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

by Scott Bartlett

  Finally, Gregory stood, nodding curtly with his eyes still on the spreadsheet. “That may very well be much better.”

  “You never know.”

  “About our plan to get drinks tomorrow,” Gregory said. “The likelihood I’ll attend would increase from seventy-one percent to ninety-five, given certain conditions. They are as follows: we get dinner instead of drinks, and you bring Maria. I met a lovely girl at church, and I want to introduce her to lovely people. So you’ll have to bring Maria with you.”

  “Oh, well, I’ll see what I can do,” Carl said. “My probability of attending has been downgraded since we last spoke.”

  “Yes? And what is it now?”

  Carl glanced around the room at his subordinates, hunched over their workstations, scouring the net for criticism of FutureBrite. They were Gregory’s subordinates too, it seemed. And so was Carl.

  “Ninety-three percent,” Carl said. He mumbled it, but Gregory heard, smiled thinly, and walked away.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “Sir, if you must pick your nose, please wait to do it in the privacy of your home. A repeat offense will incur a fine.”

  The voice startled him, and he jerked his hand away from his face. He hadn’t realized he’d been doing it. Sinus problems plagued him, and tissues were always on hand; one was currently wrapped around the finger that had been plumbing his nostril. People still considered that gross, he knew, even with the tissue. His clothes had registered the act, and now it would be reflected in his rank. People could drill down to the Public Conduct section of his LifeRank and see exactly what he’d done. He cursed under his breath.

  In order to satisfy his obligation to bring Maria to dinner with Gregory and his new girlfriend, Carl would have to take his chances returning to the residence he shared with Maria. He felt no desire to do so, or to have dinner with Gregory, for that matter. But it would be foolish to slight the man, who, unbelievably, was once again his superior.

  He found the pile of his belongings diminished somewhat—thieves making off with things that could fit in pockets, he guessed, or could be conveniently slung over shoulders. This would have angered him more before his promotion. Now, he expected it wouldn’t be much trouble to replace the things that mattered.

  He shimmied up the access pole and found the hatch unlocked. Trying for minimal noise, he raised it slowly. He peered around the porch. There did not appear to be any immediate danger.

  In the kitchen, he found Thomas Intoever sitting at the table with Maria, trying to talk her into taking Carl back—a well-worn stage in the dreary cycle that comprised their relationship.

  Carl’s next remark was also well-worn. “Dad, what the hell are you doing here?”

  “Fixing the relationship you broke.”

  “I’m not a teenager anymore.”

  Maria arched an eyebrow. “Your father fixed your teenage relationships, too?”

  Carl took a breath and sat at the table with them. Best to wait this out while saying as little as possible.

  “I was just explaining to Maria,” Thomas said, “how your generation takes everything for granted. For instance, I lost contact with your mother after I decided to stay and uphold our family phrase. I miss her all day, every day. Meanwhile, you two have each other right here in Dodge, and you fight like—”

  “Your relationship with Mom isn’t exactly a good example to use,” Carl said. “You bungled it thoroughly. And anyway, Mom didn’t care about family phrases. Don’t you remember? She used to accuse you of marrying her based solely on her name. Conformist, she called you.”

  Carl’s mother had hated Maria from the moment they met. For Daphne, Carl’s choice was a clear indication that Thomas’s obsession with family phrases had infected her son. Daphne had always enjoyed styling herself as a subversive, though in the end she made the thoroughly orthodox choice to leave Dodge.

  Mother and girlfriend had met over lunch at a restaurant that showed New World footage on the walls. That night, Daphne picked an ostensibly unrelated fight with Carl’s father. Carl saw it for what it was, however: a performance, meant to demonstrate the consequences of marrying in service of a family phrase.

  Thomas didn’t appreciate being reminded of what his marriage was actually like. He clenched his fists so tight they trembled, and refrained from answering Carl.

  “Wow, Carl,” Maria said. “How you can you bring that up to your father?”

  Carl cleared his throat.

  “What?” she said. “What does that mean, when you clear your throat like that?”

  “It means there was a mucus obstruction there, so I vibrated my esophageal muscles in an attempt to dislodge it.”

  Maria leapt to her feet. “That’s it. I’m sorry, Thomas, but he’s gross. It’s over between us.”

  Thomas rose too, and took Maria’s hand in both of his. “Please. I put off retiring to the New World in order to keep you two together.”

  Maria looked from Carl, to Thomas, to Carl again. Carl yawned.

  “I’ll get my prayer dice,” Maria said. “We’ll see what they tell me.”

  Thomas glared at Carl. “So you’ve let it come to this.”

  Maria stomped into the bedroom and returned with her dice, pouring them out carefully onto the table. She kept them in a purple velvet bag. Some were made of bone, some ivory. All of them were polished regularly. There were four-sided dice, six-sided, ten-sided dice, twenty-sided dice, and thirty-sided. Red dice, green dice, blue dice, black. Opaque dice. Transparent. She’d spent a significant portion of her inheritance on them.

  Maria prayed with her dice a lot. Maybe living with the messiah, even unknowingly, had rubbed off on her, made her more devout. Maybe he should start using them, too. It could provide him with some guidance on this divine mandate business.

  Amidst Maria’s dice a large copper coin gleamed dully. That was how you started. The Probablist ritual of dice prayer required you first flip a coin, to represent the question of whether God even existed in the first place. If it came up tails, chances were He didn’t exist, and you didn’t bother praying that day.

  Maria flipped, slapping the coin onto the back of her hand. She showed them. It was tails.

  “Now I can make the decision myself,” she said. “And I’m leaving. We need some serious time apart.”

  As she walked toward the exit, Carl realized he hadn’t tried nearly hard enough to make amends. In fact, he’d barely tried at all, hoping that the dice would produce a more favorable outcome. Now that they hadn’t, he would have to do something, or risk losing even more of Gregory’s respect. That would hurt his chances of buying a plane ticket anytime soon, as would losing the family phrase discount should Maria leave him permanently.

  She reached the door, turning, no doubt, to deliver the sort of parting remark that severely complicates the making-up process. “Wait,” Carl said. “Dad is right.”

  Her eyes widened. He knew that would get her attention.

  Thomas Intoever began choking on his own spit.

  “Not about family names, of course. You know I don’t care for those.”

  Thomas held up a finger, likely in the hopes it would cause them to wait till he was able to speak again.

  Carl pressed on. “But about commitment. And…and sacrifice. How much have we really sacrificed for each other, Maria? Really?”

  She opened her mouth.

  “Now, hear me out. Consider life’s shortness, for a second. Then subtract the portion of it we spend here in Dodge. That leaves very few years to actually enjoy ourselves in the New World, doesn’t it? Okay. Now ask yourself this. Would you rather we spend our time on this miserable island building our relationship? Shoring up its foundations? Extending its towers, thrusting its spires into the sky? Or would you rather find some other bloke and likely break up with him too? And then maybe find another and go with him to the New World, only to split up there, and get depressed, all in a place you’re meant to be happy?” Carl spread his arms. “I love
you, Maria. What do you think?”

  His words sounded hollow to his ears, but to his surprise she came to him and they embraced. “I love you,” she said.

  “Excellent. Now how about dinner, to top off our making up? I can invite Gregory and his new girl.”

  She pulled back and smiled. “You never invite me to go out with your coworkers!”

  Thomas bade Maria goodbye, glanced at Carl askance, and left. Carl closed the hatch behind him.

  “Have you ever noticed,” he said as they prepared for their night out, “that we’ve never gotten a hacker attack while my father is here?”

  Maria’s expression didn’t change, as she was in the middle of applying mascara. “We still get hackers? Hasn’t happened to me in months.”

  Carl straightened his tie in the mirror. His brow was furrowed. Who could be trusted?

  Though he dreaded what it would do to his consumption record, he ordered a taxi to take them to the restaurant. It wouldn’t do for Gregory to see them show up on foot.

  During the ride, Maria asked him what he thought of her earrings.

  “I think they’ll make fascinating study for future archaeologists.” He regretted the remark immediately. Now that they were actually on their way he’d started feeling bitter about having to toady to Gregory all the time, when he’d rather explain to him what an asshole he was, or simply hit him in the face. But the remark had been unnecessary, and he wished he could take it back, not only because it could undo their reconciliation, but also because of the hurt look on Maria’s face.

  “Hey,” he said. “Maria?”

  She turned toward him.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “The earrings comment.”

  “It’s fine.”

  “I love you.”

  “You too.” She reached across the seat, and they held hands for the rest of the ride.

  Gregory Stronger was waiting with his date in an idling taxi outside the restaurant—an obscene display of wealth, in Carl’s view. The wind wasn’t even that strong.

  “Were you waiting long?” Maria asked them once they got out.

  “Around ten minutes. But one can never wait too long for a beauty like yours, Maria. This is Celine Sisterbe. Celine, Maria Ylifeali.” They shook. Celine’s hat bore an assortment of geometric bobbles. She was clutching it to her head against the wind.

  “I’m Carl,” Carl said.

  They all looked at him. “Mm,” Gregory said.

  As they joined the queue to enter the restaurant, Carl wondered what phrase Celine’s family was attempting to assemble. He didn’t know one that contained both “Stronger” and “Sisterbe”. Could it be their names didn’t go together? He felt his brow furrow. Gregory was conventional in every other way. To date a woman whose name didn’t complement his…it would almost be a declaration that he intended to eventually leave her.

  They approached the maître d’, who maintained a neutral expression throughout their exchange. First he asked whether they had a reservation, and Gregory gave his name.

  “Good evening, Mr. Stronger.” The maître d’ took a flexscreen from inside his podium and stuck it onto the front. “Madam,” he said, addressing Celine. “Your biometrics, please?”

  Celine brushed the flexscreen with the back of her hand. Her rank appeared: 972,374th.

  “Madam?” the man said, meaning Maria.

  Maria touched the screen, which displayed her rank: 181,002nd.

  “Impressive,” Gregory said. “Quite impressive. How do you keep it so high?”

  Maria blushed. “I attend church regularly, and pray. I appear in a lot of ads…”

  “Of course,” Gregory said. “Corporations would be very interested in having you advertise for them.” He flicked the screen, which then read: 73,191st.

  Maria gasped in appreciation. The maître d’, though his expression did not change, was also clearly impressed. “It seems as though your party is headed for a window table this evening. We have a lovely view available to the west.”

  They looked at Carl, who cleared his throat. He mashed his thumb against the screen and jerked it away. His rank appeared: 3,742,819th.

  “I spoke too soon,” the maître d’ said.

  “My promotion hasn’t really kicked in yet,” Carl said. “That should boost it considerably when it does. And I don’t attend church enough. Who does? Plus Maria has no job, so she can afford to sit around and appear in ads while I work ten hours a day, and—”

  Gregory placed a hand on his shoulder. “Just stop talking.”

  The maître d’ led them to a table in the very center of the room. They had to walk down some steps to reach it, as the entire center area was lowered. “Your server will be with you shortly,” he said, and left them sitting in uncomfortable silence.

  “First time I’ve been down here,” Gregory said, scanning the heads of the diners above. “They can look right down at you, can’t they?”

  Celine sighed.

  They sat in silence for a while, conscious of the people above them. It wasn’t the possibility of being watched that caused discomfort, it was the question of who might see them sitting at such a low elevation.

  Carl was acutely aware that he had caused this, but his irritation overrode that knowledge. The others didn’t have to be so peevish about his LifeRank, did they? He knew he should probably try and break the silence, considering how important this dinner was to his career. But he couldn’t muster the motivation to fake it. Besides, anything he said would only make them hate him more.

  His LifeRank wasn’t as high as it might be, partly because of his meeting with Spenser, the rep who’d screened him for his lifelog-pausing privileges. Seeing his social media activity subjected to such an intense level of scrutiny had spooked him, and he’d stopped posting as much, which was suppressing his rank.

  “So,” Celine finally said. “Gregory tells me you’re doing work for Xavier Ofvalour.”

  Carl brightened a little. “Yes, in fact. We’re—”

  “We probably shouldn’t discuss it in public,” Gregory said. The spark that had come to life in Carl’s heart went out again.

  “Xavier Ofvalour is such an icon,” Maria said. “Being Hand, and all. You didn’t tell me you were working with him, Carl.”

  “Well, it is confidential. And we’re not working with him, per se.” He fiddled with his napkin. “I did meet him.”

  “You did?” Gregory said. Apparently he hadn’t.

  “What’s he like?” Celine said, leaning forward.

  “Exactly as you might expect. Sharp, assertive—”

  “Handsome, of course,” Celine said.

  “He’s not ugly,” Gregory said, clearing his throat. “I always thought his family phrase a bit odd, though. ‘Discretion’s the better part of valor.’ Discretion is such an outdated concept.”

  “Not completely,” Maria said. “I mean, you two are being discreet about your work, aren’t you?”

  “Good point. Transparency is the greater virtue, but I suppose discretion has its place, too.”

  Their waiter reappeared to take their orders, but none of them had even glanced at their menus yet, which were displayed on the tabletop. He gave a tight little smile, and said he would give them a moment.

  “Before you go,” Celine said, “could you take a photo? I’ll want to post to my Unfurl about the dinner.”

  “Really, Celine?” Gregory said, his voice barely above a whisper. “Down here?”

  “Oh,” she said, eyes downcast. “Right. Um, is there any way to take the photo while masking the elevation?” Her eyes turned upward again, settling hopefully on the waiter’s face. “If you wouldn’t mind trying?”

  “Not at all, madam,” the waiter said, only a little rigidly.

  Celine had him retake the photo twice. When she was finally satisfied and the waiter had left, she turned to Gregory. “What were we talking about?”

  “The Hand,” Maria sai
d.

  “Oh. Yes. I was going to say, Xavier is my absolute hero. I mean, when he used Better Foundation funds to save the reps from their budget crisis—how selfless. Teenagers would take over the city, without the reps. I’m sure of it.”

  “Well, there was a business side to that,” Carl said, knowing he should stop himself. His irritation drowned out his better reason. “He’s invested in the prison industry. The more criminals the reps arrest, the more free labor he benefits from.”

  Celine glared at him, and Gregory said, “Are you suggesting there’s something wrong with making a profit?”

  “No…of course not. I’m saying he’s a shrewd businessman.”

  “I don’t like that word,” Celine said. “He’s smart, not shrewd. Besides, we depend on the prison barges.”

  “All right,” Carl said, holding up his hands in mock apology. “We’d all be lost without the Hand of the Market. Is there anything else you need to hear me say?” No one would meet his eyes, now. His outburst had made things awkward. He didn’t care. He went on. “I’ll tell you one thing I can’t understand about him. I don’t get how he can stand to stay here in Dodge.”

  He’d known that would hit a nerve, and it did. Gregory’s lips turned white. “You know that I plan to stay in Dodge,” he said.

  “Yes,” Carl said, a grin curling the corners of his lips. He tamped it down. “I do.”

  Celine laid a hand on Gregory’s elbow, consternation written across her face. “Is that true? You’re remaining in Dodge your whole life?”

  He shot her an annoyed glance. “Well, who needs a government breathing down your neck every way you turn? That’s what you’ll have in the New World.”

  “You like it here?” Maria said.

  “I like knowing I don’t depend on anyone, only on the markets.”

  “There are markets in the New World.”

  “Not fair ones. Not level ones. The government there makes whatever rules it thinks best. I don’t call that freedom. We have freedom in Dodge. If you listen to what John Anders—”

  Carl nearly spat out his drink. “You take John Anders seriously? Really?” He thought he saw Maria fighting a grin too, and his affection for her swelled.