The White Hands and Other Weird Tales

by Mark Samuels

The employees arrived by way of the underground train line, the terminus of which, most of the time, served only those who worked for the Organisation. Aside from some run-down shops opposite the office complex, the area was a wasteland of gutted buildings and rubble.

  David Cohen was travelling to the Ulymas premises from his digs near the centre of the city to begin his first day of work. He assumed that the other passengers on the underground train were fellow employees. This far west and so close to the terminus, there was no other destination to which rush-hour travellers would be bound. He noted their sullen faces and shabby business suits. Many of the men had not shaven and the women wore no makeup. To all appearances they were making only an absent-minded attempt to conform to accepted standards of office attire and appearance. Cohen himself was dressed smartly in a black three-piece suit and was clean-shaven.

  For his interview a week previously he had travelled on a deserted mid-morning train. At first he had been alarmed by the state of the Organisation’s headquarters, with its atmosphere of impending abandonment. It did not look to him as though they would be able to offer him a position with any future. But the interview seemed to have gone well and he was promised a better salary than he had expected. The two interviewers had been somewhat vague figures, and neither had asked him any particularly probing or awkward questions. He could remember little of them except that they sat in the shadows at the back of the room. They had not elaborated on the exact nature of his duties, but had intimated that they would be concerned with an area with which he was familiar, intellectual property rights, although he was not told in which particular sphere he would be required to operate. Despite being au fait with various broadcast and publishing media in which such rights are usually exploited, Cohen had not heard of the Ulymas Organisation. When, before his interview, he had undertaken background research he had been unable to find the company listed in any trade publication.

  Cohen disembarked at the terminus and followed his dozen or so co-workers over the bridge spanning the railway line and then along a series of underpasses that led out into the road opposite the business premises. None of the employees spoke to one another, but simply filed silently along, with heads slightly bowed, through the gates to the Organisation.

  Cohen had been advised which building he should enter upon his arrival and this proved to be at the heart of the complex, some distance from the Personnel Department where his interview had been conducted. He wandered between sullen-looking flat-roofed buildings and across overgrown courtyards. Cohen could only marvel at the sheer enormity of the neglect. Many of the windows were laced with cracks, and some had been smashed. Doors to abandoned exterior storerooms hung from their hinges. Many of the paving slabs were broken, with weeds flourishing in the gaps and on those corners and edges where human tread was less frequent.

  Other than the sign outside indicating that it housed the executive offices, the building in which Cohen was to work was indistinguishable from the others. Inside was a foyer and behind the reception desk sat a bored-looking security guard gazing blankly at an array of CCTV screens behind the counter. Cohen told him who he was and the man telephoned a number. After what seemed an age he advised Cohen that Mr Franklin would be down to collect him shortly.

  In due course a portly man appeared.

  ‘Franklin,’ he introduced himself without enthusiasm, offering a damp, limp hand and refusing to make eye-contact. He was in his sixties and was dressed in a grubby grey suit.

  ‘Cohen,’ replied the new recruit. ‘It’s good . . .’ But Franklin had turned his back and was already moving. Rather put out, Cohen followed, noticing as they walked that the man’s long white hair trailed down over the back of his dirty collar.

  ‘I am your immediate superior,’ said the man as Cohen attempted to walk alongside him. The narrow corridor, with its threadbare green carpet, was not wide enough to allow them to walk together, so he fell back again and followed.

  ‘How long have you worked here?’ Cohen asked. The man continued on without turning round.

  ‘I have been here since the Ulymas Organisation began,’ he replied, now leading the younger man up a tiled stairwell. The layout of the building seemed erratic, almost haphazard, with certain of the corridors appearing to curve so that it was not always possible to see their end. Cohen was dismayed to find that the interior of the building was as run-down as its exterior, with grimy strip lighting providing the only illumination in the corridors. He hoped that the offices themselves would be brighter and better maintained, but he did not feel optimistic.

  On their journey he was cheered to see approaching them a young woman dressed in a white smock wheeling what appeared to be a tea trolley. She paused to look at Cohen as the two men passed and it seemed to him that there was a look of pity in her gaze, mingled with a certain unease.

  ‘You will work in here,’ Franklin opened the door to a depressingly small room. Cohen walked in feeling even more despondent. His new office was cramped, with storage space afforded by wall-mounted shelves that reached up to its ceiling. It was far taller than it was wide, having a floor-area of perhaps twelve square feet, while its height was some fifteen feet. As it was located in the middle of the building, on the first floor, its only view was into a light-well, with a brick wall opposite, covered with lichen. Cohen’s spirits fell yet further when he realised that he would be unable to see even this limited view when he was sitting at his desk, as the small, barred, dirty window was shoulder-high and would be behind him while he worked. He was going to have to try hard to stay positive, he decided. Stretching up on tiptoe he peered through the grimy panes. He could see that there was a basement level below the ground floor.

  ‘You won’t be disturbed,’ Franklin said, still standing by the door. ‘Few people will need to see you. Someone will come to deliver your paperwork, and they’ll take it away when it’s finished.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind seeing a few people!’ Cohen forced a smile.

  ‘Twice a day the woman we passed earlier will come by to serve refreshments.’

  ‘Just as long as she remembers I’m here,’ Cohen replied. He could not help thinking that this office was a cul-de-sac in a labyrinth.

  He turned to the desk. Sitting on it was a very old computer and next to it a set of trays, the top one of which was laden with folders crammed with papers.

  ‘These files,’ Franklin explained, ‘relate to the intellectual property cases the Ulymas Organisation wishes you to handle. What you have there should keep you busy in your first week. They all concern serious infringements of Ulymas copyrights that require urgent action.’

  ‘Is there a company policy on the nature of our response to infringement?’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Is there a tendency towards simply issuing a warning. Or do we threaten legal action? Is legal action often necessary?’

  ‘That will be left to your own judgement. Examine the cases on your desk and let them guide you.’

  Cohen reached for the top file, and when he looked up again he found that Franklin had gone. He switched on the ancient computer and settled into the battered office chair, which he was relieved to find was moderately comfortable. Although he was concentrating on the papers in front of him, he was aware that no bootstrap data was appearing on the screen beside him. He looked up at the monitor and discovered to his bewilderment that a mass of crumpled papers had been stuffed inside it. They were backlit by an internal bulb.

  He bent forward and pulled out a screwed-up sheet of yellowed paper. It was covered in writing of a kind. He examined others and they were the same. The handwritten notes had no punctuation or paragraphs and were simply a series of non-sequiturs, ramblings or repetitive phrases. But there did seem to be a theme, of sorts. The name ‘Ulymas’ appeared over and over again and invariably in association with such words as ‘terror’, ‘horrible’, ‘infinite’ and ‘omniscient’. Could this be a practical joke perpetrated by his new work colleagues? I
t was hard to equate his dour new superior, Franklin, with this kind of prank. Perhaps the computer, even his ‘office’ was a joke, but a quick check outside the door confirmed that there was no stifled giggling from the corridor. Indeed, the corridor was deserted.

  David sat back down warily and returned his attention to the contents of the folders. The first of these contained various documents relating to a dispute of which even a cursory examination suggested that the position taken by the Ulymas Organisation was legally and morally untenable. Franklin had left a note on the folder intimating that this case was for Cohen’s information only, it having been settled recently.

  It seemed that a writer, one whose book had been published several months ago, had received warning that he had infringed the copyright of the Organisation by incorporating certain metaphysical speculations into his work. These speculations, it was argued, could not possibly have originated anywhere other than the Ulymas Organisation. Although they did not make the claim that the infringement had been anything other than accidental, the Organisation had insisted that the exploitation of what they termed ‘psychical leakage’ had to be halted. The book in question was a collection of pulp horror stories entitled The Darkness Closes In. There was a copy of the paperback in the file and when Cohen picked it up he saw that the author’s name had been completely blacked out on the cover, title and copyright pages. It was likewise deleted from all of the correspondence. He flicked through the book, noticing that one story in particular had been highlighted in several places with a yellow marker pen. His new employers had evidently taken great exception to the ludicrous denouement of the story where the protagonist had his brains devoured by a huge spider. The poor man’s remains were left dangling and suspended in an abandoned room with cobwebs spun by the arachnid radiating from the empty pan of his skull.

  Cohen did not know how the case had been concluded, but surely it could not have been in the Organisation’s favour.

  He sank back into his chair and drew a packet of cigarettes from his pocket. He lit one as he read through the rest of the interminable correspondence. There could be no doubt that the whole case had been an utter waste of time. He wanted this to be a part of the same practical joke but it was too detailed, too earnest and only too evidently authentic.

  Leafing through more of the files, Cohen found that the main thrust of his predecessor’s arguments seemed to be the Organisation’s ownership of thought, as if human consciousness were itself a facet of intellectual property rights. From the correspondence Cohen could see that his superiors, including Franklin, endorsed this attitude. There were even positive comments from Ulymas himself, the founder and Managing Director of the Organisation.

  As he sat smoking, Cohen tried to make up his mind what to do. It was his first day in the job and Franklin had told him that he had free rein to handle affairs as he saw fit. In Cohen’s professional opinion all of the cases he had looked at so far were fit only for the wastepaper basket. Why so much time had been wasted upon them was beyond his comprehension.

  In the next few cases he examined it seemed that the Organisation was claiming retrospective infringement of copyright. That is, they were asserting that certain works written before the company’s formation had exploited and plagiarised ideas over which Ulymas asserted absolute ownership. The last two cases were concerned with infringements of copyrights that had not yet occurred but which they regarded as inevitable. Invariably these claims centred on fictional works of a bizarre nature. The Organisation’s justification for such outlandish declarations lay in a convoluted refutation of the concept of linear time. As far as Cohen could grasp the proposition, as set out in the paperwork before him, sequential events were considered to be a mere illusion. Ulymas argued the view that time in fact radiated like a spiral or a web. From this, his predecessor had affirmed that what memories we possess are not of events themselves, but of the last memory we had of that event. The more we remember, the further we are from actuality. He had maintained that the passage of time is only a trick of the memory, an infinity of déjà vu, the past a creation of our minds, a spiral without a centre.

  Cohen found that his own mind was reeling. His dilemma was acute. All the evidence suggested that he was working for an organisation which, to say the least, lacked the slightest grip on reality. Should he speak to Franklin? It seemed pointless; the man had personally endorsed many of his predecessor’s fantastic claims of infringement. Was he really expected to write further letters in a similar vein and carry on perpetrating the charade?

  Perhaps it would be best to delay any decision until he had spoken to some of his other colleagues in the department. Franklin had given him no indication that he was to be formally introduced to anybody else, so he decided to find them for himself. As the best part of the morning had now passed and it was nearing lunchtime, he left his office in search of company.

  He peered through the glazed panel in his neighbour’s door but the room was empty. The second office along appeared similarly vacant, but the third revealed a single occupant hunched over a computer screen. He knocked on the door with the intention of introducing himself, but the man gazed up at him blankly through the square of glass before turning back to his task like an automaton. Cohen tried the same approach at several more doors before, finally, one worker acknowledged him with a feeble wave of the hand, beckoning him in. Even then, he could not help thinking that the response was lethargic and indifferent, as if the man was drugged.

  His name, he told Cohen, was Mr Kromer. He was middle-aged, with curling black hair, an unkempt moustache and dark, sunken eyes. His small, slight form was clothed in a charcoal-grey suit that was worn at the cuffs. Cohen tried to temper his enquiry about the company’s bizarre interpretation of copyright law with small talk. He informed Kromer cheerfully that this was his first day, but Kromer only smiled wanly and finally asked politely but coldly exactly what Cohen wanted, as there were urgent matters awaiting his attention.

  Cohen then had no choice but to tell Kramer directly about the quandary in which he found himself. Much to his surprise, Kromer, who listened intently and without expression, did not seem at all perturbed by the situation. When Cohen had finished Kromer explained that it was part of company policy and that, given time, Cohen would come to understand the full justice of their claims. As for the state of his computer, Kromer seemed unable to grasp the reason for Cohen’s confusion. He gestured to his own machine, and Cohen saw that it was in the same state as his, merely the shell of a monitor stuffed with crumpled documents. Kromer explained that the information contained therein changed on a daily basis, with fresh paperwork being inserted every morning.

  Cohen returned to his room. Despite being utterly confused by the sheer waste of effort and time his work seemed to involve, he resolved that, as his employers were paying him so well, he would seek to fulfil his obligations. He spent the rest of the day composing letters defending imagined, indefensible future infringements, and was relieved to find that the task became easier as he went on. It was almost like writing a novel, Cohen supposed, and he used all his skill and imagination in inventing a nebulous rationale for the Organisation’s position. Towards the end of the day he found that he was writing at great speed, and that unbidden yet alluring extravagances relating to ‘psychical leakage’ had been incorporated into his longhand correspondence.

  At six p.m. Cohen put the files into his pending tray and prepared to leave. He couldn’t recall whether he had managed to have lunch that day, but was sure that the woman with the tea trolley had not passed by. He had a final cigarette and stood staring out of the small, barred window at the brick wall opposite. It was dark outside. At the edge of his field of vision he caught sight of Kromer’s reflection. Kromer was standing in the doorway, now wearing a long black overcoat and a battered soft-brimmed hat.

  ‘Are you about ready to leave, Cohen? Might we make the journey together?’

  Cohen gladly gave his consent. He had spoken to no one du
ring the afternoon and could do with the company.

  During the walk back through the labyrinthine corridors of the executive building, Cohen found Kromer more forthcoming than he had been earlier.

  ‘You were asking about our approach to copyright matters?’

  ‘Yes. I find it hard to believe that we can legitimately claim absolute ownership of so many ideas and concepts.’

  ‘Well, Ulymas only wishes to claim ownership of that which rightfully belongs to the Organisation.’

  ‘And reading through the files I was surprised that so much of it deals specifically with the . . . well . . . with the weird and horrible.’

  ‘I was as bemused as you on my first day,’ Kromer was sympathetic. ‘I remember feeling a sense of, shall we say, ‘absurdity’ at the Organisation’s claims. But as time has passed, my scepticism has faded. You know, I once received certain memoranda from Ulymas himself . . .’ He stopped and appeared to be recalling the event with great pleasure. ‘They were written in atrociously crabbed handwriting, but they specifically addressed my concerns. In fact, they more than addressed my concerns.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘They were responses to thoughts that I had not dared to share with anyone else. And the memoranda from Ulymas were always posted within my computer monitor. The words were written in spirals from the inside outwards . . .’

  Cohen interrupted:

  ‘You can’t be suggesting that Ulymas has some kind of telepathic intuition?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It seems much more likely that he spies on his employees.’

  ‘You are not seriously suggesting that he has hidden cameras?’

  ‘No, I suppose not.’

  Whilst they talked, Cohen noted the expressionless faces of the other Ulymas employees staring blankly ahead as they made their way homewards. He had the sensation that they were listening to his conversation with Kromer, or at least absorbing it somehow. Kromer seemed to sense Cohen’s unease.