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Eclairs Fawn here, just going about my job, serving his Majesty, Herald Stone. Yes, my surname is Fawn. Like a baby deer. I have food for a first name and an animal for a last name. Shaking my head, I pushed the issue of my name to the back of my mind. It’s not like I could blame my parents. I could barely even remember them since they died when I was five years old. 

“Why the fuck did he buy this panda?” I said, staring at a huge toy sitting on my desk. The panda leaned on a box of friggin’ expensive coffee.

A stuffed panda and kopi luwak, civet coffee. Not the most unusual things the boss gave me.

If I remembered correctly, the kopi luwak was given to Herald by a client of ours, an Indonesian businessman who started expansion in our country. I could understand why Herald gave me the kopi luwak since he rarely drunk coffee. He always says that it messes up his sleeping pattern. As for me, coffee was the elixir of the gods, ambrosia, the jumpstart of my day. Such an expensive coffee too, this kopi luwak. And I got a whole bag!

I knew he was going to give me the coffee the day the client gave it to him as a gift. Herald always gave me the stuff he received that he doesn’t want. And he receives a lot of gifts from our clients. Which meant that he gives away most of it to me.

Boss kept on calling the kopi luwak, cat’s butt coffee. He probably meant the civet cat? But a civet cat was not really a cat. I grinned as I prepared the coffee. I knew something that he doesn’t. It felt good to be more knowledgeable than him in some things.

I still don’t know why he bought the toy panda. When I asked him earlier, he kept talking about cloned pandas. He gave me the stuffed toy because, apparently, in his own words, “he has already done his part in saving pandas by buying the toy.”

I shook my head as I poured coffee into my cup. Closing my eyes, I savored the nutty aftertaste of authentic kopi luwak. Definitely one of the better things Herald gave me. I hope I could say the same about the stuffed panda.

This was not the first time he brought something weird with him to work. He also often gave me the things he bought on impulse on the way to work. I have a shelf in my house full of the nonsense things he gave me. A golden lava lamp, a wood statue of an Aztec god, a crystal skull mug, just to name a few.

Sighing, I said, “He’s turning my house into a storage for all his junk.” I stopped stirring. What I said could be a penis joke. Herald would have appreciated my phrasing.  

There was a knock on my glass door. Rachel, the energetic, upbeat, new intern, was outside. With a press on my wrist, the door opened.

“Miss Fawn,” she said. “I have the files. I couldn’t believe that this law firm is so thorough. Doing background checks the moment a prospective client comes in through the front door.”

“Did you include the files of her husband? The one that died?”

“Yes, Miss Fawn. The ones from estate planning,” she said. “What’s that? A stuffed panda? It’s so cute!” She rushed to pick it up and hug it. “Who gave it to you?” Her eyes sparkled as she cradled the panda.  

“Err…Mr. Stone,” I said.

“Maybe he likes you,” Rachel said in hushed tones. “This is such a cute gift.”

“He doesn’t like me. You know our boss, he’s a very generous person. Sometimes he even orders pizza for everyone just for the heck of it.”

“Really?” she said, her tone indicating she didn’t believe what I said. “That’s too bad. Uh…I mean, you two look good together.”

“Thanks for the files, Rachel. I think Mrs. Fellington from the Tax Division wants your help,” I said. Rachel got the hint that it was the end of the conversation and left.

I thought about what Rachel said as I drunk my coffee. Herald would give gifts to people so that they would like him for being so generous. It was all a sham for him. He's just boosting his likeability. But I already knew that he was an asshole...so why would he bother giving me gifts? 

Does this mean that he really liked me? Ew, gross, I thought, shuddering.

I finished the contents of my cup and went to the conference room with the folder tucked under my arm. Doors automatically opened as they detected my WeeCee. It was very convenient that we could sync our WeeCees with the central system of the building. Plus, my WeeCee had master access to the whole building since I’m practically the right hand of god, Herald Stone. I wonder why the boss didn’t want to have a wrist chip implanted in him. He already has a spinal port; a wrist chip was just a tiny body modification compared to it.

“Maybe he couldn’t make any excuses why he isn’t able to take a call if he had a WeeCee in his body,” I muttered as I neared the door of the conference room. Herald don’t like people calling him if he didn’t want to talk to them.

Inside the conference room was a mother with her two children. She was very beautiful although in her late forties, according to our files. She’s the wife of a former client whom we did tax estate planning for. He died a few years ago, his heirs, meaning this woman and her children, benefitting millions from the tax avoidance measures we took to preserve the estate of her husband.

I smiled at them when I entered. Herald introduced me as I handed him the folder. He opened the folder and said, “Ah, here are the files of your husband. I’ll just read through them while Jenny here explains to you what tax measures we could have taken to reduce the taxes on your inheritance from your father.” I knew that he wasn’t actually reading the files of the late husband because I’m sure Herald remembered all about it even though a few years had passed. He was really reading about all the information we have found on the prospective clients.

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Sitting at on the other side of Herald and across the prospective clients, I turned on the computer attached to the conference table. I could have uploaded the files to the computer rather than printing it, putting it in a folder, and giving it to Herald, but the boss always told me that passing folders and documents to one another made it look like you’re very professional and busy.  Impressions, impressions, impressions.

From the lecture that Jenny, one of our accountants, was giving, I gathered that the woman’s father died a year ago. She inherited a large tract of land that she was currently leasing out. Obviously, the inheritance taxes were enormous. She remembered that when her husband died, there was next to no taxes paid because of our firm but she had difficulty finding the files of her husband pertaining to our law firm that was why she only visited now. Jenny was explaining to her how much taxes they could have saved if only the great and glorious Herald Stone was there to help them.

Essentially, it was Herald telling them that they lost that much many because they didn't come to him. But they wouldn't view it that way. They would think that Herald was very helpful, explaining to them very complicated legal matters. 

I narrowed my eyes as I read Herald’s notes on her husband in our files. Mrs. Gilligan is a trophy wife. Both for beauty and for connections to her father. This dick, referring to the late Mr. Gilligan, is probably cheating on his wife. Wife knows absolutely nothing about the business of her husband. I haven't even met her! Herald absolutely hated cheating spouses because it made tax estate planning so hard. What if an illegitimate child shows up? All his hard work would crumble. Our country has very strict laws on the inheritance of illegitimate children.

Herald actually was very supportive of illegitimate children if they do show up, sometimes to the detriment of the client’s legitimate family. “It’s not the fault of the kid that their parents were horny adulterous fuckers,” Herald would say to me in private when cases like that showed up. It was times like those that made me think that Herald was actually a good person inside. 

Or not. 

Mrs. Gilligan came to our office to ask for legal assistance in disposing of the property. She's very confident that we would be able to reduce the taxes that she would pay. 

Herald told her, "Mrs. Gilligan, what we would do for now is to make a company in which you will own ninety-nine percent of the shares. Then this company will lease the land that you own. So you will both own the land and the company that will lease the land. Your company will then sublease the land to the current corporation that's renting it? They're the ones who were expressing interest in buying your land, right?"

"Ye-yes," Mrs. Gilligan managed to say. She was still confused with the explanation of Herald. "I'll sell the land to myself?"

"Mrs. Gilligan, if we sell the land outright, a large tax rate will be imposed on it because, and I'm not sure about this since we haven't checked the land, it is a business asset, or classified as such since your father was in real estate." Herald's lying since we already checked the land and indeed it was still classified as a business asset. Herald said, "What we want to sell instead are the shares of the corporation that will own the land. 

"Just bear me with here, Mrs. Gilligan. You make a corporation, the corporation will buy the land with shares of stock. Since you're selling to yourself, it will be tax-free. Don't worry, we will make sure that you comply with the requirements to make it tax-free. Then you sell all the shares of this corporation to the buyer of the land. Taxes on sale of shares of stock is lower compared to if you sell the land outright."

Jenny then touted out her calculations on how much taxes would be saved. The amount of money saved was enough to convince Mrs. Gilligan that we knew what we were doing. 

After the family left, Herald told Jenny, "Thank you very much for your help. I could have never explained it as clearly as you did."

Jenny blushed, pleased with herself. "Thank you, sir."

"I'll order pizza for everyone for your job well done. Have a nice day, Jenny."

"You gotta stop ordering pizza all the time," I said as Jenny exited the conference room. "You will make everyone fat." 

"Make sure that there's vegan pizza for our employers that don't eat meat."

Do you seriously care about them? "Uh-huh. I never forget about that. Is there anything else you need?"

"The board resolutions for the day?"

"I'll deliver them to your office later." Our lawyers were also directors of several companies. Each of them probably sat on the board of about twenty companies each. When you're making tons of subsidiaries for your clients, the best way to control those companies was to be the directors of these companies. Our clients trusted us, a hundred percent.

"One last thing," he said. "Can artificial intelligence understand jokes?"

"Huh?" Here we go. His thoughts are wandering again. "Does this have something to do with pandas?"

"No, no. Pandas can go fuck themselves so that they don't become extinct. I'm talking about AI. Can they understand jokes?"

"Well, there are robots that can make jokes. Even sarcastic robots. I mean, I saw articles about those on the internet," I said. "There were some robots that made jokes in a World Expo several years back."

"No, not that. You can program robots to make jokes. A joke has a structure so that you can make an algorithm for it."

"Woah, so you're a programmer now? Want me to add that to your resume along with wrestler and fencer?"

"You should also add Divine Being to my resume," he said. "Anyway, making a joke is not the same as understanding a joke. An AI could be programmed to recognize a joke but they won't understand why it's funny."

"Of course, not. Sense of humor is a human thing. For example, you like juvenile jokes while I think they're stupid. Sense of humor is developed as we grow and will be different from person to person. I don't think an AI can understand why a penis joke is funny. But you think it's funny."

"Why do people expect intelligent people to have witty and complicated jokes? Juvenile jokes are harder to deliver when you're in the company of educated people, but if you make them laugh, that means your delivery of the joke is on another level. Godlike sense of humor." He leaned back on his chair. "I bet I could say 'Diarrhea' in the meeting with JYE later and make everyone laugh."

"Please don't. And why are you asking if AI can understand jokes?"

"Nothing. Nothing. You may go now, peasant. Your king has no more need of you."

"Ugh. I better go before I get infected with your juvenile sense of humor." 

Back in my office, I was still intrigued by what Herald asked. Why would he ask about AIs? That was actually an interesting question. Could AIs understand what was funny about a joke? Maybe you could program them to laugh when they recognize a joke but they wouldn't know why it was funny. 

I found the possible reason why he asked that question when I delivered documents that needed his signature inside his office. He wasn't inside so I simply left myself in. Thank you, master access. Herald doesn't mind that I go inside his office, anyway. 

I tiptoed to his desk and took a peek of his monitor. 

"Guides for Nornyr Online." I read. "Wasn't that the game of JYE company? He's playing the game?"

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