Nebula Awards Showcase 2006

by Gardner Dozois

  Dixie Mae reached across the desk and scrolled down the display.

  The return address was lusting925@freemail.sg. The topic choice was “Voice Formatting.” They got lots on that topic; Voxalot format control wasn’t quite as intuitive as the ads would like you to believe.

  But this was by golly not a follow-up on anything Dixie Mae had answered:Hey there, Honey Chile! I’ll be truly grateful if you would tell me how to put the following into italics:

  “Remember the Tarzanarama tree house? The one you set on fire? If you’d like to start a much bigger fire, then figure out how I know all this. A big clue is that 999 is 666 spelled upside down.”

  I’ve tried everything and I can’t set the above proposition into indented italics—leastwise without fingering. Please help.

  Aching for some of your Southron Hospitality, I remain your very bestest fiend,

  —Lusting (for you deeply)

  Ulysse’s voice was dry: “So, Victor, you’ve figured how to edit incoming forms.”

  “God damn it, I’m innocent!”

  “Sure you are.” Ulysse’s white teeth flashed in her black face. The three little words held a world of disdain.

  Dixie Mae held up her hand, waving them both to silence. “I . . . don’t know. There’s something real strange about this mail.” She stared at the message body for several seconds. A big ugly chill was growing in her middle. Mom and Dad had built her that tree house when she was seven years old. Dixie Mae had loved it. For two years she was Tarzana of Tarzana. But the name of the tree house—Tarzanarama—had been a secret. Dixie Mae had been nine years old when she torched that marvelous tree house. It had been a terrible accident. Well, a world-class temper tantrum, actually. But she had never meant the fire to get so far out of control. The fire had darn near burned down their real house, too. She had been a scarifyingly well-behaved little girl for almost two years after that incident.

  Ulysse was giving the mail a careful read. She patted Dixie Mae on the shoulder. “Whoever this is, he certainly doesn’t sound friendly.”

  Dixie Mae nodded. “This weasel is pushing every button I’ve got.” Including her curiosity. Dad was the only living person that knew who had started the fire, but it was going on four years since he’d had any address for his daughter—and Daddy would never have taken this sex-creep, disrespecting tone.

  Victor glanced back and forth between them, maybe feeling hurt that he was no longer the object of suspicion. “So who do you think it is?”

  Don Williams craned his head over the next partition. “Who is what?”

  Given another few minutes, and they’d have everyone on the floor with some bodily part stuck into Victor’s cubicle.

  Ulysse said, “Unless you’re deaf, you know most of it, Don. Someone is messing with us.”

  “Well then, report it to Johnson. This is our first day, people. It’s not a good day to get sidetracked.”

  That brought Ulysse down to earth. Like Dixie Mae, she regarded this LotsaTech job as her last real chance to break into a profession.

  “Look,” said Don. “It’s already lunch time.”—Dixie Mae glanced at her watch. It really was!—“We can talk about this in the cafeteria, then come back and give Great Lotsa a solid afternoon of work. And then we’ll be done with our first week!” Williams had been planning a party down at his folks’ place for tonight. It would be their first time off the LotsaTech campus since they took the job.

  “Yeah!” said Ulysse. “Dixie Mae, you’ll have the whole weekend to figure out who’s doing this—and plot your revenge.”

  Dixie Mae looked again at the impossible “previous responder field.” “I . . . don’t know. This looks like it’s something happening right here on the LotsaTech campus.” She stared out Victor’s picture window. It was the same view as from her cubicle, of course—but now she was seeing everything with a different mind set. Somewhere in the beautiful country-club buildings, there was a real sleaze ball. And he was playing guessing games with her.

  Everybody was quiet for a second. Maybe that helped—Dixie Mae realized just what she was looking at: the next lodge down the hill. From here you could only see the top of its second story. Like all the buildings on the campus, it had a four-digit identification number made of gold on every corner. That one was Building 0999.

  A big clue is that 999 is just 666 spelled upside down. “Jeez, Ulysse. Look: 999.” Dixie Mae pointed down the hillside.

  “It could be a coincidence.”

  “No, it’s too pat.” She glanced at Victor. This really was the sort of thing someone like him would set up. But whoever wrote that letter just knew too much. “Look, I’m going to skip lunch today and take a little walk around the campus.”

  “That’s crazy,” said Don. “LotsaTech is an open place, but we’re not supposed to be wandering into other project buildings.”

  “Then they can turn me back.”

  “Yeah, what a great way to start out with the new job,” said Don. “I don’t think you three realize what a good deal we have here. I know that none of you have worked a customer support job before.” He looked around challengingly. “Well I have. This is heaven. We’ve got our own friggin’ offices, onsite tennis courts and health club. We’re being treated like million-dollar system designers. We’re being given all the time we need to give top-notch advice to the customers. What LotsaTech is trying to do here is revolutionary! And you dips are just going to piss it away.” Another all-around glare. “Well, do what you want, but I’m going to lunch.”

  There was a moment of embarrassed silence. Ulysse stepped out of the cubicle and watched Don and others trickle away toward the stairs. Then she was back. “I’ll come with you, Dixie Mae, but . . . have you thought Don may be right? Maybe you could just postpone this till next week?” Unhappiness was written all over her face. Ulysse was a lot like Dixie Mae, just more sensible.

  Dixie Mae shook her head. She figured it would be at least fifteen minutes before her common sense could put on the brakes.

  “I’ll come, Dixie Mae,” said Victor. “Yeah. . . . This could be an interesting story.”

  Dixie Mae smiled at Ulysse and reached out her hand. “It’s okay, Ulysse. You should go to lunch.” The other looked uncertain. “Really. If Mr. Johnson asks about me missing lunch, it would help if you were there to set him right about what a steady person I am.”

  “Okay, Dixie Mae. I’ll do that.” She wasn’t fooled, but this way it really was okay.

  Once she was gone, Dixie Mae turned back to Victor. “And you. I want a printed copy of that freakin’ email.”

  They went out a side door. There was a soft-drink and candy machine on the porch. Victor loaded up on “expeditionary supplies” and the two started down the hill.

  “Hot day,” said Victor, mumbling around a mouth full of chocolate bar.

  “Yeah.” The early part of the week had been all June Gloom. But the usual overcast had broken, and today was hot and sunny—and Dixie Mae suddenly realized how pleasantly air-conditioned life had been in the LotsaTech “sweatshop.” Common sense hadn’t yet reached the brakes, but it was getting closer.

  Victor washed the chocolate down with a Dr. Fizz and flipped the can behind the oleanders that hung close along the path. “So who do you think is behind that letter? Really?”

  “I don’t know, Victor! Why do you think I’m risking my job to find out?”

  Victor laughed. “Don’t worry about losing the job, Dixie Mae. Heh. There’s no way it could have lasted even through the summer.” He gave his usual superior-knowledge grin.

  “You’re an idiot, Victor. Doing customer support right will be a billion dollar winner.”

  “Oh, maybe . . . if you’re on the right side of it.” He paused as if wondering what to tell her. “But for you, look: support costs money. Long ago, the Public Spoke about how much they were willing to pay.” He paused, like he was trying to put together a story that she could understand. “Yeah . . . and even if you’re
right, your vision of the project is doomed. You know why?”

  Dixie Mae didn’t reply. His reason would be something about the crappy quality of the people who had been hired.

  Sure enough, Victor continued: “I’ll tell you why. And this is the surprise kink that’s going to make my articles for the Bruin really shine: Maybe LotsaTech has its corporate heart in the right place. That would be surprising considering how they brutalized Microsoft. But maybe they’ve let this bizarre idealism go too far. Heh. For anything long-term, they’ve picked the wrong employees.”

  Dixie Mae kept her cool. “We took all sorts of psych tests. You don’t think Professor Reich knows what he’s doing?”

  “Oh, I bet he knows what he’s doing. But what if LotsaTech isn’t using his results? Look at us. There are some—such as yours truly—who are way over-educated. I’m closing in on a master’s degree in journalism; it’s clear I won’t be around for long. Then there’s people like Don and Ulysse. They have the right level of education for customer support, but they’re too smart. Yes, Ulysse talks about doing this job so well that her talent is recognized, and she is a diligent sort.

  But I’ll bet that even she couldn’t last a summer. As for some of the others . . . well, may I be frank, Dixie Mae?”

  What saved him from a fist in the face was that Dixie Mae had never managed to be really angry about more than one thing at once. “Please do be frank, Victor.”

  “You talk the same game plan as Ulysse—but I’ll bet your multi-phasic shows you have the steadiness of mercury fulminate. Without this interesting email from Mr. Lusting, you might be good for a week, but sooner or later you’d run into something so infuriating that direct action was required—and you’d be bang out on your rear.”

  Dixie Mae pretended to mull this over. “Well, yes,” she said. “After all, you’re still going to be here next week, right?”

  He laughed. “I rest my case. But seriously, Dixie Mae, this is what I mean about the personnel situation here. We have a bunch of bright and motivated people, but their motivations are all over the map, and most of their enthusiasm can’t be sustained for any realistic span of time. Heh. So I guess the only rational explanation—and frankly, I don’t think it would work—is that LotsaTech figures . . .”

  He droned on with some theory about how LotsaTech was just looking for some quick publicity and a demonstration that high-quality customer support could win back customers in a big way. Then after they flushed all these unreliable new hires, they could throttle back into something cheaper for the long term.

  But Dixie Mae’s attention was far away. On her left was the familiar view of Los Angeles. To her right, the ridgeline was just a few hundred yards away. From the crest you could probably see down into the valley, even pick out streets in Tarzana. Someday, it would be nice to go back there, maybe prove to Dad that she could keep her temper and make something of herself. All my life, I’ve been screwing up like today. But that letter from “Lusting” was like finding a burglar in your bedroom. The guy knew too much about her that he shouldn’t have known, and he had mocked her background and her family. Dixie Mae had grown up in Southern California, but she’d been born in Georgia—and she was proud of her roots. Maybe Daddy never realized that, since she was running around rebelling most of the time. He and Mom always said she’d eventually settle down. But then she fell in love with the wrong kind of person—and it was her folks who’d gone ballistic. Words Were Spoken. And even though things hadn’t worked out with her new love, there was no way she could go back.

  By then Mom had died. Now, I swear I’m not going back to Daddy till I can show I’ve made something of myself.

  So why was she throwing away her best job in ages? She slowed to a stop, and just stood there in the middle of the walkway; common sense had finally gotten to the brakes. But they had walked almost all the way to 0999. Much of the building was hidden behind twisty junipers, but you could see down a short flight of stairs to the ground level entrance.

  We should go back. She pulled the “Lusting” email out of her pocket and glared at it for a second. Later.You can follow up on this later. She read the mail again. The letters blurred behind tears of rage, and she dithered in the hot summer sunlight.

  Victor made an impatient noise. “Let’s go, kiddo.” He pushed a chocolate bar into her hand. “Get your blood sugar out of the basement.”

  They went down the concrete steps to B0999’s entrance. Just a quick look, Dixie Mae had decided.

  Beneath the trees and the overhang, all was cool and shady. They peered through the ground floor windows, into empty rooms. Victor pushed open the door. The layout looked about the same as in their own building, except that B0999 wasn’t really finished: There was the smell of Carpenter Nail in the air, and the lights and wireless nodes sat naked on the walls.

  The place was occupied. She could hear people talking up on the main floor, what was cubicle-city back in B0994. She took a quick hop up the stairs, peeked in—no cubicles here. As a result, the place looked cavernous. Six or eight tables had been pushed together in the middle of the room. A dozen people looked up at their entrance.

  “Aha!” boomed one of them. “More warm bodies. Welcome, welcome!”

  They walked toward the tables. Don and Ulysse had worried about violating corporate rules and project secrecy. They needn’t have bothered. These people looked almost like squatters. Three of them had their legs propped up on the tables. Junk food and soda cans littered the tables.

  “Programmers?” Dixie Mae muttered to Victor.

  “Heh. No, these look more like . . . graduate students.”

  The loud one had red hair snatched back in a ponytail. He gave Dixie Mae a broad grin. “We’ve got a couple of extra display flats. Grab some seating.” He jerked a thumb toward the wall and a stack of folding chairs. “With you two, we may actually be able to finish today!”

  Dixie Mae looked uncertainly at the display and keyboard that he had just lit up. “But what—”

  “Cognitive Science 301. The final exam. A hundred dollars a question, but we have 107 bluebooks to grade, and Gerry asked mainly essay questions.”

  Victor laughed. “You’re getting a hundred dollars for each bluebook?”

  “For each question in each bluebook, man. But don’t tell. I think Gerry is funding this out of money that LotsaTech thinks he’s spending on research.” He waved at the nearly empty room, in this nearly completed building.

  Dixie Mae leaned down to look at the display, the white letters on a blue background. It was a standard bluebook, just like at Valley Community College. Only here the questions were complete nonsense, such as:7. Compare and contrast cognitive dissonance in operant conditioning with Minsky-Loève attention maintenance. Outline an algorithm for constructing the associated isomorphism.

  “So,” said Dixie Mae, “what’s cognitive science?”

  The grin disappeared from the other’s face. “Oh, Christ. You’re not here to help with the grading?”

  Dixie Mae shook her head. Victor said, “It shouldn’t be too hard. I’ve had some grad courses in psych.”

  The redhead did not look encouraged. “Does anyone know this guy?”

  “I do,” said a girl at the far end of all the tables. “That’s Victor Smaley. He’s a journalism grad, and not very good at that.”

  Victor looked across the tables. “Hey, Mouse! How ya doing?”

  The redhead looked beseechingly at the ceiling. “I do not need these distractions!” His gaze came down to the visitors. “Will you two just please go away?”

  “No way,” said Dixie Mae. “I came here for a reason. Someone— probably someone here in Building 0999—is messing with our work in Customer Support. I’m going to find out who.” And give them some free dental work.

  “Look. If we don’t finish grading the exam today, Gerry Reich’s going to make us come back tomorrow and—”

  “I don’t think that’s true, Graham,” said a guy sitting acros
s the table. “Prof. Reich’s whole point was that we should not feel time pressure. This is an experiment, comparing time-bounded grading with complete individualization.”

  “Yes!” said Graham the redhead. “That’s exactly why Reich would lie about it. ‘Take it easy, make good money,’ he says. But I’ll bet that if we don’t finish today, he’ll screw us into losing the weekend.”

  He glared at Dixie Mae. She glared back. Graham was going to find out just what stubborn and willful really meant. There was a moment of silence and then—

  “I’ll talk to them, Graham.” It was the woman at the far end of the tables.

  “Argh. Okay, but not here!”

  “Sure, we’ll go out on the porch.” She beckoned Dixie Mae and Victor to follow her out the side door.

  “And hey,” called Graham as they walked out, “don’t take all day, Ellen. We need you here.”

  The porch on 0999 had a bigger junk-food machine than back at Customer Support. Dixie Mae didn’t think that made up for no cafeteria, but Ellen Garcia didn’t seem to mind. “We’re only going to be here this one day. I’m not coming back on Saturday.”

  Dixie Mae bought herself a sandwich and soda and they all sat down on some beat-up lawn furniture.

  “So what do you want to know?” said Ellen.

  “See, Mouse, we’re following up on the weirdest—”

  Ellen waved Victor silent, her expression pretty much the same as all Victor’s female acquaintances. She looked expectantly at Dixie Mae.

  “Well, my name is Dixie Mae Leigh. This morning we got this email at our customer support address. It looks like a fake. And there are things about it that—” She handed over the hard copy.

  Ellen’s gaze scanned down. “Kind of fishy dates,” she said to herself. Then she stopped, seeing the “To:” header. She glanced up at Dixie Mae. “Yeah, this is abuse. I used to see this kind of thing when I was a Teaching Assistant. Some guy would start hitting on a girl in my class.” She eyed Victor speculatively.