Excerpt: Bureaucracy

On reaching the main examination office, he encountered, to his surprise, an office registrar on the front desk rather than the junior secretary he’d been expecting. He did remember, on reflection, that there were a few registrars who worked on higher levels permanently; after all, however highly-placed the office, it still needed somebody to do the routine filing. But he’d expected such a person to be shoved out of sight in the back office, not brazenly exposed to all comers on the front desk.

The citizen had a normal-sized nose, not more than usually pimply, and Charlie concluded that it wasn’t the same he’d spoken to over the comm. He gave much the same affronted squawk when Charlie asked for a freeze-hold, though.

“Where’s your authorisation?” he asked, rather rudely.

Charlie, fighting the powerful urge to treat the desk clerk as a superior, but painfully aware that he was here on no authority but his own, inadequate though it was, handed over the forms. The registrar took them, looked over the first three casually, counter-signed the fourth on the spot adding a “Pp:” and an illegible scrawl, put the fifth to one side with a muttered, “Need a proper signature for that one.” and made a great pretence of shuffling through them for the sixth, which obviously wasn’t there.

“Where’s your slash-B?” he asked.

Charlie fixed the desk in front of him with a steady stare, and confessed that he didn’t have one.

The clerk sniffed. “Can’t process this without a slash-B. Unauthorised freeze-hold could stuff up half our systems. I mean, you could be a saboteur for all I know. How am I to tell that you really work for Examinations?”

Wordlessly, Charlie handed over his permit. The clerk looked at it as if he’d been given a month-old yeast cake. “You’re new at this, aren’t you?” asked the clerk, in a more friendly tone. “Who’s your supervisor … ah.” he added, finding this information in one of Charlie’s forms before he could collect himself enough to answer. “Beatrice Gredior 6653AA38-432A-4929-9E77-BAEF86D5FBC5. It makes sense she’d send you out after a freeze-hold, specially if you’ve never requested one before. I tell you what you need to do—” it seemed to be the standard way for a desk clerk to announce that he was doing you a favour that wasn’t really a favour—”College assessor Julia Samar 9A627B10-9AEF-4D7C-9D8F-B0C0A9599425.” He tapped keys for a moment and came up with a slip with the name on it, which he handed to Charlie. “She works on this level, your permit will probably get you to her office. Go to her and say that your supervisor has sent you for a form 778-3f42.” Another slip joined the first.

“But I don’t want a—” Charlie began to protest.

“No you don’t.” agreed the desk clerk cheerfully. “But she’ll never give you what you want straight off. But if you ask for a ‘42, that could shut down our entire department for a week, and needs two assessorial signatures to get it. Then she asks what in the Empire you want it for, you tell her, and she says, no you don’t want a ‘42, you really want a slash-B … see?” he asked, in a way that momentarily reminded Charlie of Stephen, and set him a-tremble again for a moment until he came back to himself.

“I—” Charlie attempted.

“I tell you what, why don’t I get on and check these,” and he grabbed the stack of forms off the desk, “while you go and find your slash-B.”