Jennifer Government

by Max Barry

  The doors slid open and he walked up to the reception desk. A woman in uniform—either a real cop or a receptionist dressed in theme, Hack didn’t know which—smiled. Playing over the PA system was the song from their TV ads, “Every Breath You Take.”

  “Good evening, how can I help you?”

  “I have a matter I’d like to discuss with an officer, please.”

  “May I ask the nature of your problem?”

  “Um,” he said. “I’ve been contracted to kill someone. Some people, actually.”

  The receptionist’s eyebrows rose a fraction, then settled. Hack felt relieved. He didn’t want to be chastised by the receptionist. “Take a seat, sir. An officer will be right with you.”

  Hack dropped into a soft blue chair and waited. A few minutes later, a cop came out and stopped in front of him. Hack rose.

  “I’m Senior Sergeant Pearson Police,” the man said. He shook Hack’s hand firmly. He had a small, trim mustache but otherwise looked pretty capable. “Please accompany me.”

  Hack followed him down a plushly carpeted hallway to a small, professional-looking meeting room. On the wall were pictures of cops escorting crims out of buildings, in front of courthouses, and busting protestor heads outside some corporate building. As Pearson took a seat, Hack caught a glimpse of handcuffs and a pistol.

  “So what’s your problem?” He flipped open a notebook.

  Hack told him the whole story. When he was done, Pearson was silent for a long time. Finally Hack couldn’t take it anymore. “What do you think?”

  Pearson pressed his fingers together. “Well, I appreciate you coming forward with this. You did the right thing. Now let me take you through your options.” He closed the notebook and put it to one side. “First, you can go ahead with this Nike contract. Shoot some people. In that case, what we’d do, if we were retained by the Government or one of the victims’ representatives, is attempt to apprehend you.”

  “Yes.”

  “And we would apprehend you, Hack. We have an eighty-six percent success rate. With someone like you, inexperienced, no backing, we’d have you within hours. So I strongly recommend you do not carry out this contract.”

  “I know,” Hack said. “I should have it read it, but—”

  “Second, you can refuse to go through with it. That would expose you to whatever penalties are in that contract. And I’m sure I don’t need to tell you they could be harsh. Very harsh indeed.”

  Hack nodded. He hoped Pearson wasn’t finished.

  “Here’s your alternative.” Pearson leaned forward. “You subcontract the slayings to us. We fulfill your contract, at a very competitive rate. As you probably know from our advertisements, your identity is totally protected. If the Government comes after us, it’s not your problem.”

  Hack said, “That’s my only alternative?”

  “Well, if you had a copy of the contract, I’d tell you to go talk to our Legal branch. But you don’t, do you?”

  “Urn, no.” He hesitated. “How much would it be to…”

  Pearson blew out his cheeks. “Depends. You don’t need specific individuals done, right? Just people who buy these Mercury shoes.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, that’s cheaper. We can make sure we don’t take out anyone with means. For, you know, retribution. And you need ten capped, so there’s a bulk discount. We could do this for, say, one-fifty.”

  “One-fifty what?”

  “Grand,” Pearson said. “One-fifty grand, Hack, what do you think?”

  He felt despair. “I’m a Merc Officer, I earn thirty-three a

  year—”

  “Come on, now,” Pearson said, looking pained. “Don’t start that.”

  “I’m sorry.” His vision blurred. Twice in one day! He was falling apart.

  “Look, final offer: one-thirty. You can go talk to the NRA but you won’t get better than that, I promise. Now do we have a deal?”

  “Yes,” Hack said. He wiped angrily at his face as Pearson began to draw up the contract.

  4 Mitsui

  The alarm clock said: “—and rumors of strong profits. Microsoft tumbled to twenty-two after the company announced shipping delays would…”

  Buy couldn’t breathe. His chest ached. He thought: I’m having a heart attack! Then he remembered. No. Not a heart attack.

  He staggered into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. His face stared back at him. It didn’t look impressed. He said, “I am a great person. Today is a great day.”

  Taped to a corner of the mirror was a piece of paper. It said:

  I AM A GREAT PERSON

  TODAY IS A GREAT DAY

  EVERY OBSTACLE IS AN OPPORTUNITY

  It was Monday, October 27, and therefore the fifth-last working day of Mitsui Corporation’s financial year. Buy was an Account Manager, Competitive Accounts Group, Southern Region, which meant he was a stockbroker, which meant he was a salesman. He had a $4.2 million quota. That hadn’t looked like a problem after an outstanding first quarter and a solid Q2, but in Q3 they’d reorganized some accounts away from him, and Q4 had been terrible, a catastrophe. Buy had five days to find half a million dollars.

  He showered and padded out to the living room. His apartment looked over the ExxonMobil Botanical Gardens and beyond that the city of Melbourne, USA (Australia). It was a little after six, and the office towers were flaring orange in the dawn sun. The sky was a solid blue expanse. Buy had stopped seeing it in Q3.

  He ate toast and washed it down with juice. He dressed and caught the elevator to the parking lot, where his Jeep was waiting for him. Jeeps were one of the safest vehicles on the road, Buy had read; safe for people in the Jeep, anyway. He roared out onto the street.

  The cheap roads were clogged, even at six-thirty, but he was only four blocks from a premium Bechtel freeway and that was eight lanes, two dollars a mile, and no speed limit. He sped past office buildings and factories with the needle on 95 mph.

  He pulled into the Mitsui parking lot and caught the elevator to the sixth-floor cube farm. Brokers didn’t get proper offices, or even walls above shoulder height, at least not in Competitive Accounts. In his first year here, Buy had been grateful for that, because it was so easy to turn to a coworker for help. Now it annoyed him, for the same reason.

  Hamish, who ran the night shift from Buy’s desk, was pulling off his headphones. “Hey, Buy.”

  “Hey.” Hamish looked relaxed and happy. Buy felt a flash of jealousy. “How’s the market?”

  “Even jumpier than you. Take it easy, buddy. You’ll get there.”

  “Yeah, I know.” He tried to sound sincere. Hamish patted him on the back and left for what was no doubt a day of lying on the sofa watching football, or activities equally casual and stressfree. Hamish had made quota six weeks ago, and Buy was finding it harder and harder to not hate him.

  Buy slid into the seat, plugged in his telephone headset, and dialed. Taped to his cubicle wall was a note he’d written in Q1:

  SUCCESS = 500 CALLS PER DAY

  He stared at it while his client’s phone rang. Buy was starting to think that success was a big crapshoot.

  In France, he wouldn’t be in a position like this. Of course, in France he wouldn’t have received last year’s paycheck of $347,000, either. That was why he’d left: the EU was a socialist morass, with taxes and unemployment and public everything. Until recently, Buy had thought that moving to a USA country was the best move he’d ever made, with the possible exception of changing his name from Jean-Paul.

  “You’ve reached Michael Microsoft, Project Manager Business Solutions Division. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you.”

  Buy started rambling about market indicators pointing to increasing volatility, clicking through his e-mail at the same time. There was a message from a friend who now worked for US Alliance, one of the big customer loyalty programs:

  Buy—

  A priest and a stockbroker meet at the Pearly Gates. Saint Peter gives the
broker a golden harp and silk robes and lets him into Heaven. Then he gives the priest a rusty trumpet and some old rags. The priest says, “Hey, how come the stockbroker gets the harp and robes?” And Saint Peter says, “Because while you preached, people slept—but his clients, now, they prayed.”

  —Sami.

  P.S. We just passed 200 million subscribers at US Alliance and are about to sign on the NRA (still hush-hush). But I guess that’s not as exciting as making monkey trades for Mitsui, huh?

  Buy looked at his watch. It was noon in L.A. He hung up on Michael Microsoft’s voice mail and dialed.

  “Sami UA.”

  “Are you serious about NRA?”

  “Buy! How you doing?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “Yeah, I’m very serious. You have no idea how fast things are moving here.”

  “You know what will happen to NRA’s stock price if they sign with US Alliance?”

  “Gee, I don’t know, Buy. I’m not a stockbroker anymore.”

  He felt a rush of gratitude. “Thank you, Sami.”

  “Wait. You can’t use this information. It’s company confidential.”

  Buy paused. “Are you—”

  “Come on,” Sami said. “You know I have to say that. You’ve had a rough year, right? Maybe things will turn around for you.” He hung up.

  For a second, Buy felt paralyzed. There were too many things he needed to do at once. Fifteen years ago, this would have been insider trading, but that quaint concept had disappeared a decade or two ago when so many brokers were doing it that it was impossible to jail them all. Now it was called smart trading.

  He tucked the phone under his ear, hit SPEED DIAL 1, and started tapping out an e-mail.

  “Jason Mutual Unity.”

  Buy said, “I’m calling because you’re my best client. I have some information that’s going to make a lot of people a lot of money and I want you to be one of them.” At the same time, he tapped out:

  IF YOU WANT TO RIDE A WAVE

  CALL ME RIGHT NOW

  He dragged his entire client list into the address field and hit SEND.

  “Buy, I just stepped out of the shower.”

  “Tell me you’ve got liquid.”

  “What am I, a day-trader? Which company?”

  “National Rifle Association.”

  “The NRA? Are they even listed?”

  “Jason,” Buy said, “everyone’s listed.”

  “I don’t know…I’d have to sell out of another position. Look, tell you what, leave it with me—”

  “There’s no time. You know how this works. The first fish to take a bite will stir up the sharks.”

  “I’m sorry, Buy. We don’t operate like this.”

  He heard himself say: “I’ll forfeit the commission.”

  “What?”

  “If the stock doesn’t rise, I’ll eat the commission.” He swallowed. He was pretty sure he wasn’t allowed to do that. He was pretty sure that if the NRA ticker price fell, Mitsui would both fire and sue him. “Give me at least twenty million and I’ll take no commission unless you make money.”

  “Are you serious?”

  The commission on twenty million dollars was four hundred thousand. He thought, October 27, October 27. “Very serious.”

  “Well, fuck,” Jason said. “You’ve got yourself a deal, buddy.” “Thank you,” Buy said. He closed his eyes. His chest still hurt.

  5 Wal-Mart

  “I found your presentations to be uniformly disappointing,” the teacher said. He was leaning against his desk, arms folded. Every time he turned his head, his glasses reflected sunlight at Hayley, as if he was shooting rays of disapproval. “I recommend that you all improve the level of your critical thinking.”

  He began walking between aisles, dropping papers onto desks. Hayley saw a D, and an F; a little guy with glasses got a C-. She exhaled. This was not going to be good.

  She heard whispering behind her and turned. Three girls were huddled together. When they saw Hayley looking, they closed tighter.

  A paper landed on her desk. There was a lot of red pen, with words like superficial. At the bottom: F.

  Hayley raised her hand. “Why do I get an F for saying capitalizm is good when that’s what everyone else says too? It’s not fair.”

  “Hayley, what’s not fair is that our society rewards selfishness. That’s not fair.”

  So move to China, Hayley thought. “You should know I’ll be challenging this grade.” The McDonald’s curriculum panel wouldn’t let this crap stand, you could bet your ass.

  “I don’t think it’s fair, either,” a boy to Hayley’s left said. “My parents say you have to understand how capitalizm works to get ahead. That self-interest is a good thing. Shouldn’t you be preparing us for the real world?”

  “Mercurys,” one of the whispering girls said.

  Hayley turned around again. “What did you say about Mercurys?”

  They looked at her, their faces guarded. “The Nike Town at the mall is getting in some Mercurys.”

  Hayley’s jaw dropped. “Are you serious?”

  “Thanks to self-interest,” the teacher said, “it’s legal to let a person starve to death in the street while you drive past in your Mercedes. Is that fair?”

  “We heard five pairs.”

  “No way! When?” Hayley gripped the desk. “When are they getting the Mercurys?”

  “Tonight. Six-thirty.” The girl glanced at her friends. “Want to meet us there?”

  “Oh, yeah!” She felt faint and sick all at once. Mercurys were two and a half thousand dollars, and Hayley didn’t have that much, but she could borrow: there were ATMs at the mall. It would be totally worth it; Mercurys weren’t just cool shoes; they were an investment. She could sell them tomorrow for twice what she bought them for, maybe more. What if—what if she could get two pairs?

  “It’s very disappointing,” the teacher said, “that none of you can see past simple consumerism. Very disappointing.”

  Mercurys, Hayley thought. Oh my God.

  6 NRA

  Billy Bechtel built tanks. Big ones. They had caterpillar treads and cannons on the front and swiveling machine guns; they were fucking impressive, was what they were. When anyone asked what Billy did for a living, he said, “You know the Bechtel military yards, outside Abilene? I work there,” and watched their eyebrows jump. It got so Billy started wishing his job was as cool as it sounded.

  Billy’s job was to check steel plates to make sure they weren’t buckled. How it worked was a forklift came and dumped a load of plates in his area, then Billy checked them with a metal ruler, then another forklift came and carted them away. If he found any warped ones, they went in a separate pile, and when Billy showed up for work the next day, they were gone. Most of the guys on the Bechtel site worked in teams, but Billy was stuck on his own. It was driving him nuts.

  After he’d been there a few months, he let a plate with a pucker at the edge go through, just to see what would happen, but nothing did. Someone was now driving around a tank that leaked when it rained, he guessed. After that he let a plate go through that was almost bent in half, and a guy from welding came and yelled at him.

  He took up smoking so he could hang around with some of the other workers, and that’s where he met the shooters. There were ten or twelve of them, and they met after day shift three times a week. “You should come along,” one of them told Billy, looking him up and down. Billy was young and blond and worked out a lot. “You’ll have fun.”

  So Billy went, and it was fun. He also discovered he was a good shot. He had done some hunting as a kid growing up on a farm, but then his dad died and his mom moved them to Dallas and there hadn’t been much call for shooting after that. Until now, where on the back blocks of the Bechtel Military Abilene site, Billy earned the respect and admiration of his coworkers by clocking torso-shaped targets from farther out than anyone else. Things were good then. Sometimes even the forklift drivers
stopped to talk to him.

  Then came the bad news. The foreman gathered them all in Hangar One, among the scaffolding and half-assembled tanks, and a guy from Head Office, some guy in a suit, said, “Unfortunately, due to cost pressures…” Then there was a lot of stuff about competition and efficiencies and how painful it was for management to make tough decisions. But what it came down to, the workers agreed afterward, was: You can all fuck off now. Billy was out of a job.

  They gathered out front and stood around uncertainly. They bitched about management and wondered what they would do now; some of them talked bitterly about the days when there were unions, when shit like this wasn’t tolerated. One of the shooters clapped Billy on the shoulder and said, “What about you, champ? What are you going to do?”

  “I think I’m gonna go away somewhere,” Billy said, surprising himself. True, he had enough saved up for a working holiday, and he had always wanted to travel outside of Texas, but that was a long-term goal, of the sort he’d never expected to actually accomplish. This shooting thing had really developed his self-confidence. “I always wanted to go skiing, you know? Maybe I’ll go somewhere and learn how to ski.”

  The man roared with laughter. “Hey, get this! Billy the Kid is going skiing!”

  The men around him erupted. Hands clapped him on the back. “Good on ya, Billy!” someone said, and someone else said, “We should all go fuckin’ skiing!” They thought it was terrific, Billy realized: they thought he was sticking it to Bechtel management. For a construction worker in Abilene, Texas, skiing was about as exotic as you could get. It was like going to Disneyland.

  “That’s the way, Billy the Kid,” the man said. “You learn to ski.”

  He thought he’d go to Sweden, because of the ski bunnies. He imagined days of riding steep white slopes by day, and gentle white curves at night. But the travel agent told him it was impossible to work there: Sweden was a non-USA country. Billy couldn’t believe it. He didn’t even think countries like that existed anymore. “Oh, sure,” the agent said, who was a girl Billy had dated in high school. She still chewed gum. “There are plenty. Mostly places you don’t wanna go, of course.”