Jennifer Government

by Max Barry

  “Are you all right?” an NRA man said to him, and another shouted, “Medic! We need a medic in here!”

  “Ag,” Billy said, and slept for a while.

  43 Apostasy

  Hack felt her touch his hair. He felt her hand on his face. “Violet? Violet!”

  “Shh,” Claire said. “It’s just me.”

  He struggled awake. “What time—”

  “It’s just after six. There’s a phone call for you. It’s Violet.”

  Hack threw back the covers. Relief washed through him. Violet was alive! He ran to the kitchen and grabbed the receiver. “Hello? Violet?”

  “Hi.” She sounded small and far away. There was a lot of background noise, as if she was in a car on a busy freeway. “I can’t talk long. I’m calling from an airplane.”

  “A what?”

  “I just wanted to tell you I’ll be away a while. I got a job.”

  “What airplane?”

  “I’m going to London.”

  “London?” He felt confused.

  “Yes.”

  “But…how come…when are you coming back?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe a couple of weeks.”

  “Weeks?”

  “I sold my software. To ExxonMobil.”

  “Oh, Violet, that’s great! How did—”

  “I have to go. I’ll call again later.”

  “Wait! How come you didn’t call before?”

  “I’ve been busy. I had to go to Dallas.”

  “Dallas?”

  “Hack, I have to go.”

  “Why didn’t you call me from Dallas?”

  “I’m calling you now, aren’t I? Come on, don’t dick me around.”

  “I’m not dicking you around.” Hack heard the whine in his voice. He turned his back on Claire, who was waiting in the doorway. “I just think you could have called so I didn’t have to worry you’d been killed.”

  “You know, forget I called. I thought you might be happy for me.”

  “I am, Violet, but—”

  “You’re like a rope around my legs, you know? Everything I do, you try to hold me back. It’s too much.”

  “Violet, I’ve never held you back! We’ve lived on my income for a year!”

  The phone clicked in his ear.

  “Violet? Violet?”

  Hack couldn’t move. After a while he felt Claire’s arms encircle his waist, hugging him from behind. “You okay?”

  “She’s…”He couldn’t speak.

  “She doesn’t deserve you, Hack,” Claire said softly. “She never did.”

  Hack went in to work, but he couldn’t concentrate. He spent most of the day staring out the window and chewing on his pen. So many things had turned out lately to not be what Hack thought. First there was Violet, who was neither as affectionate nor as dead as he’d believed. Then there were the things Claire’s hippie friends had said, things that made more sense than he really wanted them to. Like how he was being exploited by Nike. That was truer than any of them knew.

  But most confusing was Claire. It was possible she was just being nice to him, Hack knew. Claire was sweet. But it was also possible she still cared for him. It was possible she’d never stopped caring for him, the whole time he’d been with Violet. That thought kept running around and around in his head.

  “Hey, Hack,” a woman across the aisle said. “You still with us?”

  “What?”

  “You’re staring at nothing.”

  “Oh,” he said. “Yes, I’m fine.”

  She rolled her eyes. Hack felt annoyed. He was sitting right here, did she think he couldn’t see her? No one respected Hack at Nike. No one respected him anywhere.

  He stood up. “I’m going to get going.”

  She looked startled. “It’s only five o’clock.”

  “Yeah, well,” Hack said. “I’m still going.” He had things to do.

  The cabdriver thought it was pretty funny, Hack not knowing where his own car was. Hack was having trouble seeing the humor in the situation, but that might have been because it was costing him a buck a minute to uselessly circle the airport parking lot. Then it occurred to him that Violet might not have driven herself here at all: she sure hadn’t paid for her own plane ticket. He had the cab take him to the ExxonMobil building and walked up to reception. “Excuse me, where’s your visitor’s parking?”

  “To use visitor’s parking, you need to book ahead, sir.” The receptionist smiled sympathetically.

  “I don’t want to use it,” Hack said. “I just want to know where it is.”

  “But, sir, there’s no point in me telling you where it is unless you’ve booked.”

  “But I—oh, fine,” Hack said. He would wander around until he found it. He started to walk away. The receptionist said: “Oh—are you the owner of a red Toyota?”

  He stopped. “Yes.”

  “We had that towed.”

  “Towed where?”

  “I’m not sure… there’s a firm we use, you’ll need to call them.” She slipped a card across the desk.

  “Can I use your phone?”

  She looked at him doubtfully. Hack resisted the urge to drop his eyes. Instead he met her gaze with what he hoped was force and natural authority. “Um…sure,” the receptionist said. She slid the phone across the desk. “I really shouldn’t let you, though.” She smiled.

  “Thanks.” He tried not to show his surprise. What a reaction! Hack had never gained such results in his life. There was something to this assertiveness stuff. “I won’t be long.”

  “Take as long as you need,” the receptionist said.

  The tow truck company would give Hack’s car back only if he came out to their lot, showed them some ID, and paid them five hundred dollars. That wasn’t such a great development. Hack didn’t have five hundred dollars, not even close. The man from the towing company wouldn’t budge no matter how much force and natural authority Hack used.

  Still, he felt upbeat on the cab trip back to Claire’s. He felt like he’d discovered something important. People like John Nike hadn’t been pushing him around for no reason, Hack realized: he had let them do it. He’d expected them to do it. Well, all that was going to change. Hack was going to take control.

  Claire wasn’t home yet. Hack sat on the sofa and jiggled his leg. He couldn’t wait to talk to her. He wanted to ask about that group of hers. He wanted to know if they did more than just talk.

  44 Collaboration

  Violet pushed END CALL on the airphone. It had a long cord that was meant to retract into her seat, but she couldn’t get it to work. She caught Nathaniel ExxonMobil looking at her across the aisle. “Trouble at home?”

  “It’s fine,” Violet said. She didn’t want to talk to Nathaniel right now.

  “It’s hard for your loved ones to understand why you have to leave them. Why you have to do certain things. That’s something I’ve learned.”

  “Things are fine.” She found the right button. The phone retracted.

  “You didn’t tell him about the deal?”

  Violet looked down at the contract. It gave ExxonMobil full use of her software, plus her services to activate it. It gave Violet, if her product worked, just under three million dollars. “It’s nothing to do with him. This is mine.”

  “All right,” Nathaniel said, and returned to his journal.

  It was raining in London. Violet cupped her hands and peered out the windows, but all she could see through the tint and fog were gray silhouettes of low buildings. She reached for the control to wind them down, but Nathaniel’s hand closed over hers. “Sorry. Not possible.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t want to be seen. You can do the tourist thing after you’ve hit Shell.”

  “When’s that?”

  He looked at his watch. “Three hours.”

  “Oh.” She felt her gut tighten.

  “Everything will work out,” Nathaniel said. “Just you wait and see.”

  “Yo
u don’t have to go in there.”

  “Neither do you. Do you want to back out of the contract?”

  Violet looked away. She didn’t like Nathaniel very much. “No.”

  Violet was the only tech in the group. She’d been briefed on the server they’d gain access to, but even so, she was no Solaris expert. If she got lost in the operating system, all she had to rely on was a headset and some guys in the London ExMo headquarters. Violet thought it should be the other way around: ExMo techs going in while she sat in an air-conditioned building with a radio.

  But this was how Nathaniel wanted it: Violet plus twelve members of the Police—who were soldiers, really, with uniforms and guns and belts with plenty of stuff on them. They rode to Shell in the back of a UPS van. Violet watched to see if they looked competent. She wasn’t used to working in a team. She was starting to freak out a little.

  “Two minutes,” the leader said. The Police began pulling on balaclavas and slapping weapons together. “Ma’am, we’ll be between you and them at all times. Just go where we push you.”

  “You’ll look after me, right? You won’t lose me?”

  “No, ma’am.” She looked for his name tag. It said only: ONE. “Trust me.”

  The van slowed and everyone inside shut up. Then it moved on, then finally stopped. This was the cue everyone except Violet knew: Police soldiers jumped up and slapped open the doors. She was immediately surrounded. Someone kneed her in the butt; she accidentally headbutted a man’s back. Her only view was straight up, of the office tower they were about to enter.

  She heard glass smash, then a soldier manhandled her through a broken revolving door. Someone said, “Down! Down! On the ground!” She caught a glimpse of a white-faced security guard. He didn’t look as if he felt like taking on a dozen heavily armed soldiers. Violet thought: Maybe this is going to be all right.

  A few soldiers stayed in the lobby, but the rest stormed a stairwell. Violet’s soldier kept one hand on her back, pushing her all the way up. At first she was resentful, but ten stories later, she was pretty much relying on him. When they exited onto a floor, she could hardly breathe.

  Then there was a lot of shouting. The floor was a cubicle farm full of shocked-looking employees. The Police kept breaking out of formation to push someone to the ground, and Violet began to feel more vulnerable. A girl with glasses met her eyes. She looked young and scared. Violet felt bad for her.

  The speakers in the ceiling said: “All personnel, all personnel. We are experiencing a dangerous security situation. Take cover under your desk until further notice. Do not attempt to leave the building. This is not a drill.”

  “Down, down, down!” the soldier to Violet’s left shouted. He ran to where a man was leaning over a desk, talking on the phone. “Put that down! Get on the floor!”

  “I—I’m just closing a deal,” the man said. Violet froze: she couldn’t believe anyone would be so stupid.

  The soldier thrust his rifle barrel into the man’s face. “Put it down!”

  “Please, just one more—”

  The soldier did something to his gun. It made a click. “—minute, please—”

  The soldier jumped, twisted, and fell on top of him.

  Violet didn’t know why she never heard the shot. She was left to infer it from the businessman’s horrified expression and the blood. There was a young man across the room, a kid in a suit and a bright tie. He was holding a pistol.

  A soldier tackled Violet hard, throwing her to the ground, and then there was a lot of gunfire; she heard that. “Get off!” Violet shouted, but he had her pinned. “Get off me!” She didn’t know why she was struggling.

  The shooting didn’t last long. There was some screaming, and the Police shouted some more, then Violet’s soldier hauled her up and pushed her along. “Wait!” She twisted, trying to see. “Wait, what happened to—”

  The kid with the pistol was gone. On the wall behind where he had been was a red spray.

  “Oh, no,” she said. “No no no—”

  “Get a hold of yourself!” the soldier snarled. He sounded strange, so she turned to look. He was carrying the wounded soldier over his shoulder, who was trying to hold his neck in. Blood ran between his fingers.

  She screamed, recoiled against the man in front of her, tripped, and fell.

  “Get up!” the soldier yelled. Hands were on her, pulling at her hair and clothes. “Get up, get up!”

  “No! No!” She kicked at them. Someone reached a hand toward her and she bit it.

  “Ahh! Goddamn it—”

  “Carry her!” someone ordered, and they did. A soldier picked Violet up and slung her over his shoulders. She slapped wildly at his head. She felt terribly exposed: she could see employee eyes peeking at her around desks and through potted plants.

  The soldiers broke open some glass doors. This was the computer room, so busted doors were really going to fuck with the temperature control, Violet knew. Featureless computer servers stood about, spaced evenly across the floor. The soldier dropped her to the ground.

  “You! We’re here! Do your stuff!”

  “No—”

  “Do it!”

  “I can’t!”

  He slapped her so hard she fell to her knees. It was so surprising and absurd that Violet started laughing.

  A Police soldier pulled her so close that she couldn’t see anything except his eyes, surrounded by the balaclava. It was enough for her to recognize him: it was the leader, ONE. His hand gripped her neck. “Do your job or I’ll kill you here.”

  His words were funny, but his eyes were hard and suggested to Violet that ONE was not the kind of guy to kid around. She struggled for air. “Wait—wait—I need a terminal. Not the actual computer. A terminal.”

  “What the fuck’s a terminal?”

  “They’re in the—” In his grip, she tried to peer around. There was a small, glass-walled room to one side. Three techs stood inside, looking out nervously. “I need to get in there.”

  “Move!” ONE said, and dropped her. She rubbed her throat while the soldiers kicked in the door and hauled the techs out. Violet followed them in and walked between the rows of terminals until she found one that said:

  [root@sphinx/usr] %

  ONE was right behind her. “Is this what you need? Is this it?”

  “Yes,” she said, and began to work.

  45 Execution

  In John’s opinion, if you’d seen one stock exchange, you’d seen them all: giant screens, paper-strewn floors, and too many sweaty people in close proximity to each other. John hadn’t been on the trading floor before, but all that added to the experience was strangers shouting mumbo jumbo in his ear. The only words he understood coming out of these people’s mouths were “gimme” and “fucking.”

  The Shell Liaison was tall, thin, and jumpy. His eyes roved around the boards, and he kept losing concentration while John was talking to him. Between him and the Pepsi kid, John was less than impressed with the quality of US Alliance personnel engaged here.

  The takeover had been announced at nine-thirty: Shell was offering $58 for every common share of ExxonMobil sold before the close of trading. “Is that a lot?” John asked, and the Shell Liaison said, “It’s double the opening!” which John took to mean yes.

  Since then there had been a lot of excited brokers and the Shell Liaison biting his nails, and John was getting bored. “What are we doing here?” he asked the Pepsi kid.

  “You’re talking to me again?” the kid said. He had collected some ripped paper stubs from the floor and seemed to be trying to stick them together. “We’re here for defense. If T.A. tries to storm the exchange, we coordinate with the NRA to repel them.”

  “They think Team Advantage will attack the exchange?”

  “Those NRA dudes aren’t for show, man.” John had assumed they were part of normal security. He began to feel vulnerable. He hadn’t replaced the pistol Hack’s girlfriend had stolen from him yet. “Do you have a gun?”
<
br />   The Pepsi kid patted his jacket. “Always.”

  “Great,” John said. “Just great.”

  “You’re unarmed?”

  “No one told me people were going to be shooting at me.”

  “Aw, nothing’s probably going to happen. We caught T.A. off guard, and we’ve got like fifty guys here.”

  “Hmm.” He noticed a commotion spreading through the floor. The brokers were getting even more agitated. “What’s going on?”

  The kid was squinting at his torn dockets. “Dunno. Ask Stretch.”

  John saw the Shell Liaison shouting into his cellphone. The cords in his neck were bulging. “This doesn’t look good.”

  “Maybe T.A. are coming.” The kid sniggered.

  A groan rippled through the hall. One of the big boards flashed up: ROYAL DUTCH/SHELL (RDS) BID FOR EXXONMOBIL (XXN)—SUSPENDED.

  John walked to the Shell Liaison and took his arm. “What’s happening?”

  He covered the mouthpiece. “We’ve lost our integrated trading systems. We can’t verify buy orders until it comes back up. We’re trying to—”

  “Is it temporary?”

  “I’ll let you know. Okay?”

  John went back to the Pepsi kid. “So?” the kid said.

  “Some computer problem.”

  The kid blew air through his teeth. “Eggheads, man. You can never rely on ’em.” He smirked. “If we were being attacked, I would have given you my gun, you know.”

  “Sure you would have,” John said.

  An hour later, the BID SUSPENDED sign was still up and brokers were getting increasingly pissed off. John was restless: he was here to make sure the buyout went smoothly, and it had come to a grinding halt. This was not looking like a good career move.

  “What’s taking them so long?” the Pepsi kid said. “Don’t their computers have backups?”

  John spotted the Shell Liaison in conversation with a floor trader. “Let’s find out.” He stood behind the man until he turned. “Are we doing business here or what?”

  The Shell Liaison whispered, “The entire Shell net has been toasted. They don’t think they can bring it back up today.”