Protection

Cerebrum was going over some files, during an interlude between
patients, when a security guard entered. Cerebrum looked up, "I'm
sorry, but you don't have an appointment. You can only receive
psychiatric assistance if you have an appointment, or if you make a
suitably large donation to the psychiatric department's fund."
"I'm not here for that, shrink-" he said.
"I prefer psychiatrist. Call me a shrink again, and I'll adjust your
profile enough so that they won't let you out of your quarters
without a straitjacket and an armed guard for the next seventy years."
"I'm here to collect protection money," the guard said, ignoring
Cerebrum, "It works like this, you give me some money each week and
your legs won't get broken."
They must be moving up quickly, Cerebrum thought, to start collecting
protection money from the departments as well as the promenade
stores. "How much do I have to pay then?"
"Five hundred dollarpounds. All the departments have to pay that."
"Ah, there's your problem. It's a flat fee. I recomend that it should
be a percentage of income, that way you get even more money from the
departments with a large budget. I recomend ten percent."
"You sure about that?"
"Trust me, I'm a psychiatrist."
"Well then, give me ten percent of your income, or I'll break your
legs."
"Okay, okay, don't break my legs. Let me get out my budget papers,"
Cerebrum told the guard, while going through his desk, "Ah, here we
are, let me see. Okay, accounting for electricity, water, heat,
equipment, computer time, paper, other office supplies, furnishing
and pharmeceutical products. Add that together, subtract it from
projected income, let's see," he punched in numbers on a
calculator, "There we go, we're running at a loss of 15,450. Divide
by ten, and I owe you negative 1,905 dollarpounds. So, just hand it
over and we'll be even."
The security guard, being to stupid to understand, gave over the cash
and marked off the psychiatric department as paid on his sheet.
After he left, Cerebrum flipped off the recorder he had surrepitously
flipped on when the guard came in and copied, it was becoming a
habit, the contents to the evidence tape, not knowing he was under
steady observation at the time on the security cameras. He leaned
back in his chair, content in the knowledge that he know possesed the
means to make his department's financial future secure. "Just another
day until my equipment arrives, then I'll be able to have the
satisfaction of curing people by running large amounts of electricity
through their bodies."