Homicidal Spreadsheet

Hannah bent a pink paper clip out of shape. She knew the Spreadsheet sensed her sky-high levels of stress. A report was due and nothing added up the way it was supposed to for the management meeting.

She rarely had time for lunch and resented colleagues who took the full hour, but she needed a break from the screen. She put on her long coat with the fake fur collar and bought a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from the newsagents.

Standing on the pavement, she smoked two cigarettes back-to-back, watching men in hard hats and hi-vis vests direct a beeping lorry as it reversed down a narrow street.

She entered the revolving glass door of the office and stepped through to the foyer. The receptionist, an attractive young girl who became tearful in thunderstorms, gave a smile so friendly it struck Hannah as offensive. Deliberately ignoring the girl, she pressed the button for the lift and read a quote stencilled to the wall about happiness from a comedian who suffered from depression.

The lift ascended and a feeling of anxiety made her stomach churn. Without trying to appear desperate, she walked fast to a toilet cubicle and, sitting herself on the seat, wondered if she should resign to avoid the humiliation of the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Operating Officer asking questions she could not answer in the meeting. Her financial forecasts were so far off the mark it could easily be interpreted as incompetence.

Davina, her partner, dreamed about the two of them starting their own dog walking business, which they’d call Toodle Poodle—quit the office life altogether. Davina was convinced that stress was the source of Hannah’s irritable bowel syndrome and said “a toxic workplace killed more people than bombs ever will”.

Hannah didn’t know about murderous bombs. She did have her own suspicions when it came to spreadsheets. She hung her coat on the stand and sat at her desk, pressing the spacebar on her laptop for the screen to come alive. She logged in and the Spreadsheet stared back at her with its seemingly endless, cell-shaped eyes, stacked one on top of the other.

“How’s the report coming along?” said Simon Pinnick, the Chief Operating Officer.

“Getting there.”

“Have you figured out the problem?”

“I believe so” 

“What do you think it is?”

Hannah decided to opt for the truth and said, “The Spreadsheet wants me dead.”

He laughed without sympathy and said, “Comes with the territory.”

She wondered why he thought she was joking.

“Let me know when you’ve resolved the issue.”

It was a relief when he walked off. Simon’s reaction was typical. Nobody listened to each other in the company. How could he think she was messing about? He must know what spreadsheets were capable of doing to humans. This one was inside her. Its cells multiplying and expanding. She felt violated by its cancerous computations. Homicidal reconciliations. Blood-tinged pivot tables. A perpetrator of month-end massacres. The Spreadsheet would not obey her instructions. The chain of command was inverted and it was now inputting information into her, linking together thoughts and emotions into a giant formula of despair.

She wished she could phone the police so the Spreadsheet would be arrested for its crimes. That detectives could make links to the breakdowns, illnesses and outright fatalities in private and public sector organisations across different countries and continents. From Manchester to Mogadishu, the Spreadsheet was a torturer, sadist and mega serial killer of a hitherto unknown level of psychopathy, uniquely programmed into the capitalist system.

A grand impersonator. Imposter. It could shapeshift into the CEO. The COO. The Prime Minister. President. Governor of the Central Bank and Kingpin behind clandestine federations, shadow administrations and criminal networks.

Even if it was arrested, it wouldn’t care. “I did it,” the Spreadsheet would say, dismissive of judgments, verdicts and so-called punishment.

Cells and bars were its natural habitat.  

So long as there was money to be made, she knew it would continue to exist in other platforms and technologies, thriving like a virus.

And all the while, the cells stared back at her, unfeeling and cold.

She was unable to solve this humungous issue all by herself. She turned to the graduate data analyst next to her and said, “I don’t think this is right. Could you take a look?”

The graduate jumped from their seat, alarmed.

Hannah tried speaking again and the graduate stepped backwards and stumbled away. She realised she was speaking in formulas and calculations.

Shoving the monitor connected to her laptop off the desk, she walked across the office. Her colleagues were no longer formed of heads, torsos, arms and legs. All she saw were asterixis’, slashes, brackets, pluses and minuses. She pushed the stairwell door, staggering down the steps. Algorithms burst and exploded in the air. She stopped and vomited an entire VLOOKUP onto her snakeskin patterned shoes. She made it to the ground floor. The happiness quote by the sad comedian was now a shimmering mass of everchanging digits and symbols.

Hannah never reached the other side of the revolving door. She simply kept circling like she was imprisoned in a roundabout of glass.

Ciphers flooded her mind and choked her breathing.

Raindrops loaded with numbers and signs began to fall from the ceiling. There was a flash of white light, followed by a roll of thunder.

The receptionist came from behind the desk and stood with her hands pressed to her face, calling out Hannah’s name in the storm.

Crying.