April 6: And What Goes Around

by Mackey Chandler

  She decided to look at North America anyway, where she at least knew the fine nuances of the language instead of needing a translator. Disney News still seemed as reliable as any. What were their main stories?

  Atlanta, Georgia – HHS administrators say the Atlanta water supply system is "unfixable" given its age and rate of failures. They demanded the city put Federal aid towards sewer systems alone or face funds cut-off. "Water is cheap now with fusion power and modern desalination techniques," says HHS spox, "but distribution is expensive and based on a century old system that requires pumping from the ocean to the antiquated processing plant for distribution.

  Free drinking water will be distributed in reusable bottles at FEMA service centers by presenting approved photo-ID. Very few sections of the city will need to go more than five kilometers to obtain free water. Bulk water may be picked up for delivery by approved contractors upon submission a list of validated customers. FEMA will set delivery rates. Subdivisions and apartment complexes of two thousand or more residents, with water systems no more than thirty years old may apply to be tied to the supply system on a cost sharing basis. Schools and contracting charities will offer shower facilities in off hours to residents with ID.

  It is suggested you save your waste water for sanitary system flushing as well as watering any plants. Watering a lawn from an approved connected system is prohibited. The first violation is a ten thousand dollar fine and the second violation results in the cut-off of the entire approved connection. Owners are urged to disable or lock external sill cocks on their buildings to avoid theft and responsibility for misuse. Hoarding more than a hundred gallons of publicly supplied water in a household shall be a class B felony.

  Modesto, California – The USDA has ruled that paving portions of agricultural land and directing the run-off into drywells to raise the level of rainfall available to the unpaved portion makes the entire volume subject to applicable water regulations. Such so called dry-land farm techniques using enhanced collection are as artificial as any other form of irrigation and require permits.

  Lake Tahoe, Nevada – The State Supreme Court of Nevada has ruled residents of the California side working in Nevada may be required to purchase a state license plate and county road use sticker if they use Nevada side roads on a regular basis to commute, citing such use is de facto residency. "Residency is much more than where we sleep," says Justice Collins. California is expected to pass matching legislation. Insurance spox indicate this will require separate policies. Governments in New York and New Jersey are watching the decision closely. Drivers may be required to buy and display both plates. No Federal challenge is expected.

  Akron, Ohio - Jefferson Hobart of suburban Barberton was diagnosed with Oppositional Defiant Syndrome after encouraging his son not to take behavior improving medication prescribed by his school nurse. The judge ordered him to not have any instrument capable of causing serious injury in his home. His kitchen knives and a number of power tools were removed. Police arrested him Wednesday after a neighbor reported him in possession of a pruning saw.

  Stanley, Idaho – The Idaho court has affirmed that while state fishing regulations specify what sort of aquatic animals such as frogs and minnows may be taken for bait and in what manner and with what equipment, legislators did not specify the taking of non-aquatic animals for bait in the latest rewrite. While this may have been an oversight the correction of it is up to the legislature not the court, Judge Wilson ruled. Although the defendant was in possession of a valid state fishing license the charge of hunting an animal without a license and not on the allowed list stands for Herman Defray of Stanley. Judge noted there was no exemption for invertebrates, so his taking of worms is illegal. His father Woodrow indicated he will pay the fine and not appeal. He said his son at the age of nine still does not understand the charges against him, but he will assure his behavior until he reaches an age where he can understand the state's position. Several sellers of live bait as well as exterminating companies have suspended operations until they can get a clarification from the state Attorney General.

  Oakland, California – Bestest Brands vs. Henry Briggs DBA Hank's House of Savings. The California Supreme Court has ruled it is an unfair business practice and vague and unprovable claim to label an item at sale as a "Best Value".

  Denver, Colorado – The city of Denver and Colorado Springs filed suit against Wasteway Corp. and the city of Kiowa in Elbert county. The plaintiffs claim an ownership interest in the mining operation emptying the corporation's landfill of material principally deposited from the two towns during the 2040s. Citing provisions of the contract with Eco-Smart, the third company in the past to have ownership of the landfill. The cities claim an interest in any reclaimable materials and cite a theory that the waste was being held in public trust and storage rather than transferring to the beneficial ownership of the waste hauler.

  It seemed to April that people were fighting ridiculous battles over the smallest advantage. There must not be any honest way to earn a reasonable profit so any weapon to be found would be used against competitors. Likewise the state was anxious to label any activity that could be fined as a crime. They were fighting over bread crusts. She decided to look at Disney's take on international news. It was probably composed by a real human translator not a program.

  Rome, Italy - Reports from the city indicate this year's flu season is somewhat early and heavy. The National Health Service reports that limited stocks of this year's vaccines are already delivered. They will be expedited to Rome since the current outbreak has not appeared in other cities. Ample stocks of vaccine should be available nationwide in two to three weeks. This is more than sufficient for the progression of a typical flu season. World Health Organization spox says no other members report an early outbreak.

  April didn't pay much attention to that. She was up on all the normal immunizations. They usually got the same vaccine the USNA used. Although some people were getting Asian variations since so much commerce was through Tonga now. She'd had a universal flu vaccine that conferred some general protection but wasn't as good as vaccine for a specific strain. It did ease the severity of any flu if they guessed wrong this year on what strain would be going around. She was finally tired and closed down the pad and headed to bed.

  Chapter 4

  "It's not going to work," Deloris said, glancing up at him.

  She was sitting cross-legged on the other end of his bunk looking down at her pad. He hadn't been sure she was listening since she'd never looked up as he expounded on his plan. She wasn't emotional about it, as if she had a stake in the idea one way or another, just flatly sure of herself. It stung because he was emotionally invested in his proposal and knew it, even though it was a weakness to get too attached to an idea. He was emotionally invested in Deloris too, and wanted her approval. But he was less aware of that than she was.

  "Don't give me that pitiful look. It's not like I'm attacking you. I've had a lot of bad ideas too. If you could ask my mom she'd give you a whole list. Most of them I tried anyway 'cause, you know, teenage and stubborn."

  "At least tell me why it won't work," Barak asked.

  "You mentioned before it's to weed out creeps and sociopaths. Well they already have tests to do that and maybe ninety percent of the population on Home passed those tests. Almost all of them who came up as company men before we got a bunch who paid their own way. The tests work somewhat down on Earth, but they don't work for crap when you apply them to a population who are smarter than the guys who wrote the tests. I can take one and tell you line by line how they tie to a previous question and what they are trying to get you to reveal. I'm not screwy in the head and I'll admit I still answered a few questions with what they wanted to hear instead of my honest reaction. They want sane to the point of boring. If I was that sane I wouldn't have applied for this job."

  "But it isn't a sit down and fill the form out test or interview. I want to do it as a game," Barak reminded her.

  "Doe
sn't matter, people will know. Look, if a prospective employer wants you to go to a dinner with them that's a test too and you'd know it. You can't bullshit smart people into thinking you have a sudden social interest in them outside of hiring them. The folks hiring want to see if you drink too much or if your mother didn't teach you any table manners. If you can't resist ordering the stinger because somebody else is paying or if you are so damaged you can't sit and talk for an hour without revealing you have extreme views or hitting on the boss' assistant. Really smart people know it's all a test and can mostly force themselves to act like a normal human being for an hour or two. You don't just say, "Let's do the interview over dinner!' and not have them know damn well it's a test. Same thing down below. Earthies will invite a potential new guy for a game of golf. You can bet you don't beat the new boss and still get the job. It tests subservience too. You don't want to hire somebody so competitive they can't stand to lose a single game of golf. They'd have your job in six months."

  Barak was nodding his head agreeing. "I'm simply going to have to hide the fact it is a test at all."

  "Huh! Lots of luck doing that. How do you intend to hide it?" Deloris asked, skeptical.

  "First step is I'd like your promise you won't discuss this with anyone else or write it where it might be revealed. You haven't had occasion to do that yet have you?"

  "Who would I tell? Alice is the only other person I talk to about non-work stuff. I'll keep it secret if you like. It's no burden."

  "I'm thinking to make it attractive as a game all by itself, with no promise of a job interview or anything for doing well. Jeff will have to bankroll producing it but I want people to buy it, not give it away. We might even make money on it. I'm thinking maybe six people besides us who will know the real purpose of it." After he thought about it a minute he added, "In fact we won't ever tell people it was the game that made us recruit them. Otherwise it will leak out and destroy the continuing value of it as a recruiting tool."

  "You'll need to build in ways to cheat and betray other players to the cheat's benefit, if that's behavior you wish to identify, but limited so it doesn't destroy the game." Deloris said. "It might get a bit ugly at times."

  "That part worries me a little," Barak admitted. "Am I going to weed out somebody who views cheating as merely a natural part of the game but would never do the same things in real life?"

  Deloris looked at him with a scowl. "You told me when we met that I'm socially more mature than you. Well, listen up to my wisdom. You have much too generous and forgiving a view of people. A guy who will cheat you at cards or dice or anything like that will do it whether it is poker with a 'real' pot sitting on the table or a game like bridge and nothing but the joy of beating you at stake.

  "If you have to tie it to something you consider real charge people to play but let them get paid back some money for points earned playing. Even let them make a bit if they are ranked high enough. Just be careful setting the payouts. I'd start low and ease up on the final numbers. It will alienate people if you set it too high and then have to cut it to keep them from ruining you."

  "OK, I'm thinking a payout and maybe some sort of convention every year. You play for money but for rank and bonuses too. Besides the whole usual array of challenge coins and t-shirts and crap. It'll need a really good title. Starship Commander or Death Voyage Centauri or something. Jeff can have the core programming done on Home or Central but let all the visuals and music and stuff done in Asia. He already has a lot of, uh... data work contracted out there."

  "Stumbled and almost said a secret didn't you?" Deloris asked. She was entirely too perceptive.

  Deloris got this sudden shocked look.

  "What? Does the concept offend you?" he asked.

  "No, no. It's just that I remembered, I saw a really cheesy old classic movie that had almost the same premise. In it there was a video game, an early free standing arcade type game, that was a combat spacecraft. It had been put out to find somebody with the right skills and reflexes to be a real pilot, but the kid who paid to play it didn't know that until it lead to his recruitment." She looked back down at her pad and tapped a few lines in rather than talk to it. "My God, it's a hundred years old. The Last Star Fighter," Deloris read off the screen.

  "I'll watch that," Barak said. "I might get some ideas from it."

  "It's old enough you won't understand some stuff in it. I remember there's visuals in it I had no clue about. But there's a paper on it somebody wrote that puts a lot of it in context. Neither are in our onboard web fraction, just a brief citation. Which is reasonable. We are too busy running the Yuki-onna to have much personal time to web surf. We don't need the expense of a huge web fraction.

  "I don't suggest you request it sent from Home if you want to keep the idea secret. Somebody smart might be archiving our data stream. I know it's encrypted, but it's not a random onetime pad so if it isn't easily breakable now it could be given a little time."

  "No, I'll do it when we get back. Jeff will have some time before he needs a crew." Barak grinned at her. "Besides, we have a couple of crew already."

  * * *

  The next day April forced herself to take time and run. Mitsubishi was keeping up with the increased population as far as adequate air systems and water recycling, but some things got short shift. If she passed on her reservation somebody would snatch it on standby and she'd be lucky to get one in another ten days. April suspected somebody would open a gym soon if Mitsubishi didn't expand their facilities. Maybe they wanted that to happen. They were hit with increased expenses just like everybody else because of moving further from Earth. Maybe I should open a gym, April thought. They already had a commercial zero G handball court. It wasn't that radical of an idea.

  The run she chose was an easy one since she hadn't been coming faithfully. It followed an Irish country road improbably empty of traffic. When her time was up a lady at a gate invited her to stop for tea. That was a cute way to end it before the illusion turned off. She went, not to tea, but to breakfast after a shower. Several people nodded or waved in the cafeteria but nobody joined her.

  At home she studied for a couple classes, spoke for a half hour with a study partner in Japan in Japanese, and then they switched and spoke English for a half hour. She went most of the day without viewing any news programs or intelligence reports. Earth was such a critical factor in their survival it needed constant scrutiny, but it got old sifting through the whole mess. Instead of commercial news or economic intelligence she chose Chen's radio intercepts. They were edited, but still a bit different and she hadn't looked at many yet. After awhile she felt compelled to call Jeff.

  "I'm seeing some really bizarre things happening in North America. A few of them make the news and some don't. Some I got because your guy Chen sends interesting radio intercepts he gets digging for other intelligence. I don't always see how they are related to the economy at first, but he's pretty perceptive. I usually agree after I think on it a bit. He grabs a lot down at the city and county level where they use encryption that isn't all that good. All they really want to make sure is that the public, or the crooks, can't follow their operations real time. The lower level of encryption is cheaper and less given to drop-outs."

  "Just North America?" Jeff asked, puzzled.

  "Probably not," April admitted, "but China is still in chaos from civil war, and Europe I don't understand. I have to auto-translate a lot of stuff there. Africa has never been anything I'd call normal and your guys like Chen do most of their spying in North America. Nobody else seems such a danger to us since China is a mess."

  "What do you consider 'bizarre'?" Jeff asked.

  "Well, like this story," April read off her pad. "Police in Salado Texas have stopped and seized the fourth truck in the past two years transporting goods to the Best-Price big box store in Austin. Company officials complain Salado officers coerced drivers into signing a release of the truck and goods they had no authority to give in exchange for a promise not to pros
ecute the drivers on drug charges. The drivers all insist they were carrying no drugs but the police claim to smell it on them. The company claims there is an inside connection supplying information because the trucks stopped were heavy with such easy to market items as food, electronics, hardware and footwear. Trucks carrying seasonal and low density items such as produce, party and decorative items, paper goods and clothing were never stopped.

  "State police have filed an objection in court that Salado has not made a timely and accurate accounting of the twenty percent cut of forfeiture items they must share with the state. Best-Price officials say they are assigned specific hours and routing by DOT regulations, so they have no options to bypass the town, and warn they may close their three Austin stores. They have already filed one year closing notices to retain that option.

  "They have tell them a year ahead if they want to close? Isn't that crazy?" April asked him.

  "If they have more than fifty people yeah. That's the law and pretty standard. It used to be sixty days and a hundred people. In Massachusetts it's twenty-five people. It's supposed to limit the economic disruption, and give people time to adjust. If there is a union they have more stuff they must do. There are ways to mitigate it though," Jeff said.

  "A year? Can you imagine how much money they could burn through in a year?" April asked.

  "Yeah, but they can cut back hours, close a couple days a week and stop resupplying the store. They can offer the people at that store jobs in other stores and pretty much close it down even though it is technically open. If you don't stock it people stop coming. In Texas I'd say you could stop running the air conditioning and most of the crew would quit pretty quickly."