Blood Zero Sky

by Gates, J.

  The disembodied voice belongs to Eva, the artificially intelligent avatar who acts as my interface with the Company network and greets me from speakers hidden all over the N-Corp empire. She also lives in my IC, as my digital personal assistant. She greets me at the entrance to every Company building, and reads my mail to me, and reminds me of appointments. She’s everywhere, like a computer-based stalker following every Company employee in the world around during every minute of every day. God, how I hate her.

  “Welcome, Miss Fields,” she says, and I roll my eyes.

  No one seems to notice that I’m not May Fields at all, but perhaps her long-lost, slightly effeminate brother.

  I’m only a few steps into the store when raucous laughter echoes behind me, and I turn to the entrance of the store in time to see three squadmen amble past. Silver stars hang from large chains around their necks against their black, military-style shirts. The chrome and mother-of-pearl inlaid grips of the guns on their hips glint as they pass. Their baseball caps, each black and emblazoned with a white-embroidered “HR,” are cocked low over their eyes. These young men—each probably no older than eighteen years—walk slowly, joke loudly. A woman walking toward them changes her course, giving them plenty of space.

  One of them sees me staring and looks back at me, his eyes filled with cold mirth. I don’t want to look away, don’t want to give him the satisfaction of bowing to his alpha-dog status, but I can’t help it.

  Their strident voices fade, blend into the cacophony of bland music and inane conversation and disappear. With a hiss, I release the breath I hadn’t been aware of holding. My neck aches with tension.

  All these years, and the squads still do that to me.

  I pick up a red candle, sniff it. Coconut and cherry—or something like that. The smell reminds me of her, and I inhale again. Kali.

  I close my eyes, thinking of her, of summertime and the smell of her skin when she would come in from the sun, of the taste of her lips and the salt of her sweat and the feeling of giddy, electric fear at the thought of being caught in the divine act that was supposed to be so wrong but was really so right. Sweet Kali, long gone.

  I put the candle down, then pick it back up. I’ll buy it, burn it tonight for her, and send a prayer her way, wherever she is. Whenever I think of her, I fear the worst.

  The register is at the back of the store, and I weave my way through what must be fifty people crammed into the little shop, around table after table filled with elaborate candelabras, candles, pricks of quivering light. Before stepping up to the counter I sniff and blink my tears away.

  Then I perform the checkout ritual without a second thought. Start by stepping on the black square. There’s no tingling, no pain, no feeling whatsoever as the checkout computer scans the black cross on my face, extracting all my information: name, age, credit history, medical information, buying habits and preferences, criminal record, and Company account information. Eva’s disembodied voice says: “Welcome, Miss Fields,” and I set the candle on the plastic shelf in front of me, wait for the sound of the beep, then place the candle in a plastic bag and leave. As I step out of the store, Eva’s eerie, endlessly friendly voice is there, too:

  “Thank you, Miss Fields. Please come again. “

  Even though the cross-identification program was my dad’s baby, even though I know it cuts crime, saves time and money, and sets apart all N-Corp debtor-workers from the unprofitables, there’s something disconcerting in never being able to escape my own name.

  My IC goes off again, and this time I answer the call.

  “Randal! Relax, would you? Everything is going to be fine!”

  But even as the words leave my mouth, part of me knows I’m lying. Everything isn’t going to be fine. It never was. It never will be.

  —Chapter ØØ3—

  My apartment, morning. I’ve already clambered out of bed, off a mattress made of a highly advanced foam-polymer-sponge compound with a synthetic goose-down pillow-top; showered surrounded by the steam from the eighteen platinum-covered titanium showerheads that assail me from all angles; lathered with N-Spa Diamond series body wash, stuff that reeks of mint and innumerable varieties of flowers; and dried off with my new N-Spa series towel, a luxurious, cashmere-cotton blend with the gold stitching.

  Dry now, I apply my deodorant and style my hair (as much as I ever style it—which amounts to pulling it back into an uncomfortably tight ponytail).

  Every article of clothing I own is from the N-Elita collection, hand-tailored and made of the finest fabrics. The styles are patterned after the work of the greatest clothing designers who ever lived: Giorgio Armani, Coco Chanel, Donatella Versace, people like that. The N-Textile division stopped producing new clothing designs years ago, instead cycling through collections created in years past. The move saved the Company billions in design costs. And, of course, people buy the clothes anyway. The only competition for N-Corp’s clothing—in America Division, anyway—is nakedness. And nakedness is strictly forbidden by the HR handbook.

  I couldn’t care less about fashion anyway. The only reason I have these fancy clothes is because I’m expected to dress nicely—and because as a high-credit-level worker, I can.

  As I dress, Eva goes over my schedule for the day.

  “Hello, May Fields. Your day’s schedule is as follows: Arrive at work—8 am. 8 am until 9 am—Board meeting, attendance required. 9:15 am until 9:44 am—Complete digital correspondence. 9:44 am until noon—IC launch team meeting in conference room K15 . . . ”

  She goes on and on, reminding, nagging, confirming. I like to imagine her as a hot Asian woman with green eyes and a mini-skirt. It makes me want to choke her less.

  Dressed now, I hurry down the hall to the elevator, nibbling at an N-Nourishe bar, trying to choke a few crumbs into my stress-clenched stomach.

  The walk to work, the journey through the Headquarters lobby, the vertigo-inducing high-speed elevator ride up to the two-hundredth floor of the Headquarters building: all a blur. Before I know it, I’m standing in the boardroom. It’s an imposing space, three stories high and all windows, interspersed with a few sections of polished cherry-wood paneling. Even the scent-machine odor is different here in the boardroom: mingled essences of leather and musk. Brandy. A hint of cigar smoke. It’s the smell of success, intimidation. Power. The boardroom can accommodate up to one thousand people in the church-pew-style seats that border the room on three sides, and the seats are almost full. All the Company’s most important tie-men and women are here. One by one, they finish their chatter and take their seats, preparing for the start of the meeting.

  Amid the commotion, Randal hurries up to me, his awkward gait somewhere between a goosestep and a skip. As he approaches, I corral him and try to fix his tie and tuck in one side of his shirt while he hisses in my ear, “May, I don’t know if we should go through with it. I d-d-don’t—”

  “Randal,” I interrupt, trying to ply him with my calmness, “we were ordered to make a report to the board. That was our assignment, and that’s what we’re going to do. Now try to pull it together.”

  Even though we’ve already decided that I’m going to be the one doing all the talking, I’m still slightly mortified that Randal will do something to embarrass me, like start weeping in the middle of my speech. For a second, I consider walking out of the room and letting him do the presentation himself. If they’re going to shoot the messenger, I’d rather it were him than me. In this Peaked-out state, no one would probably believe him anyway.

  Except I can’t do that. It would be disloyal to the Company. The news we have to deliver is too important.

  I glance around. The board meetings are televised Companywide, and everyone is required to watch. Imager cameras, suspended on cranes, move back and forth above us, their lenses trained on the fourth wall of the room. There, a gigantic, backlit N-Corp logo�
��the N and the cross—stand in relief against the granite wall. Beneath it runs the raised dais where the board members sit. If Randal doesn’t get it together by the time those chairs are occupied, we’re going to look like idiots.

  “There’s something else, May,” he’s saying. “Not only is the C-Company heading for a loss—there’s also a discrepancy in the Africa Division accounting. Trillions of dollars are unaccounted for, May. Trillions.”

  “Randal, you mentioned the Africa Division stuff before. It wasn’t part of our assignment, all right? Forget about it.” Donning the most commanding voice I can, I grip his shoulder hard and steer him into a chair. “Sit down,” I say.

  He does, but his lips keep moving, silently continuing his protests. The squeal of a microphone wheels me around, and I take my seat just as Jimmy Shaw steps up to the mic and asks, in that soft, pleasant drawl of his, for everyone to please stand up.

  Just the sight of old Uncle Jimmy instantly puts me at ease.

  In many ways, Jimmy Shaw is an average sixty-three-year-old man: he’s of normal stature, with shoulders slightly stooped from age. His hands, large and perfectly manicured, rest atop his signature black cane with its cross-shaped handle. His hair is thick, wispy, and white, and the skin of his face is pink and supple looking, probably softer than a baby’s hindquarters. He’s had fairly extensive plastic surgery like everyone else in the Company, but he still looks fairly normal. Not like half of the tight-skinned monstrosities I’ve seen running around Headquarters.

  He clears his throat and everyone bows their heads.

  “Mighty Lord of Hosts, we thank you for your presence here today. We know that your will has led our great Company to its current state of unprecedented prominence, and we ask your guidance as we continue in our quest to raise the entire world on the wings of our humble industriousness. It’s in your name we pray, Amen. ”

  The lights glisten off Shaw’s sapphire eyes as he steps away from the podium with a satisfied nod. In a rush of shuffling and soft clunking sounds, everyone takes their seats.

  That’s when I feel her watching me. She sits on the far side of the aisle, and when I look over at her, her hazel eyes hold my gaze. We stare at one another, frozen in time, as if in a contest to see who will look away first.

  As the moment stretches on, I study her. She must be my age, no older. Her skin is china-doll smooth. Her hair, long and honey blond, is tied back from a flawlessly sculpted face. Her full lips bear a smile laced with an almost smug sense of self-assurance. Even the cross in her cheek can’t diminish the extraordinary harmony of her features. She is exquisite.

  I have no idea who she is, but God would I like to find out.

  My heart beats an uneven cadence in my chest, and I’m suddenly aware that my cheeks are burning, my shirt soaking through with sweat. I snap my head back toward the stage just as the Company song starts playing, sounding strangely tinny even over the ultrapremium N-Audio speakers installed somewhere in the ceiling.

  I hazard one more glance at the woman, but she’s looking away now, gazing at the screen of her IC. I swallow the wave of disappointment I feel and look away from her again. There are more important things on my plate right now than flirting with girls—even ones as beautiful as her, I remind myself. Besides, she was probably just staring at me because I’m May Fields, the CEO’s famous daughter.

  And I’m about to be thrown to the dogs.

  The music reaches its triumphant crescendo, and from an inconspicuous door beneath the logo, my father appears. The sight of him disappoints me. It’s been five months since I’ve seen him, and I imagined I might see some change in him: he might have gained some weight, gotten a few more gray hairs. His skin might be sagging a bit; there might be bags under his eyes. But no, he looks tan, fit, eager. His face is that of a man half his age; his hair is speckled with just enough gray to lend him a distinguished air, and his white teeth stand out against the dark tan of his skin like stars against a night sky. He looks the same as ever.

  With one hand, he deftly unbuttons his perfectly tailored suit coat, and with the other, he waves to the adoring crowd.

  He pauses next to his chair, basking in the applause, an easy smile on his face. If he had his choice, this is probably what he’d do all day, I think with habitual bitterness: stand around grinning while the world applauded him. The sad thing is, he has enough money that he could actually pay people to do just that. For my father, unlike almost everyone else on earth, is a Blackie.

  Dad sits at his throne-like chair at the center of the long conference table, with Jimmy Shaw at his left and the stoic, nearly mute CFO, Bernice Yao, on his right. On the far end of the table sits Mr. Blackwell. The dark military uniform of the HR squads is stretched across his broad shoulders, his square jaw is clenched, his Neanderthal brow furrowed beneath a bristle of close-cropped, salt-and-pepper hair. As usual, he sits silently, his hands folded carefully in front of him, watching the proceedings unfold.

  With a little flourish, Dad clacks the gavel and the applause gives way to silence.

  “Welcome, N-Corp family. I’m thrilled to see you all, and to all of you out there watching us in imager land—well, I can’t see you, but I hope you’re thrilled to see us.”

  A wave of pleasant laughter runs through the crowd then quickly falls away.

  “I’m proud to say we’ve had a great quarter,” Dad continues, making eye contact with various members of the audience as he speaks. “N-Corp has continued its strategy of expansion with mind-boggling success.”

  The wall behind him opens, revealing a massive 3-D holo-imager screen. On it, a map of the world. America Division, South America Division, Australia Division, and Africa Division are all blue and bear the N-Corp logo. For the last twenty years, since the great crisis ended and the world’s governments were forced to privatize, N-Corp has had a monopoly over these territories. EuropeBloc, RussiaBloc, ChinaBloc, and IndiaBloc are colored red and bear the logo of Briggs & Stratton—B&S for short—the only other corporation in the world. In school, most of our history classes told the story of how corrupt and inefficient the world’s governments were before privatization came to the rescue and these two companies began to dominate the globe, so everyone in the room knows the information on screen by heart.

  Dad continues: “Since Africa Division has been our primary focus for production growth and Company expansion this year, we’re going to have a brief presentation about progress there, followed by a profit projection for the next year. Okay, take it away.”

  The lights throughout the room dim, and the imager grows brighter. The speakers in the ceiling cough once, then cheesy music comes in, playing over idyllic scenes of African lions and galloping gazelles, interspersed with shots of shiny new N-Corp buildings.

  A voice-over:

  “The Africa project is among the Company’s most profitable endeavors of this decade. Due to its success, millions of Africans have been provided with safe, sanitary housing.”

  (Image: a plastic “beehive” unit, capable of housing twelve hundred debtor-workers on a single acre of land. Image: a family of three sitting Indian-style next to each other in a five-foot-by-five-foot, sterile-looking plastic room. They’re smiling, playing cards.)

  “These new employees and customers of N-Corp have been provided with a plentiful food supply, safe drinking water, and the chance to purchase hundreds of low-credit-level items. Each new worker is granted a fifty-thousand-dollar line of credit, which on average will keep him in the Company’s service for fifteen to twenty years, not counting any additional credit he may accrue during his employment.”

  I glance down at the field of numbers on the IC clenched in my trembling hand and my mind drifts to the terrible news I’m about to drop on everyone in the room. My stomach turns and my mouth starts to fill with saliva. I glance around for a trashcan to puke in, but there isn’t one h
andy. Typical. I close my eyes and try to breathe deeply.

  “It’s okay, May,” Randal whispers in my ear. “They can’t get mad at us. It’s the t-t-t-truth.”

  If Randal’s trying to comfort me, I must be pretty far gone.

  The imager continues:“The Africa Division Growth Project has, to date, netted the Company over twenty-five million new debtor-workers, worth approximately $12.5 trillion over the next ten years and 2.3 trillion lifetime man-hours of labor. Today’s proposal calls for the expansion of the project beyond the pilot phase to include another nine hundred million workers, surpassing the number of debtor-workers in America Division and rivaling Briggs & Stratton’s enormously successful debtor-worker program at their Trans-Asiatic production facilities. . . . ”

  The presentation seems to go on forever. Pictures of happy Africans riding N-Moto scooters, playing video games and working in factories dance across the huge face of the imager, ad nauseum. Toward the end, an image lingers on the screen that catches my eye. There is a tall, lean African man wearing a sharp-looking suit. He holds hands with an emaciated, naked, pot-bellied child. They both smile into the camera, displaying teeth of the purest white.

  That’s what the Company is, I remind myself. It’s civilization. The difference between prosperity and oblivion. That’s what I’m working for. I have to pull it together.

  I close my eyes and breathe deeply again. In, out, in, out.

  The next thing I know, I’m hearing my name. There’s a beep as the IC in my hand syncs with the room’s audio/visual system, and suddenly Randal’s numbers appear on the massive screen for everyone to see.

  Applause. Half the world is watching me. I rise, half walking, half floating up the red-carpeted aisle. I carefully avoid looking at the hazel-eyed young woman sitting in the front row—the last thing I need now is an extra butterfly in my stomach.

  As I near the podium, Dad grins at me then glances down at his own IC. Ms. Yao frowns, her arms folded. Jimmy Shaw gives me a wink. I step up to the microphone, clear my throat. The mic squeals. Suddenly, I panic. In my mind, I flash back to last night, walking through the shopping plaza in a tie and pants.