The Water Thief (10 page)

“So you would
run a capitalist economy solely on electives? You can’t make any revenue that
way,” I said.

“Less than ten
percent of Ackerman’s revenue comes from essentials. The rest is from people
competing with each other for prestige and comfort. You want to get a man to buy
a new car, let him see his neighbor driving one. People are never satisfied:
they will always want better pools, homes, cars, boats—everything. Capitalism
does that so well; it flourishes in so many places. What blows my mind is that
it’s always the capitalists who have no faith in the ability of the system to
succeed on electives alone. Saying that we should capitalize everything is
avarice. Everything, even capitalism, has a point where its use is excessive.
The pigs are walking, Charlie.”

I had never in
my life met such an extraordinary a woman. I loved it. And I loved her.

“Oh dear lord,”
I exclaimed. “It’s nearly five a.m.”

“Oh, I’m so
sorry. I didn’t realize the time. You’ll be billed a small fortune for this!”

“No, don’t be
silly, I’m the one who’s sorry. You’ve got another job.”

“I do. But I’m
really glad I stayed. I guess most people would have thrown me out after the
first five minutes. I had fun tonight, Charlie.”

It was the first
time someone had ever said that. Well, it was the first time I believed it,
anyway. And it was the most incredible feeling I had ever felt.

I overslept, and
when I finally got out the door I couldn’t help but stop on the bridge along my
route. I gazed at the soot-covered trees, the hazy sky and the dirty river, and
found hope—not because I believed in republics, but because there was someone
else who did.

When I finally
got to work I found forty or so memos on my desk, most of them from half a
dozen supervisors, each expressing varying levels of concern about the fact
that I hadn’t filed a report in over fourteen hours.

At lunch,
Bernard prattled on as he always did.

“Did you ever
wonder why a Delta is lower than a Gamma, even though the letter D comes first
in the alphabet? It’s from the Greeks. Their alphabet was Alpha, Beta, Gamma…
and, well you know the rest. Honestly, the Greeks are dead and buried. People
just use that archaic alphabet to seem smart. You could have an A-Con, B-Con,
C-Con and so forth. Or use colors: red, green, blue…. maybe metals like copper,
gold and platinum. This Greek business is so unnecessary. They meddle in our
contracts, our language, even in our poker…”

Having failed to
garner any attention, he spoke louder. “The business suit is outdated, too. Who
still believes that you can tell the quality of a colleague by his suit? A suit
tells you nothing! I waste time just putting it on. Between keeping it clean
and in repair—heck, even getting in and out of it—the time I waste is like
throwing money out the window. I should be able to come to work in my underwear
if I want. The work is all that matters! The work!”

Corbett
snickered.

 
“I know my mugging came at an inconvenient
time,” continued Bernard. “But this bill is ludicrous. They added a surcharge
for it being an after-hours call. It’ll take me a month to pay this off. I
swear, next time I’m just going to hand my money over to the robber and be done
with it.”

Corbett couldn’t
restrain himself anymore. “The police saved your life, and you’re upset over
some little surcharge? You can afford it.”

“They brought in
an entire SWAT team. Against two hoodlums with a bat? Nobody was going to kill
me. And after-hours? That’s when muggings occur! How can that be a separate
charge?” he said, stuffing his face with an apple fritter.

“Christ, Bernard,
all you do is complain. The cost of air is up half a point, the humidity is too
oppressive, Greeks are meddling with our alphabet, the cops charged you too
much for saving your life… Give it up!

“Everything that
goes on here is above your head,” continued Corbett. “The Greek, the suit,
corporate jargon, customs and traditions—it’s a dialect. I can spot an
Epsilon—even in an Alpha’s suit—a mile away, because he doesn’t wear it right.
He’s stilted and uncomfortable. A man who has taken the time to know which fork
to use and when, who can use the right language, who knows when to be polite
and when to be rude—that man communicates precision. You know who you’re
talking to,” he said, staring at the fat man nearly bursting through his
clothes. “Your suit tells me more than your ledger ever could. But yeah, I
guess the way you eat, I’d complain if I had to clean that suit too!”

“Bull! It’s
dominance, pure and simple. I’ll bet you Takashi tears off his suit the first
chance he gets, dances around in his briefs!”

Corbett shook
his head. “If you took all the time you spent complaining and actually spent it
working, you’d make so much you wouldn’t have to worry about it. Honestly,
you’re the laziest man I know.”

“I’m two ranks
higher than you, last I looked!”

“Well, we’re the
same grade, Bernard. And you’re, what, ten years older? I’ll be on the ninth
floor in sixteen months, and you know it. And you know what else? At least I
don’t steal reports.”

“Who’s stealing
reports?” Bernard asked.

“You!”

“I don’t steal anything!”
he said, shocked. “I work hard; I’m one of the hardest workers here! Of all the
jealous, petty, inhuman things to say.”

“You’re a
thief!”

“Go on, say it
again! I’ll sue you for libel. I have witnesses!”

I sipped my
coffee. He wouldn’t be filing any lawsuits. This was just part of the
negotiation. Five caps here or there, maybe a game of poker, and the matter
would be settled. Millions of caps a week changing hands, tamping down
corporate flare-ups… an unending flotsam of cash trading hands.

“You think like
a LowCon!” Corbett said. “You have no idea how anything works!”

“Oh, like you’re
some expert on low-contract colleagues or how they work.”

“I am! I have
this small community I’ve been investing in,” Corbett continued, “right along
the Capital City wall. Nobody wants to invest there, ‘cuz twenty percent of the
people don’t pay their electric bill in full. You’ve got to constantly get on
them if you want your money. But I solved that problem. I wrote up a flyer
letting them all know who hadn’t paid. If I don’t get one hundred percent
payment from everybody, I’m cutting them off—all of them! They’ll be so
screwed. They should just bring back horses and carriages, lamps, frigging
kerosene lamps! I’m not going to take this. They’ve got alternatives, and I’ve
got quotas to make. You think Leoben isn’t treating his sectors the same? If
they don’t like this corp, they should move. Did I tell you about Grandma
Millie? She’s a moocher, called me up and said she needs electricity because
her grandson is on some electric heart pump. I said ‘Perfect, now you have a
real incentive to make sure your neighbors pay.’ Honestly, the audacity to
think
her
son is
my
problem. But that’s the deal with these LowCons, always trying
to pawn responsibility off on someone else. There’s a reason they’re
low-contract; it’s a mind-set, this ‘oh, poor me’ garbage. Sound familiar?”

“They’re not all
like that,” I mumbled.

“Of course they
are. That’s the definition of a LowCon,” snapped Corbett.

“I met one,” I
said.

“A LowCon? Who
hasn’t?”

“No, no. Someone
who believes in leviathans.”

“That thing from
the Jewish Bible?” Bernard asked. “A whale or something? They’re all dead,
aren’t they?”

“No, you ton of
lard, he means government! He met a citizen. God, you really
don’t
know anything,” said Corbett. “I
would love, just for a day, to have the sense of denial these people have about
the world, to pretend that you can care about other people and the world will
be just great. Forget actually getting anything done, building something, keeping
people safe…. Name one leviathan that ever worked—ever! You can’t! And yet in
the face of overwhelming, insurmountable proof, you still find these people.
How wonderful it must be to have the ability to completely believe in something
no matter how utterly nonsensical it is. Let’s all believe in unicorns and
fairies while we’re at it—that’s productive.”

Much to my
relief, the conversation drifted on to other subjects.

I came home to a
wife in the mood for a fight. Most of her things were loaded up. She granted me
a few minutes of indignant silence. Then she began ranting that I was the cause
of all her failures, that the only mistake she had ever made was to marry me,
her life a cascade of ruin after that. The final proof of my ineptitude, she
said, was that I had, after so many years, failed to see what an opportunity
I’d had being married to her.

I marveled at
her wrath.

Then she broke
down crying, apologizing for overreacting, telling me she was sorry and saying
that we needed to work out our problems.

She’s behaving like a citizen
, I
thought,
acting as if we share more than
a marriage contract.

It was partly my
fault. I had told her I’d be a high-ranked Gamma some day, maybe even a Beta. I
played the part I needed to land her, that of a real go-getter—regaled her with
plans and schemes for advancement, building sub-corps or branch divisions,
revolutionizing corporate markets. I had honestly thought that I’d wanted those
things. But I didn’t, and that had proven itself out. And marrying her? That
was pride. She was beautiful, argumentative, ambitious and unattainable. I
enjoyed the prestige of being married to her far more than the actual practice
of it.

If there was a
way to fix this marriage, I didn’t want any part of it.

She grabbed all
of her things, some of mine, and left. Moments later my ledger buzzed to let me
know that she had cashed out. She was gone forever.

*
  
*
  
*

“That man over
there,” said Linus, pointing to a poster of a large man in a suit and hat, “is
Al Capone. Everyone knows he was a great capitalist. What most people don’t
remember is how jealous the leviathan was of his success. He profited by
selling alcohol and prostitution, services
the
people
wanted. But the dammed leviathans said they knew better. They
outlawed what he was doing, and when he had to use violence to defend himself,
they called him a gangster and threw him in jail. If what he had been doing was
wrong, he’d have had no customers, and he’d have been out of business—pure and
simple. No matter how much money he made, all they did was vilify him. My god,
the dark ages.”

I nodded
casually. The café was bustling, but I didn’t really notice.

“To your new
life,” he toasted. “Beatrice was dead weight. It’s marvelous you got rid of her—even
got her to think it was her idea, let her take the hit on the divorce. Good
man!”

I sipped my
coffee and smiled as graciously as I could.

“You know, you
seem different now. More self-confident,” the Beta observed.

I laughed. No, I
had no confidence. In fact, I had come more and more to realize that everything
I had ever believed in was wrong. I regarded the system now, not a force of God
or nature, but as just that—a system. I knew less than I ever had before.

“You know what
this means, don’t you?” Linus asked, pleased with himself.

I shook my head.

“We need to
play.”

When I realized
he meant poker, I had to hold back a chortle. Poker, this game that gave me
nightmares, panic attacks and cold sweats.

Oh my god it was
just a game, a pastime. Just because Linus thought it was the ultimate
expression of life didn’t make it so. Winning or losing at poker meant nothing
more than winning or losing at poker. I was who I was, and would be just as
much after the match as before it. How on earth had I ever let six little dice
become one of the greatest sources of anxiety in my life?

I put a single
cap to my chest. I didn’t bother looking at the serial number—I wouldn’t have
known the odds anyway. Linus let out a bemused chuckle.

He bid, and I
countered. He paused, not out of any genuine hesitation, but to remind me that
he was still in command; to remind me that no matter how much I had changed, no
matter how much courage I had, his victory was inevitable. He gave his second
bet, and I called. We flipped the caps over and read them together.

I lost.

I gave him the
cap. It was the easiest and fastest game I had ever played, and as close to
having fun playing as I was ever going to get.

He stirred his
coffee, eying me suspiciously, yet grinning with pride.

“Is there a
problem?” I asked.

“No, not at
all.”

Despite his
denial, Linus still kept a Mona Lisa smile. I wasn’t in a rush—I wasn’t the one
who had a job worth hundreds of caps an hour waiting for me at work. So I
waited him out.

“You know,” he
said, “it may not have occurred to you, colleague, but that was the most
remarkable game we’ve ever played.”

“Nah, I wasn’t
even close to winning.”

“Of course not.
What’s remarkable is that in all the years we’ve played, this is the first time
you ever called me.”

“That can’t be
right,” I said.

“I assure you,
it is. Until today I could’ve used fictions numbers that don’t even exist, and
you wouldn’t call me. You only play defense, Charles. It’s why you’ve been a
born loser, up until just now. Beatrice was far worse for you than I thought.
This is the first time we’ve actually played. Well done.”

This was
extremely serious. I had thought that I could hide my new nature, that I had
lived in the system long enough that I could continue to blend in. But I
couldn’t.