worried. Yes, the wiring might not be man enough for all the emotions, but he was sure that, with a few modifications along the way, the humans would turn out quite well. He had no doubt that, after a time, they would realise that violence was not the way to solve disputes and that they would learn to live together in perfect harmony, just as the Boss had intended. He couldn’t be certain when it would happen, but he found that he was looking forward to it; there was only so much entertainment that watching people hit each other over the head with clubs could provide. Suddenly bored, he stretched and then, picking up the empty teacups, walked back to his office.

The Bronze Age

As time marched on, The Boss realised that the Factory was generating far more paperwork than he was comfortable with and so he enlisted Norbert’s help to take some of the pressure off. There was quite a backlog of memos, budget summaries, forecasts and performance analysis charts to wade through so neither of them had much time to monitor what the humans were up to. Fortunately, they had staff whose job it was to report on the progress in the Factory, so they weren’t overly concerned. Norbert was hunched in his chair scanning through long lists of figures when he heard a knock on the door of his office.

“Excuse me Guv, have you got a minute?”

Glad of the excuse to tear his tired eyes away from that month’s Crustacean Regulation and Progress report, Norbert looked up and invited the speaker to sit down.

“No problem Cecil, I’ll be glad to take a break to be honest. Now, tell me, what’s up?” He put his hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair, trying to relieve the ache in his lower back.

Cecil was the structural engineer responsible for the Factory’s physical integrity and he took his job very seriously. That morning, one of his underlings had brought something to his attention that concerned him and could, potentially, cause problems so, naturally, he wanted to kick it further up the Management chain.

“It’s this Guv.” Cecil pulled out a huge roll of paper from the pocket of his robe and handed it over to Norbert who glared at him. ’Not another report!’ he thought ‘Why didn’t I lock my bloody door.’ “Tell me” he said, “and only the important bits.”

Cecil was disappointed. ‘I spent ages putting that report together’ he thought ‘ungrateful bastard!’

“Well Guv, as you know, we regularly carry out compression tests, scans and crack analysis to ensure that the integrity of the Factory isn’t compromised…”

“Yes, yes, yes” Norbert interrupted “I know all that, tell me what the problem is; I assume that there is a problem?” ‘Why would you have bothered to come and see me otherwise?’ he thought gloomily.

Cecil was taken aback, Norbert was usually pretty chilled out, it was unlike him to be so snarky. “Yes, Guv, sorry. Well, there are holes.” Cecil had decided that, under the circumstances it was best to keep his summation as short as possible.

Norbert stared at Cecil and wondered if too much time spent rummaging around the bowels of the Factory had addled his brain.

“Yeesss,” said Norbert very slowly “there are caves, potholes and caverns and the suchlike, you built them into the original design, don’t you remember?” His tone of voice was such that might be used to break the bad news to a Dodo who had just realised that all his mates had gone missing.

Cecil had been picking at a lava burn on his thumb but when he heard Norbert’s tone he looked up and said “No, I’m not talking about our holes Guv, the humans have been making holes. Look, let me show you.” He pulled the huge report towards him.

“Nope, put it away Cecil, I don’t need to see it.” said Norbert irritably “This is one for the Boss I think, follow me.”

Norbert was sick and tired of reports and statistics and decided that he could do with an opportunity to stretch his legs. ‘Besides’ he thought ‘dealing with holes in the Factory is above my pay grade’.

As usual, before delivering unwelcome news, Norbert stopped off at the kitchen and asked them to bring a tray of tea and biscuits up to the Boss’ office immediately. He and Cecil then took an indirect route to ensure that they arrived at exactly the moment that the tray was delivered. When they got there, Norbert paused for a moment and then tapped on the Boss’ door in what he hoped was a cheery and positive manner.

“Come in Norbert.” Called out a voice from inside.

‘How the bloody hell does he know it’s me?’ thought Norbert. He opened the door and went in, closely followed by Cecil and Gladys from the kitchen.

“Oh lovely, tea and biscuits, just what I could do with! Thank you my dear.” The Boss smiled and helped himself to a chocolate digestive as Gladys poured the tea. Once they all had a cup in hand and Gladys had left the room, the Boss leaned back in his chair and said “So, you two, what’s the problem?”

“There are holes in the Factory Boss.” Norbert said bluntly.

“The ones that Cecil built in or new ones?” The Big Man had a way of getting straight to the point.

Norbert nudged Cecil who swallowed hard before saying “New ones Boss. It’s the humans, I don’t know why but in several Areas of the Factory, they’ve started digging holes all over the place. It’s not going to affect structural integrity within the next 10 millennia or so but, you know how times flies so I thought I should bring it to the attention of Management.” He glanced over at Norbert who was looking intently at the Boss, waiting for him to explode.

“Thank you Cecil.” said the Boss, calmly “Well, if you don’t know why it’s happening, I suppose we ought to go and find out. Let’s have another cup of tea, help yourselves to biscuits by the way, and we’ll have a wander over to the nearest viewing platform and see what’s going on.”

Cecil’s jaw dropped in surpise as he listened to the Big Man’s unusually placid response, but Norbert was suspicious. He helped himself to a biscuit and looked, surreptitiously around the office, trying to locate the cause of his Boss’ sudden serenity. He noticed some red flowers with long black stems that he’d never seen before. They were not very well rendered and obviously in the developmental stages, but they did have quite an alluring perfume ‘Perhaps they’ve got something to do with it’ thought Norbert ‘but why is he designing flowers? He’s never shown much interest in flowers before, he usually leaves them to the juniors. No, that can’t be it.’ He continued looking around suspiciously as The Boss and Cecil chatted about advanced magma containment techniques. There was something not quite right, but he just couldn’t put his finger on it. ‘It will come to me.’ he thought.

After all the tea had been drunk and crumbs removed from hands and beards Norbert, The Boss and Cecil took a leisurely stroll over to the nearest viewing platform. At the Big Man’s insistence, they took the scenic route, which passed over some rather spectacular glaciers, and lingered there for a while to appreciate the view. Norbert was impatient to move on and Cecil was worried that his staff would be slacking off in his absence, but the Boss refused to be distracted from his moment of tranquillity. He eventually moved on, smiling contentedly, and guided them to the viewing platform. When they eventually arrived, they realised that the platform was over the correct Area, but that they were on the wrong side and their view of the region in question was terrible. Consequently, it took the aid of a visual augmentation device and quite a lot of arguing and pointing before they eventually tracked down some humans who were busy digging holes in the Factory floor.

“Oh, that’s interesting!” said Norbert. He put the device up to his eyes to get a better look at what had captured his attention. Just at that moment, he felt a tickle in his nose and milliseconds later the first of several violent sneezes arrived. His head was flung forward with the force of it and he instinctively raised his hands to his face, forgetting that he was holding the device which flew from his grip and over the edge of the railing.

“Norbert!! What have you done?” The Big Man yelled at him “We can’t let the humans get their hands on that, they’re not ready!”

Norbert wasn’t listening. When he felt the device fall from his fingers, he’d tried to grab it, just as another sneeze ripped through his nostrils forcing him to collapse forward and smack his forehead on the railing. He was now seeing two Cecils and two Bosses but, at least, the sneezing seemed to have stopped.

Cecil and the Big Man watched the descent of the device; it bounced once or twice and finally ended up in the large hole that the humans had been so intent on digging.

“Shit!” said Cecil. He grabbed the Big Man’s arm, panic stricken “Boss, you have to do something!”

The Big Man shook Cecil’s hand from his arm and reached into his pocket. “Stand back Cecil. Norbert, good man, you just stay down there out of harm’s way.” Norbert just gazed up blearily, he still had no idea what was going on.

The Boss stepped back several paces, readied himself and then came at the railing at a run. At the last moment he launched the lightning bolt over the edge. It was the perfect throw.

“Well that made them run.” Said Cecil, chuckling “They’re pretty fast, aren’t they?”

The humans had indeed scattered and an embarrassingly large number had screamed like little girls although they would all later deny it when they discussed what had happened with their friends and, especially, the females. However, after a few minutes they slowly made their way back to the huge hole, curiosity overtaking their fear.

Norbert had dragged himself to his feet and was leaning unsteadily against the railing.

“What are they doing?” He leaned forward slightly to get a better view. “Bloody hell my head hurts.” He moaned.

The Boss looked concerned; Norbert had taken a hell of a whack. “Cecil can you run down to my office please. You’ll find some red flower prototypes on my desk; can you please take one of the black stems and ask the someone in the kitchen to make it into a tea for Norbert.”

“Right ho Boss.” Cecil dashed off. He was a bit worried about Norbert too, he was sure he’d seen his eyeballs rattle and was almost certain that wasn’t normal. The Boss, meanwhile, had tracked down a couple of chairs and he and Norbert were continuing to watch what was going on in the Factory.

“What do they need all those stone pots for Boss?” asked Norbert.

The Big Man watched as the humans constructed rope from twisted vines and then tied it to the handles on their pots. “I’m not sure to be honest, perhaps it’s time for lunch or something.”

“No, I don’t think so. Why would they attach rope to their pots if they’re just going to whip up a quick buffalo stew.” Said Norbert reasonably.

“They might do if no-one’s thought to kill the buffalo, perhaps they’re going to sort of whirl them around their heads and then…..no, sorry, I don’t know where I’m going with that. Ah, Cecil, you’re back, thanks for that.” The Boss hastily took the mug that Cecil had been carrying and handed it over to Norbert “Here drink this” he said, “it will make you feel better.”

Norbert took a sip. It tasted nothing like tea, but it wasn’t unpleasant and, after another few sips, he felt his headache lifting.

“Thanks Boss.” He smiled. “I don’t suppose you thought to grab any biscuits Cecil?”

Cecil grinned and gave him a small packet of chocolate digestives which Norbert handed round. ‘There’s not too much wrong with him then’ thought Cecil.

“Hey! Look at this!” The Boss drew their attention back to the humans. He pointed at a row of little statues and an apparatus that one brave soul was trying to attach to the rear of an extremely angry looking buffalo.

“Ooohh I bet that hurt!” said Cecil as the buffalo kicked itself free of the apparatus and trampled on the irritating human. His victory against oppression would be short lived however as he would later become lunch.

“What are those little statues?” asked Norbert who was feeling almost back to normal, if a little light-headed.

“Ah bless them, I think that they’re trying to create their own image.” replied the Boss peering at the statues “The fine details need a bit of work.” Although he didn’t mention it to Norbert or Cedric, he was seriously considering doing a universal recall on the humans visual systems ‘There’s got to be something amiss if they think they look like that’ he thought to himself.

“They’ll learn” said Norbert happily “they always do.” He winked at the Boss and Cecil; he was feeling in a really good mood all of a sudden.

“What I want to know is how they made all this stuff.” As a structural engineer Cecil was curious about their processes as, in his opinion, until now, human construction had definitely lacked a certain fluidity of design.

“I think I’ve figured it out.” said the Boss, sounding ever so slightly smug. “Cecil, do you remember all the residual elements that we had after the core of the Factory cooled enough for us to start construction?”

“Of course I remember Boss, it was nice to actually have something to do after all those millennia hanging around.”

“Well, I think that’s what they were digging for – copper, tin and the such like – and after I chucked the lightning bolt in the hole, the elements must have melted. That’s what they needed all the stone pots on string for – too scoop it all out. All they needed to do then was to make a mould, pour in the molten metal and then wait for it to cool down. They really are quite ingenious sometimes!” The Boss was grinning broadly; he was suddenly feeling very proud of the humans.

He looked around and noticed that Norbert was swaying slightly.

“Norbert, are you alright? Have you still got a headache?”

“Nope, I feel wunnerful.”

The Boss looked at his sappy grin and his unfocused eyes. ‘I might need to have a rethink on the design of those red flowers’ he thought to himself. Then he reached out and grabbed the back of Norbert’s robe as he launched himself toward the railing, leaned over the edge and started pointing at the humans.

“Yep really ingenininininous.” He collapsed on the floor in an incoherent, giggling heap.

“Oh, bloody hell! Cecil call for some back up will you, I think we’ll need to take Norbert to his room so that he can have a nice lie down for a while.”

The Boss made sure that Norbert was not about to launch himself at the railing again and peered over, searching for more evidence of human progress. He found some but it was definitely not in the direction that he’d hoped.

“Bastards!” he roared “Why couldn’t they be content with their little statues and making those apparatus to annoy buffalo? Why do they always have to be so bloody violent all the time?!”

He watched as the humans stabbed and hacked at each other with the beautifully crafted weapons that they’d made from bronze.

‘Their statues still look like blobs on sticks, but they can make something like that. They can look at each other and see nothing of their own grace and beauty but they can look at anything else and find a way to make a weapon out of it.’ thought the Boss as anger took hold ‘They really piss me off sometimes’!

Having lost all patience with the humans, the Boss reached down and hauled Norbert up by the neck of his robes. Even after he’d been thrown over the Big Man’s shoulder, he was still snoring gently and, occasionally, giggling under his breath. He didn’t wake up on the journey back to his room and was still sound asleep when the Boss dumped him, unceremoniously on his bed. A little while later Cecil returned to the platform with Malcolm and Jonathan whose help he’d enlisted to get Norbert back to his room.

“Where are they?” said Malcolm “They haven’t fallen over surely?” All three of them stood on their tiptoes and peered over the edge.

“Nope, can’t see them anywhere,” said Cecil “I’m sure they’ll turn up. Come on lads, it’s clocking off time, let’s go and see what’s on the menu for dinner.”

Norbert was still snoring when the Boss looked in on him later. ‘I really need to rethink those flower protypes at some point.’ he thought as he turned his attention to the human blueprints. He was determined to figure out why they had such a propensity for violence; it was not as though he’d designed them like that after all. The problem seemed to be all the emotions. Norbert had added quite a few before the initial launch but they, somehow, seemed to be multiplying. Not only that but thought processes were becoming more complex and their development was much more rapid than he’d originally predicted. He mulled over the problem for hours, but he could only see one way forward. The next morning, he was sitting in his office putting some rough drafts together when he heard a knock at the door.

“Ah good, Norbert you’re up. Can you give me a hand here? We need to devise some prediction tests that we can run on the humans, are you up for it?”

Norbert grinned and plonked himself down at the bench next to his Boss, he was feeling totally refreshed and ready to go. ‘This should be fascinating!’ he thought happily. ’Once we’re able to figure out what the humans will do next, we shouldn’t have any more problems with them.

Moses

Several millennia later, after his fascination with the humans had worn off completely, Norbert was tucked away in a back office with Jeremy, the auditor. They were both kneeling on their stools with their elbows on the table as they pored over the scrolls of paper laid out in front of them.

“I’m sorry mate but you must have miscalculated somewhere, this can’t be right.” Norbert was pointing to a column of figures from one area of the Factory which, from his point of view, just didn’t add up.

“Norbert, I do not make mistakes” said Jeremy “Ever. At first, I thought it was just an anomaly, but this proves it.” He pointed at a total on another scroll “I’ve checked and double checked this calculation and I know it’s right. In this Area and only this Area, the males are all coming back into stock way before their expiration date. Figures don’t lie you know.” He said sanctimoniously.

Norbert thought that Jeremy was a bit precious over his calculations and didn’t usually have much time for him as, apart from anything else, he offered rice cakes instead of biscuits and flower infusions instead of tea. In the time that they’d spent together today Norbert had eaten 6 rice cakes and his stomach was still growling in hunger. The damn things just seemed to disintegrate in his mouth until he was left chewing, what felt and tasted like, a small piece of damp cardboard.

“The Boss is not going to be happy about this you know.” Norbert climbed down from his stool, brushed rice cake crumbs from his robes and stretched, trying to relieve the ache in his back.

“I know” said Jeremy with a smug smile “I’m glad I’m not the one that has to tell him.”

‘Git!’ thought Norbert. He wandered off to the Boss’ office feeling slightly hurt. Jeremy, meanwhile, heaved a sigh of relief; he found Norbert very dull company indeed. Moving his stool over to a nearby cupboard, he clambered up on it and retrieved a packet of chocolate covered, cream-filled digestives and some gunpowder tea from the top shelf. Several minutes later he was back at his desk with his papers and an abacus ‘Let the good times roll.’ he thought to himself happily.

‘Tap, tap’

“Come in” Familiar booming tones sounded from inside the office.

‘Damn’, thought Norbert ‘how did he hear that? A mouse with knuckle sprain would have tapped louder than that!’

“Afternoon Boss.” Norbert plastered a cheery grin on his face and walked into his Boss’ office.

“Ah Norbert.” the Big Man beamed at him, obviously in a good mood and completely unaware that his day was about to be ruined. “You look tired, late night was it?”

“I wish! No Boss I’ve spent all day with Jeremy.” said Norbert rubbing his tired eyes and longing for a strong cup of tea.

“Which one’s Jeremy?”

“The one with the numbers, short bloke, round shoulders, blond hair?”

“Nope sorry, can’t place him.” the Boss was normally very good with names.

“The one with the rice cakes and the flower tea.” said Norbert wearily.

“Oh him!” the Boss looked disgusted for a moment, obviously recollecting a meeting with Jeremy. “What did you want to spend all day with him for?”

“I didn’t want to Boss, I never want to, but he’s come up with an anomaly in the latest audit for Area 27.”

The Boss frowned and asked, “What sort of anomaly?”

“Well, we couldn’t figure out why, but all the males keep coming back into stock long before their expiry date, it’s really weird.” Norbert rubbed his tired eyes and massaged his temples in an effort to rid himself of a nasty headache which he was sure was down to low blood sugar.

“Hmmm, you’re right, that is weird. Come on then let’s go and have a look.” He pushed Norbert in front of him and they set off for one of the viewing platforms. They stopped at the canteen so that Norbert could have a proper cup of tea and a chocolate éclair; he insisted that he felt faint due to lack of food and couldn’t possibly carry on without some sustenance. The Boss decided to join him, not because he was hungry, just because he was partial to chocolate eclairs. While they ate and sipped tea, Norbert showed the Boss the reports that he’d been going over with Jeremy. The Big Man studied them in silence for a while before circling a single figure.

“That’s the root of the problem Norbert, I’m sure of it, that male human there.” Norbert looked over the columns of figures once again before coming to the same conclusion. ‘If Jeremy had thought to get in some eclairs instead of those sodding rice cakes, I would have spotted that.’ thought Norbert angrily. After they’d finished eating and Norbert had pronounced himself fit to carry on, they rolled up the reports, wiped cream and chocolate from their fingers and hurried over to the viewing platform in Area 27.

“There” said Norbert “that’s the bugger! The one with the dodgy looking beard wearing the flashy snake hat. Why is his beard tied up like that? He looks stupid.” He leaned further over the railing so that the could get a closer look “Do you know, looking at him, I’m not sure, that is a male. Does it look like he’s wearing make-up around his eyes to you?”

“Well, I’ve never seen a female with so many muscles or such a flat chest, but he does appear to be wearing a skirt…I don’t know, it’s hard to say.” Neither he nor Nobert were too familiar with Area 27 as, up until now, it hadn’t seemed to need much overseeing. From the reports that they’d seen, the humans that lived there seemed to enjoy building things, even if they were nearly always triangular, they liked numbers and they were quite good at mending each other when they got broken.

Of course, there was the cat obsession and the strange proclivity for yanking out brains through the noses of those who’d expired, but still. They also had the odd idea that wrapping people in bandages and stuffing them in a box would somehow benefit them after they had expired but, aside from all that, they weren’t usually too much trouble.

However, it now appeared that one of the human chiefs had got the idea into his head that male babies were some sort of threat to him. Neither Norbert or the Boss was quite sure where this idea had come from as it was well known that the worst you could expect from a baby was a sleepless night and projectile vomiting.

“There he goes again! Look!” cried Norbert, jabbing his finger in the direction of the chief “What is it with this bloke? He must be bloody insecure in his masculinity if he wants to be the only male.” Norbert had become something of a psychoanalyst since he’d started working on emotional development; centuries of rewiring will do that to you.

“Well considering what he’s wearing, I would say that he’s got no doubts at all about his masculinity!” said the Boss raising his eyebrows. “Damnit, I think he’s just ordered another death! I’m telling you Norbert I’m not putting up with this. Honestly, it’s causing no end of problems for Returns with all these males coming back into stock before their expiration date. We need to do something.” He thought for a moment while Norbert busied himself trying to lick a morsel of chocolate off his own elbow.

“Norbert” said the Big Man, glancing over at his PA “you do know that’s impossible? Stop it now and listen, I’ve had an idea.”

Norbert stopped and listened for quite some time. Eventually, the Boss peered over the railing of the viewing platform with one eye closed and his tongue poking out slightly from the corner of his mouth before pointing at a little baby boy and announcing, “That one!”

Norbert hadn’t fully understood the finer points of the Boss’ plan, but he decided not to question him. Instead he followed him to the warehouse and for the next few decades they helped to sort out the backlog in Returns. Unwrapping the extra intake from area 27 was causing havoc in the Recycling Department and, according to the workers, yanking a brain out through the nose was a damn sight easier that trying to stuff one back in.

“Honestly Boss” said Gavin, the Returns foreman “This lot are a pain in the arse. It takes ages to find the buggers for a start; young Douglas was lost for a week in one of those bloody pyramids. He was a bit annoyed and said that he’d left a little something behind for anyone daft enough to open them up in the future; I put him on report, but you can’t really blame the lad. When we do eventually track them down it takes forever to get the bloody boxes open and then we have all the unwrapping to do before we can recycle them. The lads are not happy Boss and a couple of them have even asked for a transfer.” Gavin put his hands behind his back and puffed out his chest as he presented his complaints to the Management. He saw protecting the workers’ rights as an essential part of his job even though none of his colleagues had ever actually asked him to protect them.

“Well” said the Boss thoughtfully “There are a couple of openings in Area 63 if they’re really not happy. It’s a bit wild and desolate because we ran over on the landscaping budget in Area 62, but Norbert’s been experimenting with creatures that will be able to survive there. It seems to be mainly giant spiders, sharks, ants with teeth, that sort of thing. Oh, and he had a bit of an accident with a pot of blueberry jelly; he dropped some over the railing and it’s turned into something with tentacles. You know what Norbert’s like, he thought it was really pretty and was worried that the sharks would eat it, so he gave it a few defence mechanisms.” Gavin knew only too well, he’d been there when they’d introduced Norbert’s armour-plated reptiles to the factory, he’d never seen so many teeth! He was also fairly sure that Norbert had used a modified dinosaur design to create the crocodile and that was against the rules as the Boss had insisted that they be kept in storage rather than being recycled as they’d caused so much trouble. The crocodiles definitely put his workers in danger when they came back into Returns ‘I must have a word with the Boss about that at some point’ he thought. He suddenly realised that the Big Man was still talking, and he looked up guiltily “There’s quite a few of them now apparently and they seem to be making the sharks nervous for some reason. Anyway, if anyone in your department really wants a transfer……..” The Boss trailed off and looked at Gavin with polite expectation.

“Ummmm” said Gavin as he weighed up his options “I’ll talk to them Boss. I am sure this can all be sorted out; the paperwork for transfers is a pain and..” he chuckled uncomfortably as his words dried up.

“Quite so.” said the Boss kindly “Perhaps I could have a word with the Kitchen, see if I can get some fondant fancies sent down, perhaps that would help with morale?”

“Yes, absolutely Boss, that would be great. Thanks.” Gavin grinned and dashed off to speak with his workers. ‘They won’t be happy about the continued overtime’ he thought ‘but who didn’t love fondant fancies? They were square so you didn’t have to worry about them rolling of the plate, they were covered in fondant icing which gave a blinding sugar rush and that cream filled nipple on top just finishes them off nicely. Delicious!’

Norbert eventually came up with a way to speed up the unwrapping process (you just found the end and pulled, hard) and then he and the Boss turned their attention back to the Factory floor.

“What is going on down there Norbert?” The Boss wandered over to the viewing platform to stand beside his PA who was bent over the railing with his chin rested on folded arms.

“I’m not entirely sure to be honest Boss but it looks as though that lot over there have got a beef with that group.” said Norbert thoughtfully.

“What do you mean a ‘beef’? They’re arguing over a cow?”

The Boss was looking quizzically at Norbert who had taken his tea-break with young Dwayne from Dispatch that morning and was trying out some new phrases.

“No. A beef man, you know, like, a problem.”

“Well why didn’t you say so! What problem? And don’t call me ‘man’, I don’t like it.”

“Sorry Boss. Well, this big group over here are worried that the smaller group is going to become as big as they are.”

“And?” The Big Man was confused, who cared who has the biggest group? ‘Why is everyone so obsessed with size?’ he thought.

“I’m not really sure” replied Norbert “but apparently that’s what started the influx of returns before expiry date that we had a while back. The one in charge – that guy over there in the snake hat – thought that if the other group got too big they’d nick his ‘throne’…….or something like that.” Norbert really couldn’t understand why someone would throw such a hissy fit over a gold chair; it didn’t even look particularly comfortable.

“So, basically, he’s decided that anyone not in his group shouldn’t have any entitlement to his chair and that the best way of dealing with it is to terminate them? Hmmmm.” The Boss did not look amused and was drumming his fingertips on the railing.

“Norbert” he said suddenly, “come with me.”

“Where are we going Boss?” Norbert trotted along behind the Big Man and tried not to trip over his own sandals; the Boss could get quite a shift on when he was in a bad mood.

“Let’s just say that they need something to take their minds off all this nonsense over who sits on which chair.”

A little later they were both rummaging around in a storeroom, tossing things over their shoulders and arguing over which items they should use.

“What about marzipan?” said Norbert in a muffled voice as he rummaged through an enormous box. He was wriggling his way downwards and would soon arrive at the bottom, headfirst, if gravity had anything to do with it. Gravity had been the Boss’ idea and Norbert had to admit it was one of his best; up until that point they’d had hell and all trouble keeping everything stuck to the Factory floor. They’d installed a giant net to ensure that they didn’t lose any of the really important species, but Norbert was sure that there were still one or two pelicosaurs floating around the ionosphere. He hadn’t mentioned it to the Boss because he didn’t want to have to go and retrieve them; the really big ladders gave him the willies. ‘Let’s be fair’ he thought to himself ’if there are any left up there, who are they harming?’

“You can’t have a plague of marzipan Norbert, what would be the point of that?”

“Well, firstly, none of us like it so we’ve got loads stockpiled because people keep peeling it off the edge of the Battenberg and, secondly, it can really slow you down if you get a lump stuck on the bottom of your sandal.”

“Whilst I concede that may cause a minor inconvenience, I was actually looking for something a little more sinister.” Said the Boss, trying to keep his patience. He wondered if Norbert really took his job seriously sometimes.

“Damnit!” There was a cry from Norbert as he hauled himself up from the depths of the box “That bloody hurt!”

“What have you done now?” The Big Man asked with an impatient sigh.

“Cut my sodding finger on the edge of this box.” It is a universal certainty that anyone who spends more time than they should with carboard boxes will eventually cut their finger.

The Big Man looked up, thought for a moment and then said “Great! Fantastic idea!”

Norbert was offended; his finger was really throbbing and was leaking quite badly all over his second-best robe.

“What idea?” he said “I didn’t have an idea, I cut my finger and it really hurts. You could stop looking so pleased and fetch me a bloody plaster.” Norbert sucked on the wound which, now it had stopped bleeding looked disappointingly small; he frowned.

The Boss, on the other hand, was positively beaming as he clapped Norbert on the shoulder and cried “Blood! It’s a great idea, well done!”

Norbert still had no idea what his Boss was so happy about but smiled faintly and tried to look as though his brilliant mind, and not his general clumsiness, was the cause of his blood loss and his Boss’ inspiration.

The Boss did eventually track down a plaster for Norbert, not wanting the cut finger reported as an industrial injury and made him a cup of tea with plenty of sugar; he made himself one at the same time of course but the thought was there.

They both set to work and, sometime later they were delighted to hear cries of panic erupting from Area 27; the rivers that wound through the region were running red with blood. Some people were tearing at their hair, screaming it was a sign that the gods were displeased with them. Far more of them were worrying about how they were going to get their washing done. However, as is often the case with humans, they forgot about it after a day or so and just decided to wear their robes inside out until the water situation resolved itself.

“Didn’t work did it Boss?” said Norbert miserably.

“Nope. Obviously not.” The Big Man was very tight lipped “Plan B it is.”

They went back to the storeroom to see what else they could find. This time Norbert wore gloves. Area 27 once again rang out with cries of alarm as a plague of frogs descended upon its inhabitants. They quickly turned to cries of ‘ewwwww’ as frogs tend to splat rather than bounce when dropped from a great height and then get very slippery underfoot. However, other than an increase in demand for sandal cleaner nothing changed. The dominating group continued to harass, and the smaller group continued to ask themselves what they’d done to deserve frog entrails all over their best sandals.

“This is getting ridiculous Norbert, why aren’t they getting the point. I would have thought that a plague of frogs would have stopped those bullies picking on the other guys, I just don’t get it.” The Big Man was getting exasperated with the human ability to ignore the blindingly obvious.

“Dunno Boss, the message seems pretty clear to me. What are we going to try next? Maybe something smaller? Something that they can’t avoid, after all during the frog rain they just stayed indoors.” Norbert was rummaging through some drawers having abandoned the boxes as being ‘too hazardous’. Fingers were apparently not the only part of the anatomy that could be damaged by cardboard cuts, especially when one was hanging upside down and hadn’t thought to secure the hem of their robes. He winced slightly at the memory. Holding up a small glass jar he said, “Perhaps something small and itchy would get the point across?”

His Boss took the jar and smiled “Good idea that man!”

They put their plan into action and then dashed out to the nearest viewing platform, convinced that this time they’d definitely got it right.

“What in the name of Joshua’s dewlap is wrong with them?”

Norbert and his Boss watched with increasing frustration as the bullies in Area 27 continued to persecute the underdogs. Lice in their underpants didn’t stop them, neither did boils on their buttocks, hailstones the size of golf balls or sitting in the dark for 3 days in a row. The Big Man and his PA were at their wits end. It didn’t matter what distraction or discomfort was dished out to them, the bullies would not be swayed from the idea that, in order to stay in charge, they needed to exterminate any potential, albeit unproved and possible non-existent, threat. They both wondered how the humans had managed to get so single minded; once they had an idea in their head you just couldn’t shift it.

“Right, that does it!” said the Boss “I’ve had just about enough of this. Where’s the infant that I picked out?”

“Ummm not sure to be honest Boss, I think he wandered off a while back. Hang on, I’ll go and have a word with Cedric down in Tracking and see if he can’t find him.” Norbert hurried off hoping that Cedric would be able to help him out, the Boss was in a foul mood.

When Norbert returned the Big Man was pacing round his office at such a rate that sparks were flying off the back of his sandals. He glared at Norbert as he tapped on the door and was only mildly placated by the fact that he was bearing a tray of tea and biscuits (chocolate chip in case you were wondering).

The Boss sat down at his desk and helped himself to a cup of tea and two biscuits.

“Well?” He bit viciously into his cookie and then his eyebrows shot up in surprise when it didn’t shatter. Norbert, aware of his Boss’ mood and his aversion to crumbs, had been experimenting with molasses and chocolate chunks. What he had come up with were satisfyingly gooey lumps of deliciousness that he’d decided to call ‘cookies’. This was mainly because it was Cookie, who worked in the kitchens, who’d done the actual baking and also the washing up and had angrily insisted on being given credit. Norbert didn’t know it yet, but he would find himself disappointed by the contents of his lunchbox over the next few days.

“We’ve found him Boss. Cedric tracked him down in Area 26 and has rerouted him, he’s on his way back to Area 27 as we speak. He’s 37 now apparently and Cedric said he seems like a nice bloke - name of Moses. Anyway, he’s going to speak to the underdogs and hopefully we can put an end to all this.”

Norbert relaxed a bit as his Boss slowed his chewing, which he took to be a sign that he was calming down. In fact, the Big Man was trying to dislodge a particularly sticky morsel of cookie from a rear molar, but the action had, at least, given him time to consider what Norbert had told him.

“Right, I think we need to be a bit more direct with the message Norbert; the frogs and locusts might have been a bit too subtle for human understanding. Now, listen closely, this is what I need you to do….”

Sometime later the underdogs could be seen packing up everything they owned and leaving Area 27, led by Moses who looked slightly miffed. He didn’t like having to make threats, even against bullies, and he was also slightly annoyed that he was now having to make the long walk back to exactly where he’d come from so, he decided to take a short-cut.

“Oh, for goodness sake!” said the Boss, slapping his hand against his forehead “Why didn’t he just go back the way he came? They’ve walked miles out of the way and now they’re completely buggered.”

He and Norbert were on the viewing platform watching the underdogs as they tried to figure out how to get across the large body of water that was blocking their path. Some of them were trying to construct rafts from bits of fallen tree and vine but their hearts really weren’t in it after all the walking. A few of them were just standing around and glaring at Moses; their feet really hurt, they were tired, and their sandals were almost worn through. New sandals were expensive.

Moses himself was standing a small distance away, on the shoreline, with feet planted wide and his arms raised to the sky as if pleading with some unseen force. He was, in fact, just trying to get some air circulating around the inside of his woollen robe, it was hot work walking through deserts.

The Boss watched in dismay as the underdogs started to give way to despair but then suddenly jumped up and said “Oh sod it! Just this once won’t hurt.” He pulled a remote device from the pocket of his robe and twirled a couple of knobs. There was the sound of grinding gears down in the Factory and the sea parted letting the underdogs continue on their way.

“Wow Boss!” said Norbert looking impressed “Good thinking, I’d forgotten we’d installed that!”

“Thank you Norbert, just don’t bring it up in the quarterly meeting, I don’t want to spend the next 6 months filling out forms for Accounts. Now, listen, I’ve decided that subtly veiled threats are never going to work with this lot so I’m just going to write everything down for them. Can you pass me that tablet and my number 7 chisel please?”

After much deliberation, they eventually decided on 10 clear instructions but then spent ages arguing about what order they should present them in. Norbert felt that ‘Leave the expiration date to us’ should come first whereas his Boss insisted that ’Listen to someone who knows better than you and only to him’ should definitely be top of the list. In the end they had a game of rock/paper/scissors to decide and Norbert read out the final list of instructions as the Big Man hammered away with his chisel. When they were finished, the Boss asked Norbert to send the tablets down to Dave in Despatch with a note asking him to arrange for them to be placed somewhere that Moses could easily find them.

“Do you think they’ll actually take any notice Boss?”

“There’s only one way to find out, let’s go and have a look.” The Big Man was actually feeling quite optimistic, even the humans couldn’t ignore such simple instructions. They wandered over to a viewing platform.

“Well they seem happy enough” said Norbert “Looks like they’re having some sort of party. What do you reckon is the significance of that gold cow?”

“No idea but they all seem to be in a good mood, dancing and mating – they really do enjoy that don’t they – I think we can probably leave them to it.” The Boss turned away from the railing and began to walk back to his office.

“Hang on a minute.” Norbert called him back “Look, there’s Moses and he’s got the tablets with him. He doesn’t look best chuffed, does he?”

The Boss strolled back over to the railing and looked down “Perhaps he fancied an early night and he’s going to tell them to tone it down a bit?” He looked enquiringly at Norbert who shrugged. They both turned their attention back to the party where it seemed that things were really starting to get out of hand.

“Well! Of all the cheek! Did you see that?” The Boss was pointing indignantly.

“Ungrateful bastard!” said Norbert “We spent bloody ages putting those tablets together and he just smashes them on the ground! Honestly, I don’t know why we bother sometimes, I really don’t.”

They turned their backs on the humans and decided to pop down to the canteen for some lunch before it closed. Neither of them gave a second thought to Moses who had no sense of direction and had wandered off back into the desert where he spent the next 4 decades trying to find his way back to his house.

The Romans

Despite the ongoing problems with emotions, reports indicated that the human experiment was working out fairly well. They seemed to have no problem reproducing, quite the reverse in fact, they’d learned how to protect themselves from the elements and were even starting to show an artistic flair. Based on this success, the Boss had decided to make a few modifications to his design and produced several new batches of humans which he then introduced to other, uninhabited, Areas of the Factory. He’d increased intelligence levels but also added some essence of sheep, partly because he’d made too big a batch (there were sheep everywhere he looked for some reason) but also in the hope that the humans would become a bit more amenable. When it came to docility and blindly following whatever walked in front of them, sheep were the masters so he was sure it couldn’t hurt.

The Boss had been so busy putting the finishing touches to his designs and arranging for a suitable window for despatch with Dave that he hadn’t noticed the time.

“Norbert! Where’s my tea?” He yelled. It was 11.03 and there was no sign of his PA, his tea or the chocolate biscuits that normally accompanied it and the Boss was not best pleased. There was no reply and by 11.05 his patience was at an end. He wandered off in search of something to eat, hoping that he’d find his errant PA somewhere along the way.

Norbert was, in fact, kneeling on a small stool looking over the railing and down into the Factory. His pale face was flushed pink, his wispy ginger hair was standing on end and he was nervously chewing the corner of his robe. As PA to the Boss, one of his jobs was breaking bad news and it was not one he relished. Lifting his head to ease the crick in this neck he happened to notice the sun dial in the corner of the platform and he realised that it was 11.07. Now he would have to break two lots of bad news. ‘Bugger’ he thought. He ran towards the kitchen, sandals flapping, and hoped that he’d be able to find some Hob Nobs somewhere; he had a feeling that today was just not going to be a shortbread kind of day.

At 11.15 Norbert rushed back to his office in order to pick up some emergency custard creams, just in case, and found the Boss waiting there, beard twitching and thumbs twiddling.

“Sorry your tea’s a bit late Boss but look what I found.” He presented a plate full of chocolate Hob Nobs with a flourish and a beaming smile. Thankfully the Big Man looked mollified and Norbert let him munch away on a couple of biscuits before he took a deep breath and delivered his news. He was relieved that he wouldn’t need to use his stash of custard creams after all.

“Umm Boss?” he said

“Mwcnhch” Came the reply, along with a generous spray of crumbs; even the most eloquent of us struggle when we’re stuffing our faces with Hob Nobs.

“You know we used up all that spare essence of sheep on the humans?” Norbert didn’t give the Boss time to reply and busied his shaking hands by picking biscuit crumbs out of his beard “Well, I think we may have over done it a bit because there’s some bloke down in one section of the Factory that all the others have started following. He’s called Tiberius apparently, and he’s causing a right ruckus. He’s got quite bizarre fashion sense as well if you ask me.”

The words had come out in a huge rush and Norbert was left feeling a little breathless.

“Bizarre in what way?” The Boss looked Norbert up and down and was intrigued to know how someone wearing a brown woollen robe, belted with string, and rope sandals could have the temerity to criticise someone else’s fashion sense.

Norbert had seen the look and was not amused; it wasn’t as though he had a vast wardrobe and he thought the string addition to his robe was pretty cutting edge. However, he gathered his dignity and said “He seems to have cut one sleeve off all his robes, so he’s got one arm covered and the other bare and he’s added yards of material which he then slings over one shoulder; it’s a very odd look.” Norbert puzzled by the practicalities of such attire, experimentally lifted one corner of his robe to see if he could toss it over his shoulder.

The Big Man raised his eyebrows and then quickly averted his eyes from Norbert who was desperately trying to untuck a stray corner of robe that had caught in the back of his pants; that was a sight he just didn’t need to see.

“Anyway, you were telling me about this ‘following’ business, what’s going on down there?” He turned back to look at Norbert who was red faced with the effort of trying to look at his own backside. He’d finally managed to untuck himself and was smoothing down his robe, pretending that nothing had happened. He comforted himself with the thought that his assertion had been quite right, the clothes he’d seen the leader wearing down in the Factory were totally impractical. A good, well-cut robe was all anyone should ever need, they were warm, comfortable and provided adequate ventilation for all necessary areas.

“Yes, as I was saying, there’s this bloke, Tiberius, and all the other humans in that part of the Factory think he’s the bee’s pyjamas so they’ve started following him everywhere and copying what he does. I really think we might have overdone the essence of sheep Boss.”

“When you say ‘copying’” the Boss said, “what exactly do you mean? Sheep don’t ‘copy’ each other, do they? I mean, they all look the same so why would they but so do the humans….I don’t get it, how can it have anything to do with the sheep essence?”

Relieved that the Big Man wasn’t yelling at him, Norbert ploughed on, trying to remember all the strange things that Tiberius had started doing, that all the other humans in the Area had caught on to.

“Well they’ve all started hacking off one sleeve, they’re all drinking something called ‘wine’ which makes them shout and then fall down, they watch other humans, in leather skirts, fight lions (which, if you ask me is just plain weird) and they’re….um….” Norbert blushed scarlet to the roots of his ginger hair “well……um…moving a lot more.”

“Moving?” the Boss was perplexed. ‘They’d always moved, hadn’t they?’ he thought to himself. He was almost certain they hadn’t made any that didn’t move, well not on purpose anyway.

“Yes.” Nobert squeaked, he didn’t like where this was going “But, you know, up and down…….together.” ‘Please don’t make me draw you a picture’ he thought.

“Oh, mating you mean?”

‘The Big Man just came right out and told it as it was without so much as a rose tint’ thought Norbert ‘I really need to get over this.’

The truth was that Norbert was a creative but sensitive soul. He was quite happy to work on pretty much any human component, but he did struggle with ’those bits’ as he called them, they were so damn fiddly, not to mention squidgy. The amount of times they’d slipped out of his fingers and gone flying across the Lab was nobody’s business!

“Well? What’s wrong with that?” said the Boss “It sounds as though they’re enjoying themselves.”

Tiberius was not, in fact, enjoying himself. He’d always prided himself on being individual and fashion forward but these days he couldn’t even gild his sandals without it becoming all the rage and it was beginning to get on his nerves. The more outrageous his actions, the more people seemed to jump on the band wagon. It had all started when he’d made plans to go and have a chat with some of the other chiefs in Armenia. For some reason, thousands of men had decided that they needed to go with him which meant weeks of planning rather than just chucking a few things into an overnight bag and grabbing the nearest horse. Then, to make matters worse, when they got there, a bunch of the men had decided they didn’t like the look of Johnny foreigner and started a scrap in the local baths. The Armenians did not take it at all well and it took Tiberius ages to calm everyone down and get them on speaking terms again. ‘Why did they all have to follow me here’ he thought ‘I’d have had all this sorted out in a couple of days and been on the way home if they’d minded their own bloody business’. After several months of careful negotiation during which Tiberius and the other chiefs had holed up in a villa with a notice pinned to the door that, loosely translated, said “Sod Off”, peace was ensured. The two sides agreed to always remain friends and promised that they wouldn’t invade each other’s territory. On the final night, after a huge, celebratory dinner and much hugging, Tiberius decided to slip out the back and return home alone. Unfortunately, one of his more observant guards spotted him and he had to wait for three days while everyone got their stuff packed up which all felt a bit awkward as he’d already said his goodbyes to his hosts.

Hailed as a hero when he got home, he then had to put up with the telling and re-telling of his exploits which meant that even more people started following him and getting on his nerves. In a bid to get shot of some of them he’d started a few more wars and insisted that they all come with him to fight but, although he lost quite a few, there were always more ready to take their place when he got back home. Eventually he gave up and persuaded everyone to put him in charge so, at least that way, he could forcibly stop the obsequiousness when it all became too much.

All the admiration had made him very gloomy over the years and he went to extreme lengths to find solitude. He forced his followers to play endless games of hide and seek, in which he was always the seeker. While they were all counting to 10,000 he’d make a dash for it and always hoped that, one day, they’d just give up looking but no, there was always some smart arse who yelled out “Found You!” at the top of his voice, which brought all the others running. Consequently, he was constantly devising new ways to amuse himself and to try and make himself less popular into the bargain. Some of those ways were not very pleasant and involved quite a lot of pain for the object of his amusement, usually the person who’d found him during the last game of hide and seek.

It was one of those ‘entertainments’ that Norbert had been watching when he was supposed to have been making his Boss’ tea.

“Some of them are enjoying themselves Boss but look at that poor sod there.” Norbert leaned over the railing outside his office and pointed to something happening on the Factory floor.

“What’s he doing??? Is that a head?? Oh, my Dodo’s dangleberries! That’s disgusting!” The Boss was looking slightly green. He turned his face to Norbert, genuine distress in his eyes and said, “Are all the ones following him doing that sort of thing as well?”

“Yep I’m afraid so Boss. Don’t get me wrong, they’ve done some good too. They’ve built loads of stuff, they’ve worked out how to make their floors warm, they keep their Area tidy and whatnot, but they do have a tendency to try and force their ideas on the other humans.”

“What do you mean force their ideas?” The Boss was still watching the scene unfolding below and couldn’t believe the cruelty that humans could inflict on each other without, seemingly, a care in the World.

“Well, apart from sticking shiny lumps of metal into them or locking them in a little room not giving them any food, they make them fight with lions or bears. It’s all to make sure that they agree that whatever the guy in charge is saying is a good idea. I did read in one report that one of Tiberius’ favourite games is to sit with people he doesn’t like and encourage them to drink gallons of free wine and then, when they really need to pee, he has their bits sown up. It’s really not nice.” Norbert had developed a flare for understatement over the years.

“Not nice!?” The Boss roared and Norbert shot under his desk. The last time the Big Man had looked like that there was an unfortunate incident with a lightning bolt, a ricochet and the arse of his second-best robe.

“Norbert, did you hear what he just said?” the Boss yelled from the viewing platform. He was furious, and his voice made the office walls shake; Norbert backed himself further under the desk.

“Norbert, come out of there, I’m annoyed with them not you. Listen to what this guy’s saying.” Norbert crawled slowly out from under the desk, brushed the fluff of his robe and listened.

Tiberius had just come to the end of a long and boring speech, which he’d hope people would stop listening to and just go home, by summing up his followers as ‘men fit to be slaves’. He’d tried physical violence, sarcasm and verbal cruelty in his attempts to get rid of them and that hadn’t worked so he’d decided to give mockery a go. It failed dismally, they’d just cheered as enthusiastically and sycophantically as they always did. ‘Dickheads’ he thought gloomily.

“Slaves? What does he mean, slaves?” Nobert looked perplexed; he wasn’t familiar with the concept.

His Boss who’d been following events closely replied “It means that he sees his followers as something to be owned in the same way that they think they own cows or dogs but it’s worse than that. The animals are rewarded for the work that they do for humans, with good food and warm shelter but slaves get nothing other than regular beatings and just enough awful food to keep them alive so that they can carry on working.”

“That’s awful!” said Norbert, shocked.

“Exactly! Which is why we need to do something. Come on, I’ve had an idea.”

“It doesn’t involve lightning bolts does it?” said a quiet voice from under the desk.

“I won’t tell you again, come out from under there!” The Boss bent down and pulled Norbert out by his skinny ankles “No, it doesn’t involve lightning bolts, we’re out of stock anyway, it involves making a better human. I’m going to do a few modifications, see if I can’t sort out the wiring problem caused by the emotions, leave out the essence of sheep, that sort of thing. If they want someone to follow down there, I’ll damn well give them someone good to follow. Come on Norbert, I’m going to need your help with this one.”

Norbert dusted off his knees, wincing a little at the mild carpet burns he’d sustained and followed his Boss. He was not looking forward to the re-wiring job at all; there’d been so many short circuits after he’d installed the emotions the first time around. He resigned himself to a late night.

“Hurry up Norbert. I need to strip everything back so that we’re just left with love and compassion and then we’ll go from there.” The Big Man rubbed his hands together and grinned, he was looking forward to this. He walked across to his office, where he stored the blueprints, with Norbert trailing behind him. He paused briefly to throw a lightning bolt at Tiberius. He missed.

“I thought you said we were out of stock!” called Norbert

“We are. There aren’t any in the stockroom, I found that one in my pocket when I was looking for a tissue.”

Tiberius eventually got so sick of people following him around all the time that he took off in the middle of the night with a few friends that he could just about tolerate. They found a small island and settled there, eating, drinking fermented grape juice and mating to their heart’s content. Tiberius sent a note to his Area informing them that he wouldn’t be coming back but he’d still be telling them all what to do – he didn’t give them a forwarding address.

He’d decided to take his nephew, Caligula, with him as the lad had a taste for debauchery and cruelty that matched his own. Over the years, he helped him refine those tastes and promised that, when he was gone, Caligula could be in charge. Several years later, Tiberius had a nasty bout of the flu and was in an out of consciousness for several days. Caligula watched his demise with a smile on his face and a song in his heart – at last he was going to be in charge! Finally, a medic came to find him and told him that Tiberius had expired. Unfortunately, at the same moment, Tiberius woke up and asked what they were having for breakfast. He was feeling much better and thought that he might get up and have a walk about while someone remade his bed; the sheets were all tangled, and he was very uncomfortable. Caligula walked over to the bed and picked up one of the heavy, down filled pillows. “You don’t have to do that son” said Tiberius “I’ll get one of the slaves to sort out the bed in a minute. Here! What are you doing with that, get off me!” Caligula had decided that he’d waited long enough to take charge and forced the pillow onto his uncle’s face until the old man stopped struggling. When the report, detailing events, was delivered to the Boss he was glad that he’d sent a memo to all staff saying that he and Norbert would be unavailable, except in case of emergency, until their new project was finished. At the time he’d been convinced that if the humans could just see how they were supposed to behave, the violence that was so prevalent in the Factory would cease.

Jesus

The Boss drew up the blueprints for his ‘good’ human and he and Norbert worked side by side on their latest project, with surprisingly few arguments, until it came to delivery. Norbert couldn’t see what was wrong with the usual method. The species seemed to have propagated itself reasonably well so far, but The Boss insisted that they had to sort out something special so that the humans couldn’t just ignore it. Over the years, they’d discovered that humans had amazing ability to ignore anything that they didn’t really want to see, especially the males for some reason, and the Boss wasn’t going to risk it happening this time.

“But Boss, it just doesn’t make any sense, no-one’s going to fall for it in a million years.” Norbert’s usually elastic patience was wearing thin as he tried wrap his brain around the absurd idea.

“That’s the point.” said the Big Man “It is unbelievable, that’s why this one is going to make such an impact on them. There’s a lot of sheep essence left in the humans and, if we’re going to get them heading in the right direction, we need a special delivery.”

“So you reckon, stupid as they admittedly are, that they’ll start following someone just because his Mum never…..” Norbert paused, blushed and considered how to phrase the rest of his sentence.

“Mated. Yes.” His Boss finished it for him saving a great deal of embarrassment and unnecessary cogitating.

“Couldn’t we just point to him or something?” said Norbert desperately.

“What do you mean point?” The Big Man frowned, confused.

“Well, couldn’t we polish up one of the bigger stars and sort of hang it over him? They could all do with a clean to be honest, I haven’t been around with the duster for ages with everything else that’s been going on. I just never seem to have a spare minute these days.” He looked down at hands “Look at the state of my nails, honestly..”

“Norbert!” his Boss’ voice cut impatiently into his little tirade. “Will you stop moaning and just listen for a minute. That’s actually not a bad idea, you find your cloth and some polish, and I’ll go and see Dave and sort out the delivery.”

“So, you’ve not changed your mind then?” Norbert asked.

“Certainly not, this is a great plan: virgin birth, shiny star, a few witnesses, some sheep and we’re just about there.” the Boss beamed.

“Not more bloody sheep!” Norbert muttered under his breath as he fetched his extra-long ladder. “It’s sheep that got them all into this mess in the first place.” Putting his cloth and some polish in the pocket of his robe, he started the long climb upwards. 30 something years later they were both leaning against the railing, tea in hand, admiring their handiwork.

“Well, I’ve got to hand it to you Boss” said Norbert “It worked like a charm didn’t it?”

“It certainly seems so; he’s definitely being listened to anyway. What’s he saying now?” The Big Man was just finishing an apple turnover and was sucking pastry crumbs from his fingers.

Norbert leaned over the railing a little further, careful not to spill his tea.

“Be nice to each other…..blah, blah, blah………don’t cover your neighbour’s Ox…that’s a bit bizarre, I would have thought it would be a nice thing to do; it gets cold down there at night….The mean will inhabit the earth, well that’s definitely true, it’s why we sent him down there……”

The Big Man interrupted “Norbert, are you sure you’ve got that right? Move over, let me have a listen.” The Boss nudged his PA to one side and leaned over the railing with his head cocked to one side.

Norbert was busying himself unwrapping his own apple turnover and was concentrating on making sure he didn’t stick his thumb in the icing. “What’s he saying Boss?”

“He’s calling for other humans to follow him.” the Big Man said with a satisfied grin, before turning his head again to listen again. “Apparently, they will have to deny themselves, only have one shirt and take a cross with them. I’m not quite sure what any of that means to be honest but it’s a pretty rousing speech.”

The Boss hauled himself back onto the platform and asked, “How many followers has he got now?”

“12” Norbert looked pleased. The Boss did not.

“12. That’s it?”

“It’s early days Boss, it takes a while to get followers you know even with the sheep essence.” Norbert was doing his best to be encouraging.

“How many did the other bloke have?” If he’d only had 15 the Big Man figured that their guy was in with a chance.

“Hang on, I’ve got it here somewhere……umm 27,943….oh.” Norbert looked crestfallen, even he couldn’t remain optimistic when faced with those numbers.

They stared at each for a few moments wondering why this was proving so difficult. The Boss thoughtfully twirled the end of his beard, got his finger stuck and tried to pretend it was deliberate before saying “What did they see in this other one, this Tiberius? What did he offer them?”

Norbert referred to some paperwork and said through gritted teeth “Mating…..lots of mating, all the time, that seemed to be positively encouraged.” He read on a bit further “Umm..grape drinks that make them fall down, some sort of theatre with males in leather skirts and lions. Oh yes! Remember? We saw that. Lots of fancy food that often makes them sick, but they seem to enjoy it anyway…” Norbert looked back down at his list, but he was interrupted.

“What about our guy? What do they get with him?” The Boss was looking hopeful.

Norbert flicked over a few pages on his clipboard, unearthed half a biscuit which he popped into his mouth and then flicked a few more pages so that he could finish munching the biscuit in peace before delivering his findings.

“Well, mating is not exactly encouraged and, if they really can’t go without, they have to pick one female and then stick with her. It’s not clear about the grape drink, perhaps one glass on a Friday after dinner? Having lions eat people is pretty much frowned upon but, giving stuff away, being nice to people (even if they’re not nice to you apparently) and forgiving people, even if they nick your sandals, is heartily recommended. Shall I go on?”

The Boss had lost his hopeful expression and now had a look on his face that Norbert had come to recognise; it usually meant that he would be doing some overtime.

“Come on, we’ve got work to do.” The Big Man stormed off, rolling up his sleeves as he went. Norbert trailed behind him hoping that, at least, they’d stop off at the canteen.

Everything in the Factory had been stopped. It didn’t happen very often because there was a bit of an issue with the reset button. Whilst it would indeed reset everything, there was sometimes a bit of a delay which meant that a bird could find itself moving through the air rather more quickly than usual as wing activation stalled and gravity reactivation kicked in. The problems were usually minor unless they were in the middle of product development and something was accidently launched during the reset. 9 times out of 10 it was decided to just go with it as a recall was a real headache; humans tended to notice when things popped in and out of existence and it worried them. Strangely they were perfectly accepting of species that, to a trained eye, were obviously in the development stages. The duck billed platypus had been very popular and the humans just seemed to feel a bit sorry for the monkey whose nose had been stuck on upside down, especially when it rained.

The Boss had decided that his ‘Peacemaker’, whose slightly bemused parents had named Jesus, needed some modifications. He was also going to give him some special tricks that would turn people away from the likes of Tiberius, who was currently experimenting with giant whirling blades that could cut off more than one head at a time. He hadn’t actually tried it out on any of his fellow humans yet but, if the results in the pumpkin patch were anything to go by, he was sure he was onto a winner.

The modifications had been fraught, as installing exceptional abilities that were never designed to fit into humans was, to say the least, a bit fiddly. In the end the Boss and his PA ended up having a huge argument, that involved much slapping of hands, and Norbert was told to go and work on something else. Norbert had stomped off and unleashed his creative energy. However, he was now slightly worried that he’d get in trouble if his Boss didn’t notice the Sparkle Muffin spider until after the reset, but he didn’t say anything to anyone as he was still miffed.

At last, all the modifications were complete, and they were ready for the re-set. The Boss and Norbert had finally put their differences aside and had their fingers crossed that their plan would work as they’d both seen the devastated pumpkin patch.

“OK, Norbert, hit it!”

There was a loud buzzing and a clanking of gears and Norbert and the Big Man made a dash for it as the Factory whirred back into life. They decided to let things settle down for a while and went off to have afternoon tea.

“Norbert! I distinctly remember asking to have a muffin with my tea, why do I have a slice of Battenberg? You know I’m not keen on all that yellow stuff around the outside.” The Boss was looking gloomily at the pastel coloured cake.

“What can I say Boss, I thought that we had a batch, but it looks like we’re fresh out; we’re a bit low on diamonds as well, I can’t think why.” Norbert’s face was a picture of innocence as he tracked the progress of a Sparkle Muffin spider who was busy annoying the other arachnids by strutting around in the sunlight and blinding them with the bright reflections from the diamonds on his back. ‘They’re just jealous’ Norbert thought proudly.

“Well I can’t say I’m not disappointed about the muffin, but I can’t see not having enough diamonds ever being a problem.” The Boss carefully pealed the sticky yellow stuff from the outside of his cake, put his feet up on the desk and settled down to enjoy his tea-break.

Sometime later He and Norbert popped back to the viewing platform to see how things were going after their modifications. Their movements were slow as, despite the yellow goo, Battenberg was strangely moreish and they’d both eaten far too much.

“Oh yes!” said the Boss with satisfaction “That’s bucked things up a bit, look at all the followers he’s got now.”

“Where is he? I can’t see him.” Norbert was craning his neck to try and pick him out in the crowd, but the humans all looked the same to him: long hair, robes, sandals, how was he supposed to identify just one amongst all that lot? “There must be 5,000 of them down there!” he said.

“Over there look, on that big hill.” The Boss pointed.

“Oh yes I’ve got him. Looks like they’re about to break for lunch, I wonder who’s doing the catering, that’s a big job for anyone?” said Norbert.

“No idea but they look pretty hungry, so I hope he’s at least organised some sandwiches.”

They both peered down as two small baskets were brought out from behind a bush.

“Blimey!” said Norbert “That’s not going to go far, a couple of loaves and some tuna, they’ll be bloody small sandwiches! Oh, wait, hang on, what’s happening?”

“It worked!” said his Boss. There was a look of satisfaction on his face that was verging on smug. “I knew that replication kit I installed would come in handy.”

“Nice one Boss!” despite himself Norbert was impressed and convinced that, before long, everyone would be turning away from Tiberius and following the guy with the tuna sandwiches. In his opinion it was a shame that someone hadn’t thought to whip up some mayonnaise, but the humans in the crowd seemed happy enough. They continued watching for a while as Jesus’ popularity grew and his reputation spread, not least because of the special capabilities that the Boss had installed. At a particularly dull wedding, for example, he’d turned water into wine and the evening reception had gone down a storm. Everyone was dancing and singing and clapping Jesus on the back, telling him what a great bloke he was. Jesus got a bit fed up with it all and had an early night but everyone else carried on until dawn and word of the party spread far and wide.

“Norbert, look!” The Boss tugged excitedly at his PA’s sleeve “He’s using the healing fluid that I installed in his saliva gland. You’ve got to admit, that was a stroke of genius!” The Big Man was incredibly pleased with himself. Norbert, on the other hand, was getting fed up; it wasn’t as though he hadn’t had any input.

He watched listlessly as one of the humans wiped mud from his eyes and then looked around in wonder as he realised that, for the first time in his life he could see. Jesus accepted his thanks with a kind smile and a blessing. Norbert thought that he only put his hand on the other humans’ heads like that to stop them getting too close; when it’s 40 degrees outside and wool is your only choice of material for a robe, hygiene tends to go out the window.

“Isn’t it wonderful?” said the Boss, clapping Norbert on the back.

“Yes Boss, amazing” he turned away and muttered under his breath “For the 40th time.”

“What did you install Norbert, I can’t remember” The Big Man had noticed that his PA was a little disgruntled so decided to give him some attention.

“Oh, nothing really, just some charm, wit, intelligence, eloquence…” Norbert trailed off but then, suddenly he brightened up “I forgot, I did sort something out with Lionel and Gavin which should boost Jesus’ followers no end.” He looked pleased with himself and turned his attention back to the Factory with far more interest. “I’ll give them a call and tell them to go ahead. You’ll like this Boss.”

The Big Man wasn’t so sure but decided to let Norbert go ahead.

“Gavin? Yes, it’s me Norbert. What? No, I’m with the Boss. Pasta, I think. What? No, I don’t know what sauce, check with the Kitchen. Listen, remember that plan we discussed with Lionel for the quick turn around? Good, can you do it now? Great, thanks Gavin, see you later….sorry what? Bolognaise again? Yes, alright, I’ll get the Boss to have a word. See you later.”

Norbert ended the call; the Big Man was staring at him quizzically, so Norbert explained.

“Haven’t we already had bolognaise sauce twice this week?” He placed his own call to Cookie, the head chef, who promised to whip up a batch of pesto. As he’d been talking, he could feel Norbert getting impatient so with a final “A bit of variation Cookie, that’s all I’m asking for.” he ended the call.

“Finally! Boss, look it’s working!” Norbert was hanging over the edge of the railing, bouncing up and down in his sandals excitedly. A human called Lazarus had had his expiration date overridden by Gavin and was currently on his way to the Returns Department. As per their agreement, Lionel, head of Recycling, was on stand-by.

“There he goes Boss!” Jesus was walking towards a small cave which had been sealed up 4 days previously. His followers watched him as he cocked his head to one side, obviously listening intently. At his instruction, the enormous boulder was rolled away from the entrance and Jesus entered. He put his hand gently on Lazarus’ head and whispered something to him.

“What did he say Norbert? I didn’t quite catch that?”

“He said ‘Don’t make a scene.’”

As they watched, Lazarus opened his eyes and tried to sit up. Jesus’ followers, who’d been watching from the cave entrance clapped and cheered and declared that it was a miracle. They surrounded Jesus as he exited, determined to tell absolutely everyone they knew about what they’d just witnessed.

“I told you Boss, they’re all rushing off to tell their mates about it, he’s going to have loads more followers in no time!” Norbert was very pleased with himself.

“Hmmm, I didn’t authorise that and no doubt I’ll be getting complaints from Accounts but, OK, I agree, it was a good idea.” He smiled at Norbert and suggested that they go and have some dinner. Neither of them paid any attention to Lazarus who was still trying to free himself from the bandages that had been tightly wrapped around him when he’d expired. ‘I suppose at least I should be thankful that Jesus heard me yelling’ he thought to himself as he finally managed to wiggle one arm free.

Unfortunately for Norbert, over dinner, someone mentioned the Sparkle Muffin spider to the Boss. There was an almighty row and both of them got into a strop which meant that no-one paid too much attention to what was going on down in the Factory for the next year or two. It was only by sheer chance that Norbert, who was on his way to a staff meeting one morning, happened to glance over the railing as he bent down to refasten his sandal. What he saw shocked him to his core.

“Shit!” he leapt to his feet and went running to find his Boss.

“BOSS!” he yelled at the top of his voice as he hurtled through the myriad of corridors. He flung open every door he could find, tripped over people who wanted to know what all the noise was about and then got lost in a storage locker that housed the spare rain forests.

“NORBERT! Where are you?”

“I’m in here Boss.” said a muffled voice “The door slammed shut and now I can’t find my way out.”

The Big Man opened the door and helped his hapless PA out. Norbert was picking leaves from his hair and wondering what on earth had persuaded him to experiment with ant-sized teeth. There shouldn’t really be any residual insects in the storage lockers but the lads in the warehouse got a bit careless sometimes.

“Where were you Boss? I saw what was going on down in the Factory and I wanted to tell you straight away, but I couldn’t find you anywhere.” Norbert turned away and removed a stray ant that had clamped its jaws around a particularly tender part of his anatomy before throwing it back into the storage locker and slamming the door shut.

“Where did you think I was? I was in the loo; you lot can’t expect me to be at your beck and call 24/7 you know! Anyway, come on, show me what’s got you all in a lather.” Norbert set off at a run towards the nearest viewing platform and his Boss hurtled along behind him, getting more concerned by the minute, he hadn’t seen Norbert so agitated for a long time. They crashed against the railing, breathing heavily, and look down at the Factory floor.

“What the f***?!” the Boss had never been angry enough to use asterixis before and Norbert was shocked.

“What went wrong? It was all going so well the last time I looked; he had loads of followers, people were being kind and nice to each other, what happened?” The Big Man’s shoulders slumped as his anger drained away and was replaced with bemused despair.

“Well, from what I can make out” said Norbert gently “He was a bit too popular.”

“How can he be too popular? That doesn’t make sense at all, I mean, that was the point wasn’t it?” The Boss was pulling at his hair in frustration and it was sticking up all over the place.

“Yeesss but the other lot didn’t like it.” said Norbert carefully “That Emperor chap found out that our guy was being called a King by his fans and he went a bit apeshit. To cut a very long story short, he ordered some bloke called Pilate to have a trial, one of our guy’s mates turned out to be a bit of a knob and dobbed him in and, well here we are……it’s a bit of a pickle.”

“A bit of a pickle!?? They’re nailing him to a plank of wood!!!!” The Big Man was distraught, he really thought he’d cracked it with this one.

“Yeah, I know, it’s not on is it?” Norbert gently put his hand on his Boss’ shoulder; he’d never seen him so upset. He even shed a tear as the broken body of Jesus was wrapped in a shroud and gently placed in a cave by his followers. They sealed it with a huge boulder and then wandered about aimlessly wondering who they were going to follow now; no-one else seemed particularly appealing.

“Right! I’m not having that! Bring him back and we’ll have another go.”

“You want me to shut down the Factory again Boss?” Norbert was shocked, more than once in a millennium was unusual but twice in a decade? It was unheard of.

“No.” The voice was like liquid steel and it brooked no argument.

“But Boss” said Norbert, preparing to argue “it will cause chaos, we can’t bring one back without a shutdown, they’ll all go batpoo crazy if they see that.”

“I can’t help that, they should have thought about that before, shouldn’t they?” The Boss was utterly determined “They won’t all see it anyway, but I bet you a Dodo to a doughnut that word will soon bloody spread!”

Norbert thought for a few minutes and then said “What if we make sure that word spreads? I don’t mean about bringing him back in, I mean let’s have one last go at getting the message across. We can get Lionel to rush him through Recycling, like we did with Lazarus and give him a chance to speak to just a few of his followers, the more sensible ones, and then get Gavin to bring him back to Returns after a few days. What do you think?”

“We can give it a try I suppose” The Big Man said grudgingly “but I don’t want him left down there for too long, do you hear me? Who knows what they might do if they get their hands on him again!”

“Rightho Boss, I’ll go and have a quick word with Lionel and Gavin now.” Norbert dashed off, glad to be out of his Boss’ orbit for a little while; he could be very hard going when he was miffed. He called ahead to Gavin to make sure that someone had the kettle on, and he grabbed a selection of pastries from the kitchen to hand out to the workers in Returns and Recycling. It never hurt to butter up the team when he needed a favour. Once all the arrangements were made, Norbert said his goodbyes and went back to the viewing platform armed with a cup of tea and a strawberry tart which he handed to his Boss the moment he arrived.

“Ah there you are, thanks Norbert. Did you get everything sorted?” The Big Man took a small bite of the tart which, he had to admit, was delicious and went someway to cheering him up.

“Yep, no problems Boss, Lionel’s going to drop Jesus off on the top of that big hill over there and Cedric fiddled about with the tracking of a dozen of his followers so that they’ll wander over there and meet up with him.”

“Alright, we’ll see how it plays out.” The Big Man still had his reservations about Norbert’s plan, but he pulled up a chair and got comfortable. They both watched as Jesus spoke gently to his followers, impressing on them the importance of being nice to all the other humans but also making it clear that they should pass on the message that anyone not being nice was going to come to a sticky end.”

“Norbert, did you programme that last bit in?” The Boss looked at him suspiciously.

“I did, yes.” Said Norbert defiantly “I made up some rubbish about a place where all the bad humans go when they expire.”

“What sort of place?”

“Somewhere dark and frightening that has all these monsters who will stick forks in their bottoms and then leave them to suffer in the flames of eternal fire.”

The Boss was impressed that Norbert had worked on his own initiative, but he couldn’t imagine the humans taking the threat seriously, it was too daft for words. ‘Forks in their bottoms, whatever next’ he thought to himself.

Jesus spoke to his followers for many hours and it was becoming obvious to Norbert and his Boss that they were losing interest. It was hot on the top of the hill, despite the shade of the trees, they’d all had a long walk and one or two were starting to drift off.

“Look! That one’s just sitting there picking his nose” exclaimed the Boss “he hasn’t heard a word in the last 10 minutes!”

Norbert shrugged, not in the least bit surprised that the humans weren’t really listening.

“The thing is Boss, after the episode with Lazarus, they’re not that easily impressed any more. I mean, they were initially a bit shocked when they rocked up and there was Jesus looking as right as rain even though he’d expired 3 days earlier, but they’ve seen it before. They were all happy to see him and they had a great little reunion but now he’s been talking for hours and they’re all a bit bored, you know what they’re like; you’ve created fish with longer attention spans.”

The Boss sighed. Norbert was right.

“Right OK let’s bring him back then. Has he mentioned all the important bits?”

“Several times I think.” Said Norbert who was looking forward to seeing the looks on the faces of the humans when Jesus was recalled. “I’ll give Gavin the signal.”

They watched with interest and then laughed at the shock and awe on the faces of the humans; especially the one who was standing with his mouth open and his finger still jammed up his left nostril.

“Gavin’s certainly got a flair for the dramatic.” Said the Boss, impressed. “By the way, did you catch what Jesus said at the last moment? I couldn’t hear over all the pyrotechnics.”

“I think he said, ‘Can someone look after my sheep’.” Said Norbert.

“Seems reasonable. Right, let’s get down to Returns and make sure he’s packaged up properly, I don’t want him shipped off to Recycling by mistake.”

When they got there, Gavin was looking extremely pleased with himself and puffed out his chest when the Boss congratulated him in front of the whole team. They were all told that they could take an extended tea break and that there were some sandwiches and a jam sponge waiting for them in the canteen. There were some cheers before the whole team laid down tools and cleared off to the canteen laughing and joking. The Boss and Norbert waited until they had all left before getting to work.

“Right Norbert let’s get him into a locker, that one over there, number 24:2, it’s a bit small but it will do for now. How’s it going down in the Factory now? I take it we’ve kept the batpoo crazy to a minimum?”

“Yes, things seemed to have finally settled down a bit. I tell you what, our guy has definitely got more followers now; not doing a reset when we recalled him was a stroke of genius. I mean, they were pretty impressed with the whole loaves and fishes thing but actually seeing a recall?! They’ve even got the idea into their heads that he’ll be back one day and will sort out all their problems for them.”

“Not bloody likely!” said the Boss “Anyway, you know what they’re like, they will have forgotten about him completely in a century or so.” The Big Man’s enthusiasm had worn off a bit and he was feeling slightly despondent again.

“I don’t think so somehow Boss. A few of them have even started collaborating on a book about his life. I think it could turn out to be bestseller, especially if they think to add in those rules that we sent down to that chap Moses.” Norbert and the Boss had been extremely proud of their rules and were annoyed when Moses had broken the tablets that they’d so carefully written them on. ‘I wonder whatever happened to him?’ thought Norbert.

“Excellent! In that case. I’ll go and distract Lionel while you fudge the Recycling ledger and then I think we should go and have lunch. The Boss took Lionel to one side to discuss efficiency protocols in the Recycling Department while Norbert rubbed out 47,163,122,125 and replaced it with 47,163,122,126 and then they both headed back to the Boss’ office.

“I quite fancy a tuna sandwich for some reason.” The Boss said, thoughtfully.

“Oh yes! Good idea. Have we got any mayo?” Norbert started rifling through the fridge as his Boss put his feet up and contemplated the humans. ‘They’re a funny lot’ he thought as he helped himself to a sandwich ‘I wonder if they’ll put me in their book?’ He took a bite ‘I shouldn’t think so; they don’t even know I exist’. The Boss sighed.

Over the next centuries some more modifications were made to humans in a few selected Areas so that Norbert and the Boss could see how they altered general behaviour before applying the fix to the population as a whole. In one remote region, they experimented with increased intelligence levels combined with the addition of a concentrated compassion serum. The Area blossomed. The inhabitants created great cities, experimented successfully with architecture, they devised methods to improve sanitation and even constructed a drainage system. They were concerned for their own health and well-being but also their neighbours. They farmed, looked after their animals and, generally, lived a very peaceful and happy life. Norbert and the Boss had been watching their progress and were convinced that they had found the perfect formula for all the humans in the Factory. They high-fived and rushed off to the Lab to order the preparation of more of the compassion serum and made arrangements for the universal increase in intelligence levels. Unfortunately, while they were away a scout from the neighbouring Area had stumbled across this advanced and peace-loving community.

A while later, Norbert and the Boss were standing side by side and looking down at the ruined cities. They’d decided to pop back and just make sure that they hadn’t missed anything before implementing the global changes.

“What happened? We were only gone for a couple of years!” said Norbert.

The Boss looked at him and said sadly “The neighbouring Area saw what they had, wanted it and took it, not realising that they lacked what had made this Area great in the first place – intelligence and compassion. Give it a few more years and the invaders will have destroyed this Area and probably most of the humans who were living here.”

“Oh Bollocks!” said Norbert “That’s going to create a bit of a nuisance for Returns, I’ll give Gavin a call and let him know that they’re all going to be doing some overtime this week. Come on Boss, we might as well go back to the drawing board.”

The Big Man took one last look at what could have been the perfect civilization, shook his head and then followed Norbert back to the Lab.

Some of their other experiments weren’t successful at all and they had to send down a couple of nasty plagues before the modified humans got out of control which also created a nuisance for the Returns Department. All of

this eventually resulted in Gavin leading a walk-out and no-one in Returns could be persuaded to go back to work until Norbert promised them extra overtime and extended tea-breaks. In the years that followed, life in the Factory bumbled on in its own haphazard fashion and human development continued to be as tricky, for Norbert and his Boss, as trying to nail jelly to a tree.

Part of the problem was that humans seemed to make things incredibly difficult for themselves. Rather than concentrating on improving their lives, most of them just did their best to exist. They worked their fingers to the bone ensuring that they had enough to eat for the next few weeks, or few hours in some unfortunate cases, but didn’t think beyond that. They were quite happy to eat animals but hadn’t worked out that certain animals could actually help them in their endeavours and, although they still used fire, they always thought too small, making tiny candles which illuminated little more than the 2 inches that surrounded them.

Norbert and the Boss played with the idea of extending expiration dates in order to give them more time to learn but, as it seemed that the majority of humans still hadn’t lost their inbuilt tendencies to towards self-destruction, they left them to it for a few centuries and just hoped they’d get the hang of things on their own.

William the Conqueror

“Norbert, what’s the big deal with that little island down there?”

The Boss had decided to take a break from product development and was keeping a casual eye on the Factory from a rather snazzy striped deckchair. He had installed himself on one of the viewing platforms and was idly flicking through some reports with his feet up on the railings.

“What did you say?” Norbert shouted. He was in his office working on some new diseases to ensure that the humans didn’t go past their expiration dates; although their attempts were often haphazard it did seem that they were beginning to find ways to repair themselves. ‘It will be a while before they figure this one out.’ thought Norbert happily as he experimented with a particularly vicious virus, that had already bitten him twice, and some chicken essence.

“Norbert! Come and look at this.”

“I’m busy, give me a minute.”

“Now!”

Norbert sighed, wiped his hands and wandered out to the viewing platform.

“Oh, good there you are.” said the Boss “I was saying, what’s the big deal with that little island down there?”

Norbert leaned his elbows on the railing and looked down “Which one?”

“The one that looks a bit like a witch sitting on a pig.” said the Boss. He stood up and pointed “There look!”

“Alright no need to get impatient.” said Norbert huffily “I’ve got no idea, why would something that small be of any interest to anyone?”

“I keep telling you Norbert, it’s not all about size! Honestly, I don’t know why I bothered asking, go back to your diseases.”

“Oh, come on don’t be like that, tell me.” Norbert didn’t like to think that he might be missing out on something interesting.

The Boss rubbed his nose and pouted just a little bit before giving in to his PA’s curiosity and his own desire to find out more about what kept driving the humans to such an insignificant looking place. If he was honest with himself, he couldn’t even remember making it.

“Well, I’m trying figure out why all the other Areas want to invade it. I’ve been reading through some reports that Jeremy sent up and it seems as though it’s happened loads of times. There were the ones who wore the sheets slung over one shoulder, then the ones with the metal masks, after that it was the blond ones with the horns on their helmets who came over from Area 36 and now it looks as though their neighbours on the other side of the water are going to have a crack at them.”

“I haven’t got the foggiest to be honest” said Norbert, skimming through the report over his Boss’ shoulder “I mean, it’s a piddly little island, Climate Control have obviously forgotten about it as it never seems to stop raining and the people seem to be a bit, shall we say, scrappy. Personally, I can’t see why anyone would want to invade it.”

“You’re definitely right about scrappy.” said the Boss “There’s something here about a female who attached spikes to the wheels of her chariot? She sounds scary!”

“Maybe that’s why the other Areas want to invade?” said Norbert thoughtfully “Perhaps they see it as a bit of a challenge.”

“Perhaps” conceded the Big Man “but they never seem to get too much out of it, all the ones who’ve tried it up until now seem to end up giving them far more than they take. The ones with the off the shoulder robes built straight roads, they made sure that the islanders don’t have to crap in a field anymore and they showed them how to keep warm. After that the ones with the horns on their hats gave them hints on how to build longer ships and showed them how to comb their hair. It seems to me that, if these invaders are going over there to try and take something, they’re not doing a very good job.”

“No Boss, when I said perhaps it’s a bit of a challenge, I meant that the islanders don’t make it easy for them to invade, they put spikes on their chariots, paint themselves blue and generally get seriously aggressive. I don’t know, maybe it’s just a ruse to get all that free stuff.” Norbert scratched his head, these islanders were a strange bunch in his opinion and really not worth his time, he’d much rather be back in his office, working on his new diseases.

However, as the latest batch needed time to ferment, he stayed with his Boss on the viewing platform and watched as the islanders’ neighbours packed their bags, saddled their horses, instructed their wives not to mate with anyone else in their absence and launched their ships. All this took quite some time as the bloke in charge decided that he needed to take all the young and able men from all the surrounding towns and villages. It was uncertain whether this was to strengthen his army or to ensure that none of the wives strayed. He achieved both, except in the case of one young woman who had a taste for much older men and had a lot of explaining to do when her husband eventually came back.

Eventually, they were ready to go and set off towards the coast in a long procession. In order to invade, they needed boats as there was a large stretch of water between them and their neighbours. The last-minute decision to take so many men meant that there were not enough boats to go around and quite a lot of time was lost as they argued price with the local fishermen who, realising it was a seller’s market, were negotiating hard. However, they were finally ready to go. The fishermen, who were, by this time, considerably wealthier, pushed them off and waved goodbye, smiling happily, until the boats were out of site. They then consumed large enough quantities of fermented, intoxicating beverages to make them fall over.

Things did not go quite so well for the intrepid voyagers. Between the rowers getting seasick, two or three of the boats getting lost and a couple of stray lightning bolts that Norbert found in a kitchen cupboard, the crossing between the two areas took far longer than they’d expected but, eventually, they arrived at the shores of the little island.

“I can’t believe that I missed.” said Norbert, he hadn’t had much experience with lightning bolts and his aim was way off.

“I told you, you need to throw from the shoulder and not the wrist, that way you can control them a bit better. I’ve got to give it to you though, there was quite a bit of power behind that last one, you gave those seals a hell of a shock.” The Boss patted his PA on the head.

Norbert shook his hand off and said, “That doesn’t make me feel any better you know.”

“Oh, stop sulking, you’ll get the hang of it with a bit more practice. Here, look, see what they’re up to now.” He pushed Norbert closer to the rail and they both watched as two groups of thousands of humans met in a field and glared at each other.

“When did they invent those?” Norbert asked.

“What?”

“Those bent sticks with the string tied between the two ends. What are they going to use them for I wonder?”

“No idea but I can’t imagine that they’ll be much use in a scrap, not when you consider that the other side have got those huge metal balls with the spikes on.” The Boss and Norbert had monitored with increasing concern, the innovative methods that the humans had found to injure and kill each other but this was a new one on them.

“Oh, that’s interesting. It looks as though he’s attaching that little pointy stick to the string; what happens now do you reckon?” said the Big Man. He and Norbert both watched with interest as the two groups of men converged on each other with determination in their eyes and fear in their trousers. The battle commenced.

“Ooofff! They want to watch him with that, he’ll have some bugger’s eye out!”

“It’s funny you should say that Norbert.” They both leaned a little further over the railing.

“Ooohh that had to hurt!” The Boss winced and stepped back from the railing. “Well that seems to be the end of that, didn’t last long did it? What happens now?”

They looked at each other and shrugged and before wandering back to the Boss’ office. They tried to make sense of the battle they’d just witnessed but, it seemed to them that its sole purpose was to decide who was going to sit on the best chair and wear a shiny hat. They really couldn’t understand the human’s obsession with chairs, so, after a while they gave up and turned their attention to the paperwork that had been piling up in their absence.

“Well Gavin’s not happy.” The Big Man was sitting at his desk reading through a report from Returns, as Norbert poured the tea and put some biscuits on a plate. “They’ve had 10,000 come through just this afternoon.”

“Well that’s going to kill the overtime budget for this month.” said Norbert gloomily

“You’re telling me! I’ve already had a sniffy memo from Accounts.” The Boss pulled a face, he didn’t like memos from Accounts at the best of times “It’s irritating, I had a couple of new species I wanted to launch this month but now that’s going to have to wait.”

They sat in miserable silence, drinking their tea and munching biscuits. A few minutes later there was a tap at the door.

“It’s open.” called the Boss “Afternoon Gavin, how’s it going down there?”

“I’ve got to be honest Boss, the lads aren’t happy” Gavin rubbed his nose “It’s really bloody fiddly getting those pointy sticks out, they keep catching on the internal plumbing. Not only that but Lionel, in recycling, won’t stop moaning about the number of holes they’ve got to patch up, he’s really getting on my nerves.” Gavin helped himself to a biscuit, much to Norbert’s annoyance, and rested his hip against the Boss’ desk.

“I don’t really know what you expect me to do about it, Gavin. I’ve authorised the overtime budget which is going to scupper my plans for the launch of the new species but other than that…….” The Boss tailed off. Gavin had always been a bit militant and really didn’t understand the problems that Management faced. He didn’t realise that they were all at the mercy of the Accounts department and their damned budgets.

“Well, if it helps, I had a thought.” said Gavin with the air of one who had no intention of helping anyone other than himself and his workers.

“Go on.” said the Boss. He was always suspicious when Gavin started having thoughts.

“The lads thought…..we all thought…. that it might be good for morale if we had a target board in Returns.”

“What do you mean, a target board?” said the Boss suspiciously.

“It was pulling out all those little pointy sticks that gave us the idea. Reg came up with a board, divided into sections, with numbers painted round the edge and then we throw the pointy sticks at it. Everyone gets three throws each and the one with the highest score wins; it’s great fun.” Gavin had a grin from ear to ear.

“So, when you said that you had a thought” said Norbert “what you actually meant was ‘can we play with the target board that we’ve already made when we’re on our break please Boss’”.

“Heh heh, umm, yes that about sums it up Guv.” Gavin did at least have the grace to look slightly sheepish.

The Boss gave his permission, happy not to have to listen to any more complaints and Gavin went back to Returns to announce another victory over Management. He and Norbert then continued ploughing their way through more memos and reports.

“Here Boss, have you seen this?” Norbert handed over a scroll of paper. The Big Man took it and read though the contents quickly.

“Well we did wonder what they were going to get from the invaders this time I suppose.” He said “Bloody great houses for religion to happen in and bloody great castles for the blokes in charge! I reckon they were better off with the other lot, at least they gave them something useful and then buggered off back to their own Area, this lot look like they’re planning on staying for a while.”

“Yeah but have you seen what they can do with a couple of cloves of garlic and some cream? It’s amazing! I don’t think the islanders will mind them hanging around for a while.”

Norbert wandered off in the direction of the kitchens. He needed to have a word with Cookie about tonight’s dinner. His Boss, meanwhile, helped himself to another biscuit and studiously ignored all the memos from Accounts.

It turned out that Norbert was right – to a point. The islanders did indeed put up with the invaders for a while but then they got fed up with the smell of garlic and being pushed around. Their innate aggressive streak took hold once again and they started fighting back against the invaders. This time it lasted a lot longer, a hundred years, give or take. Gavin had to take on extra staff and Accounts put a complete block on any non-essential spending; it was not a happy century for anyone really.

The Aztecs

After everything that had been going on, it took Norbert quite some time to catch up with his paperwork; one report in particular was giving him some serious problems. After wrestling with it for several months he decided to ask The Boss for some help. He stuffed the papers into his pocket, grabbed a jam doughnut and set off. He was just licking the last of the sugar from his fingers when he bumped into Gavin, the foreman in Returns, who seemed slightly flustered.

“Morning Gavin, what’s up?” Norbert would normally have rushed past someone looking flustered with his head down, but his doughnut had been particularly jammy and he was feeling in quite a good mood.

“Oh, hi guv. Ummm it’s nothing really, I’m OK, I’d better get on.” As he tried to pass, Norbert grabbed his sleeve.

“Come on, I can see that something’s not right, it’s not like you to be down in the dumps. You can talk to me, it’s what I’m here for.”

Gavin looked extremely sceptical. Norbert was very good at his job but his management style was normally what you’d call ‘hands off’ and his moto was ‘my office has a door on it for a reason.’

“It’s the tiny birds and the butterflies” Gavin mumbled, he hung his head and was looking a little ashamed.

Norbert’s sugar rush was wearing off, so he replied “What? Speak up!”

“We’ve been getting loads of tiny little birds and butterflies coming through Returns Guv, before their expiration date, and it’s sad.” Gavin surreptitiously wiped his nose on the sleeve of his robe “They’re so small and beautiful, really delicate and they’re coming back to us broken…” Gavin’s voice cracked, and a single tear fell from his eye. Norbert looked at him aghast for a moment and then said, “Oh pull yourself together Gavin!” before stomping off in the direction of the Boss’ office.

Gavin turned and watched him leave ‘Unfeeling bastard!’ he thought.

Norbert took a slight detour via the kitchens to pick up a small box of chocolate eclairs as it was never a good idea to go empty handed if you wanted the Boss’ help. Unusually, the door was closed when he got there so he knocked

“Wait outside for a few minutes please.” He heard the Big Man call out. Shocked Norbert took a seat and debated opening the box of eclairs, but he restrained himself and had another quick look over the reports that he’d bought with him. Several minutes later the door opened, and Gavin exited. He thanked the Boss and headed back towards Returns, not even glancing in Norbert’s direction. ‘How rude!’ Norbert thought.

“Come in” said the Boss, taking the box from Norbert’s hands “Are those chocolate eclairs?”

They both took a seat and Norbert put his reports on his Boss’ desk.

“What can I do for you?” The Big Man looked at the papers expectantly.

“Well, firstly, how do you pronounce that?” Norbert pointed at a word that cropped up regularly on the report.

“Let’s have a look.” The Boss looked down, stared for a few seconds, his lips moving, then looked up at Norbert and said, “Exactly as it’s written.”

“Well, as it’s written Huitzilopochtli, that doesn’t really help me very much does it?” said Norbert, exasperated.

“Why do you need to know?” asked the Boss, pulling the box of eclairs towards him and opening the lid.

“I don’t need to know but the humans in this one particular Area appear to have developed certain skills that others haven’t, and I thought we should try to understand why and then, maybe, make some global modifications. The problem is that I keep trying to get to the end of this report to see if it will give me some ideas, but I just can’t get past the names. Every time I read one and can’t figure out how to pronounce it, I’m stuck on it for ages. Look, there’s another one – Chimelcóatl-Chalchiuhcíhuatl – I’ve tried, believe me I’ve tried, but my mouth just won’t bend in the right direction, it’s driving me crazy!”

The Boss had another look. “Chimyco..chimalcoat…chalcychocho…Oh I give up, I feel like I’m trying to swallow my own tongue! Look, Norbert, forget about the names and tell me about these skills they’ve developed.”

“Well, for a start, look at their construction techniques” said Norbert, passing over a scroll of paper “They’re way ahead of all the other Areas. Not only that but they’ve built on land that we had decided to make uninhabitable for humans.”

“How?” The Boss was surprised, not with their ingenuity but with their reasoning. ‘Why would anyone want to live somewhere that was uninhabitable?’ he thought.

“This is one of the Areas that we made too damp and squidgy for humans but they’ve drained the excess water, redirected it to irrigate the sections that we made bone dry and extra hard and then, with any bits they had left over, they’ve made little islands. After they’d done all that they planted crops which are now thriving and feeding everyone in the Area. Honestly Boss, it’s really impressive.”

The Big Man had been listening to Norbert with half an ear as, at the same time, he’d been skimming through the report that he’d brought with him. He found that, if he closed one eye and concentrated really hard, he could get past the brain scrambling words.

“Norbert, I think there’s a reason that these words keep cropping up” he said slowly “it looks like they’re names of gods.”

“Seriously? I would have thought this lot would have had more intelligence quite frankly.” Norbert had a very low opinion of gods and he failed understand the human’s obsession with worshipping things that they couldn’t see.

“Well, yes but that’s not the point, look at this.” The Boss passed the report back to his PA “Close one eye, it helps.” He said.

Norbert looked down at the report with the same expression on his face as someone who hadn’t had a bowel movement in a week and was really trying to make it happen. When he finally looked up, there were small beads of sweat on his brow which was deeply furrowed.

“Did you see this? They honestly believe that they were created from the blood from a wound in Quetzysomethingoranother’s dangly bits?!?” Norbert was incredulous, he’d heard some daft human theories about their origins over the years, but this was ridiculous.

“Read on Norbert.” The Boss took one of the chocolate eclairs for himself and then pushed the other across to his PA, he had a feeling that he might be needing it very shortly.

The Big Man nibbled the end of his éclair before scooping out some of the cream filling with his tongue; all the while he watched the changing expressions that passed across Norbert’s face.

“Bloody hell!” Norbert’s hand reached automatically for the comfort of his chocolate éclair “Is that what Gavin was doing here?”

“Yes, he was concerned by the numbers of tiny birds and butterflies that were coming in from that Area before their expiration date, but he only came to me when the numbers of human returns started spiking. He was quite upset, not least because they were getting more and more messy and coming back with various important organs missing.”

Norbert interrupted “Lionel won’t be too happy either if he’s having to take organs from the reserves in the stockroom before he recycles them.”

“I’ve already had three memos from him since I saw Gavin, he’s doing his pieces.” The Boss rolled his eyes, Lionel had a tendency towards the dramatic.

“What is it about this Area Boss? They’re taking perfectly functioning humans and dismantling them.” Norbert was confused and feeling slightly nauseous; it could have been the doughnut and éclair but more likely the vivid descriptions of the dismantling process that had been included in the report. ‘At least there weren’t any pictures’ he thought to himself.

“There’s only one way to find out.” The Boss pushed back his chair and set off in the direction of the Area’s viewing platform; Norbert followed him reluctantly.

They had only been watching for a few moments when Norbert said to himself ‘Well, that explains why Gavin was so upset.’ Far below, hundreds of tiny, jewel like birds and vibrant, colourful butterflies were being ritually slaughtered. Norbert was used to seeing humans doing their best to destroy each other but this senseless ruination of some of the Boss’ most beautiful work was heart-breaking. Norbert glanced across at the Big Man and saw that his bottom lip was quivering.

“Look!” said Norbert, grateful for the distraction of a long, human procession. The participants were offering blessings to children, calling out greetings and dancing, the whole thing had a real party atmosphere.

“Boss, are you sure that Gavin was right about the numbers of human returns? This looks like some sort of celebration; perhaps they’ve had enough of dismantling each other.” Norbert looked hopeful.

“No, he was right, I think. Watch, they’re all walking towards that huge building over there where the guys in white are waiting and, if I’m right, they’re the local religion representatives – priests I think they call them. If I’ve learned anything about religion over the centuries, they won’t be handing out party favours.”

Norbert looked across at the building and said, “What is that monstrosity on top?”

“I think that’s their rendering of one of their gods.” The Boss replied through gritted jaw.

“Ugly bugger, isn’t he?” Norbert thought about all the truly beautiful things that they’d made to go in the Factory and wondered at the mentality of humans that they would worship something so hideous. The procession reached the steps of the building and the first of the humans slowly mounted, seemingly relaxed. He was young and male and climbed effortlessly on to the great stone block at the top of the steps before reclining. There was a quick flash of black and then his chest was agape, and his heart was lifted up, still beating feebly, towards the statue; the crowds cheered.

“All of them?” said Norbert quietly as he watched the procession slowly make its way up the steps.

“All of them. Gavin was right. From what I can make out they think that, because they were created from the blood of a god, they have to give blood back to him to ensure their continued prosperity.” The Big Man’s mouth twisted in bitterness.

“So, they honestly think that they’ve only managed to achieve all that they have because of some ugly ass god? Daft bastards!” Norbert never ceased to be amazed by the insecurity of humans. They’d been given intelligence and powers of reasoning and yet they preferred to believe that their successes were dependent on the goodwill of a character from a story written years before – probably as a joke. He shook his head and said, “Come on Boss, let’s go down to the Lab and see if we can figure out what we’re going to do about all this.”

They both worked through afternoon tea-break and dinner, so distressed were they by what they’d witnessed. Luckily, they managed to find a solution just in time to make it for last orders at supper.

They’d enlisted the help of Cedric, from Tracking, who made a few alterations to the guidance systems of a large numbers of humans from a neighbouring Area. Thanks to his modifications, several thousand of them felt the sudden urge to invade. They were delighted to discover that the residents of the new Area had invented lots of really great stuff that they could steal. They were not so delighted that they’d arrived on the second Tuesday of the month, just in time to witness a mass sacrifice to the god Huitzilopochtli. They acknowledged afterwards that it had made the invasion much easier as the inhabitants were all so busy but even the hardiest of soldiers admitted that they hoped they’d never seen anything like it ever again.

Knowing that humans had very short attention spans Norbert and the Boss also did some work in the Lab and cooked up a few new and deadly diseases. They made sure that the unsuspecting invaders were carrying a good supply, just in case any of them got distracted and decided that maybe human sacrifice was a good idea after all.

The day after their arrival the invaders made a detailed inspection of the Area. They’d been stunned at the architecture, they marvelled at the aqueducts and dams, enraptured by the tiny birds and sick when they saw the aftermath of the previous day’s sacrifices. Once recovered, they gathered the inhabitants together and made it clear, in no uncertain terms, that whilst it was perfectly acceptable to kill one’s enemies in a war, it was not, in any way, acceptable to dismember them to appease a god. As is the case with all humans, it was extremely difficult to change their point of view and there were a great many arguments on the subject. Luckily, several of the diseases kicked in and the inhabitants eventually bent to the will of the invaders, primarily because they were too sick to argue any more. The invaders were not an unkind bunch and they promised to find some new gods, for the inhabitants to worship, who didn’t require ritual dismemberment or mutilation.

The next morning, after breakfast, Norbert went down to Returns to check up on Gavin and his team. It looked as though things had finally settled down but, between the dismantling, the new diseases and the invaders they’d had a very busy time of it, and they all looked tired. Norbert had a quick word of encouragement for the supervisor, Stan and handed him a large box of doughnuts which were gratefully received by the workers, before he went over to Gavin’s office.

Gavin was sitting behind his desk with his forehead rested in his hands, his shoulders were slumped.

Norbert walked over and placed a small box in front of him. It contained a work of culinary perfection decorated with elaborate swirls of chocolate and caramel; it was Norbert’s way of saying sorry.

Gavin opened the box and looked inside; he smiled grimly and nodded to Norbert. There was really nothing to say; they had bonded over the shared memory of tiny, delicate, beautiful, broken bodies.

Henry VIII

Things had been relatively quiet in the Factory for a few decades, if you discounted the odd war and invasion here and there. Norbert and his Boss had been busy with modifications, so it took them a while to realise that one of the humans had been causing a bit of a stir. In fact, the only reason that either of them had noticed anything at all was because of the rather unpleasant burning smell…

“Norbert, what in the name of Noah’s nodules is that pong? These robes have been beaten against 3 different rocks and I can still smell it.” The Boss pulled at the neck of his robe and sniffed, wrinkling his nose.

“I know Boss, it’s been driving me mad for weeks, so I did a bit of a recce and I tracked it down to London.”

“London….London…” the Boss said thoughtfully “Isn’t that in the middle of that little green blob over there? What have they been up to now? I remember that incident with the bird who insisted on attaching swords to her wheels and we had to do a lot of rabbit replacements but other than that…….”

It was quite unusual for rabbit replacements to be necessary because they are exceptionally good at mating, but they are also nosey and seeing grass flying all over the place was just too much for their curiosity to bear.

“Yes, the rabbit replacement was mildly miffing I’ll admit but don’t you remember all those battles that maxed out the overtime budget for decades? That was annoying!” said Norbert

“Nope, I’ve blocked it out. Anyway, you were saying.” The Big Man glared at Norbert defying him to say anything further about the overtime budget. Norbert took the hint.

“Well, there’s a new bloke in charge and he’s causing havoc; name of Henry apparently. One thing I will say about the people who live on that Island, they don’t have much imagination; he’s the 8th Henry to be in charge. It’s not as if it’s a particularly interesting name is it?”

The Big Man folded his arms and glared impatiently at his PA; it did irritate him when he wandered off the point. “Yes, that’s all very fascinating Norbert but what has he got to do with the smell?”

“Oh, right yes, sorry. He’s been burning other humans.”

The Boss blinked a couple of times and then said “Why?”

“Well it’s all to do with religion from what I can make out. And wives.” Norbert was not 100% sure of his facts and it showed.

“Bloody hell! Not religion again, what’s the matter with them? No don’t say anything, I know the answer.” the Boss waved his hand at Norbert who hadn’t had any intention of answering the question “And what’s this about wives, I can’t quite see the connection between the two if I’m honest”.

He looked a bit shifty as he said that because it had suddenly occurred to him that, if Jesus hadn’t mentioned that the humans had to pick a mate and stick with them or face all sorts of horrible consequences, there would be no problem with trading one wife in for a new one. As Jesus had been one of his designs, he decided to keep quiet. To divert attention, The Big Man raised an expectant eyebrow at Norbert who was frantically trying to remember what had been said on the reports that were currently laying on a pile on his desk rather than in his hand where they would be considerably more useful. He racked his brains and then said “If I remember rightly, Henry had a wife who had one religion but then he wanted to swap her for another one who had a different religion and was younger and better to look at. Some guy in another part of the Factory who’s in charge of religion said it couldn’t be done, he and Henry had a big row, Henry insisted, people didn’t like it so now he’s burning them.”

“Norbert, are you quite sure you’ve got that right? It all sounds a bit lacking in detail to me, have you actually read the report or just skimmed it and then dumped it on your desk with all the others?”

Norbert was usually quite diligent when it came to reports but as soon as he saw the word ‘religion’ he’d lost interest and had skipped through to the account of the new wife; he could certainly describe her in detail if the Boss was interested.

“I’ll go and fetch the report.” He muttered, resigned to being bored.

“Thank you Norbert and can you put the kettle on as well please? If we’re going to have to deal with this religion nonsense, we might as well do it over a cup of tea and a biscuit.”

Three cups of tea and a whole packet of custard creams later they were still trying to figure out what the humans had been arguing about and why their sandals were still caked in soot.

“It’s not just me is it?” Said Norbert. His eyes were tired from reading the report and he had a headache.

“Nope, it’s definitely not just you. From what I can make out there’s no difference between these religions except who’s in charge; that and those little wafer biscuits but I can’t for the life of me understand how a biscuit could be a problem. It seems to me that the only real problem is that this Henry character didn’t like someone telling him that he couldn’t do exactly as he pleased, and he had a hissy fit.”

Norbert and the Boss had long since realised that the major problem with kings was that no-one ever told them ‘no’ and consequently, like toddlers who are treated in the same way, they are prone to throwing all their toys out of the pram. Unlike toddlers however, they also have armies that they can command to throw things that are far more deadly than your average teddy bear. Unfortunately, Henry had taken things one step further than most other kings and had declared himself to be subject to ‘no earthly authority’ which basically translated as ‘no bastard’s going to be telling me what to do’.

The regular reports that Norbert had been receiving indicated that Henry’s ‘hissy fit’ was showing no signs of abating. In effect, all his toys were on the floor and he’d overturned his pram.

“What I can’t understand” said Norbert “Is why, after all that arguing, he changed his mind about the new wife and chopped her head off.”

As with many humans, Henry had fought hard for something that everyone told him he couldn’t have and then, we he got it, he decided that it was no longer of any interest whatsoever. He could have explained this to his second wife but, as that would have entailed admitting that he may have been wrong in some way, he chose to just remove her from existence. Obviously, he needed an excuse to persuade his subjects that is was not unreasonable to decapitate a wife, so he plumped for something impossible to disprove – he proclaimed that she was a witch and had enslaved him with enchantments. Not only that but he accused her of mating with half his friends and her own brother. Again, he had no proof, but everyone decided to take his word for it as it was safest not to disagree with a king who was prepared to behead wives that he’d grown tired of.

“He’s on to the third wife now you know.” Norbert had few romantic inclinations left and couldn’t understand wanting one wife let alone three. “And according to this memo I’ve just had from Dave in Despatch, she’s going to have a child, a boy apparently. He’s been after one of those for years, completely obsessed by the idea from what I can make out. Perhaps this will be enough to cheer him up a bit and stop him being such a bastard to everyone.” Norbert was delving deeper into the reports he’d been sent on Henry’s random acts of bastardy when his Boss’ voice interrupted his thoughts.

“Don’t worry about that now, we need to focus on stopping all this burning, it’s playing havoc with my sinuses.”

“Here try this.” Norbert handed over a small pot.

“What is it?” The Boss took a sniff and felt his eyes start watering, a second sniff took a cooling and clearing breeze into each nostril.

Norbert was still reading and muttered “I just put some smelly herbs together with oil, it seems to work, just rub a bit under your nose.” He was so busy trying to keep his eyes focused that he forgot to mention that the Big Man should wash his hands afterwards; his own experiments had led to quite a lot of rather unpleasant stinging.

“Aarrrgghhhhhhh! Oh shit! It burns! Do something!” The Boss had leapt up from his chair and was frantically rubbing his eyes. In his distress he started running blindly in circles before catching his knee of the edge of a filing cabinet and falling on the floor. Norbert took the opportunity to pin him down and throw a, thankfully cold, cup of tea in his face. The yelling stopped but was replaced with indignant spluttering.

“What the hell did you do that for?” The Boss tried to shrug Norbert off and wipe the tea from his eyes.

“Noooo! Don’t touch your eyes again whatever you do. Hang on, I’ll get a tissue.”

After much mopping, and some further irrigation, harmony was restored. Although his eyes were still red and he couldn’t get rid of the smell of eucalyptus from his hands, the Boss’ sinuses were now quite clear. However, this meant that the pervading smell of cooking human was once again lingering in his nostrils and so he and Norbert went back to the drawing board.

While all this had been going on Henry had moved on to a fourth wife and was, not to put too finer point on it, losing the plot. The years spent listening to people telling him how wonderful he was meant that he did not take at all well to people insinuating that that he was becoming a bit of a git. To overcome the problem, Henry did what he had always done and changed the rules to suit himself. Each Area of the Factory had their own rules which were designed, in turn, to oppress or protect but Henry was rewriting his Area’s rules so often that his own lawyers were finding people guilty, for no other reason than they might have inadvertently committed a crime themselves and they wanted to deflect the heat.

Norbert and the Boss struggled on with their reports and tried to learn enough to be able come up with a solution to stop Henry’s tyranny. Eventually they gave up and decided to review the situation in the Factory and see if that gave them any ideas. They’d made the trip to the Area’s viewing platform and were leaning side by side over the railing; each had a small bucket in their hands.

“I’m not sure I can watch much more of this.” said Norbert. He was looking rather green.

“I know but we need to find his weak spot if we’re going to do anything about him.” The Boss winced as an unfortunate soul was strangled, had his dangly bits cut off, his intestines pulled out and burned, his head chopped off and was then cut into squares. “Oh, that is just disgusting, no wonder it smells so bad around here.” The Big Man pushed himself away from the railing and turned his back to the Factory as Norbert made good use of his little bucket.

When they had both recovered, they went back to the main office to pick up the latest updates, both desperately hoping that Henry’s desire for roasting his fellow humans would wear off naturally.

“I don’t believe it!” said Norbert as he slammed a report down on his desk and his buttocks into a chair.

“What’s he done now?”

“He’s only gone and got another wife! That’s five now!” Norbert was incredulous.

“Five? I don’t remember him getting number 4, what happened to her?” The Boss frowned and silently questioned Norbert’s mathematical abilities.

“Oh, I don’t know, he said she looked like a horse or something and refused to mate with her and then he decided that she was his sister so she couldn’t be his wife anymore. To be honest, she seemed pretty happy about it but, from what I can make out, he didn’t really want a sister, he just wanted to take up with this new one.”

“What does the new one look like?” asked the Boss slowly. He was wearing an expression on his face that usually meant he’d had an idea.

“Umm, well, umm quite nice I think, young, long hair, curvy bits.” Norbert found that his cheeks were a little pink and he was shuffling in his chair; he put the report on his lap and pretended to look through it.

“Excellent! I’ve got an idea.” said the Boss as he marched purposefully out of the office. Nobert stayed where he was until he had no more need for the reports in his lap and then wandered into the development lab where he found the Big Man focused on some teeny, tiny curly things. His tongue was poking out and he’d put on the special glasses that Norbert used for disease production.

Norbert walked up behind him and looked over his shoulder “That looks interesting Boss, what is it?”

“It’s the thing that’s going to stop Henry, that’s what it is. I got to thinking about all the trouble he’s been causing, and it all comes down to the same thing, females and his codpiece.”

“I didn’t know he liked cod.” said Norbert confused

“Do try and keep up with the fashion updates; that’s a codpiece.” the Boss showed Norbert a picture. Norbert said nothing but felt distinctly inadequate.

“So, what’s with the squiggly things?” he said, desperate for a change of subject.

“I’ve decided to call it syphilis; if that doesn’t put a stop to his gallop nothing will.” The Boss looked fondly at his latest design before boxing it up and sending it off to Despatch to await delivery; he’d marked it ‘Urgent’.

“Anyway, Norbert, what’s going on down there? Have we had any more updates through today?” He wiped his hands on a tea towel and looked expectantly at his PA.

“Yep, got this through a few minutes ago” Norbert leaned back against one of the benches that they used for disease production and unrolled a scroll of paper. He quickly scanned the contents and said, “He’s chopped the head off another one, apparently she got a little too…..friendly with some other males.” Norbert was relieved when his Boss didn’t ask any questions but slightly startled when he yelled “Bugger! Norbert run down to Despatch and tell them that delivery needs to go ‘NOW’!

“On my way Boss.” Norbert set off at a run.

The syphilis worked remarkably well when used in conjunction with a large suppurating boil that Brian had found stuck to the back of Norbert’s robe when he’d arrived in Despatch. Before long Henry arrived in Returns and was put into long term storage. Usually the humans were recycled but the Boss had decided not to take any chances.

Despite the atrocities that they’d witnessed, the Big Man felt pleased that a solution had eventually been found and he set off to the laundry room. With every other step he tapped the toes of his sandals on the walkway in an effort to get rid of the last of the soot. ‘At least we won’t have that problem again’ he thought.

Bloody Mary

A surprisingly short time later Norbert was in the Lab, ostensibly to make a cure for galloping hoof rot in sheep, but actually to whip up a batch of banana bread. He had a particular fondness for this moist delicacy which he’d accidently invented whilst trying to make skinless bananas last longer than 8 minutes and 43 seconds without going brown and mushy. The bread was almost ready, and Norbert was peering into the oven with salivating anticipation when he noticed something that looked like black fog rising from the Factory floor. He took one long sniff.

‘Oh shit, not again!’ he thought as he tore off his oven gloves and made a dash for his Boss’ office.

He didn’t get that far as the Big Man was running to track him down and they collided on one of the viewing platforms. After robes had been disentangled and sandals retrieved, they both pulled themselves up and leaned over the railing.

“I don’t believe it! Don’t they ever learn? Who in the name of Bart’s Bowyang is that?” The Boss yelled.

Norbert grabbed a passing assistant “Oi Kevin, can you nip down to the Ops room and see if we’ve got any data on that one down there?” He pointed at a woman dressed in severe black and with a mouth like a bulldog’s bum hole.

“Right ho Guv.” Kevin trotted off, pleased to have been singled out by the Management. Norbert turned his attention back to the scene being played out in the Factory. A quick glance at his Boss told him that the Big Man was annoyed. He didn’t like it when humanity couldn’t grasp simple lessons and it was obvious to Norbert that he was plotting something.

“This is the same as before isn’t it?” said Norbert “People tied to sticks and then set on fire; do you think this is about religion again?”

“It had better not be.” said the Boss darkly “I’ve got no patience with all that religion nonsense.”

“Yep, it is.” Kevin had returned and was trailing paper behind him.

“Blimey Kevin that was quick, well done!” The Boss smiled appreciatively at the young assistant “What does the report say?”

Kevin grinned and puffed out his chest before explaining “Apparently she’s the daughter of the last one who toasted people and she wasn’t happy about the changes that he made to religion, so she’s changed everything back again and now the bloke with the big hat is in charge of religion again and she’s burning people who don’t like it.” Kevin’s words came out in a nervous rush as he presented his findings to the Big Man.

“Yes, yes, thank you Kevin, very good.” Norbert grabbed the report and shoved his underling back towards the lab; he was all for corporate climbers but not when they were using his rungs.

“I think you’ll find that Kevin has over-simplified matters Boss” said Norbert with a distinct air of superiority “this female, she’s called Mary apparently, was treated terribly by that bastard Henry. According to this he wouldn’t let her see her Mother, even when she was really close to her expiration date……..And look at this!” Norbert was beginning to get annoyed “He even made her say that he hadn’t been married to her Mother! Oh, that’s not on, it really isn’t. Do you know Boss, reading all this, I actually feel a bit sorry for her.”

“Sorry for her?!” said the Boss incredulously “Norbert, she’s been setting other humans on fire, there’s really no excuse for it. What’s more, I’m not going to let it carry on. Right, until I can come up with a better solution, let’s just be practical about this.” The Boss rummaged around in the depths of his robe and pulled out a small, grey device. He turned a few knobs and then pointed it in the direction of the billowing plume of black smoke.

There was an almighty crack of thunder and then the rains came. Norbert had to admit it was impressive and it certainly put the fires out, but it was going to do nothing for his galloping hoof rot problem. The Big Man looked very pleased with himself as the fire setters ran for cover and their victims breathed a huge sigh of relief but then he started looking around and sniffing. “Norbert, why can I still smell burning?”

“Oh shit! My banana bread!” Norbert gathered up his robes and went hurtling off in the direction of the kitchen. He was later subjected to a long lecture about using company equipment for culinary purposes.

“Yes Boss, sorry Boss” said a repentant Norbert “Shall I fetch you a cup of tea in a bit?”

“Yes, OK good idea, but not until after you’ve sorted out the hoof problem. Have we got any cake?”

“Well, we were going to have the banana bread but…………….”

“Bugger! I like banana bread.” the Boss thought for a moment, weighing up his options. “Look, if you can promise me that you’ll get onto the hooves straight after tea-break and you won’t make too much of a mess you can crack on and make another batch.” He was very principled normally, but he was also a sucker for cake.

“How long are you going to keep the rain up for Boss?” asked Norbert after tea-break.

“As long as it takes, I am not putting up with the smell of singeing underpants and smouldering sandals any longer.”

“Yep I get it Boss but, the thing is, that it’s causing a bit of a problem down in the Factory; the crops have had it, there are quite a few animals who don’t know how to swim so that’s getting messy and there just aren’t enough boats to go around.”

“Right OK, fair enough, I’ll stop it for a bit, and we’ll see what happens, but if they start with the burnings again, I’m going to turn it back on.” The Boss stomped away, and Norbert was left trying to think of a plan. There was no way he wanted the job of draining the Factory, especially with all those sheep floating about, none of whom, he was pleased to note, appeared to have galloping hoof rot. He grabbed a pencil to chew, put his feet on his desk and leaned back to cogitate on the matter. His eyes gradually closed, and he snored gently.

“Norbert!!!”

At the sound of his Boss’ voice, Norbert’s eyes flew open and his chair flew backwards. The Big Man was greeted by a pair of skinny white legs and the sound of groaning. He rushed over to Norbert’s desk, put his hands on the surface and looked over.

“What are you doing down there?” His initial concern had lessened as he saw that Norbert was conscious, albeit with minor injuries. ‘I do hope he’s not going to file a report with Health and Safety’ he thought to himself.

“Nothing Boss.” said Norbert as he hauled himself up by the edge of his desk and tried to dislodge his pencil which had become wedged in his left nostril.

“Well, stop mucking about, I’ve had an idea.” the Boss plonked himself down in a chair as Norbert rearranged his robes and wiped the bogies from his pencil before putting it back in the little pot on his desk

‘Ewww!’ thought the Big Man but he said nothing, they had important matters to attend to and he wanted Norbert distracted from his potentially actionable nasal injury.

“I’ve been thinking that this Mary female needs a distraction from her pyromaniac tendencies. What are the humans most easily distracted by hmm? Come on Norbert think.”

Norbert felt that his cognitive abilities may have been permanently impaired by the whole pencil incident but racked his brains, nonetheless. Evidently the Boss was lacking in patience and said “Mating! That’s what, it’s obvious!”

“Well, yes I suppose so but wasn’t that the problem with the last one, Henry whatsisface, too much mating?”

“Yes, yes but this one is different, she’s been in charge for ages and hasn’t mated once; maybe she’s burning people because she’s burning up, if you know what I mean.” the Boss winked, and Norbert blushed a deep magenta which clashed spectacularly with his ginger hair. He couldn’t help wondering if the Boss had been spending too much time watching the humans, he never used to be one for double entendres.

“Anyway” the Big Man continued “I’ve come up with a good-looking male specimen and I’ve had a bit of a play about with some smells and I think it will all work out.”

“Smells?” said Norbert “What do you mean smells? Haven’t we had enough of those just recently?” Galloping hoof rot and burning flesh was not a good olfactory combination in his opinion.

“Well, it’s not a smell exactly, at least not everyone can smell it, well they can but they might not like it, but some will.” the Boss gave up “Look, I’ve called them pheromones and I’ve installed some in a chap who’s in charge of another Area of the Factory and arranged for him and Mary to meet.”

Norbert was sceptical. He could not for the life of him see how a smell could distract someone from years of psychological abuse at the hands of their father, but he chose to keep quiet. He’d spent ages insisting that monkeys couldn’t be modified to walk upright and not throw poo at each other and look how wrong he’d been about that. ‘I suppose anything’s worth a try’ he thought. ‘It’s only a matter of time before everyone started complaining again about sinus infections and their food tasting funny’. He hoped that the Boss was right, and he left him to get on with the modifications while he went to find Jeremy so that they could complete the quarterly sheep audit.

Sometime later Norbert got a call from the Big Man who asked him to meet him on one of the viewing platforms; apparently, he had good news. Norbert was grateful for the distraction, counting sheep made him very tired for some reason. He got up from the desk, quietly tiptoed around Jeremy so as not to wake him and went to find his Boss. The Big Man was looking exceptionally pleased with himself.

“There you go Norbert, what did I tell you? I knew I was right.”

‘Smug git!’ Thought Norbert “Yes, you were Boss, quite right. Again. Well done.” Norbert was pleased that a solution had been found, as the lack of burnings would certainly cut down on the dusting, but he couldn’t help but think that the union between Mary and chap from the other Area didn’t look like a particularly happy one.

“Boss, when you were handing out those pheromone things, did you give any to her?” Norbert watched carefully as Mary’s eyes filled with tears as they followed her handsome husband who was flitting amongst the other human females like a giant, lecherous butterfly.

“No, I can’t say I really thought about it to be honest with you.” Replied the Big Man, frowning “Giving them to him solves the problem, why would I give them to her?”

“Well, look at them.” said Norbert “She’s gazing at him adoringly, almost salivating and he’s just ignoring her and fondling a set of buttocks.”

“Well that’s good isn’t it, fondling often comes before mating and that’s what we wanted.” The Big Man was failing to grasp the point that Norbert was trying to make.

“No, Boss, the buttocks in question are not attached to Mary, they belong to the female standing on the other side of him.”

The Boss looked intently at Mary and her pheromone filled husband and then said “Bugger!” before stalking off. He told Norbert that he was going to trim the edges off a few fiords and wouldn’t be available for the rest of the shift.

Norbert didn’t know where the pheromones were stashed so there was nothing that he could do about redressing the balance. He just hoped that they would wear off as Mary’s mood had not improved. Norbert just hoped that her unhappiness wouldn’t trigger her pyromania. He watched for a little longer as Mary trailed around after her handsome husband and became concerned when he eventually decided that he couldn’t put up with her slavish devotion any longer and went off to find a war that he could fight it. Norbert carried on watching until Mary broke down in distress as her man and his pheromones walked out of their castle. She had clung to his body and begged him not to leave, sobbing hysterically but he’d brushed her aside as he would a bothersome fly. Her spirit was broken, and her hopes of finally having love in her life were dashed. Norbert shrugged and decided to make himself a ham sandwich before he finished the dusting. He then remembered that he had underlings to do some of the grunt work for him.

“Kevin!” he yelled “I’ve got a job for you.”

Norbert settled himself as his desk and turned his attention back to the sheep audit. He was woken up by a call from the Boss who told him that the fiords had been trimmed to his satisfaction and he wondered if Norbert wanted to meet up in the canteen for a late supper. Norbert took a quick shower to refresh himself. Standing under the water, soaping himself vigorously, he thought ‘what is it about bloody sheep?’.

“Pass the ketchup Norbert.” The Boss took the proffered bottle and poured liberal amounts over his fish and fried potatoes.

“Did you see the report Boss? I said that we should have used those pheromone thingies on both of them; he got fed up with her and buggered off.” Norbert was secretly pleased that he was right, but he didn’t want to rub it in whilst his Boss was still holding the ketchup bottle.

“I know, I read it.” The Big Man said looking miffed “Anyway, we can forget all that now. I just wish I’d thought to check her expiration date before doing all that work.” He started making a sandwich with half a dozen of his chips and two slices of thickly buttered white bread.

“I know, it was a bit sad that wasn’t it? Some of the humans were saying that she expired of a broken heart, which is bloody stupid as they’re far too squidgy to break; I think she was just depressed and gave up.”

The Boss stopped munching his chip sandwich and stared at his PA, it worried him when Norbert started talking like that. Had he forgotten that all the humans had a built-in expiration date? He couldn’t help but wonder if he was spending too much time studying them and made a mental note to find some little jobs for him to do in the stratosphere.

“I wonder what this next one’s going to be like.” said Norbert, helping himself to one of his Boss’ fried potatoes and wishing he hadn’t opted for salad.

“Oi!” said the Boss slapping at Norbert’s hand “Well, I guess she can’t be any worse than the last ones. From what I’ve seen so far, she might actually turn out to be quite good.”

They returned to the viewing platform after supper and Norbert had to concede that his Boss had been right. Again. Despite having a syphilitic lunatic for a father, a mother who couldn’t keep her head and a religious zealot for a sister, Elizabeth didn’t turn out too badly at all. “Odd that she doesn’t seem the least bit interested in mating.” said Norbert “I wonder why?”

The Boss patted a little bottle that was tucked in the pocket of his robe and said nothing. Mating, whether too much or not enough, had been the cause of ruined robes, filthy sandals and blocked sinuses for decades, he’d see how this one got on without the distraction.

The Renaissance

Norbert and his Boss had become quite enamoured of the grey little island while Elizabeth was in charge. She did very interesting things with fashion, which fascinated Norbert, and the islanders seemed quite happy under her command. She was tolerant of religion, whichever type happened to be in fashion, and she was careful in her dealings with other Areas and made a point not to invade them which made her very popular. After she expired, things seemed to progress fairly well despite the problems that the islanders had finding an effective replacement. Apparently, there were no more suitable females available, so they settled for a male who’d already been in charge of the north of the little island for some years. He seemed far more interested in arguing with people than fashion, so Norbert and the Big Man let him get on with it and tried to get up to date with their paperwork.

Some years later, Norbert was in his office ploughing through a pile of stock requisitions, crossing out any item that he thought wasn’t absolutely necessary, when he heard his door open. He looked up.

“Norbert, is there something you need to tell me?” The Boss was leaning casually against the door frame with his arms folded. Norbert saw his clenched jaw and immediately started to panic, knowing that this could be a precursor to a serious bollocking. His mind raced as he tried to recall anything that he had done recently that would cause the Big Man to be so politely menacing.

“Um nope don’t think so Boss, what’s up?” He licked a tiny bead of sweat from his top lip.

“Well, I’ve just come from Returns and it seems that they’re, how can I put it, a little bit overloaded.”

The team in Returns had always been a bit militant thanks to Gavin, their supervisor, but they didn’t usually moan unless they had something to moan about. ‘I wonder what’s going on?’ thought Norbert. Then something clicked and he jumped up so fast his chair went flying.

“Kevin!” he yelled at the top of his voice as he took off at high speed down the nearest corridor “Kevin!”. The Boss had been knocked from his nonchalant position against the door frame in the rush and had landed in a heap of arms, legs, and hurt dignity.

“Norbert!” He gathered himself together and set off after his PA. It wasn’t too difficult to track him down as he was yelling at the top of his voice. The Big Man finally caught up with him in the Stock Room. Workers were creeping around silently, trying not to draw attention to themselves but also so that they could eavesdrop their colleague’s dressing down.

“Kevin, just answer me, did you or did you not try to reorganise the filing system yesterday?” Norbert was still shouting and gesticulating wildly at the boxes that littered the floor of the stock room.

“Umm yes Guv, a bit. I thought if we organised alphabetically rather than by degrees of cosmic significance it might make things a bit easier to find for the new lads.” Kevin was stuttering and his left leg was jiggling up and down as he tried to control his nerves, but he was standing his ground. He firmly believed that their system needed updating.

“And did this involve moving absolutely everything in the stock room?” Norbert leaned his face very close to Kevin’s.

Kevin gulped uncertainly and said, “Yes Guv?”

“And did you explain to the new lads that they should never, ever, take the route across the viewing platforms to get from one stockroom to another even if it is quicker?”

Kevin was starting to sweat; Norbert’s nose was almost touching his. He desperately ran through the events of the day before and tried to remember if he had explained the Health and Safety issues to all the new lads. He was sure he had……..hadn’t he? Damnit he couldn’t remember. Wait a minute, who was that funny little lad who’d come in late. He’d put him to work moving ’Cosmically insignificant: Hazardous” to the new section labelled ‘P’. Bugger! He took a deep breath, gathered his courage and said “I might have, that is to say, um it’s possible that……” It was obvious that Kevin was never going to reach the end of this sentence, so Norbert interrupted him.

“Who was it?”

“Dick!” Kevin suddenly recalled the name of the new lad and had no hesitation in handing it over; he was not going to be the only one to take the heat.

“I beg your pardon?” Norbert had grabbed Kevin by the front of his robes and was trying to lift him up and force him against a filing cabinet. This may have been more impressive had Kevin not been 5 inches taller and 3 stone heavier than Norbert; shifting boxes between dimensions every day did something for the physique that sitting at a desk eating biscuits did not.

“It was Dick! The new lad! Dick’s his name!” Under normal circumstances Kevin could have easily over-powered Norbert but his rage was giving him strength and Kevin was starting to panic, especially as the neck of his robes was slowly strangling him.

“Norbert! Let him go!” The Boss was panting, having run all the way from Norbert’s office but the authority in his voice was unmistakable. Norbert let go of Kevin’s robe and took a step back, but he was still shaking with anger.

“You don’t know what he’s done Boss! How many times have I been through the Health and Safety procedure with him? How many times!”

“Norbert calm down.” the Big Man put a hand on his PA’s shoulder and asked him to explain slowly and calmly what had happened. Norbert let go of Kevin and his breathing slowly returned to normal, but his fists were clenched, and he looked as though he could lose control again any moment. He took a deep calming breath before he spoke “The problem in the Factory Boss, it was Dick.”

“Whose?”

“No, Dick the new lad, he didn’t get his Health and Safety lecture yesterday because Kevin here forgot.” He glared at Kevin who ran his finger around the collar of his robe and shuffled nervously.

“Right, well let’s have a word with the lad and see if we can’t get to the bottom of this.” The Boss steered Kevin and Norbert to an empty office and sat them both down. He sent one of the other workers off to make some tea and they waited for Dick to arrive.

“Yes Guv?” a cheery face poked round the door “Oh and Guv and…..wow… Boss!” Dick had the same expression of awe as all employees have when they meet the CEO for the first time.

“Hello Dick.” the Boss said kindly “Kevin has been telling us that you were moving some boxes yesterday.”

“Yes Sir, Boss, I was, I moved lots.” Dick stuck out his chest and rocked up onto his toes, he was desperate to impress the Management.

“And what was in those boxes Dick?” The Big Man’s voice was very calm but there was a tell-tale tick at the corner of his left eye; Norbert and Kevin shuffled nervously.

“Plagues Sir, Guv, Boss.” His sycophancy had gone into over-drive.

The Boss, Kevin and Norbert all looked at each other; they had a growing sense of dread. The Boss put his hand up to stop Norbert launching himself at the young lad and said slowly “Did you manage to move all of the boxes without incident Dick?”

“Yes, Boss, Guv, Sir. For the most part. I did notice that one of them was leaking a sort of greenish black powder, but I was going across the viewing platform at the time, that’s a great short-cut to the other dimension by the way, so I just swept it over the edge.” Dick smiled, pleased with his own ingenuity and sure that there was a pay rise somewhere in his immediate future.

5 seconds later he found himself flat on his back with an irate Kevin on top of him. Kevin had taken hold of Dick’s robes and was lifting him up and then slamming him back down again “Did” ‘ouch’ “I” ‘ow’ “teach” ‘ouch’ “you” ‘hey’ “NOTHING?!”

Kevin felt himself being dragged off, but he was still clawing at Dick who was opening and closing his mouth to try and stop his ears from ringing. He figured that the pay rise was looking less likely.

“Enough!” yelled the Boss and everyone fell silent.

“Dick, what was written on the box that leaked, can you remember? Think now lad it’s very important.”

Desperate to redeem himself, Dick thought hard. His face was a picture of intense concentration but then it suddenly cleared, and he announced, “The Black Death.”

“Oh shit!” The Boss said as he Kevin and Norbert collapsed back into their chairs, now fully understanding the gravity of the situation. Dick was still not entirely sure what the problem was but, realising that he’d somehow pissed off Management, he sidled out of the office and busied himself in the stock room by flattening and stacking all the empty boxes.

There was nothing that Norbert and the Boss could do to rectify the situation, as the Black Death was a particularly virulent and unforgiving sort of plague, so they just had to wait. The Returns Department were working overtime for ages and even threatened to go on strike at one point but, eventually, levels returned to normal. Gavin insisted that his workers would require some extra leave to recover and the Accounts Department nearly drove the Boss crazy with their incessant memos about cost control and the need for further budget restrictions. The Big Man acquiesced to Gavin’s demands without a murmur, thanking him for his tireless work. He then did a detailed cost analysis for the preparation and distribution of memos which he presented to the Accounts Department. After that, there was a period of uneasy calm.

“Is it me or has something changed?” said Norbert as he and the Boss browsed the weekly reports over a cup of tea and a Danish pastry.

“Nope, it’s not just you” said the Boss. He ran his finger down a column of figures “there seems to have been some sort of shift down there. Did you do a wiring overhaul or something?”

“Nope, I haven’t touched them Boss, I’ve been too busy overseeing the reorganisation of the filing system.” They’d decided that, despite Dick’s accident, it made far more sense to file alphabetically rather than by cosmic significance. “Well, something’s changed.” The Boss was still looking over the columns of figures before him, an expression of intense concentration on his face. Suddenly, he yanked open his desk drawer and pulled out a calculator. After some tapping and a good deal of swearing as he repeatedly hit the AC button rather than the C when he entered a wrong figure, he announced, “Well, that confirms it, artistic ability and reasoned thinking have increased 21.6% since last week and” there was some more tapping “instances of people pretending to be someone else have gone up 47.8% since last quarter. What’s that all about?”

“What do you mean Boss? Why would they want to be someone else? Don’t they realise how bloody difficult it is to make each one different, Reginald in the file room was complaining just last week that there isn’t enough room for all the blueprints. Oh yeah, by the way, he asked if we could start putting out some duplicates or, failing that, jettison a few of the dinosaurs that we’ve got in storage so he can have a bit more room. He has got a point you know.”

“We’ve had this conversation Norbert, I am not throwing anything out, you never know when it might come in handy. You can tell him that it won’t hurt if there’s the odd duplicate but make sure he knows not to make a habit of it.”

“Right ho Boss.” Norbert was about to take the tea things out into the kitchen when he remembered his original question. “Anyway, as I was saying, why would the humans want to pretend to be someone else?” He sat back down again and looked at the Big Man expectantly; any excuse to get out of the washing up.

The Boss looked over a few more reports and then said “Well, from what I can make out, it seems to be a way of entertaining each other.”

“I thought they had the mating for that.” said Norbert with a frown, his cheeks flushing slightly.

“Well, yes they still have that, but it seems as though they moved on to other things. Apparently, a few of them make up stories and then dress up volunteers in costumes to play the various characters; some chap called William Shakespeare’s is particularly popular.” he passed a report over to Norbert who said “It looks like that Elizabeth female was quite a fan and, if I remember rightly, she had great taste. Oooh, come on Boss, let’s go and have a look.” Norbert was quite excited.

Sometime later they had each dragged a chair up to the railing on the viewing platform and were watching the performances playing out below avidly. They were both sitting on plush red cushions and eating ice-cream with a tiny spoon (they had no idea why, it just seemed like the right thing to do).

“We’re going to have to run back over those reports at some point and figure out where all this imagination has come from Boss. I must have a word with young Dick and see if he’s had any other mishaps.” Said Norbert, rolling his eyes “Ooohh look at that, that one’s got a donkey’s head and Bottom’s singing to him.” he paused “Boss? Have you got any idea what’s going on?”

The Big Man licked his spoon thoughtfully and said, “Nope not a clue”. He turned his attention to another Area of the Factory and pointed saying, “What’s happening over there?” he was enjoying himself immensely.

“Aaahh that’s nice.” said Norbert “Look at that picture he’s painted, he’s made a lovely job. That one in the middle looks like that special we did a while back, Jesus wasn’t it? He’s painted him having lunch with his mates.”

“Yes, indeed, he definitely has a knack for painting doesn’t he, mind you I’m not sure about that little one of the female Lisa, she doesn’t look very happy does she?”

The Boss and his PA spent a few happy moments critiquing art and trying to figure out what Mr Da Vinci was going to do with the model of the thing with the twirly bits on top. It was rare to see so much creativity in the Factory and it was fun watching to see what the humans would do next. They were so used to seeing them attacking each other, that this outpouring of artistic ability was hugely entertaining. They agreed that this could be the start of a new era of learning but, just then, Norbert exclaimed “Oh no! What a shame, Da Vinci’s lost it!”

“What? Why?” The Boss leaned over, dislodging one of his red cushions in the process, and looked where Norbert was pointing.

“You’re right, he’s made a complete cock up of that. I thought he was supposed to be educating the other humans about their anatomy, but he’s drawn one with four arms and four legs, they’re not going to learn a lot from that are they? I should have known it was too good to be true. Come on Norbert let’s get back to work I don’t think we’ve got too much to worry about here; they’re all too busy being arty farty to cause us much trouble.”

They put their chairs back and dropped their tiny spoons and empty ice-cream pots into a nearby bin. As they started to walk back to their respective offices the Boss called out “Don’t worry about grilling Dick.” Norbert’s eyebrows shot up into his hairline and he stopped dead in his tracks.

“Wh wh wh what?” he stammered. He’d gone awfully pale.

“Young Dick” said the Big Man without looking back “If he did spill some imagination into the Factory when they were reorganising the filing system, I don’t think we should put him on report for it. See you later.”

The Boss walked into his office and shut the door behind him. Norbert went to have a lie down. Had they stayed to watch the humans for just a little while longer they would have been enraptured by Michelangelo’s exquisitely perfect rendering of the human male form in white marble. They may even have concluded that the humans were at last beginning to appreciate their own beauty, but they missed it so that’s that.

The Puritans

Even though they missed some of the humans’ major achievements, The Boss and his PA spent the next few decades appreciating art, music and poetry, happy in the knowledge that the Factory was becoming a place of culture and enlightenment. Norbert had taken to listening to madrigals while he was doing his paperwork and he was humming along, tunelessly but enthusiastically when there was a knock on his office door.

“Come in.” he called. The door opened and there stood Cedric, looking slightly harassed, with reams of paper tucked under one arm. His hair was untidy, there was a deep crease between his eyebrows and his robes were badly creased, almost as though he’d slept in them.

“Morning Guv” he said, “have you got a minute?” Cedric’s left foot was jiggling, and Norbert could see that he was looking distinctly agitated.

“Yes of course,” he said kindly “sit down Cedric, do you want a cup of tea?”

Cedric lowered himself into a chair with an audible sigh of relief.

“Please Norbert, I could do with one to be honest.” He dumped his stack of papers on the desk in front of him and rolled his shoulders, trying to relieve the knots of tension. He closed his eyes for a moment as Norbert busied himself with the tea things and rummaged around in his desk drawer for some biscuits.

Several minutes later Cedric was sipping his tea and nibbling at the edge of a custard cream.

“So,” said Norbert “what’s up?” He leaned forward and gave Cedric at least 75% of his attention; with his left hand he was trying to find the chocolate biscuits that he was sure were somewhere in the back of his desk drawer.

“I need some help Guv. I don’t like to ask as I know everyone’s busy but I’m struggling to keep tabs on all the humans; I really need some more assistants. Gerald does his best, but he spends far too much time on statistical analysis, I need some help with the practical side of things.”

Cedric was in charge of tracking all the humans in the Factory and he’d devised a system of little red dots that were carefully placed according to the monitoring reports that he received every morning. The only problem was that the human population had increased exponentially over recent centuries and the buggers just wouldn’t stay in one place.

“Look at this” he said, indicating one of the reports that he’d brought with him “21,000 humans have just relocated from Area 44 to Area 33. Do you know how long it takes to move 21,000 dots?” Cedric’s eyes were pleading for understanding.

Norbert had finally unearthed the chocolate biscuits from the bottom of his desk drawer and wasn’t entirely sensitive to Cedric’s plight.

“Why?” he asked.

“Well, because I have to move them all by hand. I get the monitoring reports which are ordered both alphabetically and by assigned model number and then…”

“No, why are they all moving?” said Norbert impatiently.

“I don’t know!” Cedric cried “I don’t care, I just need some help!”

“Alright, calm down.” Norbert stood up from behind his desk and patted Cedric on the shoulder “I’ll go and have a word with the Boss and see what we can sort out. You stay here, have another cup of tea and put your feet up for a few minutes. Sorry I don’t have any more biscuits to offer you but, anyway, it might do you good to have a little nap.”

Norbert hurriedly stuffed the chocolate biscuits into the pocket of his robe, closed his office door gently behind him and set off to find the Boss. He eventually tracked him down in one of the Development Labs. The Big Man was bent over a work bench, an extraction device in hand, deep in concentration. Norbert waited for a moment, careful not to disturb his Boss when he was obviously in the middle of something important. Suddenly there was an explosion and a small cloud of red gas filled the air directly above the bench.

“Oh bollocks!” The Boss threw the extraction device across the Lab in frustration and then, sensing someone behind him, he turned around.

“Norbert, what is it? Now’s not really a good time.” The Boss’ face was bright red, where the gas had settled, and Norbert noticed that his hair and beard both had blue and green tints. In his opinion now was the perfect time to distract the Big Man. Whatever he was up to it was obviously hazardous and Norbert really didn’t want to be in the Lab with him if he was going to carry on with it.

“I just cannot get this right.” The Boss complained “I’ve tried so many variations in the extraction process but nothing’s working.” He was obviously not going to be easily distracted and Norbert, despite his strong self-preservation instincts, was curious.

“What are you trying to do?” he asked peering over the Boss’ shoulder.

“I’m trying to extract religion from the humans. I’m sure they’d be much happier without it, but it seems to run all the way through most of them. It doesn’t matter what I try, every time I manage a complete extraction, their amygdala explodes; it’s really bloody irritating.”

Norbert agreed with the Big Man that humans would be much better off without religion but couldn’t help feeling that the extraction process was going to end up being far too time consuming to even attempt with everything else that was going on in the Factory.

“I’ll give you a hand later on if you like Boss, but can I just run this past you?” Norbert handed over one of the reports that Cedric had given him.

“21,000? Is he sure?” They’d become used to the humans moving around but this was significant; not just the number but the distance between locations.

“Yep, positive Boss, he came to see me this morning.” Norbert had completely forgotten the real reason for Cedric’s visit.

“Fair enough. Well, Cedric knows his numbers, so I suppose we’d better go and have a look.” The Big Man wiped his hands and face on a tea towel and then he and Norbert set of in the direction of the Area 33 viewing platform. As the Boss hadn’t had his morning tea, they decided to stop off for lunch on the way; Norbert was quite full from all the chocolate biscuits, but he wasn’t going to refuse a free lunch.

Sometime later they arrived at the platform over Area 33, the Boss comfortably replete and Norbert struggling silently with indigestion, ‘I knew that sticky toffee pudding was a mistake.’ he thought to himself.

“Which ones are the ones that have migrated?” asked the Boss “The ones with the feathers in their hair or the boring looking ones?”

Norbert consulted a report and said, “The boring ones; sombre looking bunch, aren’t they?”

“You could say that” said the Boss “In all the other Areas they seem to adorn themselves like peacocks and, I have to say, I quite like it; I was always fond of the artwork on peacocks.”

“They don’t really seem to do very much either do they? I’m not really getting a sense of fun with this lot.” Norbert was already losing interest and the big lunch had made him feel sleepy, he could feel his eyes closing. The Boss nudged his elbow, jerking him awake.

“Whassup?”

“Look down there.” the Boss pointed “What are they up to?”

“Oh, she looks nice, much more cheerful than the rest of them.” said Norbert, smiling “I like that gold pattern on her dress, it’s really fetching.” The female was young and had a certain sensuality about her that even Norbert couldn’t ignore. He leaned further over the railing, a broad smile on his face, indigestion forgotten. Then he saw that her hands were bound behind her.

“What are they doing?” He turned to look at his Boss who was listening intently to what was being said below.

“Shush for a minute, I can’t hear.”

A few moments later, the unfortunate female was tied to a wooden post. Her dress was stripped from her back and a large, aggressive looking male started whipping her. Norbert was shocked.

“What did he do that for? That dress must have taken ages to make and now they’ve ruined it!”

The Big Man stared at him, thinking that Norbert seemed to have rather missed the point. “She’s being punished for ‘lascivious and licentious carriage apparently’.”

“What in the name of Eros’ earlobes does that mean? She was wearing a nice dress and she smiled a lot; I can’t see that she’s done anything to merit that kind of treatment.” Norbert was miffed, she’d looked like a nice girl to him, very affectionate.

“That’s what she did wrong. From what I can make out, looking nice, smiling a lot, enjoying yourself and not working every hour that you’re not asleep are ‘sins’ as far as this lot are concerned.

“What do you mean sins?” Norbert blurted out.

“You know what a sin is” replied the Boss impatiently “something that the humans have decided their god will take offense at. It seems that this lot have decided it’s pretty much everything.”

“Yes, I know what a sin is, I read the memo, I just don’t understand why they’re so determined to suck all the pleasure out of life. How can wearing a pretty frock offend anyone, let alone a god?” Norbert was becoming exasperated.

“I’m fairly sure sucking’s a sin as well. Come on, enough of this religion nonsense, it gets on my nerves. Let’s go back to the Lab and see if we can find a way to extract it from them without their heads exploding.” The Big Man clapped Norbert on the shoulder, and they turned away from the platform. Just then there was the sound of hysterical screaming and they both turned back to see what was going on. On the Factory floor a number of young girls were writhing around on the floor and yelling at the top of their voices. Their clothes were in disarray and they looked as though they were sweating, as if from a fever.

“I knew they couldn’t take all the fun out of life.” Said Norbert grinning.

“They don’t look like they’re having much fun Norbert.” The Boss frowned at his PA.

“Oh, come on” said Norbert, grinning “they’re pretending, surely you must be able to see that. I wouldn’t mind betting that they were having a bit of fun, maybe dancing or something, and then one of the miserable old buggers spotted them. Look, those two down there, I bet they’re the ones that found them. What were the girls going to do? They can’t admit they’re having fun because that’s a sin” Norbert rolled his eyes “so they just throw themselves on the ground and start yelling, pretending that they’re ill or something. Come on Boss, you were right, let’s see if we can’t do something about all this religion nonsense.” Norbert, once again, turned away from the railing but the Big Man reached out and grabbed his sleeve, pulling him back.

“Hang on a minute Norbert, I don’t think that’s the end of it.” The young girls did what most young girls do when confronted with a wrong-doing and blamed someone else. They pointed a collective finger at someone who was young and female like themselves but who looked and sounded different – an easy target. The only problem was they had no real explanation for their behaviour, so it was up to the elders to find a reason. They turned to the dominating force in their life – religion.

“So, let me get this straight” said Norbert “the old ones have decided that the only logical explanation for teenage girls yelling at the top of their voice and getting hysterical is that they’ve been bewitched?”

“Apparently so” replied the Boss, shaking his head “they think that that girl over there, who looks different, is ‘an agent of Satan’”

“Who’s he when he’s at home?” Norbert was confused.

“Well, they believe that, where there is something good, there must be something bad, I can’t see the logic myself but there you are. Anyway, as they’ve decided that their god is good, they had to find one who is bad, and they settled on this Satan chap. From what I understand, he gets blamed for all the evil stuff that humans do and, you won’t believe this, they believe that he can live inside the bodies of normally good humans and make them bad.” The Big Man clapped his hand to his forehead, he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“Oh! What nonsense! There isn’t enough space to fit anyone else inside a human. We made sure that all the plumbing was a perfect fit.”

“Well, you know that, and I know that, but, obviously, they don’t!” The Big Man was becoming exasperated “I don’t believe it! Look what they’re doing now!” The Boss was leaning over the railing and pointing at the sad spectacle being played out before them in the Factory.

The young girl whose only offence was to look different and enjoy a bit of a boogie in the woods was dangling from a length of rope, her body jerking wildly as she tried to cling on to life. All too soon it was over, and the humans were congratulating themselves on ridding their little community of evil.

“Ridding themselves of evil!?” exclaimed Norbert “Have any of them looked in the mirror lately? Stupid, stupid bastards!”

“They’re not allowed to look in mirrors” said the Boss sadly “it’s a sin.”

They’d both seen millions of humans come through Returns before their expiration date, often for doing nothing more than pointing out that the bloke in charge may have cocked up, but this one event affected them both. The Boss, especially, was saddened that innocent expressions of joy and happiness had been categorised as ‘sins’ by humans who professed their love and compassion for each other, he hated hypocrisy. Nonetheless he and Norbert continued to watch as more accusing fingers were pointed. A cow fell sick and someone had to be blamed, the crops failed; it must be someone’s fault. It must be witchcraft. It didn’t seem to matter that the cow had just been moved to a new field and had munched its way through vast quantities of grass, interspersed with Jimsonweed. No-one cared that the person in charge of watering the crops had gone down with a nasty cold and they hadn’t thought to do his job for him. For them, the only explanation for their problems was that their neighbours must have welcomed an unseen, evil force into their bodies.

“Honestly” said Norbert “how do they come up with this crap?! More importantly, what are we going to do about it? That’s almost 20 that have come back into Returns now according to Gavin. He wouldn’t normally have considered a course of action was necessary for anything less than 5,000 arriving in Returns before their expiration date but he had a real blind spot when it came to religion.”

“It’s alright Norbert, I don’t think we’ll need to do anything.” A slight smile was playing around the Boss’ lips.

“What do you mean? Why not?” Norbert was standing with his hands on his hips looking irritated. ‘Surely the Big Man is not going to let this go on’ he thought.

The Boss pointed and said “You see that guy there? The one who’s been in charge of all these meetings that they have to decide who’s guilty of being a witch. The one who had one of his fellow humans crushed under a rock because he wouldn’t confess to being possessed by this so-called Satan.”

Norbert glanced over the railing.

“Mr stupid personified you mean?” he said scowling, “Yes, what about him?”

“Someone’s just accused his wife of witchcraft and he’s suddenly decided that their god wouldn’t approve of hanging people up by the neck and they should just stop doing it.”

“Oh, there’s a shocker!” Norbert was furious “Absolutely bloody typical! These humans really get on my pip sometimes with their hypocrisy and cruelty. The years they’ve had to learn how to get along with each other and they’ve achieved nothing. This lot are no different to the ones we developed from apes! Actually no, I take that back, at least the apes didn’t blame some made up being when they were being shitty to each other! This religion nonsense has got to stop, there must be some way to extract it from them and, to be honest, right at this moment, I don’t care if it does make their heads explode!”

Norbert stormed away from the platform. The Boss left him to cool down for a few minutes before going down to the kitchens to order a pot of tea and some buttered crumpets. He had the tray sent to Norbert’s office and they sat down together to eat, but it was some time before Norbert calmed down. He was beginning to despair of the humans and, if he was honest, his Boss didn’t really blame him. They’d gone to so much trouble to make them all individual, but humans seemed to have no concept of individual responsibility. They were both in a despondent mood as they finished their tea and then went back to their paperwork.

With everything that had been going on Norbert had completely forgotten to arrange extra help for poor Cedric. He eventually remembered and set up a meeting with the Big Man but, unfortunately, he was a bit too late.

European Colonialism

“Boss have you got a minute?” Norbert knocked and walked into the Big Man’s office; he was accompanied by a short, grey man with myopic eyes and a nervous tick “Gerald here thinks that we may have a problem.”

“Come in Norbert. Morning Gerald” said the Boss kindly “What sort of problem? Which area?”

“Umm, well that’s the problem; tell him Gerald.” Norbert shoved his colleague forward and then nudged his shoulder encouragingly.

“Well Boss, as you know, I was recently made Head of Tracking after Cedric had his little ‘incident’”. Cedric had, in fact, taken to alternately laughing and crying hysterically after one of the young lads in despatch let a hurricane loose in his department for a joke and all the little red dots on his boards fell off. Each dot was used to track an individual human and monitoring the board had been Cedric’s life’s work. He was expected to be fine eventually but there were rumours that he would be transferred to Mollusc Rehabilitation and Development when he was well enough to come back to work. Gerald was Cedric’s second in command and understood the system well, but it had been noted that his nervous tick had started after he finally managed to get all the dots back in the right place. Everyone was hoping that he would be able to keep it together until someone could be trained up to give him a hand.

“Yes, I remember, poor Cedric; how’s he doing now?” Asked the Boss kindly.

“Better I believe, at least he’s stopped screaming every time he sees a lady bird. Anyway, I need to draw your attention to the latest Tracking Reports, if I may, because we have some rather alarming fluctuations in Areas 44-53 which appear to be causing a positive feedback loop in Areas 71-74; I think we may have a paradigm shift in our statistical distribution analysis.” Gerald passed a lengthy report to Norbert and looked expectantly at the Boss, his left eye twitching frantically.

The Big Man looked blank “What did he say?” He turned to look at his PA who appeared to be doing the mental equivalent of untangling a ball of string after it’s been attacked by a particularly playful kitten.

“He said that there are loads of people in Areas 44-53 who are buggering off to Areas 71-74. I think.”

The Boss thought for a moment and then turned back to Gerald who kept glancing nervously over his right shoulder for some reason.

“Why?” The Big Man asked a simple question in the hope of getting an answer he could understand.

“Well” said Gerald after taking a deep breath “I believe the shift has been caused, at least in part, by a cumulation of incomprehensibilities and an insurmountable desire to self-liberate from monotonous tedium.”

The Boss looked at Norbert who was red in the face with the effort of performing mental gymnastics. Eventually he seemed to reach a conclusion and said, “They’re a bit thick and they’re bored.”

“Right, thanks Norbert. Well, I can see how this would be a problem for the Tracking Department, but I can’t really see why you needed to bring it to my attention.” The Boss was a great one for delegating and hoped that Gerald wasn’t going the same way as Cedric.

Norbert, who’d finished reading the report, spoke before Gerald could begin another convoluted explanation. “The thing is Boss, the ones who are changing Areas are..how can I put this…..being gits about it.” Norbert knew his Boss liked simplicity.

“Why would they be gits?” The Boss frowned “People are usually in a great mood when they go on holiday. That trip we took to MACS0647-JD last century did me the power of good; I felt chilled out for decades afterwards, didn’t you?”

“Oh yes, it was great wasn’t it! I’ve got some snaps somewhere, why don’t I make a cuppa and we can have a look through them..”

“Ahem!” said Gerald who was looking irritated.

“Oh, yes right, sorry Gerald.” Norbert drew his attention back to the problem in hand. Gerald tried to continue delivering his findings but Norbert interrupted him before he could get any further than “The fundamental principals of..”

“Basically, what they’re doing is going to a new Area, nicking all the really good stuff and making the humans who’ve lived there for yonks move on somewhere else.”

“Well, a change is as good as a rest.” said the Boss philosophically.

“Not if the change means that you start by living in a nice village, with plenty to eat, working on a productive farm and raising a family and end up with nothing but slop to eat, living in a desert, working for nothing and being lashed every time you collapse from exhaustion. Gerald’s reports show that everyone moving into the new Areas are better off and the poor sods who were already living there are worse off.”

“Quite so” said Gerald, determined to get his point across “And, not only that, but the decision to vary pigmentation across the Areas may have been ill-advised.”

“What do you mean ‘ill-advised’?” said Norbert testily “We did that to make your department’s job easier – bloody cheek!”

“Yes, yes I am aware of that and the consideration was greatly appreciated I assure you” Both of Gerald’s eyes were now blinking manically “But the ‘white’ ones (though why they would call themselves that is beyond me as their hue is distinctly pink with a hint of lavender) seem to have reasoned that their allocated pigmentation is an indication of superiority.”

The Boss’ eyes narrowed and Norbert prepared himself for another explanation.

“No, it’s OK Norbert, I understood.” The Big Man waved his hand at a relieved Norbert and said “How can they not realise that they’ve all come off the same production line? It’s so bloody obvious!”

The Boss was looking annoyed and Norbert reached for the emergency stash of custard creams, that he kept in the inside pocket of his robe, just in case.

“Permission to return to base Sir?” said Gerald who already had one foot outside the office

“Yes, go, thanks Gerald.” the Boss waved him away; there was the sound of flapping sandals beating time to a hasty retreat.

Much, much later Norbert and his Boss were closeted in a meeting room trying to come up with a solution to the latest human related problem.

“What are we going to do about this Norbert?” The Boss sounded worried “Could we adjust the pigmentation programme again and make them all green or something?”

“We could, but I really don’t think Tracking could cope and we’d have to do a complete recall on all the other colours at the same time, it would be a logistical nightmare.” said Norbert, ever the pragmatist.

“Well we need to think of something, I went over to the viewing platform after tea-break and what I saw was not pretty. How can they look at each other every bloody day and not see that they’re the same? Some of them have even got it into their heads that different colour equals different species. Do you know Norbert, before all this started, I really thought we’d got the intelligence levels just about right.” The Big Man’s mouth twisted bitterly as he wondered at the humans’ lack of empathy. ‘Even rats can show compassion’ he thought ‘and we left their design to the apprentices. Norbert and I have millions of years of experience between us and yet the humans we’ve made are no better than rats! Where did we go wrong?’

“I know Boss” said Norbert sadly “After all this time, you would have thought that they’d have at least begun to understand what we’re trying to achieve with their species. What makes it worse is that they think they’re right all the time, they just can’t seem to get past their own egos! I don’t know how many wiring adjustments I’ve done now, but they always seem to default to arrogant arsehole mode. I wouldn’t mind but that wasn’t even in the original blueprints!”

The Boss put his hand on Norbert’s shoulder in a show of camaraderie. They were not normally morose but the realisation that millennia of re-programming, adjustments, recalls and restarts had done nothing to fundamentally change the human condition was a real bummer.

“Come on Boss, let’s have another play around with emotion levels; we’ve done all we can with intelligence for the time being, perhaps we’ll have more success there.” Norbert took out his custard cream stash and they both munched away as they headed off to the Emotional Development Lab.

Despite their best efforts Norbert and the Boss couldn’t find an easy solution to their problem. The humans continued to fight with other humans because they looked different, sounded different or lived in a different Area. They constantly seemed to be searching for something that they didn’t have and blaming other humans when they didn’t get it. Although they seemed unable to effectively communicate with each other, word somehow seemed to spread when there was something up for grabs in another Area and it was usually taken by force. Poor old Gerald was wound tighter than a spring as he tried to keep up with the continuous flood of relocating humans. Although Norbert had found him an assistant, it turned out that he had allergies and, on his first day, had had a sneezing fit that blasted so many red dots of the board that Gerald had sacked him on the spot.

The Boss and Norbert continued to monitor the reports that came in and were increasingly dismayed as thousands of humans were displaced and oppressed just because they were a different colour. It was incomprehensible to them that such an insignificant modification, that was made purely to lighten the logistical load for the Tracking Department, could have caused so many problems. However, they eventually agreed that they would have to revisit the problem later as they were both getting annoyed and their only current solution involved large numbers of lightning bolts and whatever they had left in the way of plagues. The Boss decided that, as the human race had ‘progressed’ in a manner of speaking, they would see what happened if they followed a programme of natural development.

The French Revolution

Time marched on with little or no consideration for the problems it caused the human race (not the least of which was knowing that, at some point, it would be marching on without them). Norbert and the Boss meanwhile had settled into a quiet routine that involved monitoring the humans on the Factory floor, drinking tea and arguing over possible solutions to the issues caused by relying on natural development rather than rewiring.

“What I can’t figure out” said Norbert “Is why they don’t all progress at the same speed. At least with a bit of rewiring we can regulate things but with this natural development malarkey we’ve got some of them who just get better and better and others who still only have the intellectual capacity of a psychotic lemming; it just doesn’t seem fair to me.” Norbert’s mild rancour was exacerbated by the fact that, while the Boss was trying out ‘natural development’, he was spending most of his time in the Insect Research Department. Whilst he had amused himself putting together a few new species, the wiring wasn’t complex enough to hold his interest for long and most of them bit, stung him or tried to fly up his nose.

“I know your skills are not being put to great use at the moment Norbert” said the Big Man diplomatically “But I really want to see how this plays out. Look at Area 38, for example, there’s a huge disparity between individual human capabilities over there, but they seem to be getting along without too many problems.”

“Area 38?” Norbert racked his brains “Isn’t that the one where they eat frogs? I haven’t been over there for ages.”

Norbert briefly considered why humans would want to eat frogs when there were so many more tasty options available but then he recalled that the humans in Area 38 also liked to eat snails and it suddenly all made sense.

“Well, go and put the kettle on and then we’ll wander over and have a look, I think you’ll be surprised. Ooh can you see if we’ve got any cake as well? I quite fancy something flaky with cream and custard.”

“Doesn’t sound much like a cake to me.” muttered Norbert but, nevertheless, he wandered off to see what he could find.

“What’s that?” said the Boss sometime later as Norbert returned with a tray.

“Well, I couldn’t find any cake, so I thought we’d give this a try. I looked through the Area 38 reports to get some inspiration and I came up with this; it’s quite popular apparently.” The Boss looked at the tray suspiciously and Norbert said “No, before you ask, there’s no frog in it.”

“It’s a bit flat” said the Boss, lifting the edge of the circle of cooked batter to see if there was anything more interesting underneath. “I suppose I can give it a try” He picked up a spoon hesitantly.

“No! Wait, it’s not finished.” called Norbert. He was hurrying over to the Boss’ desk with a little jug in his hand from which fumes were rising, carrying with them the scent of something rather pungent. As the Boss watched with mild curiosity, Norbert took out a miniature lightning bolt and took aim.

“Honestly, Norbert, what did you think was going to happen?” The Boss was patting down the front of his PA’s second-best robes with a tea towel; the flames hadn’t caused any serious damage, but Norbert was still a bit shaken. “Here, sit down and have a cup of tea, that will calm your nerves.” the Boss said kindly. “Oh look, there’s still some liquid left in your little jug, I’ll give it a try with the flat cake thing” He poured and cut off a morsel before tasting it gingerly.

“Mmmmm! Oooh that’s delicious! Do you want to try a bit?”

“No thanks” said Norbert “I think I’m going to stick with Battenberg. Anyway, are we still going over to see what’s going on in Area 38?”

“Yep, definitely. In a minute.” The Boss was running his little finger around the inside of the jug trying to capture the last little drops of the potent liquid. Norbert thought he seemed a little distracted.

While the Boss finished off his tea, Norbert went to change into another robe and then they both set off for the viewing platform in Area 38, one of them trying not to trip over the edge of a robe he hadn’t had time to hem and the other weaving slightly.

“When was the last time you checked this area Boss?”

“Mmn, I’m not sure to be honest, a while back, I think. Why?”

“Well when you said that they were all getting along, despite their differences, is this what you meant?” Norbert was hanging over the edge of the railing and pointing at, what appeared to be, a rather angry mob.

“Oh bugger!” said the Big Man “That does not look promising; where are they all off to I wonder” He was swaying gently back and forth, rocking in his sandals.

“I’m guessing to that big fancy place over there. It looks as though there’s some sort of party going on. There’s a load of people with huge hair and painted lips stuffing their faces with some sort of slime in a shell. Eurgh, they look revolting and I can’t see how squeezing lemon juice all over them will make them taste any better!” Norbert was wrinkling his snub nose in distaste. “Oh, no, hang on a minute, that looks a bit more like it.” Norbert pointed.

“Cake! Mmmm” The Boss was leaning across Norbert to get a better view of the huge mound of confectionary that was being wheeled towards two people who were lounging on golden chairs. Norbert grabbed him by the neck of his robe before the Boss launched himself headfirst over the railing and into the cake.

“Boss! Get a grip!” Norbert was struggling to hold on and his sandals were losing traction. The Big Man suddenly shook his head and hauled himself back over the railing, causing Norbert to trip over his unhemmed robe. “Sorry” said the Boss as he pulled Norbert to his feet “I don’t know what came over me. It was that cake, it just looks so….yummy; no wonder they all look so happy.”

“Yes probably” said Norbert brushing himself down “but I think you’ll find that the cake is part of the problem, inasmuch as it seems to be reserved for the ones with the fancy clothes. Have a close look at the mob, I don’t reckon their diet includes a lot of cake, do you?”

“Oh right, I’d forgotten about them.” The Boss turned his unfocused gaze to the mob which seemed to be increasing in size. “Hmm, yes I see what you mean, they don’t look very happy do they?”

“No, they don’t. They all seem to be a bit, shall we say, undernourished if you look carefully and, not to beat about the bush, scruffy.”

“Well that’s probably why they’re all headed off to the big, flash place. There’ll definitely enough of that cake to go around if they only have a small piece each.” The Boss grinned at Norbert, his eyes crossing.

“I don’t think a small slice of cake, however yummy it may be, is going to make them feel any better to be honest Boss, they seem pretty annoyed.” Norbert put out a hand to steady the Big Man and promised himself that he wouldn’t experiment with any more recipes that called for fermented fruit juice; the Boss was really off his game.

“I think you could be right. Look, could you call down to Kevin and ask him to see what we have on file about this lot and get him to bring some really strong coffee with him, I’m just going to sit down for a minute.” The Big Man slid elegantly to the floor and began snoring gently.

“Kevin? Yep it’s me Norbert, listen can you see what information we’ve got on Area 38 and bring it up to the viewing platform for me? What? No, just the last decade. Yes, of course now! I don’t care if it is lunchtime! What regulations? Yes, yes alright look, find the information for me and stop off at the canteen on the way up. Yes, I know, you’re entitled to your breaks. Oh, hang on, Kevin, I nearly forgot, can you bring up a cup of strong coffee for the Boss? Grab me a sandwich as well while you’re there would you? What? Anything except cheese and pickle. Right, OK, thanks Kevin, see you in a bit.”

It seemed to Norbert that the staff had far too many breaks these days. ‘It wasn’t like that when I was training’ he thought to himself as he plonked himself down next to the Boss, clasped his hands across his stomach and closed his eyes.

Sometime later he was gently shaken awake by Kevin who had a report between his teeth, a cup of coffee in one hand and a slightly curling sandwich in the other. Norbert took the sandwich gratefully and then nudged the Boss until he opened his eyes.

“Here, drink this.” He said, handing over the coffee. The Boss reached over to take it and winced; he had a shocking headache. He sipped slowly and tried not to move too much; he was also feeling slightly nauseous. Norbert munched on his ham sandwich and flicked through the reports that Kevin had brought with him.

“So, basically, the lot with the big hair and the huge houses have plenty to eat, lots of gold, fancy clothes and pet sheep but everyone else is starving, dressed in rags, they have no gold and have eaten all the sheep that may or may not have been pets?”

“Yep, that pretty much sums it up Guv.” Said Kevin “The weird thing is though, according to these figures here, the ones who’ve already got what they need are taking from the ones who don’t have enough.”

“Are you sure you’ve got that right? Shouldn’t it be the other way around?” said Norbert

Kevin was flipping through the report, trying to find more information but, as far as he could see, it all seemed to come down to one word.

“Nope, I’m right Guv, look at this section here that shows the flow and accumulation disparity between that lot in the big fancy buildings and those living in, well, sheds. The inequality is as a result of what they call ‘taxes’ apparently.” He showed Norbert several entries which proved that the few humans who were in charge were taking money from all the others on the pretext of using it to create a better life for them when, in fact, all they were doing was making a better life for themselves.

“And the humans hand over these ‘taxes’ voluntarily do they?” asked Norbert “They have 5 sheep, the ones in charge tell them that their ‘tax’ is one sheep and they just hand it over despite the fact that their family won’t get through winter with less than 6 sheep?”

“Yep that about sums it up Guv but it’s not just sheep that they’re having to hand over. According to this, when they harvest their crops, make bread and clothes and the such like, they ‘sell’ them to the other humans and then they can go and ‘buy’ the things that they need.”

Norbert interrupted, “So they swap things? Is that what you mean? Seems like a great idea to me, everybody’s happy that way!” He was smiling delightedly, perhaps the Boss had been right and Area 38 really was making progress.

“Um, no Guv not exactly. They exchange what they’ve made for discs made of copper, silver or gold and then use the discs to buy what they need…”

“Doesn’t make any sense!” Norbert interrupted again, he was getting irritated as he didn’t like it when he didn’t understand something, especially when it was one of his staff trying to explain it to him.

“No Guv,” said Kevin patiently, “but the point I was trying to make is that 10% of those discs have to be given to the houses of religion and then another 5% goes to the ones in charge and then the one on the gold chair….the ‘King’ is it?…..takes his share. Honestly, after all that lot it’s a wonder they have enough left to ‘buy’ anything.”

“So, they’re giving 10% of what they’ve made from their own hard work to religion!?” Norbert blurted out furiously “What do they get for that I wonder? Someone nailing them to a plank of wood or setting them on fire because they ‘sinned?’

While Norbert was ranting, Kevin went back over the figures, searching for something to placate him. Finally, he gave up and just decided to get it over with. He braced himself and said “That’s not the worst of it Guv. I’ve been through all these figures and it appears that the ones in charge, with the huge houses, and the ones in charge of religion don’t have to pay any taxes at all.”

“No wonder the poor bastards in that mob are so annoyed!” exclaimed Norbert punching his fist into his open palm. “They’re giving what little they’ve got and getting nothing in return!” All of a sudden, Kevin started poking him in the shoulder, saying “Look! Look Guv, you’re not going to believe this!” Kevin was also starting to lose his temper with the injustice of it all. He didn’t spend much time on the viewing platforms, so he wasn’t often witness to the results of human actions, but he could understand now why Norbert and the Boss got so stressed out sometimes.

“Stop poking me!! Where? Show me!” Norbert slapped Kevin’s hand away and looked at the advancing mob before turning his attention to the figures on the report that had just been shoved under his nose. “Kevin! I can’t read it when it’s that close, just give the damn thing to me.” He read through them again to make sure he hadn’t missed anything and then he spoke, “So, they pay a tax to farm the land, they pay a tax when they buy salt, they pay a tax just because they’re a human living in Area 38 and they get nothing for it. If they don’t or can’t pay, the ones collecting these taxes beat the crap out of them. Yes?”

The Boss had almost finished his coffee and his eyes were looking more focused. He’d been listening to Norbert’s discussion with Kevin and was getting a little worried. He put his cup down and hauled himself to his feet.

“Honestly Kevin, after reading all that, I don’t blame them for being an angry mob.” said Norbert as he watched the procession of flaming torches get closer to the big house. It was difficult to make out individual forms among the 7,000 marching humans, but he just spotted something that really surprised him. He opened his mouth to saying something.

“Me either Guv.” Said Kevin before he got the chance “I’m just surprised it hasn’t happened sooner but, then again, it’s difficult to whip up the enthusiasm to be part of a mob when you’re cold and starving.”

“Yes, yes, you’re right Kevin…cold…starving…whatever….but look closely at that mob.” He shoved Kevin forward and pointed frantically.

After a few minutes, Kevin stood up and looked slowly from Norbert to the Boss and then back again. “They’re all females.” he said, a note of disbelief in his voice. Aggression from humans females was rare unless someone stood on one of their infants or hid their favourite shoes.

“This will not end well,” said the Boss in a leaden voice “but after everything you two have said, I’m not going to doing anything to stop it; it will be a lesson learned. With any luck the humans in the other Areas will find out what’s been going on here and they’ll buck their bloody ideas up.” He finished, darkly.

Norbert was of the opinion that his decision was based less on the desire for humans to learn from their mistakes and more on the fact that the Big Man was still feeling rough after his experience with fermented fruit juice, but he chose to say nothing.

All three watched as a pretty woman with absolutely enormous hair discussed the question of disparity in Area 38 with her huge collection of sycophants. One of her advisors had been notified that there was a mob on its way and was attempting to quickly explain a complex political situation to someone who had more shoes than braincells. Despite his best efforts, she couldn’t quite seem to understand that cake had ingredients that were not readily available to 90% of the population. She did suggest that people should make the most of whatever they had available but then her advisor pointed out that nothing nutritious or delicious was ever going to be made from grass. Her husband, who came from a long line of people who’d been in charge and had experienced angry mobs before said ‘shush now my darling’ but it was too little, too late. The toadies that had surrounded her for years and pretended to defer to her baseless opinions made their excuses and set off at a run as soon as it was announced that the angry mob had reached the gates.

At this point Kevin decided that he should get back to work as Gavin would be wondering where he was, and he really didn’t want to see what 7,000 furious human females were going to do when they finally came upon the target of their wrath.

Sometime later, after the angry mob had finally beaten down the gates and stormed the palace, Norbert and the Boss were standing with their back to the railings looking slightly queasy.

“Well!” said Norbert shakily “That was one way of dealing with it I suppose.”

“Yes. It was. Bit messy though. How they could have polished off that cake afterwards is beyond me; did you see how far the blood sprayed? Eugh! No, I can’t think about it, it was too disgusting!”

“Good catch from the young lad in the front row though I thought.” Said Norbert. The guillotine had proved to be a very effective method of disposing of the ruling classes, and a great source of entertainment for the oppressed masses, who were now celebrating their demise.

“I can completely understand why they were so annoyed” said the Boss “but it really worries me that this is always the human remedy to a problem. Why is the expiration of their enemies their go-to solution?” The Big Man was downcast. Although the majority of humans in Area 38 were now better off, they were treating their oppressors just as badly as they themselves had been treated. ‘I just don’t get it.’ He thought, sadly.

“I don’t know Boss, but I don’t think the natural development plan is going to work, we’re going to have to go back to the drawing board and see if we can’t find some way to calm them all down a little bit. Anyway, fancy a cup of tea?”

“Yes, I think I need one after that but, please, no cake”.

American Civil War

Several decades later the Boss and Norbert were enclosed in Norbert’s office; they had put a sign on the door which read “Executive Meeting in Progress – Do Not Disturb.”

“Your move.” said the Boss, smiling slightly at the look of intense concentration on Norbert’s face.

“Don’t rush me, I’m thinking.” Norbert snapped. He reached over for his mug and took a sip of his tea without his eyes leaving the board in front on him.

“Look, I’m not trying to rush you but, to be fair, you only have one checker left; you can’t win.” The Boss pointed at the lonely looking black checker surrounded by a sea of white.

“You don’t know that! Now, shush and let me concentrate.” He took another sip of tea and then fumbled blindly for a piece of shortbread.

There was a knock at the door which Norbert ignored. The Boss stood up to open it, grateful for the interruption; no game of checkers should last 3 years.

“What is it? we’re busy.” he said, opening the door “Ah Gerald, what can I do for you?” The Boss couldn’t help wishing he’d ignored the knock at the door.

“Yes. Sorry. Sorry to disturb you when you’re busy.” Gerald glanced at Norbert who was still a picture of concentration, eyes fixed on the checkers board. The Boss took a small step to the right in order to block Gerald’s view.

“Hmmphh, yes, well, what’s the problem?” he said defensively.

Gerald leaned slightly to the left and said, “As per your directive I have been tracking the transposition and subsequent actions of subjects from Areas 44-53 in order to ascertain their socio-economic and environmental impact on Area 14.”

“He’s been keeping an eye on the movers to make sure they’re not causing trouble.” said Norbert distractedly.

“Indeed” continued Gerald “And I have ascertained that there has been a plethora of infractions conducing a division betwixt factions.”

The Boss turned expectantly towards Norbert who was still hunched over the checkers board.

“They’re pissed off with each other.”

“Why?” asked the Boss turning back to look at Gerald.

“It would appear that there is a faction that believes certain of their fellows are unmeritorious of equitable treatment and, subsequently, they are kept in bestial subjugation.”

“WHAT!? Not this again!” said Norbert loudly. He had leapt up from his chair, knocking the checkers board flying. He reached Gerald in 3 strides and grabbed him by the collar “Why didn’t you mention this to me before?”

Gerald was gulping hard and looking at the Boss pleadingly.

“Norbert, put him down! What’s going on? What did he say?” The Boss had wrapped his arms around Norbert and was trying to pull him off the hapless Gerald.

“NORBERT!” The Boss yelled “Drop!”

Norbert dropped and stomped away from them both; he was breathing heavily and muttering ‘You should have said something.’

Gerald crept out from behind the Boss slowly and said

“I wanted to but you were always busy….door closed…..Do Not Disturb.”

“Will someone please tell me what’s going on!!” yelled the Boss.

“You’re right Gerald, I should have been more available.” Norbert looked ashamed. He put his hand on Gerald’s shoulder and looked down “I’m sorry.”

“If someone doesn’t tell me what’s bloody going on, I’m going to get really annoyed!”

“Sorry Boss. You remember when we had a problem a while back with people being gits when they moved Areas, well it seems that it’s got worse and, well, we’ve dropped the ball.” Norbert hung his head.

“What ball?? Whose balls? Who’re being gits? Explain!” The Boss was hopping from one foot to the other in frustration.

“It seems that the ones who moved to Area 14 have started keeping some of the other ones who live there as animals; treating them as animals. How bad is it Gerald?” They both turned to look at Gerald who, rather uncharacteristically, said “Bad.”

At this Norbert slammed out of his office and made for the nearest viewing platform, The Boss and Gerald following at a run. When they finally caught up with him, he was pressed tight against the barrier and his fingers were drumming agitatedly on the railing. They joined him and followed his gaze.

“They’re not treating them like animals.” said the Boss quietly. The other two looked at him in shock, was he not seeing what they were seeing? “They’re usually nice to animals, except when they eat them or wear them, this treatment is much, much worse. Look.” The Boss pointed. They looked as a struggling and pleading male human was tied to a tree trunk. The others surrounding him were laughing at his distress and then one of them pulled out a long, twisted length of black leather studded with small pieces of lead. It was all over within a few minutes.

“How can they do that? He’d done nothing wrong; he was just trying to feed his family and they whipped him; they whipped him.” The Boss was visibly upset.

“Just got confirmation from the Returns Department Boss” said Norbert sadly “And that was well before the official expiry date.”

They watched in increasing dismay at the treatment being meted out. Humans who were viewed as nothing more than property were abused, both physically and mentally, forced to work until they dropped from exhaustion and beaten for the most minor of infractions.

“All because they don’t have the same pigmentation.” said Norbert “I just don’t get it. What can possibly have gone wrong with their wiring that they think that darker skin pigmentation signifies anything? It’s beyond me, it really is!”

“I’m beginning to wonder if this all worth it. All this effort we put in and they just break everything; I don’t know why I bother, I really don’t. Perhaps we should just start again.” the Boss said sadly.

Norbert had no desire to go back to monitoring black holes or putting together atoms (they were so bloody fiddly) so he said, “Why don’t just do some emergency rewiring on a few of them? I’ll work on an empathy concentrate, that will help, and we can take it from there. Come on Boss, you don’t want to just give up after all this time. Let’s see if they can be fixed.” Norbert smiled at Gerald and told him to go back to Central Tracking and report to Cedric so that they could both keep an eye on things and then led the Big Man to the Lab.

They worked tirelessly on selective rewiring and Norbert whipped up a batch of concentrated empathy with an additional infusion of compassion. Their aim was to make the selected humans see beyond their outer casings and realise that their fundamental design was identical. It was a tricky job for Norbert and his Boss as they couldn’t understand why the humans, complex in so many ways, couldn’t comprehend something so basic.

Norbert was halfway through pouring his batch of empathy concentrate into individual vials when he took a call from Gerald. The Boss had offered but they both decided that it would be a waste of time.

“What’s the news Gerald?......They’re doing what?.......How is that fair?......Yes, yes, you’re right I know………yes, as fast as we can……OK, see you later. Thanks Gerald.”

The Big Man lifted his mask and rested his soldering iron carefully on the bench before him before asking “What did he say? Not exactly” he added hurriedly “just give me the gist.”

“He said that the females are being separated from the males and are being……violated by their owners and forced to mate with them but they are still kept like animals, still whipped, even if they are carrying a child.” Norbert’s lip curled in distaste as he passed on the information that Gerald had given him. The Boss sat down heavily on a chair and said, “What else?”

Norbert took a deep breath and said “It seems that some of the female owners are doing the same thing with the male slaves. They’re forcing them to mate, against their will but then, if the other owners..I’m sorry I can’t keep using that word…if the other bastards find out, the female claims that it was she who was forced.” He ran his hand distractedly through his hair, spreading empathy concentrate through it and turning it a pleasant shade of pink.

“And what happens to the male slave?” asked the Boss quietly, sure that he already knew the answer.

“They cut off his…..his….” Norbert hesitated, obviously distressed “and then they put a rope around his neck and lift him up and then they burn him.”

The Boss said nothing for a few moments but then asked “Why don’t they fight back Norbert? This is far worse than what happened in Area 38! Why don’t they get together an angry mob?”

Norbert rubbed his weary eyes and said “They’ve been treated like dogs Boss, worse than dogs, for years and I think that it’s caused a short in their wiring. They suffer pain and torture but, like dogs, they still want to please their masters. That’s what their predecessors did so that’s what they do, almost as though they’ve inherited memories. There was nothing in the original blueprints that would have allowed for this, but their natural development has progressed way beyond what we thought was possible in the beginning.”

The Boss looked up at his PA for a long time. He could think of no other explanation and that fact alone saddened him deeply. He’d had high hopes for this species but they constantly disappointed him with their cruelty and their insufferable schadenfreude. He finally stood up, put his mask back on and said, “Come on Norbert, we’ve got work to do.” before picking up his soldering iron and focusing all his attention on the wiring laid out before him. Norbert went back to his vials and they both worked in a silent frenzy.

Once everything was ready, they did an emergency recall and then a reset. After that all they could do was wait. They went back to Norbert’s office and the Boss placed a call to the kitchens to ask them to send up some tea and sandwiches. Just as they were polishing off the last crusts, there was a knock on the door and Gerald entered, trailing a long report behind him.

“Did it work?” Norbert asked hopefully. He and the Boss both had their fingers crossed.

“Yes and no.” said Gerald “The faction with the modifications endeavoured to engage and proselytise but the others would not confess their transgression.”

“The bastards didn’t listen.” Norbert piped up before his Boss could ask. “Then what happened?”

“A number of the modified individuals were extinguished.”

“Got it!” said the Boss glaring at Norbert. Gerald continued, “But it transpired that the empathy/compassion infusion caused positive dissemination, and, after a number of euphonious speeches, assenters were confederated.”

The Boss looked over at Norbert who was looking up at the ceiling and quietly whistling.

“Norbert!”

“The good guys got together.” Said Norbert with a self-satisfied smirk.

“OK. Good” The Boss smiled “What’s happening now Gerald, have the others all come to their senses?”

“Umm” said Gerald, looking at his sandals.

“Come on! Tell me. What’s going on now?” The Big Man said encouragingly.

“There is…..hostility.” Said Gerald carefully.

“Hostility?” The Big Man bit out the word and clenched his fists.

“Yes. The faction that wished to continue to enslave their fellows is fundamentally opposed to the exhortations of the modified units and, currently, the two sides are locked in vicious combat.”

“They’re kicking seven bells out of each other you mean?” said Norbert who was becoming impatient.

“I regret to inform you that it’s worse. The Returns Department have cancelled all leave and the overtime bill is likely to be, shall we say, excessive.”

Norbert sat down and put his head in his hands ‘This is it’ he thought ‘I’m going to be back to doing atoms and black holes before the week’s out.’

“I see.” said the Boss. Norbert looked up at the Big Man expecting him to be enraged but, in fact, he looked almost thoughtful.

“What is it Boss? What are you thinking? More modifications?”

“No. I’ve decided I’m going to leave them to it.”

“Leave them to it, again? Are you sure, after what happened last time?” Norbert looked aghast.

“Yep. Dismantling the Factory and doing a complete reset will be a pain in the arse, quite frankly, and the way they’re all going down there, they’ll be doing it for us before too much longer. We’ve done what we can, and I am sick and tired of their petty squabbling. They’re so busy finding reasons to hate and hurt each other that they never even see all the great stuff that we do for them. We’ve given them intelligence and they stubbornly hold on to their stupidity. We’ve given them the Factory and they’re wrecking it. They’ve seen love and compassion and they were afraid of it, threatened by it. They’ve learned nothing and they deserve nothing more from me. They’ll either sort it out or I’ll just move the team from Recycling over to Returns and wait until they’re all extinct.”

“Blimey!” said Norbert

“!” said Gerald who, for once, had nothing more to say. He nodded at Norbert and his Boss and walked slowly back to his own Department, hoping that he didn’t meet anyone from Returns on the way.

“Norbert, go and put the kettle on and we’ll finish that game of checkers.”

“We can’t Boss, the board got knocked over.” said Norbert

“OK, we’ll start another game.” the Boss smiled and went off in search of some fondant fancies to have with their tea.

“We’ll call the last one a draw, then shall we?” Norbert called out after him hopefully.

The Boss didn’t know whether to be irritated or happy when he got the next set of quarterly reports. He honestly thought the humans would have wiped themselves out, but it seemed that they were still going strong in their own haphazard, disorganised, illogical way. Gavin had included a brief memo which said that they’d had 625,000 humans come through Returns during the conflict. He’d attached a copy of the overtime bill and a number of holiday request forms. Accounts had submitted an entire file which the Big Man glanced at and then put in the bottom drawer of his desk with a mental note to look at it ‘later.’ He continued reading for a while and then put the reports down. Lounging back in his chair, he permitted himself a small smile. The humans had realised how barbaric their behaviour had been in enslaving their fellows. It had taken far more time than he’d expected but, the addition of empathy and compassion had finally worked its way into their systems. He closed his eyes and had a nap, only waking when Norbert banged into his office with his checker’s board under his arm and a hopeful smile on his face.

The Industrial revolution

Norbert and his Boss spent quite some time thereafter playing checkers (Norbert lost 813 games out of 842) and creating new biscuit recipes. They were in the middle of game 843 and were tucking into chocolate and caramel covered shortbread when Norbert commented idly “Do you know, I think my robes must have shrunk in the wash” He was looking down at his ample stomach and the brown wool that was stretched tightly across it.

“It’s funny you should say that” said the Boss, licking chocolate from his fingers “I’ve got the same problem; do you think we should have a word with someone in the Laundry? I don’t like to complain but if we’re both having the same problem…”

“It can’t hurt can it? They haven’t changed the stones as far as I know but maybe the water is too hot. Hang on I’ll give them a call.”

They turned their attention back to their game until they heard a sharp rap on the door.

“mmph nnn” The only trouble with caramel was that it did have a tendency to get stuck in your teeth. The Boss swallowed furiously, did some tongue gymnastics to free the last delicious morsels from between his teeth and tried again. “Come in.”

“Ah Ethel, thank you for coming. Norbert, Ethel is here.”

“Afternoon Ethel.” Norbert said with a nervous smile.

Ethel stared at them with her meaty arms folded across her ample chest; bashing robes against rocks was a great bicep workout. Her mouth was a thin line, her eyes were narrowed in suspicion and her close-cropped grey hair gave her the look of someone wearing a battle helmet. She could best be described as ‘formidable’.

“Umm Norbert has something he wants to ask you.” said the Boss taking a step back behind his PA.

“Why me? It was you who brought it up, I’ve always been more than satisfied by the work carried out by the team in the Laundry.” said Norbert taking two steps backwards and giving his Boss a slight shove. The Big Man glared at his underling and then plastered a huge smile on his face as he turned back to face Ethel.

“Yes, quite so, sterling work Ethel. However, there is one tiny issue, hardly worth mentioning really, but it seems as though there may be an issue with water temperature…..perhaps…..you’re the expert obviously…..”

Ethel’s glare had turned into a withering stare. The Boss pulled at the neck of his robe; he was feeling rather warm all of a sudden.

“The thing is” he ploughed on, feeling sweat trickle down the back of his neck “it’s our robes, you see, they seem to have, heh heh, shrunk…a bit.”

Ethel looked from Norbert to the Boss and back again. She unfolded her arms and put her hands on her hips before walking a circle around them. Once her visual assessment was complete, she turned her back on them before opening the door to the office. Without looking back she said, “You two are lard arses; eat less biscuits, get some exercise and the robes will fit.”

The Boss and his PA just stared at her departing back, mouths open and eyes wide.

“Bloody cheek!” Norbert finally blurted out “What a thing to say! Talk about not taking responsibility!”

The Boss was quiet. He had cleared the cups, teapot and several plates of biscuits off the metal tray on his desk and was currently holding it up in front of him and turning this way and that.

“Um Norbert, I hate to say this, but I think she might have a point.” He turned the tray so that Norbert could seem himself in its mirrored surface. Norbert peered at his reflection, stood up straight, breathed in and then turned sideways.

“Shit! How the hell did that happen?” He relaxed his stomach and it sagged heavily.

“Damned if I know” replied his Boss feigning innocence “but perhaps a little like exercise wouldn’t do us any harm. I’m not saying that Ethel is right, obviously, but it’s been a while since we’ve done a full inspection……” he trailed off and looked at Norbert, his eyes pleading for support.

“An inspection?” said Norbert slowly “Yes, good idea Boss, why not!”

The following day The Big Man and his PA decided to take a tour around the Labs and then Shipping, the Accounts Department and, finally, Returns; they gave the laundry a miss. Sometime later, sweating and out of breath they arrived at one of the viewing platforms. It had occurred to both of them, during their long, long walk that they had absolutely no idea what was going on in the Factory. They had decided to leave humanity to it for a while as they were both utterly pissed off with their antics and neither of them had so much as glanced at a report in decades.

“I hope it’s still there.” said Norbert, slightly worried.

“Yes, I’m sure it is, someone would have told us otherwise. I just hope they haven’t broken anything major; I don’t fancy carrying out any serious repairs after all that walking.”

Legs aching, they grabbed a couple of chairs so that they could view in comfort.

“What in the name of Nelly’s nipples has been going on down there?” cried Norbert; fatigue forgotten he was once again on his feet and hanging over the edge of the railing.

“Look at that! And that! And look over there.” Norbert’s eyes were out on stalks as he ran from one end of the platform to the other. “They’ve found a way to transport themselves! Amazing! Look here, they’re taking the string from the bum of a worm and making clothes with it. Incredible! Here, Boss, over here, they’ve made all this stuff out of black metal! Wow, they’ve invented machines for nearly everything!”

Norbert was tugging at his Boss’ sleeve in a state of rare excitement; he was a huge fan of gadgets. Of course, the humans would never have anything really sophisticated, like the audio/visual/inter-departmental/trans-dimensional communication devices that he and the Boss used but still, it was a start.

As continued tugging and entreatments to ‘look!’ had resulted in nothing more than a shrug and irritated muttering from his Boss, Norbert said “Everything all right? Aren’t you pleased? They’ve come on in leaps and bounds since the last time we checked on them, and they seem to have stopped scrapping with each other all the time.” He looked hopefully up at the Big Man who was still staring intently at the Factory floor.

“Hmmm? What? Oh yes, they’ve done well, I’m just checking.” said the Boss slowly.

“Checking what?” Norbert followed the line of his gaze and tried to work out what had so captured his Boss’ attention.

“I’m looking at those big buildings over there, the ones with all the smoke coming out of the top. I want to make sure that we won’t need to come up with a flood at short notice; there seems to be rather a lot of them.”

As the Boss narrowed his eyes and debated whether he had enough energy to walk down to the Climate and Meteorology Department there was the sound of dozens of horns blowing.

“What have they done now?” he yelled “I knew it! They’ve created something else to blow themselves up! Well, I won’t have it, do you hear me, I won’t have it” The Boss fished around in his pockets and threw back his arm.

“Wait, wait, wait!” cried Norbert “Something’s happening.”

“Oh, right, it must have been a signal to open the doors or something.” The Boss looked slightly embarrassed and, returning whatever he’d been holding to the depths of his left pocket, he put both his hands on the railing. “There are humans coming out.”

“Huh! Would you look at that. They definitely look a bit more cheerful than the last time we saw them, don’t they?”

“You’re right, they do, and things seem to have evened out a bit as well. There’s less of them eating off gold plates and more of them eating, if you see what I mean.” The Boss found a small smile. “And nobody’s being whipped, that’s a big improvement!”

“I’ve got to admit Boss, I was a bit worried before we came up here, but they seem to be getting along swimmingly, perhaps those last modifications we did were just what they needed. Look at that, they even seem to be swapping things with other Areas; usually they just take whatever they fancy!”

As he was looking around, something struck him, and he made a quick call to Jeremy the auditor. He could have popped down to see him as his office wasn’t that far, but they didn’t get on too well and he really couldn’t be bothered.

“Jeremy, it’s Norbert” he said, wasting no time on pleasantries “have you got the most recent human audit to hand…..yes, I’ll wait.” He covered the device with his hand and whispered to his Boss “Why does he always have to be so snarky? Honestly I don’t think I’ve ever seen him smile…..what, yes sorry Jeremy I’m here what did you say? No, I’m not talking about you….no I’m discussing a possible new species with the Boss…..look, have you got those figures or not? What? Yes, I’ll hold.” He rolled his eyes at the Big Man who grinned and whispered “It’s all those rice cakes he insists on eating, they’re enough to make anyone depressed.” he winked at Norbert who stifled a giggle.

“Yes, Jeremy I’m still here…….no, I’m not laughing at you. Have you got the………bloody hell! How many? Yep that certainly is a big increase…….hang on a minute, I’ll ask him.” Norbert put his hand over the device again and asked “Boss, do we need flow charts or venn diagrams.”

The Big Man just looked at him and raised his eyebrows. “No thanks Jeremy, that’s all for now….what?...yes, I’m sure we can manage without, yes, I’m certain. Bye Jeremy.” He turned off the device and sighed with relief. “Well, according to Jeremy, there are 700 million humans down there now, they’ve been mating like rabbits over the last few decades. If that doesn’t prove that they’re happier, nothing will.”

Norbert was absolutely delighted, it seemed to him that the humans were finally concentrating on how to make their lives better rather than concentrating on how to make everyone else’s life worse.

“It’s better but we shouldn’t get too complacent Norbert. There are some Areas where they’re still kicking the shit out of each other you know.” The Big Man had lost a lot of the trust that he’d had in humans.

“Yes, I can see that, and I promise, I won’t get complacent, but we should take a couple of minutes to congratulate ourselves. It’s not perfect but it’s better. At least now, when they’re not mating, they seem to be fighting over who owns what part of the Factory rather than who’s got the best god” said Norbert chuckling “sorry, I shouldn’t laugh, they can’t help it.”

“Yes, perhaps you’re right. We’ve still got a long way to go but there are definite improvements.” The Boss allowed himself a small smile.

“Does that mean we won’t have to keep an eye on them all the time now?” said Norbert hopefully. When he wasn’t baking or playing checkers, he’d been amusing himself by the taking the bones of obsolete species from central stock and planting them where humans could easily find them. It tickled him to see them trying to work out what species the bones had come from and, not only that, it kept them occupied and out of trouble.

“Actually, I think we probably can leave them to it for another few decades, they seem to be doing quite well. Besides we really need to do an internal audit sometime soon; I was speaking to Reg in Central Filing the other day and he said that there was some sort of major anomaly on the obsolete species register.”

“Bugger!” said Norbert under his breath “Um Boss, I’m going to have another quick jog around the Departments, see if I can burn off a few more calories.” He set off at a brisk trot in the direction of Central Filing, he wanted a word with Reginald!

The Boss smiled and walked slowly back to his office via the kitchen; exercise was all very well but it made him really peckish. Once settled in his comfy chair with a nice cup of tea and a single digestive (he didn’t want another run in with Ethel) he reflected on humanity and how far it had come.

His original plan had been that humanity would be able to take care of itself at some point so that he and his team could work on other projects but this irritating, fascinating species had long since taken priority over everything. Plans for Factories in other regions of the solar system were just sitting in the file rooms gathering dust. The problem was that all other lifeforms seemed to self-regulate, as long as there was no human involvement, but the humans themselves were all over the place. For him, there was no real consistency with their behaviour and so it made it difficult to predict when, if ever, they would be able to get by on their own. He was pleased that they had managed to accomplish so much in the last century, but they were still so erratic. ‘Then again’, he thought ‘if humanity reached that point, what would I do? There’s so much hanging around at the start of the construction process of a Factory.’ He liked being busy; the idea of sitting about waiting for black holes to develop again didn’t appeal to him at all. ‘Ho hum’ he pondered ‘perhaps I could take up knitting or something, there are plenty of sheep after all.’

The Penal Colonies

“How many!?” cried Norbert. He was sitting in Jeremy’s soulless office overseeing the latest species audit, a job he loathed, not least because Jeremy only ever offered rice cakes to visitors.

“Norbert, I’ve checked the numbers three times now and I assure you they’re correct; in Area 63 there are 1 million sheep….oh no hang on 1,000,014…nope wait a minute..”

“Right, Jeremy I get it, there are lots of sheep” Norbert held up his hands in defeat “and they’re multiplying fast but why so many?”

“My job is just to audit and present the statistics to Management” said Jeremy self-righteously “but I can tell you that there was a huge number of human transfers from Area 44 last quarter, perhaps that’s got something to do with it. If you remember Gerald was quite testy at the last departmental meeting.”

Norbert cast his mind back and had to acknowledge that Jeremy was right, Gerald had been distinctly snappy with everyone. His latest shipment of red dots hadn’t arrived, and he was reduced to nailing jellybeans to his board to keep track of the humans. Norbert had complained that it was a waste of good jellybeans and Gerald had stormed out in a huff.

“Right, I’ll go and have a word with Gerald as soon as we’ve finished here. What next?”

“Ants.” Said Jeremy smugly.

“You have got to be kidding me! Since when did we start including ants under the heading of ‘major species’? Actually, no, forget that question, I’ll let you finish up here; I’m going down to tracking. An issue down there could give us far more problems than being a few million short on the ant audit.” Norbert marched out of Jeremy’s office and in the direction of the kitchen; he was irritated and hungry and desperate to delay his meeting with Gerald.

Jeremy finished the audit quickly, as the last 2 species on the list were the Northern Hairy Nose Wombat and the Red Crested Tree Rat whose habits had been more or less destroyed by the humans. Writing in 24 and 78, Jeremy signed the audit and reached into his desk drawer for the pineapple upside down cake that he’d stashed there earlier. Cutting himself a generous slice he leaned back in his chair and put his feet on his desk feeling happy and not in the least bit guilty that he’d lied about the ants.

Norbert, meanwhile, was having an argument with Cookie in the kitchen as there was no pineapple upside down cake left and all he could offer him was a cheese scone.

“Scones have cream and jam Cookie, what on earth possessed you to put cheese in them!?” he yelled.

Cookie looked at him calmly and said, “It’s your choice Norbert, you can eat it or wear it.” He slowly drew back his arm.

Norbert knew when he was defeated “Can you at least put some butter on it?”

Cookie glared at him and drew his arm back a little further.

“Please?”

Norbert finished his mutant scone and a luke-warm cup of tea and went off in search of Gerald muttering to himself along the way ‘It’s just not right…..cheese……in a scone……no pineapple cake…..bloody liberty…’

By the time he tracked Gerald down in the Tracking Department’s Central Operations Room he was in a foul mood and desperate for something sweet to eat. On route to the main board where Gerald was frantically rearranging red dots, Norbert spotted some jellybeans and scooped up a handful. He was just popping the last two or three into his mouth as he joined Gerald at the board.

“Alright?” he said by way of a greeting; the jellybeans had helped but he was still annoyed.

“Norbert? What are you eating?” Gerald glared at him accusingly.

“Just some jellybeans I found over there. Why?”

“Son a bob itch! Norbert, you are masticating the saccharin equivalent of fourscore homo-sapiens!” Gerald screamed at him.

Norbert took a step backwards, afraid that Gerald was going to throw something at him, like a fist.

“I’m sorry Gerald, I didn’t realise” he pleaded “I’ll make sure that supplies send down the red dots first thing tomorrow, I promise, and I’ll speak to Jeremy; he can put through an adjusting entry, it won’t be a problem, honestly.” Norbert was gabbling and backing further away. Gerald was still red in the face but, with Norbert’s apology, he suddenly deflated and just looked very, very tired.

“Worry not Guv, you weren’t fully cognisant of the situation. My sincere apologies for my vexatious outburst but it’s been an extremely fraught couple of decades.” He lowered himself into a chair and rubbed his eyes with the balls of his hands. “I was forced to declare a code yellow stasis last week in order to diminish the accumulation. I have the assistance of Dwayne, Henry and Bernard, and Cedric’s returned in a part-time capacity but, even so, it’s been onerous.”

Norbert pulled up another chair and sat down beside him, putting a kindly hand on his shoulder, all thoughts of pineapple upside down cake forgotten.

“Why don’t I give you a hand” he said, “and you can tell me all about the relocations between Areas 44 and 63.” Norbert was happy to help for a while as it would satisfy his curiosity about the sheep and keep him out of Jeremy’s way.

“My thanks to you, Norbert” said Gerald with a tear in his eye and a watery smile “that’s really awfully decent of you.”

Norbert left Gerald with a huge stock of red dots, no backlog and far fewer jellybeans. He had his answers, many of them to questions he hadn’t asked, and he decided that the Boss ought to know what was going on; unusually, it wasn’t all bad news. Before going to the Big Man’s office, he placed a call to Jeremy and asked him for a detailed statistical analysis of the humans in Area 63.

“Afternoon Boss.” Said Norbert, cheerily as he walked through the open door.

“Ah Norbert, excellent, is it time for tea already?” The Big Man looked around expectantly, his face fell when he saw that Norbert was carrying paperwork rather than a tray of tea and biscuits.

“Um, not quite Boss, lunch only finished an hour ago; perhaps we can have tea after we’ve had a look at this report?” Norbert smiled encouragingly but the Big Man still looked disgruntled.

“Yes, alright, I suppose so. What’s all that you’ve got there?” he said indicating the sheaf of papers in Norbert’s hands.

“Well, I was doing the species audit with Jeremy earlier and we’d recorded over 1 million sheep in Area 63…”

“How many??” cried the Boss, interrupting him.

“I know, that was my reaction and there’ll be more than that now, but Area 63 is huge and they’re no trouble. Anyway, it turned out that, not only are there more sheep, but there are loads more humans too and they’re all coming from a specific region of Area 44…”

The Boss interrupted him again “That’s odd, usually when they relocate, they come from all over the place, I wonder why that is?”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Boss if you’ll let me finish!” snapped Norbert.

“Alright, there’s no need to get all stroppy, what’s the matter with you?” The Big Man looked offended and Norbert immediately regretted getting impatient with him.

“Sorry Boss it’s just been a bit of a stressful day; Jeremy wanted to count ants and Gerald moaned at me because I ate some humans; it’s just one of those days.” Norbert sat down, suddenly realising how tired he was.

Fortunately, the Big Man decided not to ask any questions but instead called down to the kitchen and then started flicking threw the reports while Norbert rested his eyes.

Norbert was awakened by the sound of tea being poured and cake being sliced; his ears were well attuned to such things.

“Welcome back.” said the Boss with a smile. Norbert looked slightly embarrassed at having dozed off but happily accepted a strong cup of tea and a thick slice of gooey chocolate cake.

“Thanks Boss. Have you had a chance to look at the reports? What did you think?”

“I have and they made for very interesting reading. Firstly, I am surprised that so many sheep have survived considering the number of deadly creatures that there are in Area 63; I wondered where all the auto-protection models ended up.”

Norbert coloured at little and said “Yes, well, I think I may have got a bit carried away but when I made those lovely furry spiders, other creatures attacked them so I gave them a defence mechanism and you’ve got to admit that scorpions are really cute so they needed something..”

“It’s OK Norbert, I get the picture.” The Boss said kindly “It all seems to have somehow balanced out so I wouldn’t worry too much. Anyway, back to the humans; it seems as though the central region of Area 44 got a bit too crowded so there wasn’t enough of anything to go around – food and that sort of thing. Naturally, some humans decided to take from others rather than find another way to get what they needed, apparently, that didn’t go down to well with the ones in charge and they were punished. From what I understand, the usual punishment was to put them in little rooms by themselves and just feed them bread and water until they said sorry, but then they ran out of little rooms so the ones in charge decided to just relocate them. At first, they were all sent to Area 33, but they got fed up as they had to put up with all the bad humans that Area 44 didn’t want as well as their own, so now they’re all sent to Area 63 and that’s why there are so many sheep.” The Boss finished his long, rambling explanation and grinned broadly before helping himself to a second slice of chocolate cake.

Norbert sat thoughtfully for a moment before saying “So, if I’ve got this right, Area 44 just ships off the humans it doesn’t want to Area 63?”

“Yes exactly.” Replied the Boss happy that his explanation had been so clear.

“Well how do the humans in Area 63 feel about that? How many are we talking about here?”

“According to Jeremy’s statistical analysis and Gerald’s reports, over 150,000. Apparently, some relocate of their own accord and they seem to be doing quite well as they have the bad humans to do all the work for them. As for the ones who were there originally, they are just amazing! Honestly Norbert, I don’t know why we haven’t paid more attention to Area 63 as I think we could make some really successful global modifications based on the indigenous humans.”

“I don’t even remember placing humans in Area 63 if I’m honest, I was too busy trying to arm all the other species well enough to keep them alive. Did you put them there?” Norbert was curious.

“I must have done but we’ve had so many problems in all the other Areas, I think I just sort of forgot about them. It’s incredible how well they’ve developed without any help from us.” The Boss was beaming with pride.

Norbert didn’t like to point out that ‘no help from us’ meant the pride was completely misplaced but he didn’t say anything as he was anxious to hear more and didn’t want to get into a row with the Big Man. “Developed in what ways? Inventing things you mean? Oh, have they come up with mechanised transportation systems?” asked Norbert eagerly.

“No, nothing like that, it’s much more interesting. They have ‘religion’, no don’t turn your nose up, but they believe that they are part of the Factory, at one with all the other species and humans, not better than them. They create art and music, they watch the stars, they tell stories. I’m telling you Norbert, apart from the ones that live with the yaks in Area 9, these are the only humans I’ve come across who really understand the Factory. Come on, finish your tea, I want to go and have a good look at Area 63, I think it could give us a model for all the other Areas moving forward. No, leave the cake, you can have another slice later.”

The Boss was positively giddy with expectation, so Norbert quickly gulped down the last of his tea and followed him. They had to take a couple of short-cuts through other dimensions but, eventually, they arrived on the viewing platform in Area 63. Skidding to a halt at the railing, their jaws dropped at what they saw laid out before them.

“Blimey Boss, I’d forgotten how impressive it is here! A bit bare in places but wow, it’s magnificent! Oooh look, koala bears, I remember making those, they’re so cuddly and cute!” Norbert was jumping up and down and pointing excitedly.

The Boss was wondering how on earth they’d survived as he took note of the sharks, scorpions, snakes, spiders, crocodiles and jelly fish but he had to admit they were cute. “What are those over there?” he asked Norbert.

“Oh yes, they were one of my favourites! I had so much fun with them! They’ve got these huge feet for hopping and, look, I put a pocket in the front so that they can take their babies with them wherever they go. I called them kangaroos.”

“Clever design, not sure about the name.” He decided to make his point again “But Norbert I can’t see how they’ve managed to last so long if I’m honest, considering the number of predators there are down there.” Just then, the Boss saw a human stalking one of the kangaroos who remained stock still, staring at him thoughtfully. As soon as the human was in range, the animal leaned back, balanced on its long tale and kicked out viciously. “Huh!” he said “I did not see that coming. I guess that answers my question.”

The Big Man ignored the human, who was blearily struggling to his feet; he’d obviously been relocated from an Area where they didn’t have kangaroos. Instead he started looking around for the indigenous group that he was so interested in. He could see lots of the new arrivals, in amongst all the sheep, and was pleased that they seemed to be doing quite well but not the ones he was looking for.

“Where are they all?” he asked Norbert, who was still grinning and waving at the koala bears who were pointedly ignoring him.

“I don’t know Boss, hang on.” Norbert leaned over the railing and looked left and right. “Oh” he said. The Boss followed his gaze, stared for a few moments and then said “Buggery, bloody bollocks!”

The indigenous humans who had such an affinity with the Factory and everything in it seemed to be hiding from the newcomers who, in mere decades, had spread themselves out and forcibly taken what they wanted from the land. As Norbert and his Boss watched, they slowly realised why the original inhabitants of the Area had separated themselves.

“So, the newcomers roll up, make themselves at home for a few decades and then just decide that Area 63 belongs to them?” Norbert was truly appalled as he watched the indigenous human’s primitive homes and beautiful artwork destroyed and their males slaughtered. Although they put up a fight, they were armed with the most basic of weapons and were out-numbered by the brutal and arrogant newcomers. “No wonder Area 44 wanted to get shot of them – bastards!”

The Boss was staring in disbelief as the unprovoked attacks, now on females and children as well as males, continued. The newcomers proclaimed themselves in charge and created rules which ensured that the indigenous humans would lose their little regions of Area 63 that they had cultivated so lovingly. Not only that but they had brought with them diseases that had previously been unknown in the Area and the humans that had originated there had no natural defence. A quick call to Gavin confirmed that many hundreds were coming into Returns well before their expiration date.

“OK, thanks Gavin.” The Big Man ended the call and turned to face Norbert who was looking utterly dismayed. “We need to do something.” He said.

Norbert thought for a moment before saying “The newcomers aren’t expiring from the diseases that they brought with them, are they?”

“A few I suppose but not many, why do you ask?” The Boss was curious.

“Well, it occurs to me that there are certain things that the indigenous humans will be used to that the newcomers won’t – like the temperature. Why don’t we turn the heat up a bit and see if that slows the buggers down; with any luck, the indigenous humans will take the opportunity to reclaim their regions.”

“That’s not a bad idea actually, let’s give it a try.” The Boss withdrew a box from the underside of the railing and started fiddling about with some knobs. They waited anxiously for a few moments, pacing up and down on the viewing platform but then a quick glance over the railing told them that their plan was working; the newcomers were dropping like flies. Unfortunately, so were some of the animals as their normal food sources were drying up. The Big Man returned the knobs to their original settings and tucked the box back in place.

“Sorry Nobert, nice try.” The Boss patted his PA on the shoulder kindly.

“Boss, look over there, there’s more of the bastards being delivered from Area 44.” There was indeed a small fleet of ships off the coast.

“Nope, not happening!” exclaimed the Boss. He reached under the railing once more and grabbed the box; he turned one of the controls to the left and a sudden and violent wind swept up the boats and dashed them into the rocks. “That will teach them.” He said.

“I don’t think it has” said Norbert sadly “the others are still at it. They’ve driven the original inhabitants into smaller, enclosed regions and, oh look, I don’t believe it, they’re even taking their offspring away from them. Why are they doing that?”

They both watched the agony of mothers separated from their children, the loss of freedom, the attempts to sever the sublime connection they had with the Factory. They watched them broken, beaten down and they raged at the newcomers who’d claimed Area 63 as their own, with the insufferable arrogance of those who’d never understood the concept of truly belonging.

Norbert and his Boss tried everything they could think of, including a rather impressive cyclone, but nothing would stop the newcomers. Eventually they turned away from the railing and walked away from Area 63.

“I’ll ask the lads to put together some reports, just so that we can keep an eye on things, but I just can’t watch anymore.” The Boss’ shoulders were slumped and he dragged his feet as he walked “The newcomers could have learned so much, if only they’d taken the time.” He said sadly.

“Funny thing is” said Norbert “the humans who were there originally didn’t need us, they got to be at one with the Factory without our help. Perhaps we should just leave Area 63 to it for a while; maybe if we just let them get on with it, they’ll find a way to live in harmony all together.”

“I don’t know Norbert; we’d be taking a huge risk. The original inhabitants of Area 63 were there for over 50,000 years before anyone else turned up, according to Jeremy. Do you really think it will be safe to leave the newcomers there for that long without any sort of supervision?” The Big Man looked worried.

“Who knows Boss, I guess we’ll find out won’t we.” Norbert shrugged “Anyway, come on, let’s go and see if the kitchen’s still open, I’m peckish.”

The Big Man walked along with him and even managed something to eat but he was distracted; he’d really thought that such a well-developed example of humanity would be an inspiration to others. However, then he remembered Jesus, ‘Why am I even surprised?’ he thought.

The Suffragettes

A decade or so later, the Boss was happily ensconced in office putting the finishing touches to a rather fetching bobble hat and scarf combo. His first attempts at knitting had been rather haphazard as he’d had enormous difficulty getting the sheep to stand still but once he’d realised he’d have to take the wool off them first he’d come on in leaps and bounds. He snipped off the final strand, wrapped the scarf around his neck and held up the bobble hat, admiring his work. Just then there was a knock at his door and Norbert wandered in with a tray of tea and biscuits.

“Is it time for elevenses already? I hadn’t realised what the time was.” He put the hat on his head and gently nodded enjoying the feeling of the bobble as it wobbled back and forth.

Norbert put the tray down and then just stood looking at his Boss, it was several moments before he asked “What the bloody hell are you wearing?”

The Big Man looked hurt “What do you mean? Don’t you like them? I knitted them myself.”

Norbert wondered how he was going to protect his Boss’ feelings whilst, at the same time, convince him that he looked like an utter pillock.

“Well yes, they’re very well made, I can see that but, Boss, they’re pink……..” He poured the tea, trying to ignore the Big Man who was playing with his bobble.

“What’s wrong with pink? I like pink; it’s a lovely colour and I think it suits me.” The Boss said defiantly, helping himself to a delicate wafer biscuit. Norbert reached for a chocolate chip cookie and chewed for a minute, screwing up his courage “The thing is Boss, lovely as pink is as a colour, its not very…..manly is it?”

“What do you mean?” The Boss frowned, confused by Norbert’s comment.

‘Oh dear’ thought Norbert before ploughing on “What I mean is, Fanny wears pink and so do Gladys and Ethel but..”

“And they all look very nice” the Big Man interrupted him impatiently.

“Yes, they do” agreed Norbert, wishing he’d never started the conversation “but they’re not us, are they? You, me and Cecil, for example, we all wear brown or white robes don’t we, with a nice sturdy rope belt and some practical brown sandals, we don’t wear pink.” He found that the discussion was making him slightly uncomfortable.

“Just because we don’t, doesn’t mean we can’t. I felt like adding a bit of colour that’s all, I get fed up wearing white all the time. Anyway, I don’t need your critique on my fashion choices thank you very much, what did you want?” The Boss huffed and tossed his scarf over his shoulder dramatically.

Now it was Norbert’s turn to be hurt “I just thought you might like a cup of tea Boss, that’s all.” Then he remembered a memo that he’d stuffed in his pocket when he was down in the canteen “And to give you this, it’s a memo from Gladys who works in the Kitchen, she said to hand it straight to you.”

“What does it say?” asked the Boss, taking the proffered document.

“How should I know? I haven’t read it” replied Norbert indignantly “but she didn’t look very happy. Cookie told me that she’s been spending all her breaks with Fanny and Ethel out on the viewing platform above Area 44. Come to think of it, Fanny hasn’t been herself recently either, she didn’t even thank me when I opened the door for her the other day and told her how nice she looked.” Norbert sat down gloomily, he rather liked Fanny. “She even slapped my hands away when I tried to help her carry some boxes down to the stock room.”

The Boss looked up from the memo that he’d been carefully reading and said “Norbert, I think we might have a problem. Have you checked on Area 44 lately?”

“Nope can’t say I have Boss why?” He was confused, what did that have to do with Fanny getting stroppy with him.

“Read this while you finish your tea and then I think we better go and have a look at what’s been going on.”

Norbert read the memo while the Boss looked on; he was amused to see the changing expressions on his PA’s face.

“I’m not sure I understand Boss, are they saying that they want your job?” Norbert wasn’t sure whether to laugh or be worried; the Big Man had always been in charge and, most of the time, he was pretty fair considering everything he had to put up with. Why would Fanny, Ethel or Gladys think that they could do a better job? Especially Ethel, she scared the crap out of everyone.

“Have you finished your tea? Ok, come on let’s go, I’ll explain on the way.”

As they wandered down to the viewing platform above Area 44 The Boss explained to Norbert that Fanny, Ethel and Gladys weren’t trying to replace him, they just wanted to be listened to and their views to be taken into account when decisions were being made. Norbert was finding it very difficult to understand the concept.

“But they are listened to Boss. We listen to Glady when she tells us that we’re low on chocolate chips for the cookies, I don’t dare interrupt Ethel when she gives me her monthly reports on the laundry and I could listen to Fanny all day, even when she’s explaining the latest stock control systems.”

“Yes, I know, but the thing is, they don’t view those sorts of things as important, they want to be involved in the decisions we make for the Factory. They want to be part of the bigger picture.” The Big Man had been trying to explain all the way to the viewing platform, but Norbert was just looking more and more confused. “But they don’t know how to modify the humans or maintain the structural integrity of the Factory or run a species audit so why would we ask their opinion?” he cried helplessly.

The Boss patted him gently on the shoulder and guided him over to the railing. “Just have a look at what’s going on down there and then see if their memo makes any more sense.”

Norbert leaned over and watched for a short time, but he was unsure what he was supposed to be looking for. He was beginning to feel frustrated.

“I don’t see anything out of the ordinary Boss, everything looks perfectly normal to me. They’re all going to work or to social gatherings, the ones in charge are talking a lot and doing nothing and the rest are mating or kicking a pig’s bladder around. Nope sorry Boss, I’m just not seeing it.” Norbert pushed himself back from the railing, exasperated.

“Calm down and look again but this time don’t just look at the males.” The Boss smiled at him in what Norbert thought was a very patronising and condescending manner, but he looked nonetheless; he’d spent millennia doing what he was told - for the most part.

He stood against the railing again and watched the females go about their daily business, sure that he wouldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. However, it suddenly occurred to him that there were far fewer of them on the bustling streets than males and those that were outside were mostly in the company of males. Looking more closely, he realised that the females did very little without a male to accompany them and those that were on their own seemed to be having a very difficult time of it.

“What’s that big house over there?” He asked the Boss, pointing at a dark and imposing looking building. “There seem to be a lot of females living there but they don’t seem very happy about it.”

The Big Man looked at where he was pointing, made a note of the co-ordinates and then called Kevin who, although he was only an assistant, was incredibly good at research.

“This is strange too” said Norbert who, now that he’d worked out what he was supposed to be looking for had taken a great interest in the Area 44 females, although not in the way he was interested in Fanny “there seem to be these enormous building where the males go to be educated but there are hardly any females in them at all. The males seem to learn about language, things that have happened in the past and how to make those pieces of paper they’re all so fascinated by but the females just learn how to cook, clean the clothes and organise what goes on in their home and…………oh……..bugger.” Norbert stopped speaking and looked up at the Boss who said, “Do you get it now?”

Norbert looked thoughtful for a moment and then said “Yes, I think so, but it still doesn’t explain why Fanny was annoyed when I offered to carry the boxes for her or why she wasn’t happy when I said she looked nice.”

“Will you stop going on about Fanny…ah Kevin, yes what have you got for me? Yes, he’s here……….no I don’t know what he’s done to upset Fanny……well yes I thought so too but….Kevin can you just tell me what information you’ve got on that building I sent the co-ordinates for…..I’m not getting impatient! Right, yes, sorry.” He listened for a few moments with raised eyebrows and a martyred expression “Right, OK thanks Kevin, I appreciate all your hard work………….yes, give Fanny my thanks too.” He turned off the communication device and put it back in his pocket.

“What did he say” asked Norbert, still watching the females in Area 44 trailing after the males and having the few opinions they proffered summarily ignored unless they were suggestions for what to have for dinner.

“Well, it turns out that Fanny had already done some research on this particular building, she was quite upset about it for some reason, Kevin had to comfort her.”

Norbert tore his gaze away from the Factory floor and turned to look at his Boss, there was fury in his eyes, and he’d clenched his fists.

“He did what!!?? I’m going to be having a word with young Kevin the next time I see him…..where is he?” Norbert was shouting and had grabbed the Big Man by the collar of his robe.

“Norbert” the Boss said calmly “what do you think you’re doing?”

Norbert was red faced and fuming “I’m going to…” He looked up into his Boss’ face and suddenly realised who he had hold of “Oops, sorry about that, ummm, right, well, I’ll see Kevin later then.” He released his hands and smoothed down the collar of the Big Man’s robe before stepping back a pace.

“Anyway, as I was saying, Fanny researched the building because she’d seen that there were only females inside and no males. At first, she thought it was one of those prison things that they use to incarcerate the bad humans but, apparently, the females are only there because they are pregnant and don’t have a mate.”

Norbert had calmed down enough to be mildly curious although he was still determined to have it out with Kevin during their next tea break “I don’t understand. Why do they need a mate? We designed the females to carry the young, they don’t need the males…..ahem, well, except at the beginning of course.” Norbert flushed slightly and stood by the Big Man at the railing and followed his gaze.

The Boss was carefully studying a large group of females who were marching together and holding banners. They were obviously trying to attract the attention of the males in charge and they all looked extremely annoyed.

“I don’t think they ‘need’ the males Norbert, but they have very difficult lives without them. They’re not given any pieces of paper for the work that they do for their mates or their male relatives, they’re not educated to do work that would give them enough pieces of paper to be independent so they have to rely on the males to give them shelter, food and clothes. Added to that, you know what the humans are like about religion, they’ve decided that having a child, without having an official mate is a ‘sin’ and those women end up in that building you pointed out, or one like it, working and living in terrible conditions.”

“Well why was Fanny so upset then? If they’re working, they’ll be given pieces of paper and food and so on, what’s the problem? Why was she so upset?” Norbert was confused again; he was finding the world of females very difficult to understand.

“One, because they’re not given pieces of paper, two because they’re not given enough to eat and, three, the reason why Fanny was so upset, if they ever want to leave to find a mate or work, they have to leave their child behind. The male run society won’t accept them otherwise.” he shrugged philosophically; the male humans had always been dominant. “They really are bastards sometimes.” He added.

“Oh, that’s not right, no wonder Fanny was upset, bless her. Do you know Boss, I’d never really thought about it before but the males have been in charge of pretty much everything since we put together the first prototypes, you would have thought that they’d have got better at it over time wouldn’t you? Look at this Area, for example, the only time it made really good progress and all the humans seemed to be happy was when a female was in charge – Elizabeth I think she was called. She did a great job so why don’t they let more females have a go? Doesn’t make any sense to me.”

The Boss was still watching as events unfolded on the Factory floor. The females who had marched and protested were becoming violent, demanding that their voices be heard, that they have a say in the running of their Area. The males in charge responded by attacking, assaulting and then incarcerating them.

“I think they’re scared.” He looked over at Norbert and raised a quizzical eyebrow “Why else would they be behaving in this way?”

“Honestly Boss? They don’t look scared; they just look bloody annoyed.” Norbert watched as a group of males beat a lone female who seemed to have attached herself to some railings outside an important looking building. “Oi! Stop that!” he yelled.

“Males of all species react like that when they’re threatened Norbert, you know that, you wired them like that if I remember rightly. Think about it, if the males had nothing to fear from the females, why would they feel threatened by them, it’s not logical.”

Norbert was surprised to see a satisfied grin on the Boss’ face; the violence against the females was escalating but they didn’t seem to be backing down, if anything their protests were getting more vehement.

“Shouldn’t we do something Boss before one of them is…..never mind, too late.” Norbert winced and turned away as one of the female protesters was dragged under the pounding hooves of a horse.

“Nope, not this time Norbert, the females simply don’t need us to interfere. Come on let’s go and put the kettle on, I thought we’d make a cup of tea for Fanny, Ethel and Gladys, maybe even see if they’d like a biscuit. Then we can all sit down and discuss product development.”

“Fair enough, I could do with a cup of tea.” They walked away from the viewing platform and headed towards the canteen.

“Boss?” said Norbert

“Mmmm?”

“You’re not scared of Ethel, Fanny and Gladys are you?”

“Don’t be ridiculous Norbert!”

The Boss, as often happened, was proved quite right, the females didn’t need his interference.

The First World War.

As Project Humanity was progressing without the need for too much interference Norbert and the Boss decided to concentrate their attentions on Factory maintenance; the humans were buggers for messing the place up. Their creative period, in which they developed machines to do pretty much everything, had certainly improved their standards of living but the smoke that belched from their many chimneys was playing havoc with the ozone layer. Added to that, their constant digging into the Factory floor for fuels of various types and shiny stones (which they seemed particularly fond of) was causing some stabilisation issues.

All of this meant that Norbert had spent quite some time standing on a very tall and slightly precarious ladder, handing out instructions to the maintenance crew who were patching up holes in the ozone.

“I don’t know how long these are going to hold to be honest Guv,” said Dennis, the Head of Maintenance “we’re doing our best but as fast as we plug one hole, another one opens. We might have to have a shut down for a complete refit at some point.”

“Yep I know Dennis, but we’ve got too much going on to have a full shut down so just do what you can for now.” Norbert called up “By the way, anyone heard from the Boss recently?”

The Boss was having a similar discussion with Cecil, the chief structural engineer who was also doing his best to patch up the damage.

“Don’t those bloody humans realise how long it took to put all this together?” he moaned “It’s no easy feat to keep boiling lava contained you know, just the stress testing took millennia to get right! I wouldn’t mind so much but the ungrateful sods get really testy when there’s even the slightest crack and it’s usually them doing the damage!”

“Calm yourself Cecil.” the Big Man yelled kindly. He was standing and looking down on Cecil who had abseiled towards the Factory core to make his repairs and check temperatures and so forth “We knew we’d have to make some adjustments along the way and you’re doing a grand job.”

Cecil put his thumb up to acknowledge the compliment and then quickly swung himself sideways to avoid a stray blast of molten lava ’I hope the Boss doesn’t forget about my ‘risk of incineration bonus’ this time.’ he thought.

The Boss, meanwhile, cupped his hands round his mouth and yelled “Oi Cecil! Have you heard anything from Norbert?”

Cecil looked up and opened his mouth to reply but, just then, a tiny blob of lava found its way into the neck of his overalls. The Boss decided he’d be wise not to repeat the question as he watched Cecil frantically contort himself on the end of his rope.

With all this going on, Norbert and the Boss did not meet up again for quite some time. However, after filing their reports, having debriefs with their respective teams and taking a long shower, they got together in the Boss’ office and sat down to enjoy a well-earned cup of tea and some egg and cress sandwiches. They were both still on a health kick after the mysterious shrinking robes incident, but their willpower seemed to be waning.

“I don’t think the occasional slice of cake would hurt” said Norbert “we have been getting plenty of exercise after all.”

“Yes, I think you’re right, it wouldn’t hurt just every now and again. How about if I ring down to the kitchen and ask them to send up some carrot cake? That’s got to be healthy hasn’t it, I mean, it’s got carrots in it.”

Neither of them was quite sure who had come up with the idea of putting vegetables into cake form, but it certainly was a good one; they could satisfy their sweet tooth but still feel virtuous.

“Oooh yes, that’s a great idea!” Norbert polished off the last bite of his sandwich and rubbed his hands together in glee, anticipating an imminent sugar rush.

There was a knock at the door

“Blimey that was quick” said Norbert leaping up to open it “Oh, hi Bernard, what are you doing here? I thought you were one of the kitchen staff bringing cake.” His disappointment was palpable.

Bernard worked in the Department of Analysis of Statistical Probabilities and Random Predictions and he was ‘neat’. It was really the only way of describing him, his hair was neatly parted in the middle, his black robe had prefect creases, even his beard looked as though it had been painted on. However, today, Norbert noticed, the report he was carrying was at least 3mm off square; something was wrong.

“What’s up Bernard?” said the Boss, he too had noticed the report and was worried.

“Well, Sir, I have been running some tests this morning after receiving a rather troubling memo from Gavin in Returns.”

Norbert had returned to his seat and both he and the Boss were sitting up very straight and listening intently to what he had to say.

“Carry on Bernard.”

“The memo stated that one of the high ranking humans in Area 19 had been shot….with a gun.”

“Terrible things!” exclaimed Norbert “All that bloody intelligence we’ve installed and that’s what they come up with!”

“Norbert, shush, don’t interrupt.” The Boss swatted Norbert’s arm.

“As I was saying” said Bernard looking reproachfully at Norbert “It’s not often that we get a high-ranking return so I ran a random prediction standard test and then followed it up with a statistical probability analysis and..” He stopped as two of the kitchen staff came in carrying several large portions of carrot cake. His expression became more and more martyred as they busied themselves with napkins and cutlery and Norbert and the Boss bickered over which slice was the biggest.

“Ahem” he coughed as the kitchen staff left and Norbert and the Big Man tucked in.

“Mummphhh, orry Ernard, arry n.” the Boss mumbled through a mouthful of creamy, carroty deliciousness. Bernard unfolded his report and put it on the desk between them. It was a decision he was to regret as, milliseconds later, it was sprayed with crumbs and globules of cream.

“Bernard, surely this can’t be right!” The Boss cried out after he had almost choked on and then swallowed his mouthful of cake.

“I’m afraid it is Guv, I ran the test three times before I came to see you.” Bernard tried to surreptitiously brush crumbs off the report.

“I’ve never seen anything like it.” said Norbert, his cake forgotten “What does it mean?”

“Well let’s put it this way” said Bernard, helping himself to Norbert’s discarded cake, “The Returns department are going to be pretty damned busy for a while.”

After Bernard had gone back to his Department, via the kitchen “You don’t mind taking the plates back do you? Good man.” Norbert and the Boss went straight to the nearest viewing platform.

“Shit! It’s worse than I thought.” said Norbert “Look at them all!”

Great swathes of humanity were leaving their own Areas and advancing on others.

“Surely the dispatch of one high-ranker didn’t cause all this movement; there must be something else going on. What do the reports say?” The Boss looked across at the papers Norbert had brought with him and they scanned the contents.

“Nope, nothing as far as I can see Boss. Oh no! That’s torn it!” Norbert was pointing at another swathe of heavily armed humans that had just left Area 19 and was crossing the border of its nearest neighbour.

“Well, they won’t like that, you know how they feel about other humans invading their Areas; I knew we should have left them all joined up so they wouldn’t know where one finished and the next one started.” Said Norbert.

“Those ones are joined up.” pointed out the Big Man reasonably “It doesn’t make any bloody difference.”

“Can’t you chuck a few lightning bolts at them Boss? Slow them down a bit, give them time to think about what they’re doing?”

“I told you Norbert, I am not going to get involved anymore; there’s nothing more that I can give them.” The Boss turned his back but just then there were several loud bangs from the Factory floor and, shortly afterwards, a call from Returns.

“It’s Gavin, he said it’s urgent.” said Norbert passing the device to his Boss and turning his attention back to the Factory. ‘I don’t believe it’ he thought ‘whose bright idea was it to make guns bigger!? As if they weren’t causing enough trouble.’

The Boss finished the call, turned off the device and said to Norbert “I’ve asked some of the maintenance team to go down to Returns to help Gavin out, we’ll have to hold off on the repairs for a while. What’s happening now?” The Big Man leaned over the railing and tried to make sense of the chaos that was unfolding beneath him.

“Area 26 was getting a hammering from Area 87 so they asked Area 24 for help and they piled in; Area 87 called on Area 63 and then 23, 22, 88 and 64 joined in and, well, you can see.” Norbert waved his arm to indicate the hundreds of thousands of humans who were trying to destroy each other. Much of the Factory floor was covered in smoke, which was probably just as well.

“I don’t believe this” said Norbert fanning away smoke and wiping his eyes with a hanky “they’ve even fitted guns to those flying machines. I despair Boss, honestly I do.”

“You’re not the only one, I really don’t know what to do this time. I know I said that I would leave them to it but, honestly, watching this, I don’t know if I can. The odd scrap here and there they seem to work through without too many problems but practically all of the buggers are joining in now.” The Big Man sighed and then pulled his buzzing communicator from his pocket.

“Gavin! Slow down! I can’t understand what you’re saying” It’s Gavin, he said to Norbert; putting his hand over the device he whispered, “I think he’s losing it.” Norbert rolled his eyes; Gavin was such a drama queen.

“Gavin, what are you talking about? Jelly wobble flumpy bums?? What does that even mean? Gavin……Gavin!…..put me on to Stan and then go and have a lie down.”

The Boss had a brief discussion with Stan and then turned to his PA.

“I think you’d better get down there Norbert, Gavin’s gone postal.”

“Righto Boss” Norbert pushed himself away from the railing and made sure that his sandals were properly fastened “what are you going to do?”

“I honestly don’t know. Perhaps I’ll wander down to the Lab and see if I can come up with something non-invasive to sort this mess out.”

Norbert set off at a run, but the Big Man walked slowly, his head down, deep in thought. Humanity was so difficult to deal with and, sometimes, he just felt as though they would never understand that their self-destructive actions were nothing more than the consequences of irrational fears ‘If only they could see themselves as I saw them in the beginning’ he thought to himself.

Norbert was shocked when he reached the Returns department. The backlog was enormous, and everyone was sweating as they tried to process the returns and cross reference them to their official expiration date. The numbers going through to Repairs and Recycling were astronomical which meant that the paperwork was piling up. ‘I don’t envy whoever gets to do the filing after all this’ thought Norbert as he struggled his way through the workers to get to Stan.

“Bloody hell Stan” he said by way of a greeting “This is chaos.”

“Tell me about it Guv, I’ve never seen numbers like this coming through and I’ve been doing this job for millennia, but young Gavin has only been foreman for a few centuries and he just couldn’t cope.” He pointed. Gavin was curled up in a ball, shuddering and screaming quietly under his breath.

“It’s not just us” said Stan “Recycling are having a terrible time of it. Have you seen what they’ve been doing to each other? We’re having to forward some on with bits missing, it’s driving Lionel crazy and I can’t keep up with the memos he keeps sending us asking if we’ve found a size 22 ear or a size 14 leg with a foot missing.” Stan took a deep breath and tried to recover his composure as another memo landed on his desk.

“You see what I mean!” said Stan, exasperated. Norbert reached over and picked up the memo.

“What does he mean: ‘Hold the yellow ones until notified’?” asked Norbert. Stan sighed and explained. “The humans have come up with a new way to get rid of each other; inconsiderate bastards! They’ve invented some sort of yellow gas which burns out their breathing mechanism and Lionel is having the devil’s own job getting them cleaned up and recycled.” Stan’s head shot up as someone called his name “Sorry Norbert, I’ve got to go and sort this, can you go and see what you can do to get Lionel moving.”

Lionel was, in fact, moving at an alarming rate as were all his team but there just weren’t enough of them to cope with the influx. Norbert rolled up the sleeves of his robe and set about seeing what he could do to help.

Much, much later someone cried out “I think it’s slowing down, we’re almost back to normal rates.” There was a weary cheer and the sound of several bodies hitting the floor as they gave up trying to fight sleep.

Norbert checked a few reports to make sure that it wasn’t a temporary blip before saying his goodbyes and making his way slowly back to his office; he’d never been so tired. When he finally got there the Boss was waiting for him with a strong cup of tea and some chocolate cookies.

“Back to normal is it?” He asked as Norbert threw himself into a chair.

“Yep pretty much. What did you do?” He took a sip of tea and helped himself to a cookie hoping he’d be able to stay awake long enough to eat it.

“I did a selective recall in the end, couldn’t do anything else really. I grabbed a few who seemed naturally reasonable, beefed up their speech modules so they’d be listened to, gave them double doses of pacifism and sent them back. I wasn’t sure if it would work to be honest, but I think we were helped by humanity’s general lack of emotional stamina; they can only sustain hatred for so long before apathy kicks in. That might be worth looking into a bit further; what do you reckon?”

There was no answer. The Boss looked over at his PA who was sound asleep with a slightly chewed chocolate cookie half-way to his mouth. The Boss covered Norbert’s tea so it wouldn’t get cold and gently took the biscuit from his hand ‘Waste not, want not’ he thought.

The Big Man left Norbert to his slumber and wandered over to the viewing platform where all was, relatively, quiet at long last. He’d given a lot of thought to what was at the root of all this human aggression and he’d come to the conclusion that it must have something to do with those pieces of paper with heads of well know humans stamped on them that they were all so obsessed by. It seemed to him that they’d do more or less anything to get their hands on more bits of paper. ’It can’t only be that’ he thought to himself ‘But it’s a place to start’. He took out a notebook and started writing a memo to Norbert.

The Great Depression

“Sorry Boss, but I don’t think it’s going to work” Norbert was kneeling on a stool, his face rested on his hands and he was frowning as he tried to understand the Boss’ logic.

“Well, I don’t see why not.” said the Boss, mildly miffed “We need them to realise that their obsession with those little bits of paper is no good for them and what better way to do it than this?”

Norbert looked at him, briefly and then turned his attention back to the plans laid out before them.

“So, if I’ve got this right, you want to up the greed quotas of the ones in Area 33 from 1.2 to 9.45? You think they’ll then use up all their pieces of paper acquiring things they don’t need and, at some unspecified point in the future, they’ll realise that they were happier without all the stuff? Nope, sorry I just don’t get it Boss, you know what they’re like.” Norbert was shaking his head and trying desperately to think of another plan before the Big Man hit the over-ride switch (there is literally a switch on all humans which can be used to regulate emotions in an emergency; its location is a secret).

“Look, we’ve been over this.” said the Boss with more than a touch of impatience in his voice “Where are the happiest humans located?”

“Area 9” said Norbert dutifully

“Right! And what do they have in Area 9?”

“Mountains, errr, more mountains and ummm, yaks” Norbert’s knowledge of Area 9 was limited.

“Exactly! Not much at all but they’re happy and they all get along, don’t they?” The Boss was smiling and nodding.

“Well, yes, according to all the reports they certainly seem to be a jolly bunch.” Norbert hadn’t actually read any reports about Area 9 as he’d never been particularly enamoured with yaks, but he played along.

“There you go then. We’ll stop the obsession with the bits of paper by making sure the humans get rid of them all by exchanging them for stuff they don’t need and Jim’s your Aunty” The Big Man was positively beaming.

“Well yes but…what? Who’s Jim? I haven’t got an Aunty; what are you on about?”

“Leave it to me.” said the Boss, tapping the side of his nose conspiratorially as he flicked the switch with his other hand. Norbert took him at his word and wandered off to one of the viewing platforms, scuffing his sandals and muttering to himself.

“Never listens to me…mutter, mutter…..always thinks he knows best……mutter, mutter……centuries I’ve spent studying those buggers……mutter……sure he’s adding too much greed….mutter……Bugger!”

Having arrived at the platform, Norbert was hanging over the railing and watching humanity apparently having the time of its life. They were dancing and drinking some sort of fizzy grape juice, the males all seemed to be dressed as penguins and the females had cut their hair and turned themselves into slappers. ‘That can’t be right surely’ thought Norbert and reached over to a panel on his left that held the controls for volume, temperature and hurricanes.

Sometime later the Boss wandered over looking exceptionally pleased with himself. He slapped Norbert on the back and said, “Seen the reports, have you?”

“I have yes, I’ve got them right here.” Norbert spoke through clenched teeth; he hated it when the Boss gloated.

“Great isn’t it? Look how happy they are. They’re getting rid of all those pesky bits of paper and it’s doing wonders for them. I knew it would work!”

“Yes, you said…..Wait, hang on a minute, have you seen this?” Norbert handed over a long and complex looking report and waited; if he was right, he would be feeling smug sometime soon.

“I don’t get it.” said the Boss. He’d read the report backwards, forwards and upside down but he couldn’t make sense of it.

“Look, here in this column.” Norbert helpfully pointed out the moving numbers which were increasing his opportunity for smugness with every passing moment. The Boss looked again and then sucked air between his teeth.

“Oh shit.” he said

“Quite” said Norbert, smiling happily “They’re not getting rid of the pieces of paper to get stuff, they’re using them to try and make more pieces of paper and, from what I can see, it seems to be working. That’s why they’re happy.”

“How?” said the Boss, his eyes were wide, and he was running his fingers though his hair in uncomprehending frustration.

“They’re using them to get stocks.” Norbert was now wearing his best smug grin.

“But stock is stuff, look at our stock room, there’s loads of stuff in it.” The Big Man was seriously confused.

“No, not stock, stocks. They use their pieces of paper to get a share in a business and, when the business goes well, they get more pieces of paper. As the business gets more popular, more people want to get in on the action, so they buy stocks but, it’s popular now, so they have to use more pieces of paper to get them.”

The Boss was frowning and trying to get his head around the concept. He failed.

“I don’t understand, why would they want to use more pieces of paper to get something that someone else used less pieces of paper to get yesterday? It doesn’t make any sense at all unless the business has got bigger since yesterday?” The Big Man did not enjoy being confused and he certainly didn’t like looking to Norbert to relieve his confusion but, in this case, he had no choice; he was flummoxed.

“Nope, the business hasn’t changed but more people want a part of it, so they’re prepared to hand over more pieces of paper to get it.”

“But it’s not logical.”

“They’re not logical Boss, we know this.” Norbert said this gently as the Big Man looked like he was about to burst into tears of frustration.

“Yes but, hold on, they’re still getting rid of pieces of paper, right?” the Big Man said hopefully.

“Yes, but they’re making more pieces of paper at the same time. Look, it’s complicated. Why don’t we go and have a cup of tea and a couple of bourbons and I’ll try to explain it all.”

“Good idea.” the Boss said gratefully “But can I have custard creams with mine please”

“Yep, no problem, I’ll go and put the kettle on.” Norbert hurried off in the direction of the kitchen, a little skip in his step; he loved being right. The Boss’ lesson in advanced economics lasted quite some time and involved several cups of tea, a packet of bourbons and half a packet of custard creams (some of the bourbons were used for demonstration purposes). Feeling that he was fortified with both facts and biscuits, the Boss suggested that they go back to the viewing platform to monitor progress.

“Oh dear.” They said in unison.

The humans were no longer partying; rather, they seemed somewhat depressed.

“What happened?” Gasped the Boss “They were fine the last time we checked.” Norbert was not listening; he was having a hurried and somewhat heated conversation.

“That was Kevin Boss, he’s on his way up with some paperwork apparently. Bugger me! The difference down there! Why can’t these bloody humans ever find the middle ground? They’re either jolly as heck or down in the dumps; there’s no pleasing them!”

“I think you might be right Norbert.” The Big Man said sadly “Do you think that we should introduce a universal mood stabiliser into the standard protocol?”

“Nah, it wouldn’t work, there’s too much emotional variation between individuals, besides I thought that was what they used the fermented grape juice for.” said Norbert. He was leaning over the railing and doing some mental calculations, he suspected that Kevin’s reports, if they ever arrived, would confirm his suspicions “Where the hell is Kevin?”

There was the sound of flapping sandals drifting round a sharp bend and then Kevin appeared before them, puffing and trying to fan himself with the reams of paper he was carrying.

“Sorry Guv, I had to wait until the numbers stabilised; took bloody ages. Then I had to get maintenance down because the report generator was over-heating and then the medical team had to be called because, apparently, Brian didn’t understand the meaning of ‘don’t touch that, it’s hot’. Kevin rolled his eyes and handed his reports over to Norbert before sagging against the railing.

Norbert read through the numbers which were still moving and changing at an alarming rate

“Bloody hell Kevin, I thought you said they’d stabilised.” Norbert’s eyes were trying to roll in two different directions at the same time, so he handed the reports over to the Big Man. However, he’d seen enough to realise what had been going on and now he could feel a headache coming on.

The Boss glared at the numbers until they stopped moving about and then handed the reports back to Kevin.

“So, if I’ve got this right, the humans used their little pieces of paper to buy stock.”

“Stocks” said Norbert and Kevin in unison

“Shush I’m trying to think. So, they stopped using pieces of paper to buy stuff and used them to buy stocks, the stocks became popular, so more people bought them even though they needed more pieces of paper to do so?”

“Right so far Boss.” Norbert was pleased his economics lesson hadn’t been in vain.

“The businesses who gave out the stocks didn’t do anything different, didn’t make more or build more, right?”

“Yep, spot on.” Kevin put both thumbs up and grinned

“So, more people used more pieces of paper which meant the price went higher and higher even though nothing changed with the businesses and then, one day, someone realised it was all bollocks and, in fact, the businesses were worth no more than the day they first handed out the stocks. How stupid are these humans?” The Boss was incredulous. “So now, half them have lost all their pieces of paper and they’re miserable because they don’t have any stuff to show for it and loads of people don’t have any work because the businesses no longer have a value. Not only that, the ones who weren’t stupid and kept their pieces of paper are hated by the stupid ones and being blamed for it all going tits up. Honestly, it’s pathetic! If only they would realise the benefits of mountains, fresh air and yak farming, none of this would ever have happened but, no, they’re too busy making themselves miserable over little pieces of sodding paper!”

Kevin and Norbert were standing shoulder to shoulder looking at their toes; it was not often that the Boss had this kind of rant but, when he did, it was best to keep quiet.

“Now what are they going to do, hmm? Tell me that! Look at the state of them! They could be dining out on fresh yak if they could just learn to appreciate the simple things the Factory has to offer; why do they have to make everything so bloody complicated?” The Boss raged on. “WELL?”

Kevin and Norbert both jumped as the Boss thrust his face towards them and bellowed his question. They shoved each other and said ‘No, you go first’ as quietly as possible.

“Will one of you please say something!”

“Umm, yes, ah, right, OK” said Norbert, eloquently “The thing is, we don’t really know. We’ve been over all the reports, the Lab’s done shedloads of analysis, Despatch does regular audits, you and me have done more modifications and resets than I can count but we still can’t seem to come up with a model that works. We get a few spot on but then they mate and that buggers that up, we’ve installed diseases to try and thin the herd out a bit hoping that will urge them to be happy before their expiration date but that doesn’t work. Honestly Boss I don’t know what to try next, between the chemical impulses, the emotions and the mating urges, keeping this lot in line is like herding amoebas.”

The Boss’ expression was dark but he said nothing, just turned his back on them both and walked slowly back to his office. His shoulders were hunched, and he was muttering under his breath.

“What did he say?” Kevin asked

“It sounded to me like ’they will learn’.” Norbert started chewing the side of his thumb, a sure sign that he was worried.

“What does that mean?” Kevin was feeling distinctly uncomfortable; he wasn’t used to seeing the management so…undone.

“I don’t know but, whatever he has in mind for them, I’m pretty sure they’re not going to like it. Come on, let’s leave him for a bit and go and have some lunch” He put his hand on Kevin’s shoulder and they headed off towards the kitchen although neither of them had much of an appetite.

World War II

Norbert gave the Big Man time to cool off and then went looking for him. He eventually tracked him down in the Development Lab and he was looking stressed. His hair was standing up on end, he had black smudges on his nose and his goggles were steamed up.

“Morning Boss.” said Norbert chirpily. He had decided that he would deal with the Big Man’s dark mood by being extra chipper. “What are you up to?” He leant over his Boss’ shoulder and looked at the mass of bottles, pots and rubber tubing that covered the surface of the work bench.

“I’m trying to create an antidote but it’s not going well.” The Boss didn’t look round but, instead, concentrated on a small vial of black liquid that he was heating very gently.

“An antidote?”

“Yes, Norbert, an antidote. We’ve tried sending pure specials down to the Factory to inspire the humans, and they didn’t get anywhere so I’m trying to make one that’s completely tainted to see if a bad example will work any better than a good one.”

“What do you mean ‘tainted’?” Norbert was keeping an eye on the black liquid that was bubbling and churning in its vial.

“I sorted through the emotions inventory in the Stock Room and I pulled out everything negative I could find, then I mixed them all up and added a double dose of charisma, some wolf essence and a dash of shark. This is my third attempt.”

They both peered at the black liquid. There was a loud ‘gloop’ and a shattering of glass.

“Damnit!”

The Boss and Norbert spent the next few minutes wiping black goo from their eyes and then set about cleaning the ceiling.

“Is that what always happens?” asked Norbert from atop his ladder.

“Yep” said the Boss “Every time. I’ve got the casing ready, the wiring’s all sound but every time I try to prepare the emotional elements, that happens. It’s really irritating.”

“Perhaps there’s a problem with the casing, where is it?” Norbert clambered down from his ladder and made a mental note to call a cleaning crew when he got back to his office, he’d had enough housework for one day.

“Over there.” the Boss nodded his head in the direction of one of the many storage pods.

“What this one?” Norbert was gazing up at a veritable mountain of muscle, topped by a roguishly handsome face and a thatch of shiny blonde hair.

“Hmmm? What?” The Big Man was once again bent over his flasks and was gingerly pouring a few drops of a writhing red substance into a vial. He looked up briefly “Yep, that’s the one.”

“I think I see the problem.” said Norbert carefully, the Boss was not keen on others pointing out his mistakes “I think you should keep the emotional elements and the wiring, which are all excellent obviously, but then try natural development for the casing. You’ve created a physically sound casing and you’re trying to load it with something mentally and emotionally unsound and they’re rejecting each other.” He was sure that he would be ignored or, worse, be subject to an exaggerated eye roll but, oddly, the Big Man just looked thoughtful.

“Norbert, I think that you might be on to something, well done!”

Norbert had a strange desire to pump his fist into the air but instead he produced a small grin and said “Thanks.”

“Come on, you can give me a hand.” The Boss handed him a pair of goggles and they both set to work. There were several more small explosions and a small fire but, eventually, they were finished.

“Is that it?” Norbert and his Boss looked at each other and then back at the casing before them “It’s not very big is it?” Norbert looked it up and down disparagingly.

“It’s always about size with you isn’t it?” said the Boss “Mind you, I’ve got to admit, it is a bit runty looking. I just hope we got the chemicals and the wiring right because I can’t see anyone taking any notice of this specimen otherwise.”

“I’m with you there, Boss.” Norbert was wandering slowly round the casing and looking it up and down “It’s a proper short arse. Oh well, we’ve done the best we can, let’s get it down to Despatch and we’ll see what happens.”

They were both fairly tired after their experiments so they went off to have a nap, with the agreement that they would meet up later for afternoon tea. They’d both woken feeling refreshed and happily stuffed themselves with smoked salmon filled finger sandwiches and pineapple poke cake, washed down with a cup of lapsang souchong. The kitchen staff had also been experimenting following numerous complaints about their lack of imagination after they’d served spaghetti bolognaise 146 days in a row. After they’d wiped their beards and called out their thanks to Cookie, the Big Man and his PA wandered over to the viewing platform to see how their antidote was getting on.

“Still a short arse I see” said Norbert “And what on earth is that on his top lip?”

“I believe it’s called a moustache.” said the Boss “Like a beard only smaller.”

“It looks like a baby bat hanging from his nostrils! And honestly, he really doesn’t have the legs for shorts.” Norbert enjoyed fashion and, in his opinion, leather shorts with a bib attached was not going to be a great look on anyone.

“Don’t you worry about how he looks.” said the Boss sniffily; he was still quite disappointed that his muscle mountain hadn’t worked out. “It’s all about whether people will take any notice of him. If they listen to him and realise how bad he is, they’ll look at themselves, reflect on their behaviour and, hopefully, get their bloody act together”.

The Boss had come to the conclusion that humanity would never learn anything without examples. What he hadn’t yet realised was that humans never recognised anything in themselves that they didn’t like in others and were perfectly capable of ignoring things they didn’t want to see even when they were right under their nose. The Boss had often witnessed males of the species standing in front of a cupboard for several minutes, totally unable to see the cleaning products their female had asked them to fetch even though they were on the shelf right in front of them.

Norbert was studying the humans’ reactions carefully as the Boss’ creation stomped up and down and shouted at the top of his voice. He had to admit that the added charisma made his speeches compelling to listen to, but it didn’t change his words which were, essentially, a call to his fellow humans to follow his lead; it made Norbert very uncomfortable for reasons he couldn’t fathom. The Boss was also watching but his expression was hopeful. “What do you think?” he asked Norbert finally.

“Well, he does seem to be quite popular and it looks like he’s got quite a few people listening to him but I’m not sure that they’re examining their own flaws. In fact, most of them seem to be looking to blame others for whatever bad luck has befallen them and the short arse appears to be encouraging them. Did we remember to change the essence of sheep levels before he went down to Despatch?”

“Bugger!” The Boss slapped his forehead “I knew we’d forgotten something!”

“Don’t worry Boss, with sheep essence at normal levels there shouldn’t be a problem.” Norbert put a reassuring hand on the Big Man’s shoulder.

“No, you’re probably right” said the Boss with a little chuckle “Their intelligence systems should over-ride their herd instincts, even with the more basic models.”

Norbert began to have his doubts as he watched the numbers following the short arse grow steadily. They all seem to have a fervour in their eyes which didn’t diminish, even when the speeches became more provocative and emotive.

“I wonder why he keeps banging on about your prototype design?” he said, “Were there any residuals left?” When casings are created through natural development, after a standard casing has been tried and rejected, there will sometimes be certain elements of the standard casing that are retained. It’s for this reason that you will sometimes find a human who is morbidly obese but also a very good tap dancer.

“I don’t think so, but he does seem to have a thing about muscle-clad blondes, doesn’t he? Odd that, considering how he turned out.”

They both looked down at the short dark man with the cocktail of everything negative they’d been able to lay their hands on swooshing around inside him and wondered how he’d become so popular. It was true that the charisma they’d added ensured that people would be attracted to him, despite his appearance, but they couldn’t understand why so many of them were agreeing with what he was saying; his manipulation was so blatant. He was telling his audiences that they must be disciplined and obedient and no-one was questioning it. He was telling them that a guiltless section of the community was to blame for all the problems in their Area and his opinion was being accepted. He was the Judas goat calling to their sheep essence.

The number of followers increased daily and short arse was giving speeches to larger and larger audiences. Great gatherings were organised in stadiums built to honour him and he encouraged the adulation. He was constantly in the company of a few select followers who had a gleam of true madness in their eyes and they would watch, critically, as thousands paraded before them.

“Why have they all started walking like that?” asked Norbert “Do you think that their knee joints have locked or something? Should I send young Dick down with some WD40?”

“I honestly have no idea Norbert but I’m more worried about short arse than a few stiff knees. He’s getting worse and they’re all still listening to him, can you send a message down to Despatch and ask them what expiration date they put on him, I’ve forgotten? If he’s not going to be around for too much longer, I won’t worry too much; it’s obvious our experiment has failed so there’s no point in leaving him down there any longer than we have to.”

Norbert messaged Despatch and he and the Boss continued to watch events unfold as they waited for a response.

“Did you check the sheep essence stocks? Are you sure that there hasn’t been a leak or something?” The Boss was plucking at the sleeve of his robe in his agitation as he watched short arse’s followers take power over the entire Area.

“Nope, no leak. I think we just added too much charisma to the mix to be honest with you; I can’t think of any other reason why they’d all be following the little tit. Oh, hang on, I’ve just got a message from Dave. He says that there was an extension placed on the original expiration date because we couldn’t calculate how long it would take for them to recognise the innate evil in him, be appalled by it and then change their own behaviour.” Norbert read through to the end of the message and then his eyes flew wide open and his jaw dropped.

His Boss was ignoring him. Now he’d gained complete power over his followers, short arse had begun a violent persecution of some of the residents in the Area. At first their movements were restricted, then they were forced to wear a yellow badge intended to stigmatise them and label them as victims. Finally, they were taken away from their homes and their loved ones. The Boss had seen the humans take cattle and sheep away from their fields in similar transportation devices and he’d seen where they’d ended up. His hands tightened on the railing and his knuckles turned white. Suddenly a guttural sound escaped from his throat and Norbert turned to look at him, startled.

“Look what they’re doing now Norbert, how can they do this to their own? Why are they herding them in there? No! They can’t….no…..NOOOOOOO!” The Big Man was hanging over the railing and screaming at the top of his voice. Norbert caught him by the collar of his robe before he could throw himself down onto the Factory floor.

“Boss! Stop! You can’t go down there, we agreed.” The Big Man had managed to sling one leg over the edge of the railing and was fighting hard to free himself from Norbert’s grip. His robe was being pulled up over his head and Norbert knew that, if he managed to get his arms out of the sleeves, there’d be no stopping him. His course of action was clear.

“183!” Norbert yelled in his Boss’ ear as loud as he could.

“What!???” The Big Man stopped struggling and just stared at his PA. Norbert knew he wouldn’t have another chance, so he stepped backwards and, using all his strength hauled his Boss back over the railing. ‘I’ll have to cut back on his morning biscuits’ he thought to himself. The Boss landed in a heap on the viewing platform floor but then immediately scrambled to right himself, sandals desperately trying to get traction, before launching himself down the nearest corridor muttering “oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.”

Norbert gave himself a brief moment to regain his composure before hurtling off after his Boss; he wasn’t sure where he was headed but he knew it wouldn’t be a good idea to leave him alone. As he left the viewing platform plumes of smoke began to rise from the Factory and the screams of the helpless and the hopeless echoed in the vast, domed chamber…..

Norbert darted in and out of various departments and offices before finally catching up with his Boss in one of the Development Labs. There were bottles and jars strewn everywhere, and the Big Man was frantically opening and closing drawers, obviously searching for something. He was muttering under his breath. “183? What was I thinking?” He opened another drawer tossing things out behind him willy nilly.

“Ouch!” said Norbert as a small clay measuring jug smacked him between the eyes. “Boss! Slow down! What are you looking for?” Norbert reached forward to grab the Big Man’s sleeve to try and attract his attention. Just at that moment, the Boss found one of the items he was looking for in the bottom drawer and snatched it up in his clenched fist which, unfortunately connected with Norbert’s groin.

“Nnnmmmppppphhhhhhhh!”

“Opps, sorry Norbert, I didn’t hear you come in, are you alright?” The Boss had stopped scrabbling and was looking down at Norbert guiltily.

“Ahhhnnnmmmzzzph”

“Right, OK well you rest there for a minute and I’ll carry on; you just join me when you’re ready.” The Boss reached down and patted Norbert on the head before resuming his frantic search. A little while later he looked round again, stopped what he was doing and handed Norbert a bag of frozen peas that he’d stumbled across.

“Feeling any better?” he asked

“Ahhhhhmmmmmmmmmmm” said Norbert as he carefully arranged the bag of peas. He was still lying prone and wondering if he’d ever be able to play the bongos again as parts of him (which he’d always maintained should have been put on the inside) throbbed savagely.

“Found it!” The Boss held up a small bottle triumphantly before wandering off to one of the tables where he’d already placed a small box of powder, an assortment of spoons and a set of gold scales. He then consulted his notes and got to work weighing and mixing.

“I won’t be making the same mistake this time.” he muttered to himself.

The frozen peas had numbed Norbert’s pain to the extent that he managed to roll over onto his knees and, holding on to a table leg, he slowly hauled himself upright. He staggered over to his Boss and tried to see what he was up to; his eyes were still watering quite badly.

“Oh good” said the Boss “you’re feeling better. Here, hold this….oh right sorry, still hanging onto the peas are you?” He went back to his work.

“Essence of lion and syphilis?” Norbert wasn’t sure he’d read the ingredient labels correctly.

“Yep, the essence of lion is for the humans so that they can overcome the effects of the sheep essence (I’m still not sure there wasn’t a leak, whatever Kevin says) and the syphilis is for the short arse; I’m going to over-ride his expiration date.”

“Can I make a suggestion Boss?” Norbert, although still looking a little green and refusing to let go of his peas was, more or less, back to his old self.

“Yes, of course, I’m all ears.” The Boss smiled and clasped his hands in front of him, waiting patiently to hear Norbert’s idea. Normally he would have half listened and then gone with his own plan, but he was still feeling guilty.

“Add in some compassion and a couple of tablespoons of common sense but only apply it to half of them.”

“Why only half? I think it’s a good idea…well done by the way…..but shouldn’t we apply it to all of them?”

“No. Only half.” Norbert finally relaxed his grip on the peas and stood up very tall “I’m not exactly sure what the outcome will be but, there is one thing I am sure of and that’s, whatever happens, they will never forget it and, if they don’t forget it, maybe they won’t repeat it.”

The Big Man looked down at his PA’s earnest face and realised that he had come to understand these humans very well. He added the ingredients Norbert had suggested and only applied it to half.

“Can you send an update to Dave in Despatch please. Warn them that they’re going to be working overtime again and give him the new expiration date for Short Arse. When you’ve done that why don’t you go and have a lie down and I’ll bring you a cup of tea and a slice of cake when I’ve finished up here.”

Norbert found a weak smile and said that he’d call Dave. “Can you bring some more frozen peas as well?” he hobbled to his room and, gratefully, lay down.

Much later the Boss and Norbert were back at the viewing platform, both tired and despairing that they would ever find a solution for the problems that seemed to plague humanity. So many Areas had joined in the fighting that it seemed as though the whole Factory was ablaze. During the years of violence, the humans had used their intelligence and ingenuity to manufacture flying machines that carried bombs, weapons made from chemicals and dark, deadly chambers that brought death to hundreds of thousands, cruelly but efficiently. The humans lived in fear for their lives as they hid from the destruction that played out around them, coming ever closer. The young males who fought had, initially, been enthusiastic about protecting their Area but then they watched their comrades fall. Norbert and the Boss surmised that the majority of them had never seen death before and they both watched in distress as the sight turned their young, innocent minds and broke their spirits. As with all things human, the endless destruction couldn’t last forever and, as it started to show signs of slowing, they prepared to leave the viewing platform.

“What the f-!!?”

Both Norbert and the Boss leaped backwards as a huge explosion rocked the Factory and a giant cloud formed; it was shaped like a mushroom. The essence of lion had taken hold and the final, killing blow had been swift and powerful; mankind was shocked at its own capacity for destruction. Norbert and his Boss were not.

The screams that rang out below them were like nothing heard before and they didn’t stop for a long time. Eventually though, the Factory was silent (or as silent as it was ever going to be) as the humans realised the enormity of what they had done.

“Gavin said that they’ve had more than 70 million come through Returns; I’ve had to give him some time off and Accounts are pulling their hair out trying to reconcile all the overtime.” Norbert was trying to inject an air of normality, but his heart just wasn’t in it and he sighed deeply. His elbows were rested on the railing and he put his chin in his cupped hands.

“I don’t understand it Norbert, I really don’t. I thought that showing them true evil would make them change their ways, but they just walked blindly towards it, embraced it even.” The Boss shook his head sadly.

“It was the charisma Boss, if you took that away he was just an irritating little oik with a fetish for muscly blondes….”

“Yes, you’re right, adding that much charisma into one of them was a huge mistake, I don’t know what I was thinking.” The Big Man put his head in his hands and his shoulders shuddered.

“Maybe not, if it had been a good one, but we gave him all those negative characteristics as well and…..perhaps we should try it again….recycle Jesus maybe, he was popular…”

“Yes and look what they did to him! No, I think all we can do is wait for all this to settle down. The essence of lion is still being passed around, as is the common sense, so hopefully that will help but I’m done with the modifications for now.”

They watched the celebrations that followed, the relief that the fighting had finally stopped, and then they watched as humanity slowly and painfully realised just how much damage they had done. They had inflicted the very worst kind of torture because a single human promised them a better life. He told them the cost and they were prepared to pay, with their own souls and the souls of innocents. Oppression and persecution were observed but not judged until the threat of it became too close for comfort. Sides were taken, each certain that they were right and the other to blame for their suffering. Now they grieved quietly, for their lost loved ones and for humanity as a whole; they had seen with their own eyes the depths to which they could sink.

The Boss grasped Norbert’s shoulder and then turned him away from the railing so that they were facing each other.

“You were definitely right about one thing Norbert.”

“Oh? What’s that” Norbert looked up at the Big Man and saw that there were tears in his eyes.

“They won’t ever forget.”

Man on the Moon

“Bloody hell, that was close!” Said Norbert.

“Yep, they weren’t far off at all with that one.” Said the Boss with a grin “I think they might actually get it right next time. Mind you, if they do, I hope they’re going to clear up the rubbish that they’ve left all over the place, look at the state of it!” The Boss was quite fond of the moon, a happy accident involving a black hole and a stray biscuit crumb, it wasn’t like the Factory, but it was quite pretty and definitely caused less aggravation.

“You know what they’re like.” Norbert said, “Every time they venture somewhere new, they wreck it or plunder it.”

“But why the moon? They haven’t found everything in the Factory yet, not by a long shot. They seem to come across one thing and then don’t look any further; look what they did when they found oil for example. If they’d just look further than the end of their noses, they’d find much better alternatives but, no, it’s always same old, same old.” The Boss shock his head and rolled his eyes, exasperated by human impatience and their dislike for change.

“What I’m wondering is what the hell they’re going to do when they get there; it hasn’t been prepped for habitation and there’s no way I’m going to make a start on it seeing what they’ve done to the Factory.” Norbert had been immensely proud of the Factory in the beginning but, over the millennia he’d become somewhat jaded. Every time he and the Boss came up with new innovations to keep mankind distracted, and therefore less inclined to wreck something, they destroyed it or took credit for it and it was irritating. They’d spent millennia ensuring that the Factory could breathe and sustain life by installing vast rain forests and what did the humans do? Chop the buggers down!

“No! There’s no way we’re going through all that again, at least not with humans. If we ever did do another one, I think I’d leave it at fish, you don’t see fish attacking each other for being a different colour or because they’ve gone off course and wandered into a different part of the ocean.” The Boss was very fond of fish and spent many happy hours creating new species; some of them didn’t turn out quite as well as he hoped but he put them in the deepest depths of the ocean and hoped no-one would notice.

“Apart from piranhas” said Norbert, looking up from his plans for attack chickens (he thought they should be given a break since so many were being eaten by the humans) “And sharks, perch oh and pike; actually, thinking about it there are loads of fish that eat other fish.”

“Yes, yes, yes” said the Boss impatiently “but they eat them because they’re hungry, they don’t gang up on them when they enter their waters, decide they don’t like them because they look different and then eat them.”

“No, I suppose not. Ooohh look, they’re going to have another go, this should be interesting. By the way, I meant to ask you, do you know what those little boxes are that they all seem to have these days? They seem to spend hours sitting in front of them, but I can’t figure out why.” Norbert grabbed his tea and kneeled up on his stool so that he could get a better view of the Factory floor.

“I’m not completely sure, it seems to be some sort of device that enables them to watch each other. To be honest, I don’t really care as long as it keeps them quiet. Budge over a bit, I want to see. Ooh, are those macaroons? Pass one over would you?”

The Boss and his PA leaned on the railing and watched; the humans watched too but their view wasn’t quite as good. As the enormous engines roared into life the whole Factory was filled with a sense of expectation and cheers filled the air as the brilliant white rocket broke free from its moorings. The humans stood and looked up at the sky until, what they saw as the symbol of their greatest achievement to date, disappeared from view.

“Well I never.” said Norbert “They actually made it, I’ve got to say that was quite impressive, I didn’t think they had it in them.”

“Me either. Considering they seem to spend most of their time finding ways to blow each other up, this is quite an accomplishment. It will be interesting to see what they do now.” The Boss was carefully nibbling the last macaroon.

“Well, I can’t see that they’ll be able to do too much but if they’ve developed a means to manufacture in 1.62m/S2 gravity who knows. Maybe they’ve gone past the stage where they need our help and they’ll actually be able to manage on their own. Oi! Did you take the last macaroon?”

Norbert jumped off his stool and wandered over to his desk in the hope that he’d find a stray jammy dodger.

“Nope, don’t think so. To be honest, I can’t figure out how they’ve lasted this long.” The Boss finished the last morsel of macaroon and rubbed his hands together to get rid of the crumbs.

“You never know Boss.” Norbert was still rummaging around in his drawer. He had found an old slice of Battenberg, but it was covered in fluff, so he binned it “They all seem to be watching this moon landing, perhaps this is what they need to bring them together and stop all their silly squabbling.”

“Nope, not going to happen.” The Boss called back decisively.

Norbert gave up on his biscuit hunt and turned back towards the viewing platform “What makes you so bloody sure?” he said.

“They’ve packed up and gone back to the Factory that’s what. They got out of their transporter, hacked off a few bits to take home with them, took a few pictures and then stuck a flag into a gap between two rocks. One of them did say something about it being a giant step for mankind but I can’t see it myself. Anyway, they’re back now. They had a big party and then they all went home.”

“Is that it?! After all that effort, they’re not staying! What was the point then?”

“No idea but it kept them quiet for a while.” The Boss had completely lost interest and was packing up his fish designs “I’m going back to my office; I’ll see you later.”

“Do you think they learned anything at all?” Called Norbert hopefully.

The Boss paused and glanced back over the railing.

“Don’t think so, they’ve just started another war in Area 24.” He left the platform and headed back to his office

“Shit!” said Norbert “Not again.”

Digital revolution

It was all just a little bit too quiet. Norbert was in his office going over the blueprints for a new variety of insect which would, as far as he could see, hatch, fly about for a few hours, mate and then die. He’d done many variations on this particular theme and he was bored so he decided that it was time for a tea break despite the fact he’d only had breakfast an hour and a half earlier.

The Boss was in his own office putting together a new design for a fish, but he found that his creative juices weren’t really flowing. This one may end up being so ugly that he’d have to leave it somewhere that even the most adventurous of deep-sea divers wouldn’t find it. Much as he found it quite amusing to see the bubbles explode from the back of their wetsuits when they came across one of his more eccentric creations, he figured humanity had enough to worry about without him adding to their problems. He put his pencil behind his ear, clasped his hands behind his head and rocked back in his chair ‘I think I’ll go and make a cup of tea.’ he said to himself.

He wandered off in the direction of the kitchen and met up with Norbert along the way; apparently great minds really did think alike.

“Morning Boss, how’s the new fish coming along? Did you give it a beard in the end?” Norbert grabbed their mugs from one of the cabinets and put the kettle on.

“Not decided yet to be honest, I just can’t seem to work up any enthusiasm this morning.” The Boss had found the teabags and was looking through their biscuit selection for something that had both cream and chocolate. Norbert passed him a small plate and they started loading up a tray.

“I know what you mean Boss, I don’t know if I can face putting together any more insects; they’re as fiddly as anything and, well, there just doesn’t seem to be much point to them.”

“Everything’s got a point Norbert, you know very well that the Factory was designed that way.”

“I know Boss, but it’s boring. Can’t we put together a few modifications for the humans? Just tiny ones? Anything to relieve the monotony.” Norbert poured out two cups of tea and reached for a biscuit. “Where are the chocolate digestives? You know those chocolate and cream ones dissolve as soon as you dunk them in the tea.”

“Well then don’t dunk them in your tea.” replied the Boss who was happily nibbling around the edges of an orange cream filled, chocolate covered creation “I’ve been wondering the same thing myself to be honest, I mean it’s been pretty quiet down there for a while.”

“That’s what I thought.” said Norbert who was trying to fish a lump of rapidly dissolving biscuit from his tea “I mean, I know that they’re still fighting but at least it’s not all of them all of the time; there were even a few months last decade when none of them were scrapping; that’s progress.”

“OK then, let’s have a look at the last set of plans and see what we can improve. Is there another cup of tea in that pot?”

After their tea-break they wandered off to one of the Development Labs, feeling inspired after their lengthy discussions.

“Morning Cyril.” Norbert clapped one of the technicians on the back as he strode into the Lab, his mood had been greatly improved, both by the prospect of working on humanity again and vast quantities of chocolate.

“Morning Guv.” Cyril had a very earnest face and wore little spectacles that he kept pushing up his nose; he didn’t need to wear them of course but he felt that they added an intellectual air. Cyril was in charge of Cerebral Function and Equilibrium Maintenance; his job required that he make constant miniscule adjustments and pay great attention to detail. He wasn’t particularly popular with his colleagues who routinely described him as a ‘pernickety little bastard who needed to get out more’.

“Did you want to go over the reports?” said Cyril hopefully “They make for fascinating reading this month, globalised cerebral activity amongst” - he referred to a sheet of paper on his desk “-politicians has decreased by 0.000000000000000000000002374596%”

“Yes, Cyril, as you say, fascinating but that’s not why we’re here.” The Big Man put a friendly hand on his shoulder and gently steered him away from the massive stack of reports. Norbert walked round Cyril and put his hand on his other shoulder; Cyril looked slightly worried.

“We feel that the creative process may have stalled.” said the Boss.

“There may be further possibilities for expansion.” said Norbert.

Cyril looked from one to the other and said “But it works now. After millennia of measuring and adjusting and remeasuring, it works, we don’t need to make any more adjustments.” Cyril was sweating slightly, the thought that anything could throw out his precise calculations was very troubling to him.

“Yes it does work Cyril and much of that is down to your very…..precise work.” said Norbert who thought that ‘anal’ was probably a more accurate description. He put his arm around Cyril’s shoulder as did the Boss; between them they were slowly guiding him towards the Cerebral Stabilisation Central Control Unit which sat in the middle of the Lab. Cyril realised their intention and dug his heels in. After a brief struggle and the loss of a sandal he found himself before his beloved CSCCU.

“But we don’t need to change the humans again, haven’t you got any other species you could be working on?” said Cyril desperately.

“Of course we have Cyril” said the Boss in a low and comforting voice “but the animal kingdom pretty much takes care of itself, so we’re left with insects and fish and, to be perfectly honest, they’re not much of a challenge.”

“You mean you’re bored.” Cyril struggled to release his shoulders from the iron grip of the Boss and his PA.

“Cyril? Who’s in charge?”

“You are Boss.” said Cyril miserably resigning himself to millennia of reconfiguration.

“Look, all we want to do is up their intelligence levels a tiny bit” said Norbert reassuringly “and increase their capacity for learning.”

“Yes but, if we do that, you know damn well that we’ll have to adjust their emotional responses accordingly and that’s as fiddly as anything.” Cyril glared accusingly at Norbert who’d been heard moaning about the subject in the canteen more than once. They’d never been able to figure out why but, when there was any alteration in the humans’ thought processes, however small, there was always a significant, knock on, emotional effect. Although emotions were installed separately, a glitch in the wiring, that they’d never been able to track down despite numerous concerted efforts, formed an inextricable link to cerebral activity. Although he’d never been able to prove it, Norbert was of the opinion that humans had a constant internal dialogue, based on emotional responses to preceding events. He couldn’t figure out why they didn’t just apply their emotions to whatever was going on in the moment but then again, he never really had understood human logic.

“We’ve thought about that.” said the Boss “If we make a slight increase in the overall intelligence levels for say 2.364% of them, we’ve calculated that there should be a sort of knock on effect through the mating process.”

“We also thought that we could make an adjustment – just a tiny one” said Norbert catching sight of Cyril’s raised eyebrows “in their curiosity levels and their desire for interaction. If they learn to communicate better, we should find that they’ll have less desire to knock seven bells out of each other.”

“Exactly” said the Boss happily “Interactive communication throughout the whole Factory and eventual global increases in intelligence levels, what could go wrong?”

“What indeed?” said Cyril darkly as he started work. Norbert and the Boss contributed to the process by looking over his shoulder and pointing out where he was going wrong.

Sometime later Cyril had locked himself in his office and was refusing to come out. He wouldn’t respond to calls asking if he was alright but could be clearly heard muttering to himself and, intermittently, sobbing. The canteen staff were preparing a dimension jump with a tray of sandwiches and a soothing cup of chamomile tea. As they’d be arriving directly in Cyril’s office, they’d also armed themselves a couple of low-grade lightning bolts just in case.

In the meantime, the Boss and Norbert were spending much of their time on the viewing platforms admiring the results of their handiwork. Armed with their latest reports they were happily noting significant developments and achievements.

“I’m so proud of them.” said the Boss “Look there, they’ve found a way to make their communication devices portable, how sweet.”

“Yep and it looks as though they’ve developed a way to use them without even speaking; they really have come on in leaps and bounds, haven’t they? I knew Cyril was worrying over nothing; how is he by the way?”

“Not too bad now but I heard he attacked one of the canteen staff with an egg and cress sandwich.”

“I can’t see how that could have caused too much damage.” said Norbert frowning.

“It wouldn’t have if it hadn’t still been on the plate.” replied the Boss “Apparently the canteen staff use some sort of film covering when they dimension jump because otherwise the sandwiches go all soggy. Anyway, he’s being treated now and should be out of the infirmary within a decade or so.”

“Look there!” Norbert cried out as he leaned over the railing “We said this would happen, they’ve invented inter-Area visual and audio communication”.

“I knew it! Global communication and shared learning, they’ve finally got it!” The Boss punched the air and then clapped Norbert on the back who had been leaning far too far over the railing and lost his balance. A major catastrophe was averted by the fact that the belt of his robe got caught between two panels and the Boss was able to haul him back up to the platform.

“Opps! Sorry about that Norbert.”

“Not to worry, no harm done.” said Norbert who was sitting on the floor and trying to stop shaking. The Big Man reached down to help him up and they both retook their positions (Norbert tied his rope belt around the railing just in case the Boss decided to get over-exuberant again). “What are they up to now?” he asked as he finished tying his clove hitch.

“Ummmm, I’m not sure to be honest. They’re still progressing but not quite in the way we’d predicted.” The Boss was looking at a memo which outlined the various types of electronic communication that the humans were using. It provided examples and also an analysis of potential for cerebral development; as memos go, it was quite detailed.

“What do you mean?” Norbert gave his knot a couple of experimental tugs and then leaned over the railing.

“Well, they’re now using their portable communication devices to play some sort of game, that seems to involve smashing sweets, rather than talking to each other. They’re still using their little boxes with the screens to write to each other and improve their knowledge, but they also seem to be spending a lot of time on them watching other humans mating or just being incredibly stupid. Look, there’s a moving image here” he glanced at his report “called a ‘video’ which shows humans falling over, nothing else, just that. It’s been watched 200 million times!”

“So, the intelligence isn’t spreading like we’d hoped?” said Norbert gloomily.

“It doesn’t look like it, no. There’s no significant change in overall intelligence – this report even indicates that it might have gone down – but there has been a big increase in the levels of arrogance and the desire to share opinions. I have no idea where that one came from!” The Boss was shuffling through paperwork and running his eyes down columns of figures.

“Are they all expressing the same opinion?” said Norbert hopefully.

“Not exactly. This is really strange too; they all seem to have developed a bit of an obsession with bird noises. That can’t be right surely.” The Boss thought for a few moments and then handed the report over to his PA. Norbert examined it closely, scratched his head, turned it upside down and then said, “It looks as though the bird noises are how they’re sharing their opinions; one ‘tweets’ at the others and then they all squabble for hours – bit like a flock of starlings.” said Norbert handing back the report and turning his attention to the Factory floor.

“Here look” he said tugging his Boss’ sleeve “they’re at it now.” They both watched for a while before standing up and turning their backs to the railing.

“So, let me get this straight” said the Boss “one of them says something which is not factually correct, another one replies with something which is also not correct and then they argue about who is right. Others join in and tell them that neither one is right and then they’re argued with because they’ve ‘oppressed’ the ones that were wrong. Is that it?”

“Yep, pretty much sums it up from what I can see Boss.” Norbert was still watching, in morbid fascination as more and more humans argued relentlessly over subjects which they knew nothing about. Being presented with facts and irrefutable evidence that proved they were wrong in their assertions appeared to do nothing to sway them. On the contrary, it just made them more aggressive. ‘Bloody idiots’ he thought.

“When we increased the intelligence levels of the 2.364%, we didn’t take it away from the other 97.636% did we?” The Big Man was still searching for an explanation for the apparently exponential rise in stupidity that seemed to have coincided with their last adjustment.

“I don’t think so Boss, but I can double-check with Cyril if you like?”

The Boss considered the idea and then said, “No, probably not a good idea just at the moment.”

“Fair enough.” said Norbert who was glancing through another report “Boss? Why would the humans want to have a book with their faces on it?”

“What are you talking about? Show me?”

Norbert handed over the report and the Boss read through it and then read through it again before saying “I don’t get it. Why are they writing to their friends to tell them what they had for breakfast and, what’s more, why are they sending pictures? It’s bizarre! They seem to be communicating absolute bloody nonsense through these devices every minute of every day; have they stopped just talking to each other?”

Norbert cocked his head in the direction of the Factory and listened before saying “Nope, still a bloody cacophony. Hey, that’s odd.” he tapped his Boss on the shoulder and pointed something out to him. They both watched for a few minutes, their faces pictures of absolute confusion.

“I don’t understand.” said the Boss eventually “Why are they using their communication devices to take pictures of themselves? Did we affect recall during the adjustments? Can’t they remember what they look like?”

“No idea Boss but they’re all doing it. Look at that male there, he just took a picture of himself eating breakfast, sent it to his face page and then twittered about it. I think you could be right about reducing the intellectual capacity of the majority to boost the minority. I mean, the ones inventing these devices at such a rate are demonstrating exceptional capability but the ones using them seem to be as thick as Dodo shit. Do you think that Cyril was off in his calculations?” Norbert looked worried; he didn’t really want to have to discuss potential cock-ups with a plate throwing pedant.

“They must have come up with something useful.” said the Boss. He was equally worried and looked impatiently over Norbert’s shoulder as he rifled through some more reports

“Well, yes, to be fair, they have. They’ve found ways to get rid of some annoying diseases that had been hanging around for centuries but…….oh no wait………they’ve also found ways to give themselves new diseases.”

“How?? Why would they want to use their increased intelligence levels to create more diseases? It doesn’t make sense.” The Big Man was incredulous.

“Not invent diseases exactly.” said Norbert. “The diseases have appeared as a bi-product of their efforts to produce sustainable foodstuffs. Have a look at this column, it shows all the things that they’ve added to their food in order to keep it fresh, make it last longer and make it taste sweet.”

The Boss ran his eyes down the list and said, “Doesn’t Lionel use some of those to clean down the surfaces in the Recycling Department?”

“Yep!”

“Eeeewwww! And the humans are eating them? Voluntarily? That’s revolting!” The Big Man screwed up his face, he felt slightly queasy having read the list especially as he’d seen what Lionel had to contend with in Recycling. “What’s that column there?” he asked Norbert, eager to change the subject.

“That’s sugar, but it’s not like the natural sugar that we added to honey, for example, it’s stuff that they’ve invented, using chemicals.” Norbert rolled his eyes; he couldn’t figure out why the humans had gone to so much trouble to create something fake that was already available naturally in the Factory. He made a mental note to send a memo to Jeremy to ask him to include bees on the next species audit.

The Boss looked at the figures and then stared at Norbert, aghast “They’re putting these chemicals in almost everything! There even seem to be places where they’re eating nothing but chemicals. This one here that seems to be owned by the chap with the red hair and the big feet seems to be particularly popular. There are humans in there eating breakfast, lunch and dinner chemicals!”

“I know and look what it’s doing to them. Millions are so fat that they can barely move, that was Gavin’s latest complaint by the way, I think he’s sent you a memo. Not only that, millions of their young are expiring because they’ve developed…hang on a minute, I’ve got it here somewhere…’allergies’.”

“What are they?” asked the Boss “Some sort of weapon?”

“No, apparently they’re what happens when there is so much artificial stuff put into their bodies that their immune system can’t cope and the plumbing stops working. Bloody hell Boss! Have they got any idea how long it took to come up with a system that actually protects the hardware and the plumbing? Sodding ages we spent on that design; why can’t they just leave things alone!” Norbert was annoyed and he was determined to make the most of it. His eyes flicked rapidly across the columns until he found something else to irritate him.

“Look at this! Here! Can you believe it? They’ve even invented substances which are not only addictive but wreck their bodies…actually there seem to be quite a lot of those..and, what’s worse, they take them for pleasure.” Norbert slammed the reports against his leg in frustration. “I don’t know Boss; they just seem to over-complicate everything.”

“But why keep mucking about with something that works so well?” said the Boss “Everything that we included in the development stages of the Factory, gives them everything they’ll ever need to sustain themselves. Their bodies have been engineered to work perfectly and yet they seem utterly intent on ruining both; to be honest I don’t think I’ll ever understand humans.”

The Boss turned his attention back to the Factory and some watched adolescents who were so addicted to the substances that had been created that they were willing to steal, sell their bodies to other humans or even kill to get them. He balked at obese mothers who were feeding their young cocktails of chemicals masquerading as food and then laughed as they blamed the child’s rapid weight gain on ‘genetics’. He thought back to the first humans; they had their flaws but when they poked a mammoth with a stick and it attacked them, they didn’t then try to blame it on someone else! ‘How have they lost all sense of individual responsibility?’ he wondered ‘I’ll have to get Jeremy to set up an internal inquiry to find out if someone’s been messing about with their wiring.’

Norbert was tired and irritable, but he was still looking at the reports, turning page after page, trying to make sense of it all. He didn’t like to tell the Big Man that the humans had even found ways to weaponise diseases, so he moved on from methods of self-destruction and was now reading global movement and population statistics.

“This could be interesting, it seems that they quite enjoy visiting the other Areas for pleasure now rather than out of a desire to invade. Apparently, once or twice a year they go to an Area that’s warmer than their own and lie about doing nothing for a week and try to get their skin to change colour which is odd considering most of them don’t like other humans that are a different colour.” Norbert glanced up at the Big Man who was looking completely bemused. “This might be positive though, apparently they seem to have developed a taste the food that different Areas have. Oh, no hang on, apparently they’re using millions of their transportation devices to move it from one Area to another; there’s a side note here from Maintenance to say that they need an increase in their overtime budget as they’re so busy patching up holes in the ozone layer.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier for them to relocate themselves to another Area rather than moving the food back and forth all the time?” asked the Boss reasonably.

Norbert flipped back a few pages and said “Well, according to this, none of them like ‘foreigners’.” he flicked back and forwards before looking up and saying “Yep, apparently they like going to other Areas but they don’t want to live in them because the people who do live there are different.” he picked up a page, turned it upside down and then looked on the back “Yep, that about sums it up.”

The Boss was shaking his head, trying to understand the logic which was evading him completely. “Anything else?” he asked wearily.

“Ummmm, hang on, oh look yes, they’ve found a new way to look at each other.”

“They’ve stopped using their eyes you mean?” The Boss was getting increasingly confused.

“No, they still use them, but the ones in charge have installed visual recording devices so that they can see what everyone is up to; according to this they’ve put them absolutely everywhere.” Norbert grabbed yet another memo “Apparently they’re to help them stop people being violent to each other and to stop them taking each other’s stuff.”

“Oh, OK well that’s sounds positive, have they worked?”

“No.”

“Anything else?” the Boss sighed deeply; he had a headache.

“Yep they’ve invented ways to make themselves look younger.” said Norbert.

“Interesting, although I fail to see why they’d want to. How?”

“It seems that they either inject poison into themselves or someone cuts their faces off, straightens them out a bit and then sews them back on. Either that or they spread on liquids which don’t actually seem to do very much but make them feel better.”

“And they do all this voluntarily?” The Boss’ chin had dropped several inches.

“Yep, apparently, and they use millions of those pieces of paper they like so much to be able to do it.” said Norbert cheerfully.

“They do realise that looking younger will do bugger all to change their expiration date do they?” Considering the time and effort that they’d put in devising a natural aging process, the Big Man was slightly miffed.

“Oh yes” confirmed Norbert “but there are these images of beautiful, young humans all over the place and they seem to have got a bit obsessed. Apparently, these images are designed to show them how they’re supposed to look – organise their hair, paint their faces, what to put on their bodies and what size they’re supposed to be. Added to that, they all seem to worry incessantly about what other humans think of them and are constantly looking for affirmation. The problem is that most of the worry seems to centre around how they look and not how they behave. Don’t you find that odd? They’re all different and yet they’re all trying to look the same in order to please other humans that they’ve never met who probably couldn’t care less. They’ve got no idea of the amount of effort required to make them all unique; honestly there’s just no bloody pleasing them.” Norbert was ready to launch into a tirade about the stupidity of humans, but the Big Man interrupted him.

“So, to recap: they’ve found more ways to argue with each other, watch each other mate, share what they had for breakfast, give themselves diseases and make themselves look younger?”

“That about sums it up Boss but, to be fair to them, they also seem to be worrying about the state of the Factory a bit more. I mean, they’re still wrecking it but some of them do seem to care about the damage they’re doing”.

“So, what changes have they made? They can all communicate now so I can’t see any reason why they shouldn’t be able to work together to come up with a solution. It would certainly make life easier for us; there’s only so much patching we can do with the ozone layer before we have to have a complete refit.” The Big Man was looking slightly more cheerful, maybe there was some hope for humanity if they’d finally realised that their survival depended on looking after the Factory. He was quite happy to do a few repairs here and there, but his patience would only stretch so far.

Norbert was rubbing his tired eyes as he picked up yet another report; he scanned it carefully before replying.

“They’re arguing about it.”

“They’re arguing about it?” The Boss couldn’t believe it; how could one species find so many bloody things to argue about?

“Yep, the ones who’ve realised that they’re buggering up the Factory are trying to explain it to the others, but they don’t believe what they’re being told. Look, there’s loads of twittering about it. Here’s one, it shows a link to a study, quite a good one by all accounts, he’s nearly got it right, and there’s the reply.” He pointed to the entry in question.

“Bog off you knob head, your talkin shite.” the Boss read over Norbert’s shoulder and said, “Oh good grief!” He sighed deeply and then started gathering the mountains of paperwork together. ‘What on earth happened to all that extra intelligence?’ he thought to himself. He made a decision and said, “Come on Norbert, we need to go and see Cyril.”

“Alright, but can I check with the canteen before we go to make sure they haven’t made any recent deliveries?” Norbert picked up handfuls of memos and stuffed them in the pockets of his robes before helping the Big Man collect the reports. ‘It’s just as well all this lot will be recycled.’ he thought to himself.

“Yes, go ahead, and can you ask them to put together a snack for us, I’m starving.”

“No problem Boss. By the way, why do we need to go and see Cyril?”

“Well, I don’t think I’ll be able to prove it, but I think that he was so worried about maintaining species equilibrium that he did, in fact, reduce intelligence levels in the majority so that we could increase it for a minority. The problem is I think he also reduced levels of reasoning in the majority but, at the same time, he increased their levels of self-awareness. However, because we didn’t authorise an adjustment to emotional intelligence, the majority have ended up blaming the minority for absolutely everything and have developed a pretty much universal persecution complex.”

“So, we screwed up?” said Norbert succinctly.

“Looks like it.”

“Bugger”.

Norbert and his Boss wandered disconsolately off to the canteen before making their way to the infirmary. Cyril’s recovery was somewhat impeded by their visit, and he was finally forced to admit that the Boss had been right. He insisted that there was nothing more important than maintaining equilibrium. Actually, he screamed it while throwing blueberry muffins at Norbert and the Big Man and demanding that he be allowed to go back to work as the survival of the Factory depended on him. Medics eventually calmed him down and it was agreed that a century of gardening leave would be in everyone’s best interests.

Meanwhile humanity blundered on in the kind of blissful ignorance that only people who consider themselves to be exceptionally intelligent can hope to achieve.

2019

“What’s going on down there now?” asked Norbert with a small spray of biscuit crumbs

“Don’t sneak up on me like that! You made me jump and look...oh bugger....I’ve spilled my tea.” The Big Man huffed and tried to stop the steady flow as it made its way across his desk with lots of ineffectual wiping.

“Didn’t hear me coming?” Norbert muttered quietly ‘He can usually hear the rattle of a teacup at 10,000 paces’ he thought to himself ‘what’s going on?’

“What was that? Hmmm what did you say?” The Big Man turned to face his PA “I heard you coming but I just didn’t expect you to arrive as quickly as you did, that’s all!” he was miffed at Norbert’s assumption that he was losing his hearing but annoyed that he had lost a perfectly good cup of tea.

“Sorry Boss” Norbert did his best to look contrite “Anyway, what’s going? Anything interesting?” He wandered back out of the office and looked down onto the Factory floor, hoping that he’d be able to divert his Boss’ attention. As he rested his elbows on the railing, he realised that one of them was damp. He examined his robe and realised that his sleeve was covered in tea. “Oh sod it!”

“Mind your language Norbert!” The Big Man joined him on the platform and said, “Not very much to be honest, all the usual: nice people being shot and complete bastards enjoying life; you know how it is.”

"My language!!?” exclaimed Norbert huffily before changing the subject. “Who’s in charge over in Area 33 now? Is it still that Dump bloke? I’ve been meaning to ask if the essence of sloth had any effect when we brought him in for reprogramming? Has he calmed down a bit?”

“Nope, not one iota and I’d made a fresh, extra concentrated batch especially; he’s still determined to put a bloody great metal wall across half my factory, damn cheek! Are you going to put the kettle on?”

“You’ve only just had a cup of tea.” Moaned Norbert. He’d come over to see what was going on in the Factory not to make tea. If he’d have known, he would have got some cake and sandwiches sent up from the canteen.

“Yes, but I didn’t get to bloody drink it did I as someone made me jump” he glared at Norbert’s retreating back “and don’t forget the hobnobs while you’re at it”. He turned his gaze back to the Factory but without really seeing as he was deep in thought. After a few moments he called out to Norbert who was impatiently waiting for the kettle to boil “I just don’t get it. Why would anyone want to shut themselves behind a huge wall? It makes no sense to me at all.”

“Are you talking literally or metaphorically boss?” Replied Norbert as he returned to the platform carrying a tray “We’ve run out of HobNobs but I managed to find some jammy dodgers.”

“Literally. Mmm thanks, are those the ones with the cream in the middle or just jam?”

“Just jam. I don’t know guv, I mean, he’s got the walls of that big white house he lives in, walls around the gardens, people with guns behind those......makes you wonder what he’s afraid of really. I mean it’s not like he’s going to end up with all the good people on one side and all the bad ones on the other is it? Talk about naïve.” Norbert scoffed and then busied himself trying to dislodge a particularly sticky smidgen of jam that had welded itself to the roof of his mouth.

The Boss grabbed a biscuit and said “Oh no, I don’t like these, haven’t we got any shortbread? Yes, I’ve been wondering that too and I’ve been thinking....oooh thanks, I knew you’d find some if you looked hard enough” The Big Man took the shortbread and began munching happily.

“So, you’ve been thinking.....” Norbert prompted him as he poured the tea.

“Hmm? Oh yes, right. I’ve been thinking that, since they’ve now got instant global communication, shouldn’t they be less suspicious of the humans in the other Areas rather than more so? The chap in Area 33 is a prime example, are you sure he’s called Dump? Anyway, I would have thought that he’d be happy that the other humans want to come to his Area, it shows it’s popular, but he seems to be positively paranoid about anyone that isn’t a native.”

“Well that’s pretty much all of them isn’t it” said Norbert looking confused “mass migration to Area 33 only started about 5 centuries ago if I remember rightly?”

“Yes, I know” replied the Boss “and that’s my point. A few decades ago they were telling all the other humans that their streets were ‘paved with gold’ (although I never really understood the attraction as they’d be really slippery when it rained) and welcoming them with open arms.”

Norbert really didn’t have a response so, while the Boss munched on another shortbread, he placed a call to Jeremy hoping he might be able to shed some light on the matter. He helped himself to another jammy dodger while he waited for the auditor to pick up.

“Gnnnpphh….mmmmph…hang on Jeremy” he chewed frantically “That’s better, sorry, I had something stuck in my teeth…….what?....a jammy dodger if you must know………yes, I’m well aware that a rice cake would be better for me…..what?....no, I don’t like them…..Jeremy will you shut up about bloody rice cakes for a minute and listen, I need you to check something for me………please.” He explained and then took another bite of his biscuit and waited impatiently while Jeremy searched through his records.

“Hello, yes……..OK, that’s great thanks……what?......yes Jeremy I’ll think about the rice cakes.” Norbert closed the device and rolled his eyes at the Boss who still appeared to be deep in thought. He tapped the Big Man on the shoulder and waited until he had his attention.

“Right, according to Jeremy, this is happening all over the place. The humans have brought themselves closer together with all their technology but, emotionally, they’re further apart than they ever have been. For example, Jeremy said that Area 44 joined together with some of their neighbours a few decades ago and formed a collective so that they could all trade with each other and share information but now they’ve changed their minds, or at least half of them have. Apparently, the Area is completely divided over whether they should stay within the collective or leave so, naturally, they’ve done nothing but argue about it for the last 2 years. The thing is….”

The Boss interrupted him “That’s got nothing to do with paranoia and being suspicious of other humans coming to their Area though has it?”

Norbert scowled, he didn’t like it when the Boss interrupted his train of thought “Yes, it has actually. One of the main things that’s divided them in 44 is the number of humans coming to their Area without an invitation. It seems as though the collective doesn’t really work as was originally intended because they couldn’t predict the increase in numbers. With all the fighting and persecution that’s been going on all over the Factory there have been loads of humans wanting to leave their Areas and escape somewhere better and, for them, the Areas within the collective present the best opportunity. The problem is that, there have been so many of them that the ones in charge of the collective have had to decide which Areas will take them and how many and, from what I can make out, no-one is happy about the allocations. Naturally the humans trying to escape persecution all want to live together so that they feel secure but, because of that, they don’t learn the language or the customs of the Area they’ve relocated to and that makes the ones who lived there originally fearful and suspicious.”

“Because they can’t understand what the new ones are saying you mean?” Asked the Boss but then he continued before waiting for an answer “That would be simple to fix, wouldn’t it? We could just do a universal remodelling of their frontal lobes and they could all speak the same language.” He smiled at his PA, happy to have found a simple solution to their current problem.

“I don’t think it would Boss, not unless we made some other modifications as well. You know what the humans are like, they don’t like change at the best of times, and they view the new arrivals as ‘different’ which means that most of them won’t like them on principal. To make matters worse, one of major differences is” he paused “religion. Yes, I know, before you say it, it’s still a problem.”

“This is getting ridiculous” exclaimed the Boss angrily “why are they always looking for things to divide them? So, what’s going to happen with Area 44, are they going to build a wall around their Area too?”

“No, I don’t think so Boss, there wouldn’t be much point, it’s an island.” Replied Norbert carefully.

“Oh right, yes, I remember now” The Big Man changed the subject hastily. “So, is this happening everywhere? What else did Jeremy say.”

“Not everywhere but most of the Areas in which it’s not happening are the Areas that the humans are leaving because they’re being persecuted. It’s just a theory Boss but I’m wondering if all this is happening because they can’t hide from each other now. They’ve developed so many devices to monitor what they all do and say that I think they’re feeling vulnerable and therefore scared and you know how aggressive they get when they’re scared. It’s strange actually, they’re so different from all the other animals in the Factory now, except for that – they still attack when they’re afraid.” Norbert tried to remember which primeval instincts the Boss had told him to remove when he first started working on the humans in case all this was his fault. He thought back over the millennia, but nothing sprang to mind, so he shrugged and gave up.

“What are they scared of though?” the Big Man asked “I mean I know that they’re fighting all the time so I can understand why they’d feel a bit threatened but it’s normally the ones in charge who start the fighting isn’t it, not the poor sods trying to set up in another Area to get away from the persecution?”

Norbert thought carefully and then said “I think that they’ve just got access to too much information now and they don’t know what to do with it. They have their twittering, the books with their faces on, the little boxes they watch all the time that tell them what’s going on in the other Areas; I think it’s all just too much for them.”

The Big Man digested this nugget of wisdom from his PA. “But knowledge is a good thing isn’t it?” he was desperate to understand the reason for all the division, but it just didn’t make any sense to him.

“It is Boss but it’s not knowledge, not really, it’s opinion and there are so many different opinions that the humans don’t know what to believe. To be honest, I think that, in their own way, some of them are trying to be good but they don’t really seem to know how. It doesn’t help that their speech has been modified….”

“What do you mean? We didn’t order any modifications, did we? No that having them speak less wouldn’t be a good idea at the moment..” The Big Man was unsure where all this was leading, and he was looking confused.

Norbert sighed “If you’ll just let me finish! When I say ‘modified’ what I really meant was ‘restricted’. They’ve decided that only certain opinions are acceptable, take all this religion nonsense for example..”

“Oh Norbert, do we have to?” The Big Man groaned and put his head in his hands.

Norbert was becoming impatient, “Well, we’ve tried ignoring it for millennia, but it just won’t go away so we’re going to have to deal with it at some point.” He found the subject just was wearing as his Boss but, for some reason, it seemed to be at the root of many of the problems that humanity had created for itself. “Look what happened in Area 33 a couple of decades ago” he carried on, desperately trying to avoid the Boss’ disapproving eye “19 idiots who’d caught a bad case of religion took 3 of their flying devices and deliberately flew them into buildings full of other humans. 19 out of 1.5 billion, an aberration, but it was enough to cause problems for everyone. A few more idiots tried the same thing – blowing up other humans – because they believed that their god would thank them for it” Norbert sneered and rolled his eyes “and, just like that all of them are under suspicion. Most of the humans don’t even seem to consider the 14,950,632,471 who’ve done nothing wrong and are just going through life minding their own business because they are bombarded over and over again with images of the attacks against them and they’re afraid it will happen again. That means that half of them are too afraid to speak out against the religion and the other half do nothing, which just starts more arguments. Then, the others who are the subject of all the suspicion start to retaliate against the injustice of it all. I’m telling you, Boss, if they didn’t have religion, I am sure that there would be lot less fear and if there was less fear….”

The Big Man looked at him intently for a few moments and then said, “You’ve really thought about all this haven’t you Norbert?” There was a note of admiration in his voice.

“I have yes.” Norbert was slightly defensive just in case he hadn’t been having the right thoughts.

“OK, then what’s the answer? How do we get rid of their fears and, more importantly, how do we rid them of religion?”

Norbert rubbed his eyes with the back of his hands, trying to relieve the headache that slowly but surely building. He was tired of trying to understand the humans and really wished that he’d stayed in his own office that morning instead of asking the Boss how things were going in the Factory. ‘That’s the problem with the humans’ he thought to himself ‘its impossible to have a simple discussion about them.’

“Norbert?” A voice interrupted his thoughts and he turned his bleary eyes towards his Boss. “The answer? Honestly Boss, I haven’t got a fucking clue! Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to get some dinner.” With that he walked out of the Boss’ office and slammed the door behind him. The Big Man sat with his mouth open for a minute, shocked at the language that he’d just heard from Norbert but then he just shook his head, stood up and made his way to the canteen. ‘He might have waited for me’ he thought ‘bastard!’.

At The End

“Boss, you really need to stop beating yourself up over this.” Norbert was getting worried; the big man hadn’t been himself for decades. Chances are it was just a phase, but he couldn’t be too careful; he was happy being a PA and really didn’t want to have to take charge if the Boss took a turn for the worse.

“I know, I know, but everything just seems to be going tits up and it was all so perfect in the beginning.” There was a hint of despair in his voice and he was chewing absentmindedly on his thumb nail.

Norbert sighed and put his hand gently on his Boss’ shoulder before saying “Yeah, I’ll be honest I’ve thought the same thing myself and I’m not sure what went wrong but you can’t blame yourself, I mean, look at what you’ve achieved. It certainly worked out for the amoebas - one minute a mindless blob and the next they’re out of the sea and up on two legs; brilliant bit of engineering that was Boss.” Norbert smiled encouragingly, hoping his Boss wouldn’t remember that the fish had only ended up coming out of the sea because he’d mixed up the halibut and chicken plans halfway through the design stage.

“Do you think I overreached myself? Is that it? I was just getting so good product development, that’s my favourite bit to be honest, but maybe I just got carried away. I’ve tried everything to make them happy, but they all seem so………dissatisfied. What else can I do?”

Although he’d posed a question, it was obvious that the big man was really just talking to himself, trying to figure out what had gone so horribly wrong.

“Weeeellllllll, maybe you just over-loaded them a bit” Norbert said trying hard for diplomacy “the machinery is pretty basic still. Let’s face it we haven’t done a lot of work on the design front over the last few millennia; perhaps we could revisit the idea of a limiter, stop the buggers thinking so much.” Norbert had come up with the idea of limiting the human emotion and thought processes as a way to curb their more extreme behaviour. He’d even begun researching the possibility of adding essence of chamomile flower into the cerebral cortex, without the necessity for a complete shut-down and reset, in the hope that it would calm them all down. He was fairly sure that he’d have far fewer interrupted tea breaks if only he’d be allowed to install a limiter or make a universal adjustment to moderate their excesses. However, the Big Man was against it.

“But they’re good at the thinking.” replied his Boss “Some of them have come up with some great stuff over the years......well a few of them anyway. Do you think it was a good idea to add essence of sheep in the initial planning stages? Perhaps that’s where I went wrong....” His voice trailed off and he rested his head in his hands. His shoulders were slumped, and he had an air of defeat.

“Boss, we’ve talked about this; there’s billions of the buggers now, if we didn’t have a bit of sheep in the mix, they’d be all over the place. I mean we get the odd rogue one causing trouble and thinking for themselves but, for the most part, they’re happy enough to just follow the crowd.” Norbert was actually becoming increasingly worried that the humans were becoming incapable of independent thought, but he didn’t want to stress out his Boss any more than he was already. What worried him the most was the way that they turned on independent thinkers, persecuting them when their ideas deviated from the norm even when the concept of a ‘norm’ was utterly ridiculous.

“Perhaps I should have stuck with just the two, but it was just so much fun.” Norbert saw the wistful look in the big man’s eyes and wondered the same thing but, what can you do? Who would have thought an apple tree and a misplaced serpent prototype could have caused so much trouble? Norbert had been down in the Factory when the Boss had launched the first two human prototypes. It was his job to monitor their progress, make a note of any defects and then report to the Boss when he felt it was safe for them to go for a general launch. Norbert had to be as unobtrusive as possible and carried with him a device that would silently transmit to the Boss that his inspection was complete. At first, he was diligent, recording every behavioural nuance, making note of their interaction with the other species in the Factory and ensuring that they didn’t break anything important. However, as time went on, he grew increasingly bored; he had no-one to talk to and the two prototypes had settled into a very dull routine. One afternoon he was idly walking about, grumbling to himself and bemoaning the fact that he’d run out of biscuits when he came across an apple tree. He wasn’t normally a great one for fruit, but he was peckish, so he carefully set down his transmission device and pulled himself up into the tree so that he could reach the largest of the juicy red apples. Unfortunately for Norbert, a serpent prototype had been dozing in the tree, contemplating how he’d got there, and was not at all happy at being disturbed. Snakes were one of the Boss’ creations and Norbert hadn’t been privy to the final design so coming face to face to one, especially an angry one, gave him a bit of a shock. He raised his hands to swat the thing away, forgetting that they were the only things keeping him attached to the tree and he fell backwards, landing on his transmission device. The Boss commented later that he was surprised how quickly the call had come through to do a general species launch but that he had every faith in Norbert’s judgement. Norbert never did disclose what actually happened, he couldn’t see the point really, after all, he reasoned, no harm was done.

“Now don’t start thinking like that Boss. For the most past it’s worked out pretty well hasn’t it? Better than the whole dinosaur fiasco anyway; do you remember that one? I thought we’d never get the mess cleared up!” His laugh was slightly forced as the thought struck him that the whole ‘fiasco’ had been his fault. Bugger! This was not going to help his Boss’ mood.

“Don’t remind me! How long did we have to take off work to wait for the ice to melt? And I put my back out throwing rocks at the bloody things.” He lost his worried expression for a moment and glared at Norbert who tried to pretend he didn’t exist.

“The thing is though, I just don’t get this lot, it doesn’t matter what interference I run they seem to be stuck in some sort of loop.”

“Interference?” Norbert was still trying to be invisible but was, nonetheless curious.

“Yes, you remember, when I put together those specials: Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha and the others...oh come on you must remember, I spent ages on those designs, really put my all into them.” This was said with rare but very real pride.

“Oh yes, yes I’ve got it now.........whatever happened to them? Did you bring them back to the workshop?” Norbert had a vague recollection of some ‘returned’ packages in the back of the warehouse.

“I might have missed one or two, I can’t remember but that’s not the point; I had to bring them back didn’t I, no choice. It didn’t matter how many brilliant examples we gave them of how humanity should behave towards each other, they just didn’t get it. All the specials basically said exactly the same thing, but the humans found a way to argue about which one said it better and then use that as an excuse to beat the shit out of each other. It really pissed me off though I can tell you. All that work, all that effort, for nothing.” The big man’s face was dark now, overcome with the wrath that was bubbling away inside him and waiting for an outlet.

Norbert thought that his Boss had got over all this and tried to placate him, the last thing he needed was the big guy throwing a strop. “Oh, come on now Boss, it wasn’t for nothing, humanity still talks about the specials, even now.” Norbert could see that his Boss was not to be diverted from this topic and readied himself for a long discussion. He sat down, got comfortable and rummaged around in the nearest drawer to see if there were any stray biscuits lying around.

“Talked about??” His Boss was ranting “I wouldn’t mind if they were talked about but all they do is argue! Failing that they decide that the specials were just a figment of someone else’s imagination and that starts another sodding scrap. It really gets on my pip.”

Norbert had only been listening with half an ear, partly because he’d found a slightly soft but still edible bourbon in the back of the drawer and partly because he’d heard it all before and was trying not to get impatient with his Boss.

“Well, what are you going to do about it Boss?” he said “It’s not like you haven’t given them enough warnings is it? How many plagues have we sent down over the years? The stockroom is practically empty now you know! We could send another tsunami or an earthquake I suppose but then that just wrecks the Factory and they’ve made enough of a mess of that on their own without us making it worse. Oooh! No wait, I’ve had an idea, what if we brush the mould off the dinosaurs and send a few of them back down; that would give the buggers something to think about.” Norbert was pleased with himself; he’d enjoyed making the dinosaurs despite the mayhem that followed their introduction into the Factory.

His Boss carefully ignored his hopeful looking PA and said

“Perhaps I should just tell them...........if they knew, do you reckon they’d just stop all this nonsense and get on with each other?”

“I don’t know Boss, it’s a bit drastic........they seem to think it’s all so important, that they’re so important. I honestly don’t know if they’ll cope.” Norbert knew that talking the big guy out of something he’d set his mind to was next to impossible, but he had to try.

“Well, I can’t see that I can do anything else. The Factory is great, my best work ever, and I’ve actually got quite fond of the humans even if they are a pain in the arse most of the time but this needs to be sorted out once and for all.” He gazed out of his office window and down onto the Factory floor where life was doing what life does. On this particular day a lunatic was trying to make up his mind how best to kill half the population of the Area he was in charge of because they’d voted to get rid of him. In one of the great oceans, some of their most beautiful creations were being choked and strangled by the plastic that humans seemed to use for pretty much everything. Jeremy had sent him a memo that very morning to say that another 5 species were extinct because the humans had destroyed their habitat. Wars were being fought and lives were being lost as they had been for almost 5 millennia. The Big Man would never understand the human capacity for destruction or their inability to realise that doing the same thing over and over again won’t get different result. He sighed deeply and turned his attention back to Norbert.

“Well, if that’s what you think, go for it but, in my opinion, it’s going to upset them.” Norbert held his hands up in surrender; he was still not sure about this plan, but he couldn’t argue with the Boss man. Well he could but he knew he wouldn’t win.

“What more upset than they are already you mean?” The big man had turned his eyes away from the Factory floor and he had an expression of distaste on his face that Norbert hadn’t seen before.

“They fight all the time because they can’t agree on anything, they all think they’re special and they think it all means something, you know, like they’ve got some sort of grand purpose. How many billions of times have we heard ‘Why Am I Here’ or ’What Am I Doing Here? It’s been like that since the beginning, you know that as well as I do”.

The Big Man was angry, and he was worried. The humans knew that they all had an expiration date and yet they seem to have got the idea into their heads that something was going to happen ‘afterwards’. ‘They were right, of course, they’ll be recycled’ the Boss thought ’but why does worrying about what might happen at the end stop them from enjoying life? They’re happy for the first few years but then something seems to change; they become less satisfied, more argumentative and obsessed with their ‘purpose’. It’s ridiculous! There’s a delivery date and an expiration date and they all know that so why can’t they just enjoy the bit in the middle?’

The Big Man was drawn from his reverie by Norbert snapping his fingers under his nose. He stepped back and slapped Norbert’s hands away.

“Stop it!”

“Boss, if you do this it could blow their minds…..literally if we didn’t fix that last wiring problem properly.” Norbert was, once again, worried; he’d been in charge of fixing the wiring problem.

“Well that’s not my fault! I don’t know where they keep getting these stupid ideas from, certainly not from me! I never told them they’re important.....did you see that......another one of those bloody bombs going off and wrecking my Factory. Oi! Pack it in!” He scooped up two great handfuls of frogs from a box marked ‘spare plagues (non-lethal)’ and threw them over the edge of the railing.

“Yes Boss, I saw it but they’ve had millennia to get this paranoid and self-obsessed and I’m not sure what it will do if we disillusion them just like that. Look how they freak out every time something from another galaxy takes a wrong turn and ends up going past the Factory; they just can’t support the idea that they’re not the most important thing in the Universe. If they find out that they’re all only down there by accident they could be extinct within a couple of decades.”

“If they carry on the way they’re going they’ll be extinct before too much longer anyway! Look at that lot over there in Area 29, Gavin told me that they’ve had 2 million come back through Returns recently just because one lot won’t accept the religion of the other lot.” The Boss sneered, he’d had to put up with a lot of crap over the millennia as a result of religion and it was pushing him to breaking point. If most of them had got the idea into their head that a supreme being existed why couldn’t they accept that the last thing he’d want would be them beating the shit out of each other in his name. ‘You didn’t get to be a supreme being without shedloads of compassion and a modicum of common sense’ he thought to himself.

Norbert could see that his Boss was getting more and more angry as he thought about the self-inflicted plight of the human condition. He’d seen this kind of dark mood before, usually when the humans were congratulating themselves at having found another way to kill each other, but it always passed. He nearly jumped out of his skin when the Big Man suddenly yelled “Ok, that’s it, enough is enough, set up the sound system.”

Norbert did as he was told and watched as his Boss tried to get the attention of the humans on the Factory floor by throwing more frogs and a few small dinosaurs at them. As this failed dismally, Norbert pulled a switch and cut the power in the whole Factory; he then grabbed a spotlight and trained it on his Boss’ face. He couldn’t believe that the big guy was really going to speak to them after all this time; how was he going to explain the Factory and how it had come into being? How were the humans going to react when they realised that, if it hadn’t been for a stray biscuit crumb they wouldn’t even exist?

Would they really start being nice to each other if they realised that they were nothing special and all had the same basic structure and programming, or would it destroy them when their egos shattered? Would knowing the reason for their existence enlighten them or fuse their wiring? Norbert had no idea what his Boss was going to say, and he held his breath until he heard the booming voice ring out across the length and breadth of the immense space.

“RIGHT YOU LOT, LISTEN! THERE ARE TWO VERY IMPORTANT THINGS I NEED TO TELL YOU. FIRST, THERE IS NO GOD AND SECOND, THE ONLY REASON YOU EXIST IS BECAUSE NORBERT WAS BORED. OK?”

The Boss pushed the light away from his face, put the power back on in the Factory and turned off the sound system.

“Right that ought to do it. Come on Norbert let’s go and have a cup of tea”

The End.