Flight or Fight (The Out of Dodge Trilogy Book 1)

by Scott Bartlett

  The user had provided a link to his friend’s post. Carl followed it. It turned out the friend had praised CabLab, while the complainer’s post had criticized the company.

  In cases like this one, it used to be SafeTalk policy to distinguish between two such posts by explaining why the complainer’s post was infringing while the friend’s was not. That had required a lot of effort, though, and it also exposed SafeTalk to liability, since in doing so the company was committing to a specific interpretation of trademark law that it could be called on to defend in court.

  “Oops!” Carl wrote in his reply. “Your friend’s post must have slipped through our filters. I will ensure hers is deleted as well. Thank you for bringing this additional violation to our attention!”

  As promised, Carl deleted the friend’s post before sending her a message crediting the complainer with notifying SafeTalk that she had violated CabLab’s trademark. As a result, she would likely send the complainer a message like this: “Thanks a lot for getting my post deleted, asshole.” She might even make a public post about it, shaming him for his snitching. He would probably never complain to SafeTalk again.

  This approach had, in fact, been Carl’s innovation, for which he’d received zero acknowledgment from his superiors. That was the way of contract work: you worked a contract as cheerfully as possible, and during that time the company employing you took credit for any ideas you might have had. If the company decided your usefulness had expired before your contract end date a manager would suggest you break off the contract. That would look bad on your record, but the dirt they’d dig up, should you refuse to leave, would look even worse.

  All this served to explain the level of shock Carl experienced after lunch, when his boss, Morrowne, called him into his office to give him a promotion.

  Morrowne sat with his belly straining against his desk and puffed on a non-carcinogenic cigar clamped between his ample lips. A man with whom Carl wasn’t acquainted sat in a plush recliner off to the side.

  “Mr. Morrowne,” Carl said. “Good afternoon.”

  Morrowne was a geezer, which was uncommon for anyone wealthy; most people purchased an airplane ticket long before they accumulated as much money as Morrowne had.

  “Intoever,” Morrowne said, “this is Xavier Ofvalour.”

  Carl glanced at the man in the recliner. “No, it’s not,” he said.

  The man raised his eyebrows, and Morrowne said, “Excuse me?”

  Carl looked again, and his heart rate tripled. “Schrödinger’s cat! It really is, isn’t it?”

  “It really is,” Xavier Ofvalour said.

  Xavier Ofvalour was the most successful man in all of Dodge: strong, shrewd, and (as a direct consequence) rich. He was revered. Famous, of course. A thrill-seeking mastermind, he could squeeze money from a turnip, or so it was said. And he occupied the top spot on the LifeRank leaderboard, a rank that conferred the title Hand of the Market.

  “I apologize, Mr. Ofvalour,” Carl said. “My worldview didn’t accommodate us ever meeting. I need to make some quick adjustments to it. I didn’t mean to deny you. That was rude of me, Mr. Ofvalour, and no offense was meant.”

  “You have a strange way of talking.”

  “But rest assured,” Morrowne said. “He’s the best in his department.”

  Carl raised his eyebrows, feeling overwhelmed by this torrent of recognition.

  “Well,” Xavier Ofvalour said, “fine. But it’s not enough for me to know he’s the best. I must know why. What makes you so good at what you do, Mr. Intoever?”

  Morrowne’s brow furrowed. “You’ve seen his WorkStars profile, haven’t you? Five-star ratings, pretty much across the board. Did you read the reviews?”

  “I asked Mr. Intoever a question, Morrowne.”

  “I’m good because I hate it,” Carl said. “I hate this job, just like I’ve hated every job I’ve ever taken. I hate my life, too. Hatred motivates me to take more jobs, and to excel at them, because the harder I work the quicker I can leave Dodge forever.”

  “But everyone hates life here, don’t they? If we’re speaking frankly.”

  “Well, let’s not—” Morrowne began, but Xavier Ofvalour silenced him with a gesture.

  “We all know of your sacrifice, Mr. Morrowne. It’s identical to mine. We remain in Dodge to perform the necessary administrative work. Someone’s got to do it, and anyway we’re lavishly rewarded. But I’m still curious about Mr. Intoever’s effectiveness. Are you suggesting, Mr. Intoever, that you have an above-average hatred for your life? Are you saying you hate your life with uncommon verve?”

  “In essence.”

  “Very well, then. Tell him what I want, Mr. Morrowne.”

  Morrowne cleared his throat. “Mr. Ofvalour has acquired FutureBrite, a residential youth care company.”

  Carl opened his mouth to speak, but closed it again. He glanced at Xavier Ofvalour, whose expression was neutral. “Ah,” Carl said.

  “Yes. I’m sure you’re aware of the attendant controversies. Busybodies calling them ‘kid farms,’ claiming they place profit before children.” Morrowne spread his hands. “But what’s the alternative? A government-run organization?”

  “We’d need to establish a government for that,” Xavier Ofvalour said, and they all shared a laugh, even Carl.

  “Anyhow,” Morrowne said. “Mr. Ofvalour is under heavy fire on the networks for his acquisition—too much for us to address using SafeTalk’s current infrastructure. Which is why he’s commissioning the creation of an entirely new department devoted solely to protecting youth care brands. Certainly, it will focus almost entirely on FutureBrite, but no one need know that.”

  “My girlfriend probably already knows, though,” Carl said. “She has access to my lifelog and monitors it frequently. And my insurance company—”

  “Don’t be daft,” Xavier Ofvalour said. “Your lifefeed paused the moment you entered the office.”

  “Of course,” Carl said. Maria wouldn’t like that.

  “We’re calling it the Youth Dignity Department,” Morrowne said. “We need someone to head it. And check your scruples at the door, Intoever, because you won’t get an opportunity like this again.”

  Carl blinked. “You’re…you’re choosing me?”

  Morrowne exchanged glances with Xavier Ofvalour. “Did I stutter?”

  “No, sir,” Carl said. “And rest assured” —he patted his pockets— “no scruples here! Did I mention how much I hate my life?” He gave a nervous laugh, but this time he laughed alone.

  “Perform this task well, and you’ll be out of Dodge before you know it,” Xavier Ofvalour said. “I doubt you’ll need to sign another contract again.”

  “I’ll do it,” Carl said, finding the prospect of escaping Dodge sooner than he’d projected thoroughly exciting.

  “Of course you will,” Morrowne said, exchanging glances with Xavier Ofvalour as he cleared his throat. “Should we let Intoever know about the other reason for creating the department?”

  Xavier Ofvalour nodded. “It’s best for him to be fully informed.”

  “Very well. A big reason we’re doing this, Intoever, is that a week ago someone stole two hundred thousand sensitive documents from FutureBrite’s private servers. We don’t yet know who did it, but we do know that only an employee of the company could have that kind of access. We suspect that whoever took the documents is looking for a way to release them. So it’s our job to ensure no such platform exists, while keeping FutureBrite’s reputation as spotless as possible to shelter it against the enormous risk posed by these leaks.”

  “What was in the documents?” Carl asked.

  “Damning stuff,” Xavier Ofvalour said. “Damning enough to sink the company, in all likelihood. And that’s all you need to know.”

  “Understood.”

  “Take the rest of the day off, Intoever,” Morrowne said. “It would be proper to celebrate with your significant other. Tomorrow you’ll begin your new position.”
/>
  “Thank you, Mr. Morrowne. Thank you, Mr. Ofvalour.”

  “Don’t disappoint,” Xavier Ofvalour said as Carl left the office.

  Gathering his things from his workstation, Carl decided that most of all, this felt like vindication. He’d always known, being Schrödinger reborn, that he was destined for great things, but he’d been waiting a long time, and he’d suffered enough for ten messiahs. Could his work defending Xavier Ofvalour’s new initiative tie in somehow with the divine duty Carl was destined to perform?

  Probably not, he decided, remembering what Morrowne said about checking his scruples. Whatever destiny had in store for Carl as messiah, it probably involved scruples. But at the very least this new position would help him get to the actual ‘being a good person’ part a lot sooner.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Walking home, buffeted by the fiercely rising wind, it occurred to Carl that this new contract might prove so lucrative that it would take him well past the point of being able to afford a plane ticket out of Dodge. He could be obliged to stay here longer than necessary. The prospect alarmed him.

  He arrived home to find all his belongings piled at the bottom of the access pole, a few of them broken. They appeared not to have been lowered gently, but dropped—perhaps even thrown with great force. He exchanged looks with a neighbor, who was also arriving home. The neighbor gave a sympathetic shrug and started shimmying up his own pole.

  Maria’s rages came frequently, and when his behavior was the cause (which was usually) his belongings tended to end up arrayed as they were now, piled around the access pole for all to see. He paused for a moment to contemplate how he would explain the gap in his lifelog created by his meeting with Morrowne and Xavier Ofvalour, given that their conversation was supposed to be kept secret.

  He texted Maria, in a futile attempt at discretion. “Is anything wrong, sweetheart?”

  Her response came immediately in the form of a ragged scream through the open access hole. “It’s over, scumbag!”

  “I know what this is about,” he texted, “and it’s not what you think.”

  “I saw you ogling that whore!” she called through the hole. “For over three seconds!” Her voice became slightly softer, and a sob entered it. “I watched it over and over.”

  For a moment Carl stared at his phone in confusion, trying desperately to make sense of the situation. Then he remembered: Brenda. He’d forgotten his momentary lapse of self-control.

  Maria didn’t work; she sat home all day and invested in various stocks, gradually squandering her inheritance. Most people in Dodge didn’t have inheritances to squander, since parents tended to take all their money west with them to the New World. But Maria’s parents had died years before they could afford their airplane tickets, leaving Maria with a small fortune, which by now had mostly evaporated.

  Carl didn’t text this time. “I’m sorry, Maria,” he called up to her. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  That really was the best he could muster.

  “It’s pretty clear what you were thinking, Carl. You were thinking about how to get inside that skirt and give those tight little harlot-mounds a squeeze.”

  “Maria, you monitor my lifelog constantly. You would instantly know if I went out on you. But I never watch yours. If anyone’s going to cheat in this relationship it’ll be you.”

  “How dare you, you asshole.” She slammed the hatch, and locked it presumably.

  He had a key, but he knew better than to attempt entry. Maria would get past this business, or she wouldn’t. Meanwhile, he felt something vague about what he’d said. Remorse, maybe. Who knew? More strongly, he felt he didn’t deserve to be the object of her ferocity. He dug through the pile of his belongings till he found some clean underwear and placed them inside his briefcase. Then he started for the exit again, leaving the rest of his stuff where it lay. Any thieves would have to haul it up their own poles, and better them than him really. Getting anything sizable into a residence was a tremendous bother.

  It struck him, then, how strange it was that Maria had noticed him checking out Brenda but hadn’t questioned the gap in his lifelog caused by the meeting with Morrowne and Xavier Ofvalour. But he mentally shrugged it off. He certainly wasn’t about to ask her about it. It wasn’t as though Maria behaving suspiciously was novel.

  Walking aimlessly through the streets, he knew who he must now call. The same person he always called while waiting to see whether a spat with Maria would blow over. He dreaded it, though, and wanted to put it off as long as possible. In the meantime, he would buy himself a gourmet coffee from a high-end café to celebrate his promotion. And because he deserved it.

  Sitting in a corner, waiting for his inordinately expensive beverage to cool, he watched as some panhandler tried to convince the barista that he was the messiah—Schrödinger made manifest on earth, here to save humankind from eternal damnation, or some bollocks—and therefore deserved to receive a half-caf non-fat latte without paying for it.

  Carl shook his head. Poor fool. He wasn’t Schrödinger: Carl was.

  This was something he’d dealt with his entire life. Every few months he would hear of a false Schrödinger who announced that he or she had “finally arrived” to rescue humanity and lead it to the light. Everyone assumed they were crazy, of course, and did their best to ignore them. But some of the false messiahs became unruly when they realized no one would believe them. They ended up on prison barges, often causing some property damage in the process. There had been injuries, too. Even some deaths.

  It made being the actual Schrödinger very tedious. Carl had never bothered revealing himself to anyone. Who would believe him?

  What was more, he doubted it would do much good even if people did believe. His idea of salvation involved a radical restructuring of Dodgian society, which no one else seemed to want. Everyone seemed content to let all the injustices continue, festering, while they strove to leave Dodge forever. What good would it do, trying to change anything? He would leave, too.

  He took his first sip of the latte and recoiled from the cup, inhaling sharply to soothe his scalded tongue.

  The crazy bum wouldn’t leave off, and the barista eventually had to call the customer service representatives, who used their paralyzers to freeze the imbecile from the neck down and then hauled him away as he stridently advised they repent. Carl guessed he probably didn’t have a LifeRank membership. The reps wouldn’t go lightly on him.

  His drink gone, he threw the cup into the appropriate receptacle, which, matching his biometrics with his consumption record, would tally up the resources used. Outside, it was getting dark. He could think of several more things he felt entitled to, but none of them really appealed. Besides, it wouldn’t do for him to remain out in public for too long. Someone might notice, which could engender rumors that his home life wasn’t stable. And that could jeopardize his LifeRank.

  He sighed. The time had come to call his father.

  Thomas Intoever answered on the second ring. “You’ve had a spat.”

  “Correct.”

  “Come on, then.” His father hung up.

  Thomas lived near the edge of a different residence block, and Carl gave thanks for that distance every day. When he arrived, he climbed up the access pole and grabbed one of the handles located near the hatch with one hand, ringing the bell with the other. His brother, Leo, lived with his father, and it was Leo who opened the hatch. Carl swung his legs up onto the porch floor and hoisted himself up.

  “Dad’s got supper on the table,” his brother said. “Rushed to prepare it immediately after you called. It’s his new passive-aggressive thing, making meals early enough they’re cold by the time they’re eaten.”

  Carl nodded.

  “Supper’s cold,” his father said when he entered the dining room.

  “Makes no odds to me.” Carl sat down and started tucking in.

  His father held a piece of cutlery in each hand, and now he dropped them both. The
y clattered against the perimeter of his plate, spraying a little spaghetti sauce sideways. “Do you know how hard this all is for me?” he said theatrically.

  Carl stopped chewing and looked up, blank-faced. “Why, father,” he said around a mouthful of half-masticated spaghetti. “Into every life a little rain must fall.”

  Leo’s laughter sent more tomato sauce across the tablecloth, and their father stood up. He threw his plate against the wall, rather like a discus-thrower. Carl admired his form.

  Thomas marched out of the room, kicking the wall as he went, and Leo shook his head, grinning. “You are devilish.”

  “Into every life a little rain must fall” was the phrase Thomas Intoever wanted his descendants’ last names to spell out. Before marrying, Thomas’s last name had been Into, and his mother’s and father’s names had been In and To, respectively.

  The practice had its roots in the equality struggles that had plagued humanity around a millennium ago. Back then, society pretended to be a meritocracy, but in fact it was weighted against people of certain races, sexual preferences, and genders. A measure that became popular among those who sought to redress the imbalance between men and women involved married couples combining their last names with a hyphen, whereas historically the bride would abandon hers for her husband’s. But this solution became problematic for later generations: if a Smith-Jenkins married an Akbar-Green, you got a Smith-Jenkins-Akbar-Green, which was unwieldy. Many began converting their family names into acronyms, and not long after that the first family embarked on a multi-generational project to spell out something sage using their accumulated names.

  Success in these endeavors came to represent true dedication to equality. If you chose a life partner out of devotion to an ideal rather than compatibility, you had to be a legitimately fair person. Nowadays, marrying according to a family phrase boosted your LifeRank significantly, and it also got you a discount on plane tickets, providing you purchased them together as a couple. Conversely, deviating from your family phrase made your rank drop and was widely frowned upon.