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

by Scott Bartlett

  He’d known Dodge lacked fairness, but what she was telling him went far beyond that. A plan was taking form in his head, and the consequences of failure loomed larger with every word Natalie spoke. He took the bottle from her and tipped it into his mouth. Then he set it on the coffee table.

  “You have four weeks here?” he said.

  She nodded, but kept her eyes on his face. “There’s nothing to be done, Carl. Don’t be stupid, okay? Keep your head down and get a plane out of here. Stay the course and you’ll get to the New World sooner than you think.”

  “Of course, Natalie. I’m sorry all this happened to you.” He swallowed, trying not to let his excitement and fear show through. “You don’t deserve it. I’m glad we were friends.”

  She gave a brittle smile. “Me too. Hey, this might not be goodbye forever. After I serve my sentence they’ll drop me off on the shores of the New World. Dodge doesn’t do reintegration into society.”

  Carl returned her smile as best he could, and then he slid down the access pole to the lobby below.

  Natalie was right. He was definitely being watched. And she was right that he had to be extra careful not to say anything incriminating. Which was why he couldn’t tell her that he intended to go to war for her.

  The reps could hear his words, but they couldn’t hear his thoughts. And for the rest of the night, even his voice would not be audible. He stopped into a corner store for a bottle of Sleep, twisted off the cap, and emptied its contents down his throat.

  As he entered his residence block and walked through the forest of poles, something managed to bubble up through the fear and tension filling his chest. This feeling brought such novelty that it stopped him in his tracks. For the second time that day, he barely knew what to do with himself.

  The feeling was hope.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  “Why are you just standing there?” Leo said.

  Carl jumped, the skin of his back tingling, and barely restrained himself from yelling. “Hi!” he said, and cleared his throat. “Nothing. I was just thinking, is all.”

  “Thinking about what?”

  “Nothing. Work. Nothing,” he added, deciding it was the safest option. “What are you doing here?” He tried to steer the conversation away from his deviant thoughts.

  “Waiting to speak with you.”

  “Why didn’t you wait for me inside the house?”

  “Your damnable wife wouldn’t let me in. It doesn’t matter. I don’t want to talk about this in front of her anyway.”

  “She has access to my lifelog, you know.”

  “Shit.” Leo’s lips tightened until they were white.

  “Don’t worry about it. She doesn’t take much of an interest in my life nowadays, anyway.” He realized for the first time that his brother appeared shaken. “What is it, Leo? What did you want to talk about?”

  Before speaking, Leo looked in every direction. Other than a family of four exiting their house ten poles away, the lobby was empty. When he turned back, Carl was shocked to see tears in his brother’s eyes.

  “They took Riley,” he said.

  “Who took him?”

  “FutureBrite. I think Rachel’s parents might have recommended they take him. They’ve always hated me, and I think they want Rachel to join them in the New World. Selfish bastards. We’re good parents, so FutureBrite can’t have any evidence that we’ve mistreated Riley. But they don’t need much excuse to snatch someone’s kid, do they?”

  “God, Leo.” Carl put a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry.”

  “How am I going to get him back, Carl?”

  Carl blinked. “Uh, how are you what?”

  “How am I going to get him back?”

  “What do you mean, ‘get him back?’”

  “I don’t know how else to say it.”

  “There’s no getting him back. I’m sorry, Leo, but there hasn’t been a family to get their child back from FutureBrite for fifty years. The company spends millions on legal defense, and they have the highest LifeRank subscription a corporation can get.”

  Leo collapsed against Carl, sobs racking his body. Carl patted his brother’s back awkwardly as Leo’s tears dampened his shoulder. The sounds his brother produced sounded worryingly similar to those of a broken man.

  “Hey,” Carl said. “Hey, Leo, listen. Um, I…I’ll tell you what…”

  They drew apart, and Leo peered at him with red eyes. To Carl’s horror he saw the same thing in his brother’s eyes that he’d been feeling right before Leo accosted him among the poles. Carl had caused that emotion to appear, and now he would have to take responsibility for its presence.

  “Yes?” Leo said.

  He took a deep breath. “I’m going to help you. We’re going to get Riley back. I promise.” He suddenly realized that he was gripping Leo’s shoulder very hard, and he withdrew his hand.

  Leo didn’t seem to notice, instead sweeping Carl into a hug. “Thank you, Carl. Thank you so much.”

  A tremor had crept back into his voice, and Carl ended the embrace, concerned Leo was about to start crying again. “You’re welcome. Now, stay strong. I’ll be in touch, okay? We’re going to do this, Leo.”

  His brother offered him a tremulous smile and a nod. Then he turned and headed for the exit.

  When Carl ascended into his home, a message from the hacker awaited him on the main TV room wall. “NOW YOU’RE IN FOR IT.”

  Carl froze. “In for what?”

  “DON’T PLAY DUMB. I HEARD THE ENTIRE CONVERSATION. YOU’D BETTER HOPE SAFETALK WASN’T LISTENING IN AS WELL.”

  “I haven’t done anything wrong, and I don’t intend to.”

  “DON’T YOU THINK WRENCHING A CHILD FROM FUTUREBRITE’S CLUTCHES MIGHT CLASH WITH YOUR DUTY TO DEFEND THEIR REPUTATION?”

  “Maybe not. Maybe it could provide an opportunity to generate some good PR.”

  “GIVING UP THE KID WOULD AMOUNT TO ADMITTING THEY WERE WRONG TO TAKE HIM. THEY’LL NEVER DO IT, AND YOU KNOW IT.”

  “You’re wrong.” He was right, in fact, but what else could Carl say?

  “LOL. WATCHING YOU FUCK THIS UP WILL BE AMUSING.”

  It was no use. The hacker knew the score, and nothing Carl could say would change that. In the meantime, anger began to replace his trepidation. The memory of the hotel fire still burned in his mind, and of the message he’d received informing him that he was under investigation for it. He wished that he’d insisted his father take the time to improve the house’s security before leaving for the New World. But Thomas had waited too long for his chance to board that flight, and he’d refused to tolerate the slightest delay.

  Then Carl remembered John Anders’s offer to uncover the hacker’s identity, which promised something better than security: revenge.

  “You won’t get away with this for much longer,” Carl told the hacker. “I’ve made some powerful friends over the last few months. They’re going to help me track you down.”

  “HEAR ME, FALSE PROPHET. I HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR FROM YOU OR YOUR BLOWHARD ALLIES. FOR I AM THE TRUE MESSIAH, THE GREATEST POWER ON EARTH, AND I WILL SMITE ALL WHO OPPOSE ME, BE HE WITH OR WITHOUT HOLLOW MUMBLINGS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS AND PIETY ON HIS LIPS.”

  “I just hope you have more than caps lock to defend yourself with.”

  “BE WARY WHERE YOU STEP, CARL INTOEVERYLIFEALI, LEST YOU TRIP INTO MY YAWNING MAW.”

  The black text disappeared, and a message in messy red handwriting took its place, spanning the entire wall. “Carl is a cock.” No matter what he did, he couldn’t get it to go away.

  He turned around, and his frustration turned to surprise. Maria stood in the doorway that connected the TV room and the kitchen.

  “How long have you been standing there?”

  “Since you came in. I witnessed that entire conversation.”

  Carl said nothing, awaiting her next move. Was she about to start screaming at him? Would she call the reps to come with their paralyzers and take him a
way?

  Maria remained silent as she crossed the TV room, her arms crossed, and Carl braced himself. Then he saw the glint in her eye.

  “You’re really going to try and change something, aren’t you?” she said. “You’re going to do something that matters.”

  “I think so.”

  She crossed the room and they kissed, with more passion than she’d ever shown him. Then she took him by the hand, leading him to the bedroom, where they removed their smart clothes and made love.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Despite Natalie’s successful defamation, whoever had doctored the lifelogs still wasn’t satisfied. They changed her Unfurl profile photo to one that showed her with an arm around a young child. Posts began to appear on her Unfurl account too, in which she appeared to try to defend her innocence. But the way the posts were written made her appear even more guilty. Of course, the posts weren’t actually coming from Natalie, as they’d cut off her access to the account. But other than Carl, no one knew that.

  He also received a message from Natalie’s email address and a text from her number, both saying she hoped he didn’t believe the “nonsense” about her being “a filthy pedophile.” The messages were rhetorical masterpieces, if your aim was to get the recipient to believe the exact opposite of what they said. Others acquainted with Natalie were posting online about receiving similar text messages, and how suspicious they made her seem.

  Carl felt fairly certain these tactics weren’t coming from inside SafeTalk, since everyone there seemed to believe Natalie really was behind the suspicious behavior, which was the talk of the cafeteria at lunch. People loved to gossip, especially when their employers sanctioned and encouraged it.

  As for the tasks Carl had set himself, they would be far from easy. He needed a way to destroy FutureBrite’s reputation, both to publicly vindicate Natalie for criticizing them and to make it possible to get Leo’s son back. Before Morrowne had promoted Carl, he’d told him there were two-hundred thousand stolen FutureBrite documents out there somewhere, which were apparently so damning they would accomplish Carl’s mission for him. But even if he could get his hands on the documents, he’d need to release them on an uncensored platform to alert the public that someone was messing with lifelogs.

  If he’d been anyone else, he likely would have despaired at the impossibility of the task he’d set himself. But he wasn’t anyone else. He was Carl Intoeverylifeali, star of SafeTalk and Xavier Ofvalour’s hand-picked champion. He was an expert at restricting the flow of information: now he just had to reverse everything he knew.

  He found Morrowne puffing on his non-carcinogenic cigar with even more industry than usual, and wearing a grin, which was equally odd. He wore it the same way Carl imagined headhunters had worn the teeth of their victims around their necks.

  “Do you think we ever went to the moon, Intoever?”

  “My name is Intoeverylifeali now, Mr. Morrowne.”

  “Only one of us need worry about getting the other’s name right, Intoever, and it isn’t me. Answer the question. Do you believe the myth?”

  “Hard to believe a myth, sir.”

  “Exactly. See, you do have more than a couple of brain cells to rub together. That’s why I made you head of Youth Dignity.”

  “Thanks.”

  “A lot of myths from our past persist in the subconscious, and in the Indie-Net backwaters. I understand you became acquainted with John Anders on your vacation.”

  Carl tried not to stiffen. “Yes, I did.” There was no point in denying anything.

  “I’ve never met Anders, but I like him. Reminds me of myself some. I wouldn’t take the things he says very seriously, though, if I were you.”

  “Thank you for the advice.”

  “Not advice. Instructions. Employees who entertain nonsense become dysfunctional. Your friend Natalie just provided us with yet more evidence of that, didn’t she?”

  Carl exhaled. “Yes.”

  Morrowne put out his cigar and folded his hands across his stomach. “Why have you come to see me?”

  “I think you should let me compile a report on FutureBrite.”

  Morrowne leaned forward with eyes narrowed. “And how would you come by the information for such a report?”

  “By going to work for them for a period of two weeks.”

  “Why would I let you do that?”

  “Because I think we’ve done a lot more to discredit Natalie than we have to actually defend FutureBrite’s reputation. I think that once this molestation scandal blows over, FutureBrite will find that all the old criticisms have come back, redoubled. That will reflect poorly on SafeTalk and could even result in Xavier Ofvalour withdrawing his funding.”

  Morrowne relit his cigar and began puffing on it again, brow furrowed. “How would this report of yours rectify the problem?”

  “The public at large doesn’t know I was friends with Natalie Lemonade. I’ve been represented quite positively in the media. If I report on what a nurturing environment FutureBrite has created, I believe we can shift the tide of public opinion permanently.”

  Morrowne pointed the cigar at him. “If I approve this, I’ll be making several amendments.”

  “That’s fine.” He wasn’t sure that it was, but there would be no contradicting his boss either way.

  “Your report will take the form of a blog, which will update Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. You’ll send your posts to a Youth Dignity employee for editing, who’ll forward them to me for final review. And responsibility for actually publishing them will rest with Gregory Stronger.”

  Carl tried not to frown. That last part would mess with his scheme. How could he use the blog to disseminate compromising information with Gregory at its helm? But he couldn’t afford to waste time worrying. He would find a workaround once he actually had compromising information to disseminate. “That’s fine,” he repeated, and forced his stubborn features into a smile.

  Morrowne issued a press release. On cue, SafeTalk’s media partners began parroting it. At InsiderLife, some enterprising young journalist took it upon herself to search through Carl’s lifelog from the last week. She uncovered his conversation with Leo about his son being taken by FutureBrite, and the next article they published mentioned how heart-warming it was “to consider that concern for his brother’s child might have played a large part in Carl Intoeverylifeali’s decision to investigate the quality of care FutureBrite provides to its charges.”

  That buoyed Carl even more than his success in Morrowne’s office. It characterized his conversation with Leo favorably, and it would even cast his conversation with the hacker in a positive light should anyone come across that. It felt amazing to finally be doing something to fight against corruption in Dodge, rather than helping it grow. He let himself imagine how the public would hail him as a hero for shedding light on the true conditions in which FutureBrite’s children lived, and for leaking the lifelog manipulation.

  A camera crew visited him at work, which Carl should have expected, but hadn’t. He was forced to spout a slew of impromptu statements about his “idealistic vision” for this project, which in the end he didn’t really mind. At least, he already felt so good that he refused to let the media bother him. They also wanted a sound bite about his personal motivation regarding Leo’s kid. “I’m doing this for my brother’s child,” he said, “and for all the children in FutureBrite’s care. I think these kids can only benefit from an objective outsider coming in and investigating.” They had to cut much of what he said, because it wasn’t consistent with the corporate message, but the sound bite made it through, and everyone seemed happy about that.

  The day the media started covering his new project, he arrived home to find Leo at his access pole. His brother punched him in the stomach. The air whooshed out of Carl’s lungs and he doubled over, fighting to breathe. Then Leo kicked him in the chin, knocking him flat on his back.

  Rachel was there too, and she made sure to get in a couple of good
kicks.

  “You bastard,” Leo said. “I ask you to help me get my child back, and you go to work for the company that took him? I’m your brother!”

  Carl managed to stagger to his feet, grimacing. He held up one hand, the other on his knee, helping to support him. “I’m investigating them. Ensuring the care they provide is comprehensive.”

  “How can he stand there and feed us company lines, Leo?” Rachel said. “How does he live with himself?”

  Leo stepped forward and shoved him. Carl spun around, caught himself mid-fall, and used the momentum to start fleeing through the forest of poles, ignoring the pain in his belly. They hadn’t been expecting that, which won him a small lead. With SafeTalk and Schrödinger knew who else listening in, he’d already said everything he could to explain his intentions to Leo and Rachel. He couldn’t tell them that he planned to get their kid back in addition to clearing Natalie’s name. Running through the lobby, weaving through the poles, he screamed for someone to help him.

  Up ahead, a bearded fellow Carl often encountered on his way to work was just sliding down his pole. “Help!” Carl screamed. “Please!”

  The man looked at Carl wide-eyed, and then looked beyond him, at his pursuers. He scrambled back up his pole, unlocked the hatch, and slid back down. By the time Carl reached him, his hands were cupped, indicating that Carl should step on them and get boosted up.

  He did. In his weakened state, he barely managed to haul himself into his rescuer’s porch. The man pulled himself up just as Leo reached the bottom of the pole. He slammed the hatch closed, and locked it.

  “Thank you,” Carl said, in between gasps for breath.