With a Little Help (27 page)

"Leave them," the Series A man said. "We aren't insured --"

He helped the kid to his feet, then Stinky. In the clearing, the Surete had surrounded the girl. Her hands were up, glistening with blood. One turned towards them and shouted something in French, raising his (her? hard to tell with the martian armor) sidearm. Lee-Daniel froze, and then a red dot appeared on the SQ's leg, traveling up to his (her?) crotch. One of the other SQs pointed and the SQ with the gun looked down, then dropped his (her?) arm and leapt back.

Elaine jumped down, holding her laserpointer in her hand.

"Run!" Lee-Daniel said, shoving at the two surveyors, then taking off, running blindly in the moonlight, whacking into tree-trunks, tripping.

The bus was crowded with CogRads and he vaulted up the steps and slammed into the driver's seat, authenticating on the palm-reader and putting the bus through its warm-up/lock-down urban defense checklist. He was vaguely aware of more bodies coming in, then he slammed the door-close button as the shutters unrolled over the windows.

He hit the internal lights, stood and turned around. "Count off," he shouted, over the buzz of conversation.

Automatically, MacDiarmid said, "One," as he had at every count since he'd signed on and gotten the first investor's chair.

He turned to the Series A man expectantly. "Fuck that," he said, in an uncharacteristic burst of blue talk. "Drive, goddamit! Now!"

Lee-Daniel pointed at him and said, "Two," then pointed at the Series B man and said, "Three." He pointed at the middle-managers behind him and they began to count off methodically.

The Series A man turned around and shouted, "Shut the fuck up or I'll throw your ass out of the fucking bus.
Drive
! "

Lee-Daniel looked at Mac. "Better drive, LD," he said.

They were already 20 miles off from the Rez when Elaine told him that Stinky and the kid never got on the bus.

#

Three more raiders looted equipment off the bus. Lee-Daniel played a little game with himself, betting on which one would be the next to turn raccoon. He was two for three within twenty minutes.

"Stop them!" the Series A man said.

"Why?" Lee-Daniel said.

"They'll ruin us!" the Series B man said.

"They'll ruin
you
." Lee-Daniel said. "There go the satellite uplinks. Wow. Good retirement benefit."

"What do you want?" the Series A man asked.

"Sell me your stake. He sells Mac his stake. The paperwork's inside, on the fax machine."

"You're joking," the Series A man said.

"That's the deal," Lee-Daniel said. "And I don't see anyone offering anything better."

There was a tinkle from the bus and Joey Riel sped away with a stack of optical switches, off into the night, staggering slightly from the burden and the booze.

"I need to call the partners," the Series A man said.

"You have fifteen minutes. Better not take much longer," Lee-Daniel said, as an expensive crash resounded from the direction whence Joey Riel had gone.

"Fifteen minutes?" the Series B man said, whitening.

"You want several weeks?" Lee-Daniel said. He wiped his palms on his thighs and kept his grin off his face. It'd be good to get back in the driver's seat.

--

Afterword:

I wrote this for Bruce Sterling's Turkey City workshop in Austin, TX. I was nervous and thrilled to be invited. Bruce is one of my idols -- and he's now a friend and colleague, and my daughter's godfather, besides. We'd corresponded, sat on panels together, but this, this was levelling up. It was a hell of a workshop, and it was also where I met Raph Koster, now also a good friend (as well as an astute and inspiring game designer and theorist).

I'd admired a play by Dewayne Hendricks to use Indian land in the USA to test out cognitive radio applications, on the basis that these sovereign territories were not under FCC jurisdiction. He'd found various tribal leaders who were excited by the idea. Cognitive radio may just be the most radical, game-changing technology on our immediate horizon -- if it works.

In the meantime, I couldn't shake my memories of the brutal standoff at Oka, in Quebec. This is a Mohawk reservation whose sacred burial ground the local town decided to expropriate for a golf-course. The situation escalated and soon there were heavily armed Mohawks and heavily armed cops and heavily armed soldiers all pointing automatic weapons at each other. I never forgot the desperate bravery of the Mohawk Warrior Society.

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Hi, Mom!

Wow, you won't believe what happened today. First of all, I was nearly late for work because my new roommate is worried about the electrical and he pulled out all the plugs last night, even my alarm clock! His name is Tony, and I think he is either weird or crazy, or maybe both! He keeps saying that the Company uses the plugs to listen to our minds! He unplugged all the electricals and put tape over them in the middle of the night. When I woke up this morning, my room was totally black! I had my flashlight from work on the chair near my bed, and I used that to find the living room. Tony was sitting in his shorts on the sofa, in the dark, watching the plug behind the TV. Hey, I said, you watch the television, not the plug, and then he said some bad words and told me that he didn't want me plugging in
anything
. He is skinny like Jimmy got when he had the AIDS, but he is not sick, he is hyperkinetic, like Manny was when he went to the special school. That is why he is management and I still work on a truck. If I have to be skinny and crazy to be management, I'll take the truck all day long!

So I got dressed and ran out of the apt and took all those stairs up to the slidewalk because there was a big line up of people waiting for the elevators, like always, and I didn't have time to wait, because my watch was already warning me that I was going to be late as if I didn't know! I ran all the way to the garage, around all the people on the slidewalk, who don't know to walk right and stand left like you always told me. Life up here in the city is different from back home and no doubt at all.

My watch knew that I wasn't in the garage at 8:25 and it started counting down the minutes till I was late. Its voice gets higher and higher and more and more excited as I get closer to being late, and I thought it was going to bust something as I ran through the door of the garage. It told me that I'd had a close call, but I'd made it, and I felt pretty good about that.

Wendell, the day supervisor, smiled at me when I came in, which he
never
does, and I got nervous that maybe my watch was wrong about my being late, except that my watch is never wrong. Jap, he said, you're on special truck 982 today. I said what's that, and he told me that it was a great honor and then he said I'd like you to meet your pusher for today, Rhindquist.

So I shook Rhindquist's hand. He was a kind of old, fat, short guy, and his uniform was old fashioned looking and not as smart as the one I wear, that you liked so much in the photo I sent home last month. So right away I thought that he was some kind of moron and I was being punished for being late. He said, pleased to meet you, Jasper, and he didn't sound like a moron, but more like one of those guys on your TV stories that are rich and powerful and in charge. I said call me Jap everybody else does and he said twenty years ago the All Nippon Anti Defamation League would have put a stop to that and I laughed even though I didn't get the joke until later. It is that Jap is also short for Japanese, which is like the Moonies but they are from Korea.

Let's roll 'em out, Rhindquist said, and hopped on the back of the truck and held on tight. I got in and did my ten point startup safety check like they taught me. By point four, he was banging on the side of the truck and saying Let's go! and I leaned out my window and said that I wouldn't skip my safety check for nobody and he said some bad words and I said that I would have to start over again and he'd better keep quiet or we'd never get out of there. My watch said I did right, which made me feel good. I hoped that Rhindquist's watch told him off for trying to shortcut on safety!

We rolled out a little late. I drove to my first pickup, which is the side of Finance 38. Finance 38 is a very, very tall building and all no windows because they don't want spies from other cities seeing them and their money. I drove over the Severe Tire Damage yard and passed through three security gates and backed up to the shredder bay. I did my four point shutdown safety check and Rhindquist banged on the truck again and said more bad words but I ignored him. His watch must be busy all the time, telling him not to be so mean!

I went through the metal-detector and into the Finance 38 and the guard's watch and my watch talked to each other for a while and then the guard stopped pointing his gun at me and said, You're late now move this stuff out of here and I said OK and started moving the boxes. Finance 38's boxes are very heavy, and there sure are a lot of them! Every day, there are fifty boxes, as big as the big TV at the community centre back home. I am getting very strong working at this job, Mom! My arms are bigger every morning.

I moved the boxes back to the truck. I left them for Rhindquist, who started opening them and pushing the papers inside into the hopper. On my normal truck, 3528, my pusher is Vasquez, who is very fast at pushing the papers. Rhindquist was slow, so that by the time I'd moved half the boxes back to the truck, there was no more room to move the rest! I thought that for a guy who's always in a big hurry, he sure works slow!

So I went into the truck, with my flashlight. And there was Rhindquist, and do you know what he was doing? He was reading the papers before putting them into the shredder! What are you doing? I said, you aren't allowed to do that! He gave me a look, not like he was angry, but like he thought
I
was a moron or something. My watch told me that I should report him right away, and I started to go back into Finance 38 to use the guard's phone, but Rhindquist did something with his own watch and my watch stopped working! You broke my watch! I said to him!

He said, That's from the Blues Brothers, and he said, What do they do, attach the disposal baskets to the laser printers? This is all junk, none of this needs secure disposal! And I said, you broke my watch, Rhindquist, and everything in the Finance Buildings needs secure disposal, it's in the manual.

He said, I didn't break your watch, I just shut it off for a while. It will be OK, trust me. Come here, have a look at this.

Mom, I did it! I read the paper in his hand, with my flashlight. It said, Johnson, your performance review has been rescheduled for 1630h on Friday, 78th floor boardroom.

This is crap! Rhindquist said. This doesn't need secure disposal. He kept digging through the papers, and looking at them before shoving them in the shredder. Every time he looked at one, he said, Crap, and then put it in. I couldn't stop watching. I thought we were going to be fired! Or put in jail! Then he said, Aha! He showed me the paper, it said, CONFIDENTIAL at the top, and I felt like I was going to sick up, I was so scared. It said RE ORG CHART, and it had lots of names with dotted lines connecting them to other names. Rhindquist winked at me and put it in his pocket -- his old-fashioned uniform had pockets!

I thought I figured it out then. Rhindquist was a spy from another city! They talked about spies in Basic Training, and what to do when you found one. You are supposed to make sure they won't go anywhere, then contact security. So I ran as quick as I could out of the truck and slammed the door and security-locked it from the outside, and then I climbed over all the boxes of unshredded documents from Finance 38 and ran to the security guard. I said, there's a spy in my truck, and he's reading the papers! And he said, What? I said, My pusher is a spy! I caught him reading the papers and putting them in his pockets! The security guard looked like he thought I was crazy! I said, Really! And he picked up his phone and spoke in Securitese to the other security guards and then there were sirens and lots of cars and guards with armor and guns, Mom!

They surrounded the truck and unlocked it and Rhindquist stepped out with his hands in his pockets. He said, Quality Auditor, boys, radio it in. The security guards looked like they wanted to shoot him, but one of them talked into his phone and then shouted out at all the security guards in Securitese and they went away!

Rhindquist walked over to me and said, Jap, you aren't the brightest bulb on the marquee, but you think fast and you follow orders. I said, I am as smart as the next person and I do my job. I said to the security guard from Finance 38, aren't you going to arrest him, he's a spy!? And the security guard said, Look, he's management. He's allowed to do this.

And Rhindquist put his arm around my shoulders and said, You're stuck in a loop, son. New data: I'm not a spy, I'm your boss, and you did right, even if you have blown the audit. How'd you like a promotion?

And I said, you're management?

And then, do you know what? He said, Jap, my boy-o, I am Rhindquist J McBride, CEO, President, and Chairman of the Board of the File-O-Gator Corporation, The Incorporated Township of File-O-Gator, Ontario, and File-O-Gator International Holdings, Limited. I'm
in charge
!

#

Hi Mom!

Thanks for the pictures from Buddy's wedding. He sure looks handsome in a suit! You're right, he should dress nice more!

I'm dressing nice, too. Rhindquist J McBride has made me a Special Vice President! I'm management! Not management like my crazy roommate, Tony, who isn't my roommate anymore. They moved him and gave me the whole apt to myself, and I can plug in anything I want to, whenever I want to! I'm Real Brass! I only drive my old truck number 3528 two days a week now, and Vasquez has a different driver who I've never met the other four days. Vasquez says he is not as careful as I am, and sometimes, he makes them late! And he says, now that I'm running the show, can I make sure that his performance appraisal shows that it's the new guy's fault? I said I would look into it.

I haven't had a chance to look into it yet, because the other four days, I go to Operations 1 and sit in a beautiful office on the top floor, one hundred floors above ground! They keep me busy, Mom! Rhindquist comes into my office and sits in the chair by the door, and talks on his phone, and asks me all kinds of crazy questions, like, Do I think that the pinheads in HR know their ass from a hole in the ground? And I say Yes, and he says, What makes you think so?

So I told him about Basic Training, and how I learned the history of File-O-Gator, and memorized our Vision Statement, which is, The File-O-Gator Organization is a diverse multinational sovereign power that is a World-Class Leader in its fields of Operations, a status it has achieved through the diligence and responsibility of its Human Resources, which are the Heart of every Organization. I told him about how the HR Sergeant was always fair about our Training Appraisals, and how he always knew when someone had been goofing in the showers and made sure that they got disciplined. And I told him about how I played the Anthill Simulator and learned how the one drone doesn't know why he's moving a grain of sand, but that from the Queen's seat in the middle, it all makes sense. I told him that whenever my watch asks me to do something I didn't understand, or when something weird happens to me, like my crazy roommate Tony covering up all the plugs, that I remember the Anthill Simulator and I do my job.

Rhindquist laughed and said Jap, my bright boy, you are a treasure, a walking focus-group. I'm not paying you enough. And then he gave me a raise! He called someone on his phone and said, Give my boy a raise, and they did! I am sending home a little money as an attachment with this note, and a picture of me in my Special Vice-President's suit.

Every afternoon, Rhindquist shuts off his phone and my watch, and a pretty secretary wheels in a big TV. We watch movies! Rhindquist says he likes to unwind with a movie at the end of the day. The movies are old and funny, and I've never seen them before. Rhindquist sure has, though! He knows most of them by heart! Yesterday, we watched one called Educating Rita, and Rhindquist told me that I am like Rita. I already had that figured out, though. Rita is a dumb girl from England, Ltd., and she works as a hairdresser until someone from management teaches her all about life. I liked the movie a lot. I think that Rhindquist will teach me lots and lots about management, too.

My crazy old roommate Tony works in Operations 1, too, in the basement. I know this because this morning I saw him getting off the slidewalk and going to the basement elevators. He sure looked worried. I ran up to him and said Hi and he looked at me in my suit and his eyes bugged out and then he said Hi, too.

I told Rhindquist about him, and he said that he thought Tony had interesting prospects and he would keep an eye on him. I tried to tell him about Vasquez and the new guy but then his phone rang and he talked for a long time. He sounded angry, and he shouted that he didn't care what it took -- get him Redmond! Even if you have to nuke it! I have a small TV on my desk, and I used it to look up Redmond, but it kept saying, See Microsoft. I asked Rhindquist about it and he said that Redmond is what Microsoft used to be called before they incorporated. He is always talking like that, calling things by their old names.

It was quitting time then, so I went home and wrote you this letter.

#

Hi Mom!

I am real sorry to hear about Buddy. I know he must feel sad. I didn't think that Carla was a spy, either, but now that she's been arrested, I guess that Buddy should feel lucky that he didn't stay married to her long enough to have little spy babies!