Waking up was an exercise in confusion. Harry awoke, startled, to a combination of the same bleebling noise indicating an incoming call along with another intermittent tone that apparently announced he had other calls holding, and he sat up blinded at the sun coming in through the window, which was hitting him right in the eyes. He scrubbed at his face with one hand, wondering blearily what time it was now and thinking that he probably didn’t really want to know. He yawned again, trying to get words out.
“Room….display a list of holding calls or callers, please.” The same screen that he had seen earlier materialized, showing a list of fourteen calls awaiting callback; all had Vz’ktk names next to them, and only a couple were repeat calls. In the corner of the screen was the time, and he belatedly realized that he’d been asleep for about two hours, tops. “….What the blue fuck?” he muttered. Clearly, some boundaries needed to be established. Without bothering to answer any of the calls, he got up, shedding layers of clothing on his way to the restroom. Maybe a hot shower would help.
Some minutes later, still annoyed and tired though no longer sleepy, Harry returned to the bedroom, towel wrapped around his waist. “Room – mass reply by text, begin recording: Thank you for your call. It is important to me that I speak with you, however, I am currently unavailable. I will return your call at the earliest possible opportunity. End recording, send.” The comm system for the room acknowledged the commands with a cheery-sounding chirp that was almost insultingly happy. Harry considered for a moment, then came to a decision.
“Room – hold all non-emergency calls until noon local time. Reply to all held calls with the mass text reply I just recorded.” The comm system dinged again cheekily, and he decided he would ignore it. He stripped off the towel and climbed back into bed, lying with his eyes closed and trying valiantly to go back to sleep. It seemed, however, that more sleep at this point was not in the cards, because he remained, unwillingly, wide awake.
“Fuuuuuck,” he muttered to himself, sitting up and running his fingers through his hair. “Guess I might as well get up and take care of some of this shit.” He pulled his tablet over, plugged the USB into it, and began placing KKt’tk’s order and scanning in the Distributing Consultant license applications. Fortunately, it didn’t take him very long; the app for putting in DC’s did most of the actual work and only needed a little help when it came to putting in names longer than normal and with no vowels, and he was able to muddle through it. On reflection, he got up, put on pants, and made a pot of instant coffee while the last of the lot was going through his scanner. It helped. A little.
Experience had taught Harry that it was always a good idea to pack ibuprofen or something similar – sales work of any kind often involved long and grueling hours of acting horribly friendly, which was hard to do with a headache. He took several tablets of whatever it was he’d packed with a handful of water from the faucet to wash it down, and continued working on KKt’tk’s order until he was able to email the lot to Corporate. A look at the clock made it pretty clear that he could either try to get more sleep, which wasn’t likely to happen, or he could suck it up and start answering the calls that were probably still piling up at an ever-increasing frantic pace. With that sense of imminent dread that always accompanied checking voicemail with an unknown number of un-answered calls, he commanded the room to display the current queue….
…and immediately wished he hadn’t. The original fourteen messages had swelled over the last hour and half to thirty-seven. Aghast, he scrolled through them briefly, before regrouping them by origin. The differences in the mindset from humans could not have been more clear; only a few were from individuals. Almost all were from group calls, where there were several callers calling together, and thankfully, the video call system was intelligent enough to differentiate between them. He scanned through them almost at random and quickly picked up on what was going on. Apparently, all of the attendees from that morning wanted to sign up under the ten he’d just finished processing the applications for, and apparently some of them had contacted interested parties off-planet who were interested in hearing The Plan.
In a rare moment of introspection, Harry realized that he’d touched on something important here. He had watched a video once of sheep being herded by a herding dog; the dog had gotten one animal moving, and almost like dominoes, the movement begun by one triggered movement by others, who triggered movement by others….be it dumb luck or Providence, he had apparently started exactly the right member of this herd moving, and now that one movement had started others following suit. The prospect of likely second and third order consequences to this movement raised its ugly head for the first time in his mind, and he suddenly got why herd species were instinctively terrified of and fascinated by humans at the same time. In humans, there was an odd mix of predator and protector all at once…
To them, we’re herd dogs.
Harry decided he’d best get dressed. He’d already had one shower a couple of hours earlier, but since he could, he decided to make use of the shower again and have a second go at this whole being-awake thing. On consideration, as he got in, he turned off the lights, allowing a soak in total darkness, with some Pink Floyd playing through his music player. All I need now is some…nah. I need to focus. He stayed in the shower until the room was full of steam and he felt completely relaxed, then turned the water to its coldest setting for a blast of pure, torturous wakefulness.
He got out, having spent some time thinking in the shower, and roughly towelled off, scrubbing his already-pink skin until he was bright red all over, and got dressed next to the bed, muttering to himself the entire time. When he was finally dressed, he sat, and addressing the room’s limited AI, began to review messages.
Overall, the messages were nearly all the same – interest in The Plan, wanting a presentation, interest in signing up, and two calls expressing interest in selling him something. Harry recorded responses for each call; for many of them, a general response that he would be in touch to set something up sufficed. As he made his way through listening or reading and responding, the two messages wanting to sell things to him kept catching his eye. Both of them, from the same Vz’ktk merchant, had an off-planet origin code. Filing that information away mentally, he resolved to look into it as soon as he had the opportunity. Right now, though, he had some skittish newbies to settle down, so he sent another message to KKt’tk suggesting that they get together with the others that had signed up earlier, and give everybody the chance to present The Plan to each other. Gathering up his things, he hauled himself back out the door, resolving that this time, when he was done, he was going to get some real sleep.
Harry supposed, as he walked towards KKt’tk’s shop, that he really shouldn’t have been surprised by the way things had been going. The Uber driver had given him a significant look when he’d said he was headed back to the Alien Quarter, and the guard at the gate just laughed as he ushered Harry through security, saying he’d rarely seen any human wanting to spend that much time with aliens. Harry heard none of it, impatiently pushing his way through security and the bio-field. He was nearly to KKt’tk’s shop, in fact, before he realized that there were rather more beings there than he’d bargained on, and by a wide margin. There were enough, in fact, that they spilled out into the street…every table was literally standing-room-only and not just full, they were all milling about a little and talking at once in a deafening cacophony of rattling, clacking, clicking, and chattering that sounded like being stuck inside an MRI machine playing a video game from the 80’s at concert-level volumes.
KKt’tk came over to him, beaming and obviously very pleased with himself. “This is exciting! I am so pleased you are here, Harry! As you can see, we have some additional interest from some of my family, who just got in; their ship is docked at your ‘Armstrong Station’, and I convinced them to come see The Plan!!!”
“This…this is your family?” Harry asked, numbly.
“Oh yes. Well, some of them anyway. My family is quite large, and very spread out across the Dominion in many different trades. This is some of my immediate family. They had a shipment of cqcq for me, and I invited them down, because I knew that you could show them The Plan as well. They are very excited to see it, as you can see.”
“So….KKt’tk, the idea behind getting together was for you to demonstrate the plan. Thus far, the only presenting that’s been done of The Plan has been done by me, and that isn’t really doing you any favors,” Harry said, trying to pull this back into a reasonable direction.
“Yes, but Harry, look at how many are here wanting to see The Plan!!!” continued KKt’tk, as though he hadn’t heard a word. “I am not nearly as good as you at presenting The Plan. I have tried, and I am simply not very good at it…but my family believes that this is a brilliant opportunity, I have explained as best I can the idea.”
“Okay, but…,” Harry started. “Look. I can’t continue doing all of your presenting for you. You have to be able to do this, that’s how this works.”
“So you will present to this group, then, yes?” KKt’tk pressed him.
“…No.” Harry decided. “No, it’s time you stepped up – you invited them, you explained it to them, and they’re excited about the opportunity. Sink or swim…let’s see what you’ve got. Here you go, my man.” With that, he handed KKt’tk the large pad of paper, off of which he tore the top several sheets he had used previously, and handed the tall blue xeno the pen. “Have at it. You’ll do fine, just follow the plan the way I laid out to you, and again this morning, ok?”
A Vz’ktk gulping in nervousness was, Harry decided, an impressive sight, with their long neck. KKt’tk blinked several times, absorbing the news that he was going to have to do his own recruiting. Presently, he turned, carrying the paper pad and pen like a child with a stuffed animal sent to bed fifteen minutes early. He elbowed his way through the crowd, reaching the front of the crowd and setting up, then tapped on the side of the table until he had everyone’s attention.
“Hel…hello, everyone, and, um, thank you for coming, and, um, so, um, Harry asked me to, um, go ahead and present The Plan to all of you, because he says I need to be able to, um, recruit so that I can be successful at this business, so, if you could all listen very carefully, I will show you how this works….” KKt’tk went into his hopelessly muddled understanding of The Plan, which Harry watched with a sinking feeling. His understanding of The Plan apparently went as far as signing up other people and getting paid for it…nothing about sustainability or depth of business development, and, to his dismay, it appeared that this presentation was getting the same reaction from the audience that his had.
This…is not good. Harry realized he was going to have to step in, or this cascade of unreal expectations was going to continue. Suddenly, the last thirty-six hours were making much, much more sense.
“KKt’tk, may I step in for just a moment?” Harry interjected, as the hapless xeno floundered in trying to answer an audience question.
“Yes, please, Harry. I was sure you could answer this question better,” KKt’tk said with relief. Harry walked up and simply took the pen back, and thought for a moment.
“Let me see if I can clarify what my friend here was saying a moment ago – let me go through some things that may have gotten overlooked, okay?” There were scattered nods. “Okay, so it’s like this….”
As he talked, Harry watched to see whether he could gauge if he was actually getting through to his audience. After about ten minutes, it was pretty clear. They didn’t get it…and the light that he’d seen go on behind KKt’tk’s eyes in that first presentation had been a mistaken impression. The idea of getting paid by other peoples’ signup fees was the hallmark of a pyramid scheme, he knew…and it was a horribly attractive idea for many people, because it was such a simple one. The problem, though, was that it wasn’t sustainable, of course. They weren’t getting the idea of a Distributing Consultant being an actual point of sales as a core tenet of the business plan. This, he knew, could well blow back on him in much the same way that recruiting consultants from homeless populations of humans always had – it was inevitably perceived as being predatory, because that’s exactly what it was.
He wound his presentation down, and gave his card out to each table group, telling them to think about The Plan, and to really consider whether or not this was something they wanted to try. This was mostly a CYA measure, though…he was increasingly getting convinced that the idea of spreading this business plan to xenos was going to require some serious retooling back home, or, given the reception he’d already seen and the literal trillions of beings from herd species within the Dominion alone, the expansion would be too far, too fast, and the Company wouldn’t be able to keep up, until the whole thing collapsed of its own weight. Harry was, fundamentally, a pretty decent sort and didn’t want to take advantage of anyone.
As the crowd began to disperse somewhat, he made a beeline for KKt’tk and pulled him aside. “So, hey, man…I gotta ask you. The presentation you were giving…is that what you’ve been telling everyone so far? Sign up yourself, and then sign up other people and get paid for that?” he asked, dreading what he was pretty sure he was going to hear. His fear there was realized, as the Vz’ktk did his head-bobble that was enthusiastic affirmation. Harry pinched between his eyes, feeling a headache coming back.
“KKt’tk….dude….so. Look. You can’t do just part of The Plan, you have to do the whole thing or not only will it not work out, it may be illegal, okay?” he finally said.
“Oh, no, Harry. I know it is not illegal to do this. I had a Rrrrtktktkp’ch solicitor who is trained in your laws examine the materials you brought me, and asked him to make sure that The Plan is legal. What you are saying is true…for humans. For Vz’ktk, we do not have to follow the whole Plan, we can do it this way. He told me so.” Harry boggled a little.
“Well…okay. Maybe by Dominon law it might be okay, but the Company still gets to decide how Distributing Consultants market The Plan, man. That’s their corporate structure for profit-share and stuff…the contract you signed is actually pretty explicit about it, and they’re still based on Earth under Earth’s rules in the United States.” Harry said. “You can’t rewrite that contract and still expect to get paid, it doesn’t work that way.” Internally, he was reeling. The terms for signing downline Distributing Consultants were explicit – if it was done under false pretenses, the money was to be immediately refunded and the contract was null. The Company had been sued far too often to allow any whiff of improper behavior let slide, and Harry knew that he was going to have to contact Corporate about the way things had gone down.
Harry managed to extricate himself from the rest of the conversation, and walked at a fast pace back to the gate, where he made his way through security and to his hotel in a blur. As soon as he got back to his room, he deleted his messages outright, and pulled his tablet up to begin composing an email he hated to write, outlining the progress, setbacks, and current status. He knew that his first email and KKt’tk’s order had gone through at this point already…hopefully, the Company could and would reverse the charges for the business fees, but whether they were able to deal with the order KKt’tk had placed or not was another question. He wrote, sent, and then fulfilled the promise he’d made himself much, much earlier that day and notified the room to hold all calls for everything other than Ragnarok, Hunter attacks, or his mother calling, and went to sleep.
Harry awoke to that long drowsy haze that one gets when one has had massively inadequate amounts of sleep compounded by stress, travel, odd food, and then has suddenly gotten the opportunity to rest unmolested as long as necessary. He would later estimate that he’d drifted in a half-awake state for nearly three hours on top of sleeping for probably twelve or fifteen solid hours…he wasn’t sure for the longest time since it all seemed like everything would be okay as long as he didn’t get up. Eventually, of course, nature asserted itself and his kidneys and bladder made the prospect of staying in bed untenable.
Rested, relaxed, and apprehensive, he returned from the bathroom intending to get the bad news over with. He booted his tablet up from standby where he’d thankfully left it charging, and brought up his email. There, at the top, was the email from Corporate he was expecting to see.
The consultancies he had signed up were, of course, revoked, as he’d expected. Unfortunately, it seemed that the order for KKt’tk had already been processed and, having shipped, couldn’t be stopped or refunded now. He himself was requested/urged/commanded to return to Earth at his earliest convenience, as the Company’s attorneys wanted a thorough breakdown on exactly what had happened. He wasn’t expecting, but wasn’t surprised, to see that Corporate had already contacted the Consultants whose licenses they were revoking and refunding, so there was little more for him to do other than tuck his tail between his legs, finish packing, and head home.
It wasn’t the glorious end he’d hoped for. It wasn’t even an improvement…and he hadn’t made any prospects among the humans on Cimbrean, not that it seemed likely anyway. About the only factor that seemed like it had been worth something was that the Company had been willing to front the money for him to have taken the trip in the first place…so perhaps, he thought to himself as he packed, it hadn’t been a wasted opportunity so much as a learning experience. Maybe I could think of it as a scouting mission in enemy territory he thought with a smirk. Cimbrean being home to the Space Operator’s Regiment, or whatever, had permeated the colony to some degree with a definite martial undertone – he hadn’t actually met any of the soldiers that were there, but he’d certainly heard about them and was determined not to, if even a tenth of the stories told about them were accurate.
Whistling, Harry left the room dressed comfortably, wheeling his bags behind him, and returned through the colony’s jump portal to Europe. Win or lose…at least he was still in the game.