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SUMMARY: Inspired by a question in my Chinese History class. For an audio version of this story go to www.williamhrdina.com

"The Cola War"
William Hrdina

Harold Pinter approached the bright neon logo and knelt down before it. His supplication was assisted by a thinly padded red plastic kneeler placed in front of the most central word in Harold's life.
--Pepsi--
His knees were almost immediately sore. The padding mainly served as a mockery to comfort.
Although Harold couldn't see it- he knew that behind the bright neon logo was a very sophisticated brain-scanning device. Even though he couldn't feel it, he knew the device was examining whether or not the "creative" centers of his brain were activated. If they were, the machine would know his words weren't true. At least that was the theory- Harold knew very well the theory had flaws.
He began to speak, "Today, I took a moment to daydream after I went to the urinal during my afternoon sabbatical."
True. Pause.
"Today, I felt the desire to sleep in and be late for work."
True. Pause.
"Today I let someone else go in front of me on the way into the factory."
It was best to stick to these sort of digressions- the ones everyone was guilty of- no matter how dedicated they were to Pepsi. If you reported for 3 minutes without anything getting flagged as a lie the mind reading machine was shut off and you were checked off as having performed your supplication.
There was no reason to waste resources on people blathering on about how they had to re-do a document because they failed to format it properly the first time. The point of the supplication wasn't to find slackers.
The point was to find the liars.
To root them out like gophers from their holes.
"The Supplication of the Individual Worker to the Great Pepsi" as described on the 1,088th page of the Pepsi Workers Manual doesn't mention a thing about the brain-scanning device hidden behind the great logo.
Pepsi didn't want its workers to know how they knew everything. They knew everything. That was all that mattered.
The PWM does mention that any employee who doesn't supplicate at least twice a week will be subject to termination.
Termination is a very literal term when used in the Pepsi Workers Manual.
The book had a nickname. People called it ‘Pepsi's Little Blue Book' (or the PLBB, PL Double-B, or PLB2) even though it had over 3,000 pages and came in 2 volumes- usually weighing around 5 pounds.
And the printing was really teeny.
Font size 4.
This was why the far more popular version was "The Little Blue Book Website"
It had a nifty search engine called Poogle.
Harold knew about the brain scanning device because he was on the team that invented it. He was told the device would be used as a weapon against the enemy- to know if a captured spy was telling the truth. Instead, they were put into Supplication Stations and used to enforce an iron efficiency on the people.
The enemy of anything Pepsi was, of course, Coca-Cola.
It was possible they were using the scanner against the Coca-Cola spies- but that was beside the point.
In truth, Harold was mad at himself for inventing something without thinking about what it would be used for- like Val Kilmer in Real Genius- only without a house filled with popcorn.
Everyone person alive in Pepsi belonged to a Division within Pepsi.