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

by Scott Bartlett

  It was tearing him apart inside. And then the situation became worse. He went for lunch, and when he returned, one of the Youth Dignity underlings had come up with a new tactic for discrediting Natalie, actually managing to get Gregory’s attention long enough to convince him it would be effective. A significant number of employees were already working on it, without anyone having consulted Carl. He didn’t like that.

  He stormed Gregory’s office and demanded to be let in on the scheme. At least, that’s what he envisioned himself doing. In reality, he was made to wait outside the office for an inordinate amount of time. Most of his ire had evaporated by the time he was finally admitted. And instead of explaining the new strategy himself, Gregory directed Carl to Shaundra, who’d had the idea in the first place.

  “I’m arranging the data we have on Natalie into a more persuasive narrative,” Shaundra told him. “I was poring over her phone records—in particular, the calls to her therapist—and I noticed a correlation between them and her blogging. I got excited.” Shaundra chewed on a nail for a moment, staring into space. Then she looked back at Carl. “We can safely assume that whenever Natalie was calling her therapist a lot, she was having mental trouble. It’ll be pretty easy to convince the public of that. But what’s really relevant is the fact that Natalie was clearly blogging more whenever she was mentally unstable. During these periods she posted three times as much.”

  “So we characterize her criticism as delusional,” Carl said, unable to inject much enthusiasm into his monotonous voice.

  “Exactly. Gregory has Jordan working on infographics that display the data quite neatly. Gregory’s put me in charge of contacting our media partners and getting them to prepare short articles. It won’t cost us much, since we’ll be providing most of the content.”

  “Great job, Shaundra,” he said, as he was required to say.

  She cocked a quizzical eyebrow. “You don’t sound very happy about it, to be honest.”

  His heart jumped, but he covered his panic with a glower. “I’ll be happy when you show me actual results. Get back to work!”

  Shaundra scurried off, and Carl let out a deep breath. Natalie’s future just got bleaker and bleaker.

  After work, Carl visited his childhood preacher, for the first time in years. After a ten-minute wait on a hard wooden bench the holy man (probably holy) emerged, his face failing to register any special recognition as his gaze fell on Carl, who appreciated it. There were two others in the waiting room, who’d arrived after he did, and if the preacher showed Carl favoritism it would make them wonder.

  “Come in,” the preacher said to him. “Make yourself comfortable.”

  “Thank you.”

  They both turned off their lifelogs. Other than special, work-related circumstances, the only true privacy available to residents of Dodge was found in a closed-door session with one’s preacher.

  “If God exists,” the preacher said, “and He’s in the mood, I hope He gives you His blessing.”

  “Same to you.”

  “What brings you here so late in the day?”

  “I’m sorry for the hour. Things have been crazy at work lately.”

  “Is it your work that causes you to visit me?”

  “Yes.” Carl took a deep breath, letting it out in a low hiss. “As a youth, you told me that I’m…well, that I’m destined to save humankind. But I’m lost, Guardian. I’m not sure I’m doing the sort of work God would be likely to require of me, assuming He exists, of course.”

  “I’m certain everyone would have an opinion on what work God might require. Have you been coming to church? That’s a rhetorical question, because I know you haven’t.”

  Carl couldn’t meet the preacher’s eyes.

  “Have you been consulting your prayer dice?”

  “I don’t actually own any,” Carl said. “But I’ve used my wife’s a couple of times…”

  “How do you expect to carry on a relationship with our Probable Lord when you refuse to even talk to Him?”

  “I don’t…I was hoping…”

  “You were hoping I could give you the answers? I don’t have them. If I did, I would save humankind myself. I certainly wouldn’t be waiting for you to get around to it.”

  “That’s completely reasonable,” Carl said. “But—”

  “What is it specifically about your job that troubles you?”

  Carl hesitated. He reminded himself that anything he said would stay inside this office. “You’ve heard of Natalie Lemonade?”

  “Of course,” the preacher said. “Nutty Natty, as your colleagues like to call her. That’s if Gawp can be trusted, of course. Did they really call her that?”

  “Natalie is my friend.”

  The preacher furrowed his brow. “Truly?”

  “Yes. And now it’s become my job to destroy her reputation.”

  “I fail to see the problem.”

  Carl blinked. “Well, friendship, you know…”

  “Your job at SafeTalk is to protect the markets. Did you think being Schrödinger reborn gave you license to go against the very engines Dodge runs on?” The preacher shook his head. “One person’s reputation is not worth jeopardizing the careful balance of our world. Businesses must be allowed to operate unrestricted. Friend or not, Natalie Lemonade’s meddling criticisms must be torn asunder.”

  “Do you think that’s what God would be likely to say, if He—”

  “It’s what I say, as a prominent figure who is intimately familiar with the workings of our free-market anarchy. And I know that the Hand of the Market, for whom you work, would agree. To be frank, I’m shocked I have to remind you of it.”

  Carl dragged himself to his feet. “I understand. Thank you.” He plodded out of the office, his head hanging even lower than before.

  Maria looked smug as Carl unlaced his boots, kicked them off, and stepped into the TV room. She was sitting on the couch again with her Unfurl feed open, but her chilliness from yesterday had departed, replaced with a look of triumph. “Look,” she said, pointing at the wall. “Look at this.”

  The source of her self-satisfaction was a blog post shared by eleven of her friends, written by a young boy named Jonathan Trangebe, a fourteen-year-old in FutureBrite’s care. The post was about Natalie.

  Maria clicked through to the full thing so he could read it. “See?” she said. “Told you she was depraved. I knew I was right not to trust her.”

  At first Carl had assumed this was more clickbait bullshit planted by SafeTalk or by one of the viral mills. But the headline wasn’t optimized for virality. It was simple and straightforward. “Natalie Lemonade Sexually Abused Me.”

  When Maria clicked it, he saw that the post appeared on a personal blog, not on one of the entrenched sites like Gawp or Buzzworthy. And it took forever to load, meaning the blog’s subscription to net neutrality was almost non-existent. SafeTalk wouldn’t make its propaganda so tedious to access, would it?

  Once the post finally loaded and Carl started reading it, he sank onto the unoccupied couch, suddenly hollow. Could it be? The post had terrible grammar, and spoke haltingly of the year Jonathan was ten, when Natalie had been one of his caregivers for a few months. She would sneak into his bedroom late at night, he said, while the other caregiver on duty was asleep. She would make him turn off his lifelog, and…

  Carl tried to keep himself from trembling. “I don’t want to read anymore.” He went into the kitchen, just as he had the day before, but this time he couldn’t contain his tears. They spilled down his face, accompanied by sobs that shook him and shook him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The city looked bleak to Carl as he walked to work the next morning, even with its broad, husky buildings and its constantly flickering surfaces. Maybe all the corporate rhetoric was right after all: anyone who dissented or tried to disrupt the system in any way was a thoroughly corrupt and despicable person. Didn’t Jonathan Trangebe’s blog post prove that?

  Before yesterday N
atalie had been a hero to him. There wasn’t anyone he’d respected more. He’d even decided to risk everything to prevent them from stuffing her onto a prison barge for decades of backbreaking labor, but now it seemed she might deserve it. What kind of messiah was he, if he couldn’t even tell who deserved saving and who didn’t?

  In an instant, his long-term plan had reverted to working hard to excel at SafeTalk, doing their bidding and frittering away his soul in the hopes they’d toss him some scraps in the form of promotions or raises. That he no longer felt compelled to risk his future should have come as a relief, since now he could continue saving toward a plane ticket, getting ever closer to reaching the tantalizing paradise that awaited him in the New World, not to mention his destiny. But instead he felt like a seashell whose occupant had departed.

  Despite the tide of public opinion turning against Natalie, the Youth Dignity workers still found themselves swamped with work. The revelation that Natalie was a pedophile had sparked a Dodge-wide conversation, and every entry had to be analyzed for content critical of FutureBrite. Many suggested the company deserved a share in the blame, since the abuse had happened on their watch. After all, the only reason Natalie had been able to do it was because the other caregiver had been asleep, and it was a FutureBrite policy that employees couldn’t sleep during work, even on overnight shifts. The online detractors wanted to know why that policy hadn’t been better enforced.

  Quite apart from the Trangebe post, another group of users had taken offense to Shaundra’s infographics that correlated Natalie’s therapist visits with her blogging. The infographics seemed to imply that her mental illness decreased her value, and one man had put together his own infographic that showcased important people from Dodge’s history who’d also dealt with mental issues, and it steadily gained traction on Unfurl. A couple of Youth Dignity employees were tasked with making a list of the people sharing the infographic. They would be flagged for increased scrutiny and censorship.

  It quickly became clear that the entire department would have to work overtime tonight, and by mid-afternoon Carl’s dark cloud of a mood had grown bulbous and menacing. Every action he took against those conversing online sharpened his self-hatred. Once again he could see the meaningless years stretching out before him, leading up to the Air Earth flight that would take him to a place where he hoped to escape all this guilt and sorrow. But would it be too late, then?

  He tried to exercise patience with his subordinates, but when a credit card company began shouting at Jordan Neverfal through his smartphone, Carl lost his patience.

  “JORDAN NEVERFAL!” the phone barked. “ARE YOU THERE, JORDAN NEVERFAL?”

  “Yes,” Neverfal said into his phone, as quietly as possible. It lay on his desk, and he seemed afraid to touch it. Instead he leaned forward to speak into it.

  “WHY HAVEN’T YOU MADE YOUR MOST RECENT PAYMENT, JORDAN NEVERFAL?” The voice blared across the entire department. Everyone had stopped what they were doing to listen.

  “I’ve been very busy with work. I forgot. I’m sorry.”

  “SORRY ISN’T GOOD ENOUGH, JORDAN NEVERFAL. YOU HAVE A HISTORY OF MISSING PAYMENTS. IN FACT, THAT’S WHY YOU HAD YOUR LAST CREDIT CARD TAKEN FROM YOU. BUT WE DECIDED TO TAKE A CHANCE ON YOU. WE’RE VERY DISAPPOINTED.”

  Carl snatched up Neverfal’s phone. “Bullshit, you took a chance on him,” Carl said. “You approved his card in exchange for being allowed to install this megaphone app. He has no choice but to pay you. If he doesn’t you’ll continue to ruin his life.”

  “WHO IS THIS?”

  “This is Jordan Neverfal’s boss. Employees are not paid to manage their personal affairs during work hours. You can yell at Neverfal about this later.”

  “Most of my hours have become work hours,” Neverfal said, his voice still barely audible.

  “Shut up, Neverfal,” Carl said. “Get back to work.”

  “I HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO CONTACT JORDAN NEVERFAL VIA THIS APP,” the credit card rep said. “MR. NEVERFAL SIGNED A CONTRACT WITH GILDSWIPE IN WHICH HE WAS NOTIFIED THAT WE RESERVE THE RIGHT TO—”

  “Embarrass him at his job?”

  “—EMPLOY EXTRAORDINARY COLLECTION METHODS IF NECESSARY.”

  “Neverfal will make his payment online tonight. Or he won’t. Either way, if you continue interrupting my department’s work I’ll fire him, and then you definitely won’t get your money.”

  “THIS ISN’T—”

  “One more word and I fire him immediately. One more word.”

  The phone remained silent. Carl permitted himself a tiny smile. “Pay off your credit card, Neverfal,” Carl said. “When you get home,” he snapped when he saw Neverfal beginning to log into his online banking.

  Carl finally left work at half past nine. His phone buzzed on the walk home with a notification from his insurance app. His rates had gone up because he was “under investigation” for the hotel fire. A note from Spenser, the short-statured rep he’d spoken to before, was attached. “Calm down, Intoever,” it read. “Don’t bother me at the station over this. This is routine procedure. Twenty-two other people who were present at the hotel are under investigation as well. You all have unusual profiles, so you’ve all been subjected to increased surveillance. If you visit me at the station I’ll repeat the contents of this note to you and nothing more.”

  Increased surveillance. All he needed.

  “Excuse me,” a man said from behind him. “Carl Intoever?”

  Carl turned. “What?”

  The man wore a suit and was flanked by a camerawoman. He held a microphone with the DBC logo emblazoned on it. “I was wondering if I could get your thoughts on how the controversy surrounding Jonathan Trangebe’s allegations about Natalie Lemonade will affect SafeTalk’s new initiative.”

  When Carl watched the broadcast later, he saw that most of his words had been censored, a blurry oval floating over his mouth at frequent intervals. It made him afraid of what Morrowne would think. He couldn’t see the advantage of showing the public a clip in which he only cursed. He certainly hadn’t answered any questions about his work.

  Having finished raging at the reporter, he marched directly home. The man actually had the gall to follow him a few blocks before deciding it probably wouldn’t get him anywhere.

  Carl couldn’t take it anymore. Any of it. From here on, everything he did would have one goal: escaping Dodge forever. He didn’t care what truly awaited him in the New World. Whatever it was, it had to be better than this.

  “Maria,” he screamed as soon as he climbed up into the house. “Maria!”

  She emerged from the bedroom, blinking, her brow furrowed. “What?”

  “We need to get married.”

  “All right,” she said, and went back into the bedroom.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  There was an Air Earth flight to the New World once every twelve hours. Thomas Intoever had packed up most of his belongings years ago, and he was ready to leave Dodge within two days of Carl and Maria’s wedding. Other than the preacher, Thomas had been the only one present at the ceremony. As they said the words, Carl thought of how disgusted his mother would have been by it all.

  Carl and Maria Intoeverylifeali accompanied Thomas to the Air Earthport. They stood at the enormous inner windows, gazing out at the airplane that would leap from the giant treadmill and carry Thomas over the ocean.

  “You wouldn’t think they’d be able to fit all the passengers’ luggage into it,” Thomas said. A sizable portion of the Air Earth ticket price consisted of charges for bringing everything you wanted with you in the New World.

  “I’m sure they’ve become very efficient at storage, over the centuries,” Carl said.

  As they watched, the plane began to taxi toward the walkway from which the passengers would board.

  Carl wanted so badly to be leaving as well.

  He looked at his father. “You’d better get going.” The only reason Thomas had been able to wait this long was because he’d paid f
or second-tier PreCheck, Air Earth’s expedited security screening service.

  His father’s eyes were moist. “You can’t know how much this means to me, Carl. You and Maria married, and now I can finally…” He heaved a shuddering sigh. “I’ve waited so long for this. To be swallowed by the horizon in one noiseless gulp.”

  Carl patted him awkwardly on the shoulder. “You deserve it.”

  Leo ran up. “Hey,” he said, panting slightly. “Sorry I’m late.” He grinned at Thomas. “So, you’re off, Pa? How about a hug?”

  Thomas regarded him with a blank expression. Then he turned and walked away without another word.

  “Well, that’s nice,” Leo called after him. “Say hi to Mom for me, hey?” He looked at Carl and Maria. “What an asshole.”

  They watched the plane take off. They didn’t leave the window until it disappeared into the sky.

  “Gone forever,” Leo said. “You guys wanna get lunch?”

  Carl knew he should get back to work, but he did crave a break. He would likely have to stay at SafeTalk until ten tonight, anyway. If Morrowne wanted to access his lifelog and watch as he ate a rack of ribs, let him. Carl’s job was secure. The company needed him.

  They walked to a restaurant nearby. “How do you pronounce your last name, now?” Leo asked during the walk.

  “In-tohv-ree-lee-fee-lee.”

  Leo nodded. “Have fun with that.”

  In honor of Thomas’ departure, they chose a diner that showed scenes from the New World on the walls. The seating was arranged to allow for conversation between patrons, not facing the wall like the seats were in the restaurant near Carl’s residence block.

  The waitress brought them drinks and took their meal orders. Carl’s drink was sugary and pink. It disappeared quickly.

  “Did you hear about the hotel fire yesterday?” his brother asked.

  Carl frowned. “What, another one?”