The Code of Happiness

by David J. Margolis

  His eyes flutter open; the ogre's removing the swords from his sticky hair. They didn't enter his neck. This confuses Jamie. There must be a defect in the simulation. Jamie hasn't realized yet, he's using old tools for old problems. New ideas are needed. But Jamie's stuck in the past hanging upside down thinking Ray wants to kill him. It's the only explanation he's prepared to entertain for the ogre's survival so far.

  The ogre, having removed the swords, turns his attention to Jamie. He scrapes him off his body and slings the human dressed in a white jump suit against the wall. The helmet flies off and Jamie feels warm blood drizzle from his nose to his lips. The ogre picks him up and flips him like a quarter, spinning him close to unconsciousness again. Taking advantage of the defenseless, he presses Jamie against the wall. They look deep into each other’s eyeballs. Jamie's been there before, inside the gray matter. He remembers the chickpea size view, the helplessness, the near out of body experience. His fear subsides in recognition, energy evaporating, his torso limp and calm. His body has realized before his mind. He speaks to the ogre.

  “You won't kill me.”

  While the ogre can't speak, he seems to understand with a questioning grunt.

  “You won't kill me because you are me.”

  The ogre scratches his head.

  “You need me.”

  The ogre unleashes a high pitch screech!

  “Kill me and you kill yourself.”

  The ogre storms away annoyed, no more than a boy does who understands the rules but finds them unjust. He looks at Jamie from afar, his attitude changing to one of beloved pet. He returns with a snort and licks Jamie's face, savoring the flavor of sweat and fear. It forces him to consider Jamie one last time. Is he friend or is he foe? Jamie offers his hand. A moment of truth. A gentle touch. The ogre retreats to his corner debating with himself. Jamie slumps opposite and watches the ogre who is now without purpose or rage, and whose breaths are heavy with acceptance. There's nothing to fight against. In mere seconds the ogre shrinks to a miniature.

  Jamie's struck by sadness. Of loss. He'd finally got through to him; they almost understood each other, kindred spirits on the verge of friendship. Now he's gone, reduced to a toy. He understands the ogre is part of him and crawls toward the miniature. The little ogre is small enough to hop onto his pinkie. Jamie watches him walk up and down his bony finger. The heat from Jamie's skin disturbs the ogre; it has an unexpected quality. The ogre melts, his body sliding to his feet until there's only his head looking at Jamie asking to be saved. Jamie's helpless as he watches the final disintegration, only capable of staring at what remains; a thin film of liquid. What's left enters Jamie through the pores of his skin. He curls into a ball and cries.

  *****

  The metal tube flings Jamie toward his floor at XXLI. Today it's different. The sensation of a bullet racing without a target. He imagines heading toward the nebulous, the orange orb on an unpronounceable billboard, our future, in your hands. Monday has come to soon. He doesn't care about codes and happiness, or the conundrum of who is spying on whom. There's an overriding sense of the pointless. He faced his monster and won. Victorious, yet defeated, he is a man in a loop again. The elevator doors open, two security guards are there to meet him. They fire tasers, ripping ten thousand volts into him.

  When he awakes his eyes are met with a blaze of white. He's on a white couch, the ring from his pinkie gone. A shadowy figure approaches; he contorts in defense, the only thing to do.

  “The doctor says you'll be okay.”

  It's Grace.

  “There was a glitch, we're looking into it. Security should have escorted you, not shot you. There'll be compensation.”

  “What's going on? Why escorted? Where's my ring?”

  “You're being promoted.”

  Jamie faints.

  A new elevator. It reaches higher in the sky. Project Happiness Phase Two, where the happy people go. An office of five with palm trees and the elegance of a nineteenth century tearoom in Tangiers. The riffraff are kept away. Contact with his former colleagues is prohibited. Michelle's in charge, and she glows the significance of her work. They test people in Test Room X, she tells him. Blaze's preference for prosaic titles extends even here. To reach the extraordinary the plain must be present. One-way vision glass divides the office from their subjects. Rows of men and women sit in pods answering questions, their impulse signals measured and coded. They rank what makes them happy on a scale of one to ten, the company seeking a correlation between their body reaction and what they're saying. They test people in Test Room Y. Here men and women are engaged in sedentary activities, listening to music, playing games, or watching a show. In Test Room P adults play tennis, bowl, and swim. They're all hooked up for their measurements to be converted into code. The search for commonality in euphoria. All the relevant data from these tests, and Jamie's great work from Phase One, are stored in a pint-sized silver box. He is to be the star of the show, the man to find a form of happiness to provide their customers.

  “Life is more than a pill, Jamie.”

  It's Blaze, another person who can read his thoughts—or is he just obvious, why not just give them a pill and be done with it?

  “We want people to engage with life, in the products they buy. I'm confident you'll find the code to embed. Our guarantee of happiness.”

  From Jamie's neutrality Blaze seems a little mad as he fills in the crucial detail.

  “Happiness is a signal. The code will be transmitted from any product. Beep beep beep—silently, of course. And in the long term, we will individualize, not just to general personality characteristics but to each and everyone's own. Meta data can finally be used for good. Take your seat. Lean back.”

  The events of the last few days spin within Jamie as he sits. They run in the background of his mind needing a solution, a key to crack its own code. He's wary of being sucked in, like he was at Phase One. How that sickened him when he looked back on those months. No wonder Po lost respect. He never asked who he replaced in department xH, where they went, what became of them. Now it's his first question.

  “You're the first,” answers Blaze, “we didn't have enough data until now.” It's obvious Jamie is distracted and Blaze has to address the issue, as is his wont. “Sorry about the mess earlier today, shouldn't have happened. You'll see this clearly in a few days.” He brings Jamie into the fold with a patronizing tap.

  “Imagine the excitement from unwrapping a new gift, or unboxing the latest gadget, but now you can have that same feeling every day? An argument at home? Look at your microwave.” He throws Jamie a magnetic key with a black heart-shaped key ring. “Actually, you don't have to imagine. Check parking spot 201, level two, creating happiness is well rewarded. Go to Grace. She will show you.”

  Burnt orange. Wet dream.

  “I'm with the luckiest person in the company.”

  “I was tasered.”

  “Promoted. Your skill set fits, and it's not even on your records.”

  He won't answer her subtle question. She's all Blaze, a disciple. He likes her. But trust her? No. The man stole his dreams, or whatever that experience in the ionizer was. Bulls were trampling all over him.

  “Someone needs to cheer up, you've got a great parking space.”

  Jamie dangles the car keys over a drain.

  “Oh my...” Grace is in disbelief. “You're going to refuse the job?”

  “One day I'm going to tell you something.”

  Jamie puts the keys in his pocket and turns away from the car, undecided.

  “I'm free on Thursday,” blurts Grace.

  He's too tired to drive, the company will pay for a cab. They own them too. His mind backtracks. Did Grace just say…

  Grace is wondering too, half hoping Jamie didn't hear.

  He halts in his tracks. A better idea. He tosses the keys over, a little wayward but she's quite athletic this one. Grace stretches and catches with aplomb.

  “Volleyball,” she says offer
ing up an explanation for her prowess, a tidbit of information to color her personality. Jamie doesn't play, so the color turns gray. He likes her though. She's almost funny.

  “Grace, do you ever get a feeling something is a little odd?”

  She's a little blank. “Here?”

  “Come on. My feelings tell me you're not going to be missed this afternoon. The car's yours if you drive me home.”

  “Thursday's come early.” She hops in.

  Grace slips through the gears. She glides between two vehicles. Another side to her personality. The color stays. Aesthetics have their place. For all his disdain and disappointment at Blaze's tactless reveal of being the dream thief, the burnt orange wet dream is as good as. He watches Grace handle the car, where her eyes fix, the sparkle in them, and her small muscles tensing and relaxing to the needs of the vehicle. Part of him wants to drive, part of him wants to be driven. If he continues down this path he could be bought. For the first time he sees the compromise within, the point where he's prepared to give up, and throw in his lot with Blaze and XXLI. Fight. A waste of time, of energy. He'd fought enough only to remain a shadow of himself, and the humbling truth was not knowing what the fight was about anymore. Blaze was offering more than a side; he was offering a permanent escape. And next to him was Grace. For a split second he could see a future. Safe. Secure. Happy. He looks over to her again—yes—a future. He'd never had an inkling of one. He was in a cloud when he first started at XXLI, and before he lived looking over his shoulder, trapped in a bubble, no more than an ogre. Now the choice was clear. In a moment of weakness he could be bought. And there were moments when he wanted to acquiesce, or be lobotomized. It would be easier to let go and live without resistance. He watches Grace edge closer to his apartment. Silence is amenable. They're both keen to avoid awkwardness, so remain unaware of shared thoughts.

  “Thanks,” says Jamie when the time comes. “Thursday?”

  “What about the car?”

  “Whenever. I've survived this long without one.”

  Home. The pod recreated. A reminder of Ray and Po. He owes them an apology—not that he ever outright accused them of skulduggery. He had a little black box of their data. He was a thief too. His tepid shower provides no answer so he scrubs harder until his skin is red. There's a scratch he didn't see before. If he was paranoid he'd believe it to be a deliberate incision for a Nano device. Sleep evades him all night. His magic box of tricks begs a question. Examine or delete the data? In the end it seems Ray and Po were innocuous, if strange. Blaze was the true deceiver.

  *****

  Two days later Jamie returns clean shaven to unpronounceable in the belief he was doing it on his own terms. He watches the automatons troop into Test Room X. Men and women obey their guides, placing their hands into a holder to measure their body metrics. Jamie drifts off, as usual seeking arguments to justify his decisions. Blaze was leaving him a trail to follow, always an answer around the corner. He could walk out of XXLI when he wanted, hands clean, just like the other day with Grace—he and Grace—but she wasn’t ready. There wasn't a dark side for her at unpronounceable. He batted away any notion of not knowing her at all. During HR sessions they had ventured behind each other’s facade for the briefest of moments, enough to know there was more. But daring to, to agitate one's own ugliness, drew a fear of failing to shape up to the others hopes. Sticking to the artifice had worked. Now Thursday loomed, the superficiality between them destined to be peeled back further, or sealed permanently. He'd neither fight life at XXLI nor comply with its bounty. If there was to be a future worth living it required an additional dimension. Each passing day he knew Grace had something to do with it. How exactly, he was uncertain. In leaving XXLI there was an implicit threat of cutting ties and losing connection with her, just like he was forced to do with his former colleagues at Department xH. Blaze, he'd bet, was banking on that to keep him in line.

  “We all search for a piece of happiness.”

  Blaze alongside Jamie watches the conformists for fifty dollars, a voucher, and a future commitment to an unpaid test to undergo examination. Drab plasticine faces, a little place in the sun, made to believe they're doing something important while earning a little extra for a gift, a loaf of bread, or their kids favorite brand of unpronounceable cereal.

  “And they said water would be the commodity of the twenty-first century,” opines Jamie.

  “How prescient.”

  “Do you really think this can work?”

  “I have every faith in you.”

  They watch a man reel away in agony. Blood oozing from his finger. An attendant rushing to his aid. Unable to hear, it appears a mime to Blaze and Jamie. Irate man pushes back attendant. A stand off ensues. Man backs down.

  “In five minutes he'll be happier than before he walked in,” says Blaze. He lets Jamie follow the man's journey on his own, the subject unaware he's been watched from the other side of the glass. He's treated with basic first aid, enough to clean and shore up the wound, and guided to an office where his anger and suspicion of being in the belly of the giant corporation subsides.

  “He's a player,” says Michelle, “you can see it in his eyes, waiting to see how much he can skin us. We get one every couple of weeks. Our employees are authorized to pay out up to ten thousand at their discretion and keep these guys quiet.” XXLI had this down to a T. They had calculated for failure and accounted for the downside. Jamie would be privy to this circus every day.

  The silver box of data awaits. The information of lives. Ordinary people. Their seconds of joy recorded and coded. Emotion a number. Jamie was ordinary too despite being Blaze's pet and Ray's messiah. His blood though remained unspilt. With each passing hour he drifts further away from the enthusiasm he had at department xH. There's no Beanoe. They may have mocked him and his position but his true worth was seen in hindsight. Those were the good times. Blaze's barnstorming, the virtuous goal derived from dubious sources echoed hollow. It was empty speech. Working here would be a charade, but for Grace, he would do it. He'd done it before, head down, sticking at it—and for less, nothing as noble as striking a real relationship with Grace.

  *****

  “I love Vic's, used to go there in my teens.”

  Grace's enthusiasm. Jamie has to think on his feet. If she really wants to have a good time this could be trouble. The concept solidifies. She wants to have a good time. He's shrinking, not up to the task. God—he's used to being repelled, not liked—and she likes him or she wouldn't do this, this sort of happy thing. Bring back the colder, edgier Grace, he thinks. He knew how to handle that, her warming to him could be catastrophe.

  “I love Vic's too, obviously, wouldn't have suggested it, but I'm thinking it's loud for a real conversation.”

  “I'm not ready for a real conversation.”

  She flashes a smile.

  “Oh,” he says.

  They're on different wavelengths. A wind of realization passes through.

  “I don't know how to have fun,” he admits.

  She laughs. It may be the funniest thing anyone has said to her.

  “I'm not kidding. I don't think I know what it is. Like it skipped my genes.” Or what he doesn't say. His life has been too serious, too self-centered, too focused on surviving. Avoiding. Being let down, or more to the point; the anguish of letting another down.

  “You're the saddest person I know.”

  “You don't understand, how could you, you don't know anything about me.”

  Grace blanks him. Jamie's worried, maybe she does.

  “Do you?” he asks.

  Grace chooses an appropriate smile. Jamie has to trust her. She's bringing her HR skills to bear. Being with her is like taking a truth serum.

  “And... I can't tell you... because you want to have fun.”

  His mind won't stop. She's like two people. Different uniforms, changes in behavior. This could go anywhere and it scares him, he was no longer in control. Grace grabs his hand.

/>   “You're different,” he says.

  She shakes her head, no, she insists, “You're freaking out.”

  The car is sanctuary. Grace tells him she could see the panic and confusion in him. To her he was the one who was different. She hadn't seen the neurotic side. Agreement here was easy. They both had a lot to learn about each other and neither was proficient with relationships. It turned out they both hung out at the stable in their early twenties, a physical hook up site that lost its lustre past the age of twenty-five. It was cool having a place geared for horny youth with zero expectation of any relationship but embellished the soulless life amongst the black and gray. Amused they never ran into each other, they were connecting now.

  Jamie was getting his serious conversation, although not the one he envisaged, the one about life at XXLI. He could wait though; the more time he shared with Grace, the stronger the bond. With the awkward start over Grace could introduce Jamie to fun. He tells her not to get her hopes up. The burnt orange wet dream gives her the chance to take him to a part of the city she had always wanted to go. Faust Square was undergoing its second reclamation. The first renewal was an ethereal open mall, clean and safe for families. Success drove up the rents forcing stores to close, or the already large chains to find a bigger and leaner fish to save them. Identities were lost under unpronounceable leadership and consumers left in droves—not helped by the double whammy recession. The city picked up the land from bankrupt property owners and went experimental after bulldozing half the place. They kept rents low to allow for an artisan class, unlicensed magicians, poets, and musicians to restore street life. It drew youth and attracted the chatter of the influencer class Grace paid attention to. Everyone knew it was only a matter of time before it became plastic again. For now she and Jamie wandered past open pit fires and sellers of marshmallows. Temptation would win, and they toasted s'mores under moonlight wearing oxygen masks.