The Third Bear by Jeff VanderMeer Page B

through a hierarchy. When this practice ended, we found ourselves locked in endless meetings in the cavernous meeting rooms on the forty-fifth floor. The rooms were more like the mess halls for refugees that I remembered from my teens. The windows provided an excellent view of the dying city, for those who wanted a reminder, but this was offset by the fact that we had to wear the slugs on our spines almost continually, and a herd of Human Resources people had to be ready to escort us at a moment's notice.
    Mord walked among them, but only to supervise, and at first he was quite friendly.

    The reason for the meetings was a new "fish" project. Our main client had asked for more products aimed at helping students. The latest project required the design of a grouper-like fish five times larger than the average nine-year-old child. By our various and immersive processes, we were to make being swallowed by this fish an educational experience. The student would be swallowed and subjected to sensory deprivation deep in the fish's guts. Then the student would be introduced to a number of neural stimuli, some to do with proper social adjustment, but most further enhancing their math/science skills.

    We worked from the flesh-and-blood scale model I had made in my office, which was linked to a chart on the meeting room wall that showed the fishas-blueprint, almost like the schematic of a ship's hull.
    The team had to solve numerous technical issues. For example, would the fish be terrestrial or aquatic? We could create it to move on land using hyper-muscular fins while it sucked air like a mudpuppy. If we went with this approach, the fish could be summoned to the classroom so the student could be engulfed during class sessions. Otherwise, each school would need a communal tank into which the student would dive. I liked this solution because the children could change into swimming gear and thus not ruin their school clothes. It also provided more privacy.
    In addition to the need for including defensive bioweaponry, we had to consider many other important issues. What shape and size should the fish's jaws be to cushion the child and minimize trauma? Should the fish talk in a reassuring manner to calm the child's fears of being eaten alive? Should it remain silent and allow the burden of providing reassurance to fall on the teacher?

    The meetings to answer these questions while developing the basic concept now involved the entire creative team. Everyone was ordered to contribute, and to this end the Manager issued us all brainstorming cockroaches. These were the tiny burrowing variety, suitable for inhaling through the nose, with only a whiff of sulfurous decay. A slight, scrabbling discomfort and then they released their calming pheromones and you could see more clearly than ever before and ideas came out of your mouth almost faster than you could speak them.
    This method worked fine in moderation, but not when everyone was issued the brainstorming cockroaches. The meetings became a babble of tongues, hours and days filled with circular thinking and unproductive repetition.
    "I-think-we-should-have-it-walk-on-its-fins-and-talk-with-a-gravelly-oldgrandfather-voice-like-my-grandfather-had-when-we-visited-him-in-the-home," Leer would say and I would say, "My-father-was-a-terse-man-but-a-depth of-feeling-often-welled-up-in-him-beneath-that-made-me-think-of-himas-generous-and-so-this-fish-should-be-all-efficiency-of-motion-but-deepdeep-deep" and Scarskirt would say "I-think-it-should-have-my-face-andmy-voice-whether-it-walks-on-land-or-just-swims-because-people-will-likethat-a nd-it-will-re assure-them."

    This high-volume stream of babble continued without end and without resolution while we remained euphoric within the cramped quarters of our own skulls.

    A Relevant Note on Office Culture
    I didn't know Scarskirt's background; nor did I know Mord's or Leer's background. We had all come to the company fleeing something in the city. People