The Sleeping Army Awakes

Part 18 More meal

They had talked all night and most of the food on the table had been removed and packed up in sealed plastic containers. Daylight was flooding in and all the staff were tired including the security staff who had now been standing for hours

"Preposterous Perseus !" Sir Gilbert exclaimed. "You'll never get anyone sane to live there."

"Oh Tosh Gilly. I'll have you know that I've already got a whole queue of prospective tenants lined up and just waiting for the day that they can move in to the Aquarium Apartment. Just think of what the view would be like." Sir Percy said. "And a great deal of the development will be office space for the Zeli Corporation."

"Well it's your funeral old chap!" Sir Gilbert mocked wagging a finger at his rival. "and I for one would like to wager that it can't be done!"

"Same amount as usual?" Sir Percy asked.

"The very same!" Sir Gilbert replied, "On time, on budget and no fatalities in constructing the damned thing!"

"No fatalities!" Sir Percy exclaimed incredulously, "Now really that is a bit rich coming from you Gilly with your record. How many of your workers drowned at the tunnelling project in Berne?"

"They were just labourers," Sir Gilbert replied petulantly, as if labourers were vermin, " Perseus they don't count. We replaced them within hours... besides you know very well that I have no control over accidents. Acts of God and all that sort of thing! The Aare river flooded. You're not widely noted for safety either."

"Fair's fair Gilly!" Sir Percy remonstrated, "On time and on budget yes. You can forget that no fatalities thing. It takes all the fun out of it. Anyway we use modern methods everything possible is automated."

"Very well! Agreed! We won't count the corpses!" Sir Gilbert said. "Consider your hand shaken!"

The large circular table was too wide for them to actually shake on the bet. Both of them were rather too corpulent, to lean over very far, and in any case there were still too many bowls of food in the way. Neither felt any motivation to uproot themselves from their seats, to complete the formality.

"Well I have the perfect piece of land for it. A nice greenfield site half way up the hillside on land I already own. What can go wrong" Sir Percy crooned happily. "We did the geological survey a few months ago and the results are favourable. Preparatory work begins tomorrow and we expect to be finished by Christmas."

"Any particular Christmas Perseus?" Sir Gilbert asked.

"Why! This coming Christmas Gilly of course!" Sir Percy seemed hurt by the jibe.

Sir Gilbert found this very amusing, "But that is only a few months away! Perseus you must be mad! I shall enjoy taking your money Perseus" Sir Gilbert laughed. "But I have one rather indelicate question for a mealtime. What happens to the waste water and sewage from the apartment."

"Oh that!" Sir Percy laughed. "It goes straight down onto the heads of anyone stupid enough to walk underneath the apartment when, someone flushes!"

"How appropriate!" Sir Gilbert commented. "The great unwashed pooed on from a great height. Poetic justice really!"

"Of course any solid matter will be macerated to vapour, so that the peasants won't be able to tell what it is, when it lands on them, or where it had come from!" Sir Percy added. "It's no different really from what happens in aeroplanes."

"Or indeed what birds do!" Sir Gilbert added, "Very large birds!"

"But these towers will essentially be self contained towns." Sir Percy was warming to his theme. "None of my peasants will be able to come late to work, because they will live in the very building that they toil in. The Zeli Corporation will furthermore be able to totally control every aspect of their lives. We will control access in and out of the buildings. We will control when they sleep, who they sleep with, when and what they eat and when they retire, we will simply discard them."

"Wouldn't want to be one of your employees Perseus." Sir Gilbert said, "Sounds as though it is hazardous to ones health."

"I find that disingenuous coming from someone who spit roasted one of his employees Gilly!" Sir Percy countered, "At least I have no plans to torture the poor bastards. I will simply dispatch them in a humane fashion just as one would send lame horse, to the glue factory." He was rather pleased that this hit home.

"Now Perseus how did you come by that information about the spit roasting incident?" Sir Gilbert sputtered spraying his brandy over the nearest two plates on the table. The plates were whisked away to be replaced by fresh ones.

"You let it slip in conversation." Sir Percy lied. It was actually Ruthers that had told him. Ruthers disappeared discretely behind the security guards.

"Really?" Sir Gilbert asked, "I told you?"

"Well you were never very tight lipped were you?" Sir Percy said, slyly coming in for the kill. "I remember as boys, if I wanted something to be broadcast all over the school, then all I had to do was to tell you that it was a secret, and it would be all over town by nightfall."