Outrageous Fortune

by Tim Scott

  “We used to have a washing machine a bit like that,” Mat said, pulling himself off me. “The secret was never to ask it to spin anything, or it really lost it.”

  A further gut-wrenching scream of metal came from the unit and, as we both stared, the whole thing pulled away from the wall. It hung idly for a brief moment by the tenderest of fixings, then plummeted like a felled tree, pulling out the connecting hose that snaked into the room so that it dived between my legs and out of the hole like a frightened cat. It all seemed to make an incredible amount of noise. A second later, there was a dull whump from below.

  “Right; that’s not good,” I said quietly, after a pause.

  “I knew we should have gone surfing,” Mat murmured, eyeing the door. We both expected a host of security to pile in any second, but nothing happened. I made my way to the door and listened. There was nothing to hear, so I grasped the handle and opened it a touch.

  It was so gloomy I pushed a little more. I guessed this was a corridor and we both slipped out quietly. It was deserted. We peered both ways, then edged left in the murky half-light. A short corridor to our right ended with another door. Opposite, to the left, was a door marked ENCYCLOPEDIA RECORDS. My heart lifted. At least we seemed to be in Argonaut Logistics.

  We turned right and paused outside this next door; there were distant voices from somewhere, sounding like they were talking rapidly on voice coms, but too quietly to make out distinctly. I carefully pushed the handle only to have it torn violently from my grasp as it was whipped open from the other side by a squat, dark figure. We both stood stupidly, like rabbits caught in a searchlight.

  “Marks out of ten for getting my ass kicked?” the man snapped, as he pushed past. “Fifty-six zillion! More probably. This place is worse than the Tree of Woe on a bad day, I’ll tell you that for nothing. Never lose an F-51 if you want a life. You’re better off emigrating to Utah and living in a colony of marsupials.” And then he was gone through the door marked ENCYCLOPEDIA RECORDS.

  Mat and I exchanged glances, then slipped into the much bigger room. On the far side was a whole bank of people sitting at screens and monitors, with their backs to us and talking animatedly into voice coms. On the wall was a map of Santa Cruz, with various lights picking out locations. I noticed with surprise that there was a light right on Mat’s house. Around the wall were a host of small plasi-screens. “The customer may well be a rude, stupid, lame-brained fathead of a jackass, but respect him,” said one. “Always keep a customer alive—it’s bad service not to,” said another. “Love your workmates, but don’t sleep with them, unless you’re particularly drunk and can’t help it,” added a third.

  The rest of the floor was empty, except for a spiral staircase to our right. I walked carefully over to it, trying not to attract attention from anyone in the room. The treads flexed slightly as we wound our way up, and I knew now I wanted to find Caroline E. I wanted to find out what this place was about, I wanted to find out more about her, and I wanted to find out what the fuck was going on.

  The floor above was bathed in a deep, red glow, as though the main lights had gone down and this was some emergency backup, but I guess it might have been deliberate. If they wanted to keep the place low-key, then having these floors lit up like a Christmas tree, beaming their presence over half of Santa Cruz, wouldn’t have been ideal. But then why be in the Street Scanner? Why be in a listing of companies where anyone can find you? I reached the top tread and paused as Mat drew alongside me. This floor was packed with small, underlit glass rooms that faced off from both sides of the corridor. In the ones nearest us were a bed and a small desk, with a screen gently purring away. There was no sign of anyone. We moved gingerly to our left, passing more of these rooms, and I caught the names on the doors. HARRIET M9; then JULIET T32 (GF). We moved forward, expecting any moment to hear someone, and I froze. The room on our right was marked with a neat sign. CAROLINE E61.

  The blinds were down. I nodded to Mat, indicating the room. I was about to try the door when we heard footsteps on the spiral stairs and a familiar muttering voice floating up.

  “Always my ass. Always mine. I come here and eat a hassle salad every fucking day. I live on a diet of hassle fucking salad. Like I’m the only person ever to lose an F-51. Like I’m the only person in the history of the company to ever get the Director General on the phone and think it’s the courier.”

  The balding top of his head came into view but I didn’t want to push our luck with this guy, so I flicked open the door to Caroline’s room. We scooted inside and I snapped it shut behind us as he grumbled his way past.

  I swallowed. Maybe we weren’t alone in here.

  I turned, very slowly.

  20

  There are three types of dreams. Those that are made, like the ones I used to make. Those that are normal, and by that I mean the hodgepodges of moments and thoughts of the day past, where your subconscious is trying to organize your head, organize your fears, and organize your future.

  And then there are the ones about dead people.

  These are different. They have a realism that transcends normal dreams, and they have a quality about them that is comforting and comfortable. They are situations that are fresh, born not from things that can be traced to fleeting images or words from the day before, but a new world that takes you by surprise. They stand alone and they come from another place. Explaining all this means nothing unless you have had them, and if you’ve had them, then it doesn’t need explaining, because clearly you know what I mean.

  It all sounds trite and it stinks of needing a crutch to see you through a difficult time when someone has died, but it’s not like that. At least, I don’t think it is. Dead people crop up in normal dreams too, but the difference is like comparing electricity to pedal power. It’s cavernous.

  And there is another type of dream I should mention here too, but it’s hard to call it a dream because it’s off the scale of normal experience. It happens during sleep, when you are near someone who is on the very edge of dying, but it’s more an overwhelming presence of evil, of boundaries breaking, of worlds meeting, of life itself dissolving. It’s an intense scream, which lives inside you. I have felt it once; when I was buried in an avalanche with Eli’s brother, Jack. It’s something I will never forget and it’s something I expect to experience again if I die slowly too. You see, I don’t believe it’s anything to be afraid of, although it feels a zillion times worse than anything life prepares you for.

  That dream experience is all I can remember of the day he died, but it burned deep into my mind the feeling that there is another level of things going on in the world that we just don’t get. It gnawed away at me, and although I tried to bury it with all the other stuff that was locked up in my head, I couldn’t. I read up about dreams, and when I had one about Jack a few months after he died that came at me clear as a bell from left field, it made the decision easy and I knew I wanted to study dream architecture at UCSC. I was fascinated about dreams, and sensed there were more boundaries to break.

  21

  Pinned hurriedly on the wall were a few pictures of me taken the previous day, and a readout from my Medi-Data showing a huge blip where my emotions went bonkers at the time I discovered my house was gone. Next to it were all kinds of numbers and data which, I guessed, had to be something to do with my C-4 Charlie codes. Higher up an official, framed certificate proclaimed: “Caroline E61 has been awarded a class 2.2 (a Desmond) in recognition of her performance in all firearms and speed-riding classes, and is deemed a qualified Limpet Encyclopedia Sales Operative.” It was signed “Col. Isaac A34.”

  “A Desmond?” I said quietly, nodding to Mat. “What’s that when it’s at home?”

  “What? Oh, a Desmond? A Desmond Tutu. Yeah? You don’t know about that? Oh, really? He was a South African archbishop or something, years ago. A two, two? A Desmond Tutu? You must have heard of that.”

  “I’ll take your word for it,” I said, not entirely understanding th
e connection, but not caring enough to get to the bottom of it. “What’s this line doing here?” I said, looking at the Medi-Data more closely. “That’s when I found my house gone; but look, a few hours earlier, my emotions went crazy. This line’s like shark’s teeth.”

  “That’s when you were with Emma?” said Mat.

  “No, it’s 2:00 AM. I was asleep in a bar, then. I’d passed out. Emma walked out on me hours earlier. Sadly.”

  We heard footsteps outside and both froze. A woman’s voice was gently singing. I parted the blinds a touch and saw the back of a silhouetted figure over by a drinks machine that seemed to have been following her. Or perhaps had just met her in the corridor. I held my breath. I didn’t want to get chucked out of this place until I had found Caroline.

  “Yes! It’s time to add the power of the nuclear bomb to your golf swing,” cried out a hologram of the very small man, whom I had last seen in the Zone Securities canteen. “Hi! I’m Tony Shappenhaur IV. You know me better as ‘The Thinking Buckaroo,’ and I’m here to tell you about the amazing power of this driver.”

  “Ah! Virus ad,” I whispered. “Must have caught it in Zone Securities and I haven’t got a zapper!”

  “S’OK,” said Mat, producing a unit from his jacket and zap-ping the thing away in a puff of burnt electrics. “Our free gift with the encyclopedias. Not bad, eh? I brought this along rather than the framed picture of the moose.”

  “Close decision, but good call.” I looked back outside. The woman didn’t seem to have heard, then I realized something. It was Caroline E.

  “It’s her,” I whispered. “It’s her! I’m going to have a word.”

  “Is that wise?” Mat whispered, cocking his head to one side. “Perhaps first we should just see what we can find here.”

  “No, I’m way past being careful now.” I opened the door quietly and tapped slowly down the corridor toward her. She didn’t appear to notice my footsteps and I hoped her mind was off duty and not tuned in to shooting people on sight.

  “I’ll have some Wrecking Juice,” I said to the drinks machine.

  “Shit! Jonny X?”

  “I’d say these were on me, only they axed my Jab-Tab at Zone Securities.”

  “Thanks, Guzzler. There’s a little extra to erase this man from your memory, OK?” she said to the drinks machine, connecting up her Jab-Tab. Then she turned to me. “If they see you here, they’ll divorce me from the entire setup. Quick!” She yanked me back toward her room as the drinks machine turned and mistakenly wheeled itself into a wall, letting out a squawk.

  “Great,” she snorted, seeing Mat, as she flipped the door shut. “How many of you are there?”

  “Just us,” I said, feeling a sense of calm slide through me. I had the upper hand, which was a bit of a novelty, and I liked this woman. Being in her presence made me smile.

  “Right. You realize the trouble you have got me in?” She had to stop herself from shouting.

  “I know, I’m sorry about attracting Zone Securities. I didn’t appreciate that—”

  “Not that. That was hardly an inconvenience. I mean your sale still has not gone through! Do you know what that means to my job? Do you?” She was genuinely angry, but I just kept getting drawn to her searingly blue eyes.

  “Is everyone here actually selling encyclopedias, then? Is that honestly what this whole place is and not a cover for something else?” I said feeling rather naive, but still not able to get my head around it.

  “What does it look like? Dial an Ostler? We’ll get a groom over to your horse in half an hour or your money back?”

  “I don’t know. It just makes no sense for you to go to all this trouble to sell sets of old-fashioned encyclopedias. It really doesn’t. I don’t understand it.”

  She stared at me. “What do you want, Jonny? A signed statement from the president? You’ve looked around this place! It’s real, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know. I guess so.”

  “Anyway, what do I care? It’s of no interest to me what you think. I’m off your case now. They’re putting an ex–forces paratrooper on you.”

  “A paratrooper?”

  “Yeah. An ex-assassin. He’s Belgian.”

  “Belgian? A Belgian assassin?”

  “That’s it. A bit of a slick bastard too.”

  “To sell me a set of encyclopedias?”

  “Yup, and he gets all the personnel he wants, of course—and they wonder why his sales figures are more explosive than anyone else’s. I’m demoted to backup for three weeks while they review my case, in case you’re wondering. Thanks a lot.” This woman was the most unusual person I could ever recall meeting. She was passionate, skilled, and stunningly beautiful, and I knew she was someone who could help me.

  “I’ll make you a deal, then,” I said thinking quickly. “I’ll get you back on my case, and I’ll buy the encyclopedias from you—”

  “Hey! Hey! Hey! They hacked into your Medi-Data!” cut in Mat, who always had been idealistic about such things.

  “Hear me out, Mat, OK? But only if you help me find my house and get those four Riders permanently off my back.”

  “Jonny. I’m an encyclopedia saleswoman. That’s what I do for a living; I’m not in the business of sorting out personal problems in the lives of strangers.”

  “Your job’s on the line, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is, thanks to you. All right, all right. So what exactly is your deal, Jonny X?”

  “Give me the inside info on this new man.”

  “You’re not serious?”

  “Why not? Give me the info on this new Belgian man—his movements, who he is—and we’ll bring him in. I’ll say I want you back on the case, the sale, whatever you call it because he’s not up to it.”

  “You’re serious? You want me to go behind the back of a colleague? You’d never bring him in anyway. You have no idea what you’re up against, do you?”

  “That’s our problem. Now, it’s up to you. Is this a deal?”

  “I always knew you were going to be a strange sort of trouble,” she said, and there was almost a smile in her face, but she was incredibly hard to read.

  “So that’s a ‘yes’?”

  “Look,” she said evenly and suddenly way more sternly. “I really don’t mean to be rude, I honestly don’t. But I’m having a bad day, so please, would you mind if I just told you to fuck off?”

  I smiled inwardly at that, knowing she had remembered and repeated, word for word, exactly what I had said to her the previous morning when we had first met.

  “I’m awfully tenacious,” I said playing along with the game of repeating the conversation, but I immediately realized it sounded lame and stupid.

  “And, as it happens, I’m extremely dangerous,” she replied curtly. “Here. It activates the elevator. I don’t suppose you got in that way,” she said, tossing me a bracelet. “End of the corridor.”

  The drinks machine was still ramming itself determinedly into the wall, positive there was a way through, as we headed past it.

  “This way,” said Mat, as we edged through. “Come on. This way, little fella,” and he turned the machine in the right direction.

  “No point banging your head against a wall forever, is there?” I said to the machine. Looking back, I saw Caroline leaning on the doorframe watching us. “No point at all.” Something inside me flared. Her piercing eyes seemed to hold some deep secret. “Does the eighteenth of October mean anything to you?” I said, without any real reason to do so. Her lips pursed and her eyes widened. Then she vanished inside her room. I paused, wondering what that meant. Mat was already down the corridor, so I edged swiftly passed the drinks machine and caught him up at the elevator, slipping on the bracelet she had given me.

  “Authorized,” said the elevator, sluicing open its doors. “Knock, knock,” it added, as we stepped inside.

  “What?” I said.

  “It’s a joke,” said the elevator. “I’m not very good with jokes, but I l
ike this one.”

  “No jokes,” I said. “Can we get going now?”

  “Knock. Knock. I think this is a good one,” it persevered.

  “Who’s there?” said Mat, realizing the reality of the situation, as we stood in the elevator with the doors wide open, not going anywhere.

  “Norma Lee,” said the elevator.

  “Norma Lee who?” Mat came back.

  “Norma Lee I’d plummet and kill you, but today I feel good,” I said with irritation, realizing I’d heard that one before in the elevator in Inconvenient. “Now can we please get going?” I added, hearing footsteps.

  “Oh, you’ve heard it?” droned the elevator. “It’s an elevator joke; it’s doing the rounds.”

  “Stop!” cried a voice down the corridor. “Stop!”

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  “I’m still here,” called the elevator.

  “Stop!” came the voice again, but slightly more breathless. Neither of us had a gun, so we just stood there like lame ducks. “I’m not staying here a moment longer than I have to,” said the balding man we had seen earlier as he stepped into the elevator, sweat cascading off his pate. “That is it. I’m through. I’ve had enough,” he ranted, as the elevator doors shut and we started to descend. “Finished. Bye-bye Argonaut Logistics. Bye-bye. See you in the next life. See you in hell. I’d rather spend the rest of my life eating Cheez Whiz out of a bucket than working here.” He took out a handkerchief and began mopping the top of his head. “They’ve treated me like dirt. One mistake, and you’re out. One friggin’ mistake. Like they’re all perfect. Like they walk on water or something. This place stinks. I’m out of here. No offense, but you should be too. Miss a sale, buddy, and you better watch your ass. I don’t recognize you two. You operatives or talkies?”

  “Operatives.”

  “Talkies,” jumped in Mat.