by Nino Cipri
There was another crash, and that was the last straw for the SVINLÅDA. It tore the basket out of Derek’s distracted grip and flipped it back over its squat, pink body. Then it started scooting away, the basket making that familiar scraping sound as it crept along the cement floor.
“Wait,” he called, but slammed his mouth shut again at a terrifying groan, as if a steel beam were bending under terrible strain. It was accompanied by the unmistakable sound of rushing water, and Derek peeked around the corner in time to see an inch-deep flood wash over the floors.
Derek glanced over his shoulder, but caught only the rounded edge of the basket as the SVINLÅDA snuck under a curtain into an adjacent room.
Well. That hadn’t been so bad. Maybe whatever had caused the flood and crashing sounds would be just as friendly. Derek squared his shoulders and reminded himself that he was a professional; if he could handle Black Friday, he could handle this.
Derek edged along the walkway between rooms, following the flow of water upstream to what was hopefully its source. The glowing red strips on the walkway wavered beneath the ripples of water as Derek made his careful way through the twisting hallways.
Derek flinched as he heard another groan wend through the air, stuttering out into a series of low, watery trills, almost too low to hear. It was impossible to see more than a dozen feet ahead of him. Dark rooms opened up around every twist of the walkway, their furnishings amounting to little more than vague, shadow-wrapped shapes in the dull red emergency lights.
Another pulse of water washed over Derek’s feet, freezing cold. Had one of the mains burst? The water rippled with each squelching step he took. Tiny wavelets bounced forward and backward as he walked. It seemed to be coming from the new VIP area, and Derek groaned a little. If they had to scrap the entire new VIP lounge because of water damage, Tricia would have a heart attack.
There was a crash, followed by another of those inhuman, inorganic groans. Derek froze, pressed up against the side of a refrigerator.
The water rippled again, lapping at the laces of Derek’s boots. But he hadn’t moved.
Derek looked up and nearly screamed when he saw the egg chair toilet squatting around the corner from him, white and shining, the dim emergency lights casting it in a forbidding crimson glow. Thick pipes trailed behind it, jagged and broken, still leaking water. The tinny sound of Debussy’s “Clair de Lune” began, though the speakers must have been damaged; it was distorted and off-tune, the song lurching along like a confused dirge.
Derek forgot his fear for a moment, so confused by the sight of a $6,400 luxury toilet standing in the middle of the walkway. Who would move the behemoth toilet as a prank? He hadn’t had to install the toilet, but he knew it weighed nearly two hundred pounds.
He put his hands on his hips, coming out from behind the refrigerator to look up and down the walkway. “Is this someone’s idea of a joke?” he called out.
The wide back of the egg chair toilet rippled, and Derek fell silent, his mind trying to bargain with reality as he fought down panic. Oh, the toilet isn’t moving, it’s just the pressure point massage system. It’s not suddenly changing colors, it’s just the reflection of the lights on the surface of the water. It’s not looking at you, it’s just . . .
It was looking at him. Derek saw no eyes, no ears, no way of sensing him or his movements. But it knew he was there.
There was another ripple across the broad surface of the egg chair toilet. And then it just . . . faded from sight.
Derek’s heart started banging against his ribs. Adrenaline sent prickles across his skin. It hadn’t disappeared, it couldn’t disappear—god, could it disappear?
There was a soft splash. Ripples. Derek tracked them backward, and saw them emanating out from a series of pinpoints in the water. Directly above them—a sort of blurred smear where the colors and light weren’t quite right.
And the smear was creeping closer.
Derek turned and sprinted down the walkway, throwing up sheets of water with every stride. The water was difficult to move through, and Derek kept stumbling, slipping and nearly toppling into walls and appliances, barking his shins and hips on lounges and farmhouse tables. He could feel the egg chair toilet behind him, but he couldn’t see it, not properly; just blurs of motion and arcs of water.
He managed to lose the toilet by tumbling over a TÖRNROSA sleeper sofa and wriggling through the gap on the other side of a showroom wall—the sleepers were a terrible hassle to maneuver through the narrow showroom doorways. Easier to cut through the wall of one room and shove it through the hole. Derek was trying to scramble up onto his feet when he heard the egg chair toilet collide with the wall separating them.
The modular wall was a couple inches thick, held in place by only a few bolts. It didn’t stand a chance against the toilet. The wall pressed down across Derek’s calves, pinning them under the crushing weight of the two-hundred-pound luxury toilet. He tried to yank his feet out, scrabbling against the smooth cement floor, but he was caught. He couldn’t even turn over to face his doom. All he could see was his own reflection, wavering in the cold, metallic-smelling water.
He was going to die.
There was a high-pitched electronic whine, like a mosquito had melded with the shrieking grate of nails on a chalkboard. Derek assumed it was in his head until he felt a ripple of heat pass over him. There was a shattering sound, and Derek felt chips of porcelain hit his back and exposed arms. The egg chair toilet shrieked, and the weight on his legs vanished amid a series of retreating crashes.
“Found our liaison,” a voice said from a few feet away. “And our first defekta.”
The voice was strangely familiar.
A man stood a few feet away, feet planted in a wide, immovable stance, framed in a slanting pool of light. He wore dark coveralls tucked into shining black boots that looked like they were made for combat instead of inventory management. He was holding something in his right hand, aimed at the retreating egg chair toilet—one of the scanners from the box Tricia gave to him. He must have found them at the customer service desk.
The man stepped closer and crouched down next to him. “Hey, man. How are you feeling? Can you move?”
Derek knew that walk. Derek knew that voice, pitched low to calm an upset customer. He practiced it in the mirror but had never managed to make it sound this . . . this authoritative.
Derek stared into eyes the exact shape and color as his own, tried and failed to find his voice to answer.
The Derek above him shrugged and spoke into an earpiece. “The level four has retreated for now. But our liaison could probably use medical attention.”
There was a crackle of static, and a nearly identical voice said through a speaker, “Great, I’m on my way.”
Leadership lesson: Are your outcomes CLEAN?
When setting goals for your team, remember that the outcomes you’re shooting for should be CLEAN.
Circumscribed
Lofty
Economical
Assignable/Accountable
Not obviously illegal
Circumscribed: Make sure that there are limits on your ambition! Our resources are, in fact, finite, and we need to make sure our priorities are taken care of.
Bad: “We will stop wormholes from appearing in our stores and occasionally losing our customers and employees in them.”
Better: “We will equip every store with the technology to find customers lost in wormholes and recover employees who didn’t walk off the job.”
Lofty: While we want you to stay realistic, we don’t want you to let go of ambition altogether!
Bad: “Research and development will process new discovered technologies from other universes and report back on them to the Board of Directors quarterly.
Better: “Research and development will seek out disruptive new technologies from other universe that could revolutionize the retail industry, and report them to the Board of Directors quarterly.”
Economical
: Remember our bottom line! How is your outcome going to contribute to it?
Bad: “We will improve employee morale and retention through appreciation programs.”
Better: “We will improve employee morale and retention through appreciation programs, except in positions where high turnover will be more cost-effective in the long run.”
Assignable/Accountable: Who’s ultimately in charge of this outcome? Is it out of your hands? Make sure that someone is accountable for ensuring this outcome!
Bad: “Resource Management will roll out the new D-64598 program as soon as they can and will communicate with managers in participating stores about expectations.”
Better: “Reagan in Resource Management will be the point person on rolling out the new D-64598 program in time for Q4. Managers at participating stores will be responsible for ensuring that their stores hit projected savings in labor costs.”
Not obviously illegal: Use your best judgment here!
Bad: “We will create a pyramid scheme to get LitenVärld Universe members to sign up their friends and family to a monthly subscription lifestyle program.”
Better: “We will create a multi-level marketing plan to increase LitenVärld Universe membership, by encouraging existing members to sign up friends and family to a monthly subscription lifestyle program.”
Postscript: While we always want your outcomes to be CLEAN, remember that members of the LitenVärld family are never afraid to get their hands dirty!
From The LitenVärld Managers and Supervisors’ Handbook
Chapter 4: Shortsight and Farsight
It was nothing like looking in the mirror. Considering his recent experiences, Derek felt grateful for that.
After scaring off the toilet, Derek #1 had maneuvered him to the Jamboree Playpen, where stressed parents could dump their children while they shopped, and two sales associates would ostensibly look over the kids and make sure nobody bled. It was set against the back corner of the store and somewhat closed off, with only one entrance. If Derek had been asked to name the most defensible spot in the building, this is where he would have picked.
“Listen to me,” Derek #1 had told him, propping him up against a child-sized playhouse shaped like a suburban McMansion. “You’re confused. You’re hurt. You’re probably wondering if you’re hallucinating, or if you’re really meeting a doppelgänger. As a result, you might be feeling uncontrollable rage—I know I did.” He smiled reassuringly at Derek. “And still do, sometimes, but that’s because our doppelgängers love to ride my last nerve.”
Derek was not feeling rage; he was mostly feeling pain from his squashed legs and barked shins, his palms where he’d scraped them. He was definitely feeling a little awed by this new version of himself.
“I’m sure you have a million questions. And we’re here to answer them. Just hold on to them for a little longer while we get you cleaned up and ready to work.”
His smile seemed so warm and natural, like it had been carved by long years of good humor, like he had never practiced it a day in his life. Derek nodded, trying not to swoon.
Derek #2 arrived with a full med kit a couple minutes later, complaining loudly about the store’s labyrinthine sales floor and getting their boots wet, then barking, “Holy shit, what happened?” after catching sight of Derek.
Derek looked between Derek #1 and #2, trying to figure out his place in this taxonomy. If they were Dereks #1 and #2, what did that make Derek? Shouldn’t Derek get to be #1? Was he Derek prime? But Derek had never felt like a prime anything, he was always secondary to everyone’s concerns, even his own.
“Do I have a concussion?” Derek asked.
Derek #2 knelt down next to him. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out. Know what day it is?”
“Thursday,” he answered.
“How did you get hurt?”
“I was attacked. By a . . .” Derek hesitated; not because he didn’t remember, but because a predatory luxury toilet that camouflaged itself felt impossible to say.
Derek #2 smirked a little, continuing to examine Derek’s head for cuts or contusions, moving down to his neck and noting the bandage curiously.
“Cut yourself?”
“Shaving,” Derek said. “This morning.”
Derek #2 rolled the turtleneck back up. “Do you know where you are?”
“At work.”
#2 clicked a penlight on and shone it into his eyes. “And why?”
“I’m here for a special inventory shift.” He blinked until the after-image of the light faded from his vision, and he focused again on #2. “So, are you me? Is he? I’m really confused.”
Derek #2 sat back, and Derek tried to quickly catalog the differences between the two of them: #2 had longer wavy hair, pulled back in a tight braid that somehow softened the Derek’s features. Instead of the standard coveralls Derek #1 wore, this Derek’s uniform had cut-off sleeves and a collar dotted with an eclectic array of pins and patches: a skull, a raccoon wearing sunglasses and flipping the bird, one that said THEY/THEM BITCH, another that said THEM FATALE. Looking closer, Derek saw that the fabric of the coveralls was covered in a chaotic arrangement of drawings, patterns, and phrases. They didn’t seem to follow a single pattern or aesthetic; Derek could make out animals, plants, phrases, and a random assortment of objects. The largest and most impressive were jagged, stark letters drawn above their collarbones, edged with a silvery paint to make them stand out.
D E F E C T I V E, they spelled. The C dropped down into the center of their chest like a fishhook.
Derek looked back up and saw that Derek #2 was watching him. “You . . . don’t look as much like me, I guess.”
They smiled. “I’m choosing to take that as a compliment. You can call me Darkness,” they said, tapping a finger against their breast pocket. There was a name badge sewn on there, but whatever had been printed on it had been scribbled out, with “Darkness” handwritten to the side. There were a few other scribbles, making Derek wonder if they’d tried out other names before deciding on this one. Darkness jerked their head at Derek #1, who was standing vigil at the entrance to the playpen, scanner gun at the ready, checking each hallway at regular intervals. “That’s Dirk. He takes his job very seriously.”
That had never seemed like a bad thing to Derek. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”
Darkness’s smile turned wry. “Yeah, that sounds familiar.”
It was so weird, watching features that Derek was intimately familiar with form unfamiliar and unexpected expressions. It made him feel a little lightheaded. Darkness had moved down to Derek’s legs, peering through the torn-open knees to examine the skin beneath. They hissed softly at what they saw, but Derek barely felt anything.
“I’m hallucinating,” Derek said. “Right? This is . . . I can’t possibly be—”
“Getting your pants cut off by your sexy double?” Darkness asked as they slipped a pair of blunt emergency scissors along the seam of Derek’s chinos. “I know, it’s just like a dream.”
When the pant leg came away, it revealed a gash along the side of Derek’s shin sluggishly leaking blood and dark shadows of bruises blooming along his knees.
“Or maybe a nightmare,” Darkness said. “Yikes. Can you wiggle your toes for me?”
They went through his joints, Darkness running their hands over the worst of the bruises, pressing apologetically into them to see if there were any fractures or breaks. Derek felt too aware of the warmth of Darkness’s hands, even through the nitrile. It made something flutter in his chest, alien and fragile. He realized, with a jolt of embarrassment, that he couldn’t remember the last time someone had touched him on purpose.
“What’s his status?” Dirk called back over his shoulder.
“Banged up but not likely to bite it,” Darkness said, patting the last bit of gauze tape into place.
“We should get back to the others, then. We need to strategize if the defekta have already mutated this far.”
“
Defekta?” Derek asked.
Darkness maneuvered their body underneath his shoulder and levered him up. They smelled good, Derek thought deliriously. “The mutant furniture that tried to kill you. You don’t think that monster toilet came out of the box like that, do you?”
Derek, who had gotten fairly intimate with the egg chair toilet before it tried to maul him, shook his head. “Wait, are you my inventory team?” he asked.
* * *
The only thing weirder than encountering your doppelgänger was encountering four of them. There was Dirk, who was like Derek if someone had used a planer on his edges instead of sandpaper, possessed of chiseled features and an air of resolute authority. Darkness was Derek turned inside out, all the alienation he kept firmly tamped down and contained within himself pulled out and plastered across their skin.
Darkness had helped Derek hobble over to the breakroom, where the rest of the inventory team had holed up, waiting for him. “Most of the employee areas are furnished in earlier-gen stuff,” they had explained. “It’s all safe.”
And now there were two more Dereks: tall Derek and small Derek, though he could think of other binary pairs of adjectives to describe them. Early-thirties Derek and teenage Derek. Woman Derek and terrible cologne–wearing boy Derek. Curvy Derek and wiry Derek. Serene Derek and twitchy Derek, thrumming with energy. Derek with smooth, well-moisturized skin, and Derek with ashy patches over his elbows and acne scars pitted into his cheeks.
“I’m Delilah,” said the tall, serene, older Derek with the good skincare regimen. She waved a hand at the younger, fidgety Derek next to her, who didn’t even come up to her shoulder. “That’s Dex.”
Dex’s eyebrows drew together, unimpressed as he cast a gaze at Derek’s bruised, limping form. He tsked and said, “This bodes real well for the rest of the night.”
“Remember our conversation?” Delilah hissed at him. “About not being rude to people you are meeting for the first time?”
Dex snorted angrily. “I’m just saying that we’ve been here for all of ten minutes, and the new guy already—”
