Everything but the Squeal

by Scalzi,John

  Everything but the Squeal Copyright © 2009

  by John Scalzi. All rights reserved.

  Cover image Copyright © 2016

  by Desert Isle Design, LLC.

  All rights reserved.

  Important Note: This novella first appeared

  in the anthology Metatropolis under the title “Utere Nihil Non Extra Quiritationem Suis”

  Ebook ISBN

  978-1-59606-816-2

  Subterranean Press

  PO Box 190106

  Burton, MI 48519

  subterraneanpress.com

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Foreword

  Everything but the Squeal

  Hey there. The story you’re reading now originally appeared in the 2008 Hugo-nominated Metatropolis anthology (edited by me) and was originally titled “Utere Nihil Non Extra Quiritationem Suis,” which means, roughly, “everything but the squeal.” So the story title is the same, just now it’s in English.

  Metatropolis is a shared world anthology—I along with Jay Lake, Tobias Buckell, Elizabeth Bear and Karl Schroeder built up a near-future world from scratch and then all wrote stories set in that world. This story, like the stories the other authors wrote, stands alone on its own but shares thematic and story elements with the other stories in the anthology. If you like the story—and I hope you do—the entire anthology is in print and in audio. Check it out.

  Happy reading!

  When people look at my wedding photos, they often wonder what the pig is doing in the wedding party.

  Well, let me tell you.

  It all began, like so many things do, on a Monday.

  The first thing I remember is my little sister Syndee poking me in the cheek.

  “Mom says it’s time to get up,” she said.

  I swatted at her with my eyes closed. “It’s too early to get up,” I said.

  “It’s nine thirty,” Syndee said. “Says so right on your alarm clock.”

  “The clock lies,” I said.

  Syndee started poking me in the face again. “Mom told me to tell you if you missed your placement appointment that she would make you regret it.”

  “I’ll be up in a minute,” I said, and then rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. I could hear Syndee stomp off, calling for mom. A couple minutes later, I heard someone come back in the room.

  “Benjamin,” said a lower voice than my sister’s. It was mom. “You have your placement appointment in an hour. Time to get up.”

  “I’m up,” I said.

  “There is no definition of ‘up’ that includes lying in bed with your eyes closed,” mom said.

  “Five more minutes,” I said. “I swear I’ll be up then.”

  “Oh, I know you will be,” mom said, and that’s when she poured a pitcher of water onto my head. I tried to jump out of bed and got tangled in my blankets, and fell head first onto the rug.

  “That’s better,” mom said.

  I rubbed my head. “That wasn’t necessary,” I told mom.

  “No,” mom agreed. “I could have poured hot coffee in your lap instead. But either way, you’re out of bed. Now you get into the shower. You have five minutes for that. After that I switch the shower over to greywater, and I know how much you hate that.”

  I pulled myself off the floor and stomped over to the bathroom. Mom was right; greywater sucked. Technically it was filtered to be just as clean as regular water. Psychologically I didn’t want to bathe in water one filtering process away from someone’s kidneys.

  “Five minutes,” mom said again. “And don’t think I’m not paying attention. You’re not going to miss this appointment, Benji.”

  “I’m not going to miss it,” I said, starting the water.

  “I know,” mom said. “Because I’ll drag you there by the hair if I have to.” She walked off. As she walked off I saw Syndee smirking at me.

  “Should have got up when I said to,” she said.

  “Piss off,” I said. She smirked some more and flounced off. I stripped out of my underwear and stepped into the shower and stayed in it until that sulfur smell told me mom had switched the tank over to greywater. Then I soaped up, rinsed off and got out.

  Ten minutes later I was standing on the curb, waiting for at least one other person to come out of the complex and rideshare. You can take a pod by yourself if you have to, but it comes out of your overall household energy budget, and we were already splurging on the standard water for showering. If I solo’d a pod to my appointment, mom really would drop hot coffee into my lap. So I stood there for a few minutes waiting to see who would come by.

  “Hey, look,” someone said, behind me, stepping into the pod queue. “If it isn’t Benji.”

  I turned and saw Will Rosen, one of my least favorite humans, and Leah Benson, who was one of my favorites. Sadly, Leah and Will were a couple, so spending time with Leah meant having to tolerate Will, and him having to tolerate me. So I didn’t see Leah all that much.

  “Hello, Benji,” Leah said.

  “Hi, Le,” I said, and smiled, and then glanced over next to her. “Will,” I said.

  “You’re up early,” Will said. “It’s not even noon.”

  On cue, a pod swung up on the track and opened the door to let us in. I considered telling them I was waiting for Syndee and taking the next pod.

  “Coming, Benji?” Leah said.

  I climbed in.

  “Parker Tower,” Will said to the destination panel. He was off to work.

  “Kent Tower,” Leah said. She was off to work, too.

  “City Administration,” I said.

  “Running an errand for your mom?” Will said, as we started moving.

  “No,” I said, more defensively than I intended. “I’ve got a placement appointment.”

  Will feigned a heart attack. “I don’t believe it,” he said. “That means you actually took your Aptitudes.”

  “Yeah,” I said, and looked out the window. I was trying to avoid this conversation.

  “Miracles do happen,” Will said.

  “Will,” Leah said.

  “Benji knows I’m kidding,” Will said, the same way he always did when he was doing some serious knife twisting work. “And anyway I think it’s great. He’s the last of our class to do it. He always did things on his own schedule, but I was beginning to wonder how close he was planning to cut it.”

  “Now you know,” I said.

  “Well, congratulations,” Will said. “It’ll be nice to know you’re part of the contributing part of society now. That you’re not just relying on your mom to get you through.”

  That was when I decided I’d had just about enough of Will. “Thanks, Will,” I said, and shifted position. “So, how’s your brother these days?”

  Will got a look that I guessed you might get if you had something very cold and hard suddenly thrust up your ass. I treasured that look.

  “He’s fine,” Will said. “So far as I know.”

  “Really,” I said. “That’s great. I always liked him. The next time you see him, you tell him I said hello.”

  Leah shot me a look that said stop that. I just smiled pleasantly as pie for the next couple of minutes, until the pod slowed down, came to a stop, and then opened to let Will out. He was still sitting there, glaring at me.

  “Your stop,” I said.

  Will snapped out of it, gave Leah a quick kiss, and hustled himself out the door of the pod.

  “That wasn’t very nice,” Leah said to me, as we started moving again.

  “Well, he asked for it,” I said, and motioned back to the platform where Will had gotten off. “You saw it. He was crapping a
ll over me in that ‘I’m just kidding’ condescending way of his. Like he always does. Tell me he wasn’t trying to push my buttons. Like he always does.”

  “He was trying to push your buttons,” Leah said, agreeing with me. “But you don’t do much to stop him, Benji.”

  “I think asking him about his brother stopped him pretty well,” I said.

  “There are better ways,” Leah said.

  “Are there?” I asked. “Leah, you know I love you, dearly, but the guy you’re dating is kind of an asshole. Why are you still with him?”

  “You mean, why am I still with him, and not you?” Leah said.

  “It’s crossed my mind,” I said.

  “I remember trying that,” Leah said. “I don’t remember it working out very well.”

  “I was young and stupid,” I said, and gave her a smile. “I got over it. Really.”

  Leah smiled, which was something I liked to see, and looked out the pod window for a moment. “Benji, you were always very cute,” she said. “But as much as you’d hate to admit it, Will has a point. You’ve been taking longer to grow up than the rest of us did. When the rest of us finished our studies, we took the Aptitudes and got jobs. You spent your time sleeping in and screwing around. Will’s right that you’re the last one in our class to take your Aptitudes and to get placement.”

  “That’s not true,” I said. “There’s Taylor White.”

  Leah fixed me with a look. “You’re really going to compare yourself with a guy who was eating crayons until he was fifteen,” she said.

  “That’s a rumor,” I said.

  “It’s not a rumor,” Leah said. “I saw him do it. Art class. It was a green pastel. He nibbled it, Benji. And then he put it back. I had to share the pastel box with him. It was disgusting.”

  “Nibbling’s not the same as eating,” I said.

  “Does it really matter?” Leah said. “Taylor’s a sweet guy, but we both know he’s going into the assisted job track. You don’t have that excuse. You’re two months off from being twenty, Benji. That really is cutting it close.”

  “I don’t know what that has to do with you going out with Will and not me,” I said. We were coming into Leah’s stop.

  “I know, Benji,” she said. “That’s sort of the problem.”

  The door slid open. Leah reached over and kissed my cheek. “Good luck today, Benji,” she said.

  “Thanks,” I said. Leah slipped out of the pod. “Hey,” I said. She turned back to look at me. “Even if you’re not going to date me, you could still do better.”

  Leah looked like she might say something to that, but the pod door slid shut.

  And so I landed in the office of Charmaine Lo, Public Assignment Officer for the city of New St. Louis.

  “Ah, Mr. Washington,” she said, from her desk, as I walked in. Behind her was a large monitor that took nearly the entire back wall of her office. “Why don’t you come and have a seat.”

  “Thanks,” I said, and admired the monitor. Lo followed my gaze to the monitor and then looked back at me.

  “It’s a monitor,” she said.

  “I know,” I said. “It’s nice. I need to get one of those for my bedroom.”

  “Not unless you have a special dispensation from the energy board,” she said. She was looking down now at the tablet monitor that held my case file.

  “I’ll have to talk to my mom about that,” I said, trying to make it sound like a joke.

  Lo looked up at this with a look that told me I had failed, badly. “Oh, that’s right,” she said. “You’re the son of Josephine Washington.”

  “I am,” I said.

  “Must be nice having your mother on the executive board of the city,” Lo said.

  “It’s not too bad,” I said.

  “I voted for your mother in the last election,” Lo said.

  “I’ll tell her that when I get home,” I said.

  “I hope you understand, Mr. Washington, that your mother’s stature and influence won’t help you here,” Lo said. “Job assignments in the city are based on merit, not nepotism.”

  “I know,” I said. “Sorry. About the monitor thing, I mean. I was trying to make a joke.”

  Lo looked at me for a moment. I decided not to make any more jokes. “Sorry,” I said again.

  “Well, then, let’s get to it,” she said, and tapped her tablet. The wall monitor sprang to life with thousands of boxes, each with text in them. She pointed at the wall, and looked back at me. “Do you know what this is?” she asked.

  “No,” I said.

  “This is a representation of every single job that is available right now in New St. Louis,” Lo said. “Everything from neurosurgeon right down to janitorial systems maintenance crew. Roughly about one thousand jobs, at the moment. This is a live feed, so you’ll see some jobs disappear as they are filled, and new ones show up as they come online.”

  I looked up again and took a closer look. She was right about it being a live feed; while I watched, one of the text boxes winked out of existence. Somewhere in New St. Louis, someone had a new job as a crèche supervisor, watching bunches of hyperactive two-year-olds while their parents were off at their jobs.

  “As your mother has no doubt told you, New St. Louis has a managed employment economy,” Lo said. “Every adult who lives in NSL is required to work, and all vacancies are filled internally whenever possible. Each new entrant into the NSL workforce, whether through immigration or through graduation from the NSL school system, is required to take a series of aptitude tests that help us place that person into their initial job.”

  “Right,” I said, and remembered the Aptitudes. How I hated them.

  First off, they took two days out of your life, after you’ve already gotten your education certificate. In other places in other times, a high school diploma was all you needed for a job—not especially good jobs, my mom would point out, but even so—but here in New St. Louis, all your education certificate meant was that you were allowed to take your Aptitudes.

  So, two days. The first day was a recap of math, science, history, literature and other school subjects. Which to me seemed a waste of time, these days. Yes, it’s nice to remember all this stuff in your head. But the fact of the matter was even if you didn’t, everything you had to know about anything was a database search away and had been for decades, and out in the real world the chance that you would need to know when New St. Louis was founded or the intricacies of the city’s “zero-footprint” ecological and economic philosophy—and would not have a mini-terminal in your pocket—approached zero.

  You know, I think of myself as a practical person, and in practice, all this the memorization just seemed like busy work to me. I know I can find out anything with a query; worrying about stuffing things into my head seems too much.

  That said, I wasn’t completely stupid. I did spend a little time reviewing the basics before my Aptitudes. And because I didn’t want to stress myself overly, I also made sure to have a good time the night before. I think that being relaxed is key. My mother might disagree. So might Leah.

  If the first day was annoying the second day was just mystifying: a series of conversations with a rotating pack of NSL city workers about completely pointless subjects that really had nothing to do anything as far as I could tell. Sometimes I didn’t understand my home town’s job protocol.

  “I notice you took your Aptitudes at the last possible opportunity to do so,” Lo said.

  “I’m sure a lot of people do it that way,” I said.

  “No, not really,” Lo said. “Most kids do them right after their schooling is completed, so everything is still fresh in their heads. Most of them are also eager to start contributing to the well-being of NSL as soon as possible—and to start their career paths.”

  I shrugged. After I’d gotten my education certificate schooling, I decided to travel to some of the other cities that shared “open borders” with New St. Louis: The Portland Arcologies and other parts of
Cascadia, the Malibu Enclave, Singapore and Hong Kong and the new Helsinki Collective. They kept me busy for a few months, and in a good way, I thought. Travel broadens the mind, and all that.

  Mom wasn’t very happy about this, but I had promised her I’d take the Aptitudes the next time they were offered once I got back. And I did try, but things kept getting in the way. I finally took them because I was coming up on my twentieth birthday, and here in New St. Louis they had a word for twenty-year-olds who hadn’t taken their Aptitudes to get assigned a job: evicted. Even New Louies who went to university outside the city had to take their Aptitudes before their twentieth; they took them remotely and had their scores filed away for later. Miss them, though, and out you go.

  That’s what happened to Will’s brother Marcus. He missed his last chance to take the Aptitudes five years ago, and the City showed up at the door with his Document of Removal, escorted him to the city border, placed a credit card worth sixteen ounces of gold into his hands and waved goodbye. Now Marcus was living outside, in the banged-up ring of suburbs around St. Louis, new and old, that we referred to as “the wilds,” doing whatever the hell it was people in The Wilds did with their time. I suspected he was scrounging and gardening, not necessarily in that order. And now you know why Will would have been happy to stab me for mentioning his brother.

  Marcus could get back in one day…maybe. People who’d been booted out of NSL for missing their Aptitudes could get back in only once they’d taken a new set of tests and waited to see if there was a job that no one in the city wanted. And even then they’d have to wait in line, because the list went New Louies first, citizens of other “open border” cities next, and then finally the rest of the world. You skip your last chance at the Aptitudes, it might be years before you get your citizenship back.

  Now you know why I didn’t miss that last Aptitudes testing day. I try to imagine what mom would do if the City showed up at the door to boot me out and my brain just shuts down. On that path lies madness. I shivered just thinking about it.