STOP

In which a car-parking junta forms

I

n the largest auditorium on Sapristi, the Saint Jeremiah Corbett Memorial Hall, the various factions of the car-parking triads had convened a major conference. At the entrance, was a commemorative plaque detailing the significant achievement of the saint’s life.

The hall was packed with employees from all three companies, and also included a scattering of robot journalists in the form of small disks affixed to flat surfaces. Finally there was a representative from the PTA, the Personal Transport Association, who was there because he was the only car driver on the planet who hadn't broken any speeding, parking, eating, talking or blinking laws, so they couldn’t keep him away.

The hall came to order as the chairman of the meeting, Montague Errorcode, stood on a box so that he could see over the lectern. He shuffled a wad of papers. A groan went through the audience, as they anticipated a long and boring introductory speech. They were not disappointed as Errorcode cleared his throat and spoke. Nobody heard anything, but they could see his lips moving on the monitors scattered around the hall. Offstage, the floor manager made frantic gestures to the Sound Desk to turn the sound up to maximum. He spoke into the microphone in Errorcode’s ear, asking him to repeat, and to try to talk a bit louder. Errorcode scowled and repeated his whisper. The sensitive equipment managed to pick out the words, and enhanced them with a tinny electronic buzz, so that the audience could benefit from the insight about to enfold.

“Ladies, Gentlemen and robotic news reporters...”

There was a cough from the front row. Errorcode glared at the man. “And our esteemed representative from the PTA.” He shuffled his papers, and smiled. “I trust that the upcoming court case will be dealt with fairly and to the common advantage.”

“I was framed,” said the man. “My car hasn’t left the garage for six months.”

“I’m sure justice will be done,” said Errorcode, “but moving on, we are gathered here today...”

“Wrong service,” shouted the floor manager into the earphone.

“Right,” said Errorcode. “I have pleasure in introducing the first annual conference of the combined car-parking groups, and will leave the stage to the leaders of the same. I have been asked to chair this meeting, but I’m sure the leaders of the groups will be able to explain more.” He shuffled his papers again, deafening the crowd, and went to sit at the back of the stage. A sigh of relief echoed around the hall, and then tumultuous applause. One of the cameras managed to pick out Errorcode as he took a bow.

A large man at the side of the stage stood up and made his way to the lectern. The floor manager made more gestures to the Sound Desk to reduce the microphone volume.

“SOME OF you know me,” said the man, as the engineer managed to cut the volume, “but for those who don’t, I am Ferguson Poordraw, the leader of the TBP group of car parks. I have with me, May Welby, leader of C.R.A.P., Complete Rip-off at Parking, and Pietro Fairway from the P.U.S.S., Parking under Special... Circumstances?”

“Yes,” said the man indicated as Fairway, “I’m afraid we outsourced the creation of the acronym to Musoketeba. I wish we hadn't, but it was cheap, so we saved loads of money. We’ve been happy with everything else they’ve done for us, apart from the odd five-day outage on our computer systems every now and then, so we can overlook this.”

“Thank you, Pietro. P.U.S.S., of course, deals with executive parking, and supplies specially vetted chauffeurs from Bonigalia to park your priceless conveyance. I believe your theft rate has dropped considerably since you started following up on employee references.”

“You might have heard that Bonigalia,” put in May Welby, “is a country noted for innovative developments in crime, particularly social engineering and genocide. However, it is also popular for the cheapness of its workers, who are large enough to make effective security personnel, and can be unequivocally trusted because they all come with certificates of honesty issued by their local governments.”

Fairway smiled. “Yes, we used to rely on the employment agencies to provide background security checks, but after the last delivery of drivers, who came strapped to the underside of a truck, we were forced to increase our security measures for humanitarian reasons... with great results. We are currently running at 90 percent crime-free parking, with some 90 percent of the owners getting their cars back with most of the fixtures still attached, and 90 percent of those actually returning at the time specified. We are proud of our ‘Three Nines’ performance rating.”

“A worthy accolade,” said Poordraw. “And Ms Welby, I hear that C.R.A.P. is making a killing through premium parking?”

“It’s Mx.. Welby actually,” said the woman. “Have you not seen the recent human rights legislation?”

“Enlighten me.”

Welby took a breath. “It is now illegal to label anyone by gender, marital status, race or abusive byword. The title ‘Mx..’ will be used to show respect, and also ridicule a system where anyone can be offended by anything. The 64^th Adjustment states, ‘Sticks and Stones may break my bones, and that’s perfectly legal, but hurt my feelings, and I’ll see you in court.’”

“I’ll try to remember that,” said Poordraw. “Now, you were telling me about C.R.A.P.”

“Of course,” said Welby, smoothing her skirt-pants. “Over the last year, we have tripled our profits by providing better security, and selling the same parking bays at different rates, depending on the time of day. We now employ conveyance security facilitators (CSFs) to actively monitor each of the premium customer vehicles and ensure no harm befalls them.”

“And people are happy to pay for this? I believe you still offer basic parking facilities?” Fairway sounded sceptical.

“Basic vehicle storage always runs the risk of theft or damage.”

“Aren’t your CSFs there to stop them?”

“At risk to their personal safety, the CSFs are instructed not to intervene if the vehicle is not in a premium parking bay.”

“Even though it could be parked right next to a premium vehicle?”

“Correct. The method works neatly, because thieves now only target the unprotected transports; a technique I believe is known in management circles as a ‘Rabbit Garden’. Assaults on our staff from criminals have dropped to zero. We are proud that being a CSF is one of the safest jobs on the planet.”

“I thought I saw a number of your CSFs had been admitted to hospital recently. Did they try to prevent vehicle thefts anyway?”

“Regrettably,” said Welby, “the injuries were perpetrated by basic parking vehicle owners, frustrated at the mutilation being committed to their conveyances as they were still manoeuvring to park. The criminals were becoming a bit over-enthusiastic, but always scarpered before the drivers got out, so they have been taking it out on the facilitators.”

“Thank you both.” Poordraw interrupted. “TBP of course provides the simple parking arrangements, where nothing is out of the ordinary. We buy up tenement lots, level them, and provide inner-cities with adequate vehicle storage for the workers. We operate a humane tenant relocation policy, where we take pretty market towns out in what used to be the country and surround them with hideous estates of affordable and spacious housing, where affordable means that we cram lots of small buildings on a farmer’s field somewhat below sea-level, and, for those of you unfamiliar with estate agent terms, spacious means you can stand in the middle and not quite touch all four walls with your arms outstretched. As a matter of reference, If you can touch at least two walls, then the room is compact. Any more and you have what we call a ‘galley’.”

“We?” said Welby.

“TBP also has major interests in housebuilding. We have been challenged by the government to produce another million homes by the end of next year.”

“Mx.. Poordraw, may I interrupt?”

“Of course. I presume from the light on your box, I am talking to the robotic reporter from the Daily Outrage?”

“That is correct. My designation is DO-A, the prime correspondent for the Outrage group of news outlets.”

“I am honoured you were able to attend.”

“Thank you. Mx.. Fairway, is it true that you hold a number of government posts?”

“I make no secret of the fact that I am the Minister for Vehicle Storage and Holes in the Road.”

“And are you also the new owner of the ‘Lies of the Planet’, representatives of which I don’t see here?”

“I think you will find that our editor, Antonia Sternlight, is present. Will you stand up please, Mx.. Sternlight?”

A tall, flame-haired beauty in the front row stood up and surveyed the audience. One of the runners rushed a microphone into her hand.

“Thank you,” Antonia said into the receiver. “Yes, I am the new editor for the ‘Lies of the Planet’, the broadcast outlet guaranteed to debunk all the false news and misdirection in the media today. We identify and rectify the fabrications, rebroadcasting the truth, as we see it. We welcome Mx. Fairway, who has kindly stepped in after our last owner was indicted for abandoning his vehicle after a seizure, brought on by the two hundred speed cameras on the Sapristi ring road flashing continuously at one tenth of a second intervals. We have apologised to his widow that the reduction in the speed limit was implemented without any change in signage, and have blamed the sign-writers, who put so many apostrophes in the wrong places that there was no room for the actual information.” She sat down.

“And Mx. Poordraw, are you also the new Minister for Housing, Recreation and Land Usage?” DO-A persisted.

“That is true,” said Poordraw, “but of course decisions in government are made entirely without prejudice or coercion, and we are fully open to inspection of any documentation that hasn’t accidentally been pulped by the reclamation company we use. There has been no hint of any scandalous dealings in the house-building sector, or in any of the thousand or so new traffic laws recently passed. Isn’t that right, Mx. Sternlight?”

Antonia stood up again and tossed her hair. “Absolutely, Mx. Poordraw; our phone-tapping, data punching and document striking operations have revealed only your pure and caring nature. I wrote a report about it in last week’s Lies on Sunday.”

“And excellent it was,” said Poordraw, smiling at the editor. “I have signed copies to hand out after this meeting to anyone who wants to retain their job. Please form an orderly queue and have your credit cards ready... but on to the main reason for this assembly.” He took both Welby and Fairway by the hand and walked to the front of the stage. “After long negotiations, we have decided to merge all three aspects of the car-parking industry into one major corporation. May, Pietro and I will be the three directors, with me as the Chairman owing to the size of my contribution. TBP, PUSS and CRAP will become the ‘Secure Terrain for Orderly Parking’, or STOP for short.”

“There are other advantages,” said Fairway, holding his hand up to stifle questions from the auditorium. “Our name is on every road sign, since we abolished the wishy-washy ‘Give Way’ concept. You either have to stop or you don’t; none of this ‘If your age is greater than a certain value, pull out into the oncoming traffic and not bother accelerating’ nonsense. And we save another wad on advertising.... No, DO-A, we didn’t use Nishant for this one, although we did give them a stab at it first, but they were too expensive. We had a work experience schoolgirl, and gave her the task. She did splendidly, I think.”

Thank you, Pietro,” said Poordraw. He ushered the other two directors back to their seats. There was sporadic applause from the audience. He held up his hands and the room fell silent.

“I am also announcing that the new STOP will now be venturing into space exploration. There are many alien craft passing our beloved planet. We are building docking facilities, and are moving towards developing our own space fleet, based on technology acquired after the takeover of SCT and their expertise. Mx. Errorcode here is not just our excellent compare, but the new acting head of SCT, taxed with the production of space-capable transports, suitably armed to protect themselves against a pirate menace that has been restricting the off-world deliveries of clothing, footwear, manure and drive components. We hope, some day very soon, to be able to launch the first of our spacecraft and escort vessels. These will patrol our own routes to the supplies of essential components required to build more ships and provide off-world goods and services to our populace. In time we hope to extend our car-parking facilities to other worlds and bring about the magnificent order there, that we have already attained on Sapristi. The work involved will probably create anything up to thirty new jobs across the galaxy, so we are good for employment too.”

He paused for effect, but the auditorium was silent.

“If you insist,” he said. “I will share the last of our developments with you.”

There was half-hearted nodding from some of the workers in the audience, but he continued enthusiastically.

“We are perfecting a range of ‘killer peacekeepers, a range of war drones, known as the P series. These are connected through the Galactinet of Doobries, but will operate independently. Once programmed with a target, they will be relentless in its destruction. We have already launched the first. Even now, P1 is roaming the skies, tracking down escaped criminals.”

“Why do we need robots to do that?” asked DO-A “Surely we have military and civilians who would be glad to do those jobs. It would also bring in the human element rather than leaving a robot to mindlessly follow its programming?”

“And what’s wrong with email,” came a voice from the back.

“I’m afraid all our military is tied up spying on the civilian population for any sign of subversive activity, and of course analysing itself for any sign of internal corruption. They have no time for anything else, like warmongering or defence, or even answering mail. We have reached the stage where we are now sending surveillance jobs offshore, hence the need to create robots to do all the work that nobody here has time to do.”

“You have answers for everything.” said DO-A.

“Of course. Everything is covered.”

“Then with permission, I will quote you on that.”

“I look forward to seeing tomorrow’s copy,” said Poordraw. “Are there any questions from the floor?” He scowled around at the audience, daring anyone to move.

A small, stocky man stood up. The microphone was placed in his hand. He blew on it to see if it was working, as is traditional. “This merger, does it mean there will be redundancies?”

Poordraw muttered to one of his stewards on the stage. The woman shook her head. “Do you have a name?” he asked out loud.

“Mycroft Vermicelli, head of information technology and now leader of the Union for what used to be TBP.”

“I thought we had outsourced technology.”

“You did, but I was retained because of my special skills.”

“And what skills do you have?”

“The ability to switch the systems off and on again, locally. The Nishant engineers were taking too long to get here after our new emir banned all overseas personnel from being residents, unless they were paying the foreign workers’ tax. In the case of Nishant, that tax exceeded their wages paid at source, so none of them would volunteer.”

“Preposterous. Have we not also sent the systems overseas?”

“Yes, but they came back, after the emir said it was a security risk having vital data out of the country.”

“But we moved everything offshore so we could outsource our redundancies at no cost to ourselves.”

“It was a good plan,” said Vermicelli with a smile, “but we reckoned without the general feeling of the working man.”

“Who is this man? I’ll have him fired.”

“There are more than one of them. In fact there are lots. In the last election, they felt they were being ignored, so the protest vote won the day, even though it was overturned after the fourteenth re-vote.”

“I know that, but it shouldn’t affect our plans. The Sapristi strike force will be created and we will protect our trade routes. Is that all?”

“You didn’t say anything about redundancies, as work is de-duplicated across the three organisations.”

“I didn’t, did I? Thank you, everyone, for attending. Form an orderly queue on the way out, and I will meet with each and every one of you...” he paused, stabbed an meaningful glance at Vermicelli, and then addressed the rest of the auditorium, “over the course of the next few weeks, to answer any personal questions you may have.”