Company Man

On Monday, 0545, Michael Porter received simultaneous alarms from the screen/console in his room and his commcard lying on his bedside table. He tapped the commcard screen then flung the blanket off and padded over to the console. The screen flashed PRIORITY: OCCUPATIONAL again and again. His index finger alternated between staccato taps and graceful swoops on the computer screen. A female head, with copper skin and black hair, delivered the message in an androgyne voice:

“Mr. Porter, there is a new occupation opportunity at 1407 Ballard Street. Your current opportunity is terminated. Please report to this address for orientation and training. Classification: Upgrade. Duration of position: three years. Good luck!”

A new job. Anything on Ballard Street has got to be a bump in credits. If the credits go up and the civic points stay the same, he might just make the cut for either a domicile upgrade or probationary voting.

Mike checked his stats. He was wrong. He was ten credits low and short twenty on his civic points. Two months ago he had engaged in a drunken, incoherent tirade at a bar, the contents of which he couldn't remember. When he returned home he found that his civic points had been slashed by twenty – a catastrophe.

A Ballard Street gig would certainly boost his credits, leaving only the civic deficit.

“Slowly but surely,” Mike said to his empty room. I wonder what the job is?

Twenty minutes later, Mike, in his flashest Boss twill and Kevlar waistcoat, made his way down the steps and out the door. The crowd ran like a river in a narrow gorge of concrete and glass. The domicile blocks were menageries of silent people screaming and laughing, people silently moving dirty dishes about, silent caresses and fingers being silently jabbed in people’s faces. Mike had ceased noticing this years ago. A low flying Red Ryder buzzed over the top of the row of blocks. A sign said: REPORT SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY.

‘Why is he so low?” Mike thought.

On the mass to Ballard Street, the first strange event of the day occurred. He noticed the woman first. Medium height, pale and fine featured, wearing a beret and a jade colored top coat. At her breast hung a heart shaped golden locket. He admired her out the shadow of his peripheral vision. She slowly pushed her way along the car, floating almost, between and around the other riders, until she stopped next to a man. He was slightly taller, wearing a black topcoat. He saw a furtive glance from the woman, then a criss-cross of hands, quick but gentle.

“She just gave him something,” thought Mike.

As the car pulled to a stop, Mike was already pulling out his commcard. As he thumbed through to Vigilance, the woman and the man shocked him by embracing and kissing passionately.

“Sir?” said the automated voice. “You have information?”

The people were filing out around him. The man and woman broke away and left through separate doors. The woman dashed a gloved hand across her face.

“Yes, I’d like to report suspicious activity. I am on the mass that just pulled in at Ballard substation.”

He proceeded with the description of who and what he saw, down to the locket and the beret.

“Thank you for reporting suspicious behavior. We will contact you if we need more information or for renumeration. Good bye.”

Mike made his way to 1407 Ballard, a building that took up multiple blocks and rose up into the permamist and vanished.

The vast atrium of the building was spotless. The floors were like mirrors, the wainscoting shone, metal objects were polished to high luster. A middle-aged man in paint spattered coveralls was polishing a windowsill. Mike walked over to the man, who politely stopped polishing. The tag on his coveralls said ‘Sid’.

“Morning to you sir,” said Sid.

“I have to tell you - Sid? This place looks amazing.”

“Thank you, sir. A craftsman who performs his function perfectly is better than a king who doesn't match his dignity. That is all I am doing. My function – perfectly.”

“Yes. Could you direct me to information?”

At the information kiosk, Mike placed his hand on a screen and directed his gaze at the appropriate sensor.

Floor 37, the screen read. Mike’s face flushed. Up! Remain calm.

On the 37th floor, he exited the elevator and looked around. Hallways stretched either way, heavy doors on either side. He turned right and walked, looking for numbers. On his second left turn, the long silence was broken by a muffled laugh. Two doors down and on the right, a paneled hatchway was slightly ajar. Inside was a small anteroom with an empty desk and many fine topcoats suspended from a rack. There was another chortle. An interior door stood partially opened and from the opening came laughter and rich cavendish smoke. A debonair voice said “Take a 30 credit Cuban Montecristo Number 2 and dip it into a 140 credit shot of Louis XIII cognac and you know what you get? 170 credits worth of crap.”

“She’s moving too fast,” said another voice.

A wadded piece of paper sailed between the edge of the door and the jamb. Crossing this same space came a woman, crawling on all fours. She wore a pearl blouse and a pleated and checkered miniskirt. On her face was a look of grim determination. She crawled past without noticing him. Another paper wad hit the small of her back and bounced off. Mike picked up the wadded paper – a 50 credit note. He smoothed it and set it on the empty desk.

“The pattern on her skirt is giving me a flashback,” said a voice.

“What on earth are you doing here?”

Mike turned and confronted a tall, lean woman. She wore a steel colored suit and rimless spectacles. Her gaze was cold and unblinking.

“Get out of here before I have you detained.”

“I don’t know where I’m supposed to go,” said Mike.

The woman sat behind the desk. “Name?”

“Porter, Michael.”

The woman dabbed at the screen. Then she smirked.

“Sub A, Mr. Porter. Best of luck.”

The elevator opened to a greenish subterranean hallway. A man, pudgy and in shirtsleeves waited for him.

“Porter?”

“Great to meet you.”

“Name’s Marv. Let’s not talk, okay? Follow me.”

Marv lead Mike down the hall and through a door, and into a large, low ceilinged room. In the fluorescent light were bank upon bank of computer consoles and at each console sat a person wearing headphones. The people stared at the screens and intermittently stopped and pecked away at their keyboards.

“Welcome to STAPORN, the State Accountability/Pornography Division. Your fastest ticket to knocking back a cold one upstairs is to start hitting your quotas down here.”

“I’m going to watch porn?”

“No, you’re going to watch people watch porn. Relax, just their faces. You will observe and annotate their actions and if they fall within certain parameters, you file a report. You will look for insufficient attention to government messaging and/or advertisements, any sort of degrading language, theological references during ecstatic utterance. Abusive language directed at the company or government organizations. That one’s a slam dunk. Pace here is insane, time management is crucial. You will just observe today. Tomorrow you hit the ground running. You seem nonplussed.”

“No, no, this is fine. Just not what I expected.”

“Look, the bright side is, in STAPORN, there is no limit to how high you can go. Just hit your quotas. A lot of those schlubs in the bars and boardrooms up there started down here. Come on, let me get you to a console and show you how it works. STAPORN never sleeps.”

Seven hours later, Mike trudged out of the elevator toward the double doors of the atrium. A lean man in immaculate khaki work clothes and long, graying hair hit the door at the same time. It was Sid.

“Ah, Porter is it? How was your first day at Ballard Street?” He opened the door for Mike to walk through. On the street, just outside of the crush and flow of the crowd, Mike turned to Sid with a catch in his throat.

“It isn’t what I expected at all. The thought of doing this for three years is, I don’t know what to say. I mean, I’m grateful for the opportunity. But, it is not what I expected. I mean no disrespect to the company” Mike looked over his shoulder “but I wish they could put me somewhere else. But the only way out is to kill myself, and I’m not doing that either. I mean everyone else is doing it. If they can, I can. I only say this to you because you seem so happy, like you’ve got it all figured out.”

Sid smiled. “When I got to Ballard, I didn’t like my placement either. But I figured, or rather it was revealed to me, that devotion to perfection was an end in itself. It is not those who lack energy, nor those who refrain from action, but those who work without expecting a reward who attain the goal of meditation. Theirs is true renunciation.”

“Renunciation? What does that mean?”

“Casting off. Look at every task, however menial, as a test. Every interaction. Don’t judge yourself by someone else. Judge yourself by who you were yesterday. Are you better than you were yesterday? When you realize this, you will be beyond this entire system and all its power.”

“So even me talking to you, right now, on the street. This is a test?”

“Most certainly,” said Sid. “I need to get home. But don't worry, you're going to be alright. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Bye Sid.”

Sid stepped into the stream of people and vanished. Mike made his way toward the mass station.

Fifty yards ahead, a MOVER car wobbled over to the side of the road. There was a brief shriek that tore the air above the street and the cab of the MOVER car blew out with a thud. Dust and plexiglass filled the air, making Mike choke. He looked at the car. There was movement in the front seat and the car rocked slightly. Another shriek and another subdued concussion; the car rocked in another cloud of dust. The crowd was a babble of shouts and screams, people running in panic. An armored truck screeched to a halt and disgorged a half dozen policemen. Mike sprinted ahead through the thinning crowd to reach the next street before it was blocked off. As he passed the car he slowed to a trot, then stopped. Above the mangled torsos were the faces of a man he had never seen before and the woman from the train. Paler than pale and very still. The woman seemed to be studying something on the floor.

His commcard buzzed in his pocket.

“Alright buddy, let’s go.” The cop waved Mike past.

“Looks like the Red Ryder got ‘em,” said another cop.

“Just the way I like it,” said the first cop. “They don’t pay me enough to get shot by those freaks.”

Mike looked at his commcard:

100 CREDITS. 30 CIVIC POINTS. The Company thanks you for your vigilance.

Laying in bed, Mike thought about the day, what Sid had told him, what awaited him in the morning. What had Sid meant about the conversation being a test? Why did he talk about Ballard Street as something to overcome? ‘The Company and all its power’ he said. His mind refused to stop running. His distaste for his new job. The obvious decadence of the managers, whoever they were, whatever they managed. Sid’s kindness. Doubt. Domicile upgrades. Groceries. The mangled woman in the car. Sid. Points. I’m sorry, Sid.

He reached for his commcard and slowly dialed Vigilance. He lay awake till the morning hours. Just as he nodded off to sleep, his commcard buzzed with a notification.