Jennifer Government

by Max Barry

  “You and the whole general public. We’ve got a hell of a PR job. I’ve got half my staff down here to gorge themselves on Happy Meals.”

  Buy looked around. Now that Lucia mentioned it, there was a certain uniformity about all the customers. Most had cellphones pressed to their ears. A few had notebook computers. “Do you know who attacked the store?”

  “As of this morning, yes. Security cameras saw them come out of the store and exit onto the street. We got cooperation from a couple of stores along Bourke Street, ran their security tapes, and saw which parking lot they went into. One of them paid with a Visa card. Since Visa’s in US Alliance, voilà, one billing address for a Mr. Hack Nike.”

  Buy blinked. He wondered if it was a coincidence that the attacker worked for Nike, like John. There was probably more going on here than Buy was aware of. “Have you reported this to the Government?”

  Lucia smiled. “We don’t work that way, Buy. Too public. We’ll talk to this Hack Nike instead.”

  “By ‘talk’ you mean—”

  She leaned forward. “I mean we’ll mount a very persuasive case as to why he should never try anything like that again.”

  “I…see,” Buy said. “I’d like to talk to him first, if you don’t mind. John Nike wants to know what these people are about.”

  “Yes, John,” Lucia said. Her eyes shone. “I must say, it’s very flattering that he’s taken a personal interest. How do you know him?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “I hope you’ll tell him how grateful I am for his assistance. If he’s ever in town, I’d love to take him to dinner.”

  “I will tell him,” Buy promised. “So can I—”

  “Let me write down the details for you.”

  On the Bechtel Eastern Freeway, en route to Kate’s school, Buy dialed the number Lucia had given him.

  A young woman answered. “Hello?”

  “Hello,” Buy said. “Can I speak to Hack Nike, please?”

  “He’s not here,” she said, a little aggressively, Buy thought. “He doesn’t live here anymore. Okay?”

  “Oh. Do you know where—”

  “Try Claire Sears, Sales Assistant. Why don’t you look her up? I’m sure you’ll find Hack there.”

  “Uh,” Buy said. “Thank you.” He hung up. That was strange.

  He called directory information and got a number for Claire Sears. Claire had an answering machine. Buy told it, “Hi, my name is Buy Mitsui…I’ve heard about your group, about what you do, and…I’d like to be part of it. Please call me back as soon as you can.”

  He ended the call. He felt kind of bad, laying a trap like that. Before he’d left McDonald’s, Lucia had showed him the tape of the attack, and Buy was surprised by how amateurish it all was. On the news, it had sounded like a strategic chemical weapons attack. “They’re kids,” he’d said to Lucia. “Just kids.”

  “They cost us twenty million in brand damage,” Lucia had said. “Don’t feel too sorry for them.”

  Buy was early, so he parked the Jeep and ducked inside, hoping to see Kate’s classroom. There were pictures of Barbie dolls and Hot Wheels cars plastered everywhere. This was a Mattel school, Buy realized. He suddenly understood why Kate had a Barbie lunchbox.

  A security guard stepped in front of him. “Help you, sir?”

  “Oh,” Buy said, startled. “I’m just picking up my kid.”

  “Students can be collected from the gate, sir,” the guard said. “Please wait outside.”

  “Uh, sure.” He turned and walked back. That was a pity. But he supposed the precautions were necessary. You never knew when some lunatic would try to snatch a kid.

  Kate was one of the first out the gates. She ran toward him, her schoolbag bouncing on her back. “Buy! Did you get my Virtual Animalz?”

  He opened the door for her. “I think you need to explain this whole concept to me again.”

  “Buy. It’s simple.”

  He started the engine. “To a smart girl like you, maybe.”

  “A man came to talk to us today,” Kate said. “He said some companies are bad. Do you work for a bad company?”

  “What?”

  “He said the bad companies ganged up on the good companies and they were going to fight.”

  “US Alliance and Team Advantage?”

  “Yes!”

  “This is what they teach you?”

  “The good companies are… I forget.”

  “Me too,” Buy said.

  “I know Mattel is a good one.”

  “There aren’t really good companies and bad companies, Kate. It’s not that simple.”

  “But Mattel looks after kids in schools. There was this sick kid, they gave him a heap of toys. The other companies are mean and greedy.”

  “In a way, all companies are greedy. That’s why they make things for us. It’s how the system works.”

  “Can I get a treat? Since you didn’t download any Animalz?”

  Buy smiled. “What kind of treat?”

  “A Bouncing Beanie Baby.”

  “I’m surprised you can’t buy them at school,” Buy said. “I’m surprised they’re not mandatory.”

  “Mattel doesn’t make Bouncing Beanie Babies. But I like them.”

  “You’re a rebel.”

  “Can I?”

  “Sure, I suppose.”

  “Thanks! The Chadstone mall is on the way home.” “Let’s go somewhere else.” “But you said—”

  “Just not at Chadstone,” Buy said. “Please. I don’t want to go to Chadstone.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Okay.”

  They drove in silence for a while. Then Kate said, “Do you think Mommy will call again?”

  Buy looked at her. “I’m sure she will. The second she can.”

  “It sounded bad. Where she was. Noisy.”

  “She’ll be fine. I’m sure.”

  “I hope she calls again,” Kate said. She bit her fingernail and inspected it. “What about Sears? They sell them there. Can we get a Bouncing Beanie Baby at Sears?”

  “Yes,” Buy said. “We can go to Sears.”

  65 Billy

  Billy woke to Jennifer’s elbow in his ribs. “Hey. Tryin’ to sleep here.”

  “We’ve landed.”

  “Oh.” He followed Calvin into the aisle and stretched, cracking his knuckles.

  “Don’t do that,” Calvin said.

  “Sorry.” Calvin looked tired and cranky, which was good, because that meant he wouldn’t chase Billy so fast. Billy was pretty sure there would be some chasing, because as soon as he got a chance, he was going to run like fuck. He’d had a lot of time to think about this, and decided it was definitely better than the alternative, which was sitting around and waiting for the NRA to pop him. That John Nike had been pretty convincing.

  Jennifer and Calvin escorted him off the plane, keeping between him and the other passengers. A neon sign said: WELCOME TO LOS ANGELES—HOME OF US ALLIANCE! “Man, it feels good to be home,” Billy said, inhaling. “Smell that air, wow.”

  “It’s air-conditioning,” Jennifer said.

  He spotted a sign. “Hey, bathroom. I gotta piss.”

  “Wait until the hotel.”

  “Come on, I just woke up. I really have to go.” Jennifer looked at Calvin. Calvin said, “Come on, then.” “Good deal,” Billy said.

  Jennifer put her hand on his arm. “The NRA may know we’re here. Be careful.”

  “Wow, okay, sure.” He tried to look solemn. If Jennifer thought Billy’s chances were better hanging around a couple of jet-lagged Government agents, she was nuts.

  He followed Calvin into the restroom. Calvin checked the stalls, which allowed Billy to get a head start. By the time Calvin unzipped, Billy was shaking off. “So, you worked with Jen a long time?”

  “About a year.”

  “Man, how do you put up with it? That chick drives me nuts after five minutes.” He zipped.

  “She has redeeming qualities,�
�� Calvin said, and Billy slammed his face into the wall. It made a loud clunk and Calvin bounced back onto the tiles. Billy ran for the exit. Jennifer saw him emerge. Her mouth dropped. She looked so surprised and outraged that Billy got the giggles. She was forty feet away. He took off in the other direction.

  “Stop! Billy!”

  He leapt a row of potted plants and sprinted past counters for rental cars. The main exit was ahead, and there were cabs waiting patiently on the street. He was halfway into one when a man in a black Airport Transport uniform caught his shoulder. “Get you a cab, sir?”

  “Yeah, yeah!”

  The man looked at his clipboard. Then he looked up. “Billy NRA?”

  Billy stopped. “Yeah, who are you?”

  “Hold this, will you?” The man handed him the clipboard. Billy looked at it, confused. It had a photograph of himself tucked in the top-right corner. He didn’t understand why this man would have his photo, or why he wanted Billy to look at it. Then the man pulled a gun from his pocket, and everything became much clearer.

  “No!” He tripped over the curb and sprawled on the concrete. “No, please!”

  “Sorry,” the man said. Billy could see his eye above the barrel. He could see his fingers squeezing the trigger.

  There were two shots, sharp and loud. He felt his body explode, felt blood erupt from him. He couldn’t believe it was happening. All he’d wanted to do was go skiing, and he was being shot to death in an L.A. airport. He screamed and screamed.

  “Come on,” Jennifer said. “Get up.”

  He opened his eyes. There was a dead man slumped against the cab. He looked down. “I’m hit! The blood—the blood!”

  “It’s not yours. Hurry up.”

  He touched his belly, then his legs.

  “See?” she said. “Now move your ass. Let’s not assume there’s only one of them.”

  She hauled him to his feet and followed him into the cab. Calvin opened the other door. Calvin had a bruise above his right eye, like an egg was trying to push its way out of his skull.

  “I think you owe someone an apology,” Jennifer said.

  “Uh…sorry, Calvin,” Billy said.

  Calvin said nothing. Billy thought he might have reached the end of Calvin Government’s goodwill.

  “And…thanks for shooting that guy, Jen.”

  “Try that again,” she said, “and next time I’ll shoot you.”

  “I won’t try it again,” Billy said. But that was a lie, of course.

  66 Jennifer

  She wasn’t thrilled about leaving a dead guy on the sidewalk, but it was either that or stick around and exchange words with however many other NRA operatives were hanging around. The cabdriver kept his mouth shut all the way to their hotel in Santa Monica, which she figured was understandable given what he’d just seen. She should probably tip him pretty well.

  “Look at all these people,” Calvin said, peering out the window. “Is every shop in this city having a sale?”

  “Check out that US Alliance billboard,” Billy said. “ ‘GO HOME, CARPETBAGGERS.’ Man, that’s funny. Where’s Team Advantage from?”

  “New York,” Jennifer said.

  “Huh,” Billy said. “Figures.”

  The cab dropped them outside the hotel. It was a sunny, clear morning, and she thought she could smell the ocean. She couldn’t deny it: some part of her was excited to be here. It had been a long time since she was last in L.A.

  She fought off men who very much wanted to carry her bag and made her way to the reception desk. A man in a demeaning uniform asked, “Are you US Alliance members?”

  “Billy,” she ordered. Billy produced his card.

  “Are you a member, ma’am?”

  “I intend to sign up,” Jennifer said. “Real soon.”

  He slid two clipboards across the counter. “You’ll need to do that before you check in. It’s an excellent program. You can earn—”

  “Jennifer?” someone said. “Holy shit, Jennifer Maher?”

  She turned. A suit with brown hair and shiny shoes was staring at her. She searched her memory for a name. “Max?”

  “I thought you dropped off the end of the earth, Barbie doll. What are you doing back in town?”

  “I’m…here on business.” She felt Calvin’s eyes on her. “Do your forms,” she told him.

  “Are you still in advertising?”

  “I freelance.”

  “Whoa, hey,” Max said. “If you want work, let’s talk.” He pressed a business card into her hand. It said: MAX SYNERGY, CEO, SYNERGY CAMPAIGNS. “I have my own agency these days. We do work for US Alliance. Have you seen it? I would love to have you on board, Malibu. People in the industry still remember you.”

  “That’s… nice. But I’m not looking for work.”

  “Oh. Well, keep me in mind. Hey, do you want to catch up later? We could—”

  “How about I call you?”

  “Okay!” Max said. “Wow, it was great to run into you. Really great.”

  Calvin didn’t say anything until they were in the elevator. Then it was too quiet: she couldn’t handle the waiting. “Go on. Say it.”

  “Say what?”

  She looked at him.

  “You used to work in L.A.?”

  “Maher is based here.”

  “Huh,” Calvin said. “So this is like a homecoming for you.”

  “No, it isn’t.” But Calvin was right. She could feel it in her bones.

  She called Kate, and it was wonderful. Kate was full of stories of what she and Buy had been doing, and listening to her voice, Jennifer started to feel much less like she’d spent the entire last week in an economy-class plane seat and more like a human being. “I miss you so much,” she said, and Calvin and Billy glanced at her.

  After that, she pulled out the phone book and did her journalist routine: call up US Alliance, pretend to be from MSNBC, and say she wanted to interview John Nike. She was transferred to an assistant who said John was in an important meeting and anyway he didn’t do interviews with non—US Alliance media. “Thanks anyway,” Jennifer said, and hung up. Now she had confirmation he was here.

  There was a problem with Billy: he didn’t want to be left handcuffed to the towel rail. “We’ll only be a few hours,” she said. “What’s the big deal?”

  “What if the NRA come in here?”

  “Now you want our protection? I thought you were better off on your own.”

  “Well, um, now I see you were right about that,” Billy said.

  “I’ll cuff you to the mini bar instead,” she said. “You can snack. How about that?”

  “Aw, man,” Billy said.

  They left him, hoping a cleaner wouldn’t stumble onto him. The cab took forty minutes to reach the US Alliance building on Main and Central because downtown was jammed with people. “What’s going on?” she asked the driver. “Some kind of riot?”

  “Yeah, some kind, all right. It’s the Sales.”

  “What sales?”

  “Are you kidding me? US Alliance and Team Advantage. If you haven’t signed up yet, lady, now’s the time. You can get some amazing bargains.”

  “Mmm,” Jennifer said. She saw two men fighting over a VCR in the window of a Sears; store security were trying to break them up. Across the doors of a K-Mart were spray-painted the words: T.A.—NOT IN L.A. “Can you let us out here?”

  They walked the remaining two blocks to the US Alliance tower, squeezing through the throng of shoppers. “Wow, Jen,” Calvin said. “These are some good deals right here.” He stopped in front of a window. “Wide-screen TVs for two hundred bucks! Can that be right?”

  She kept walking. After a minute, Calvin caught up with her.

  “Okay, sure, all this is terrible, really. But since we’re here… you could pick up something nice.”

  Jennifer stopped. Across the road, the US Alliance building was ringed with NRA soldiers. She saw helmets, assault rifles, shields.

  “What?” Calvin s
aid, then saw. “Oh, crap.”

  “You think that’s to stop us, or Team Advantage?”

  “Maybe both.” She frowned.

  “So what do we do now?”

  “I think I call Max,” she said.

  67 Hack

  Hack was asleep when the phone rang. It was amazing how much more sleep he got now that he was unemployed. He was starting to feel bad for all the people who had to drag themselves into their drone factories by nine. They didn’t know what they were missing.

  Claire was at Sears. He stumbled out into the kitchen. “Hello?”

  “Hi. It’s Thomas.”

  “Oh, hi.”

  “Look, Hack…I’ve been thinking… I don’t want to do the Nike Town with you.”

  “What?”

  “It’s just, after McDonald’s, it seems like we should lay low for a while. You know?”

  McDonald’s had been in the news, big time. For two days the TV had been full of shots of guys in moonsuits walking through the store, the shopfront itself wrapped in plastic like something out of a science-fiction movie. Since then it was mostly serious-looking company spokespeople assuring the public that all precautions were being taken, that there was no risk, none at all.

  “Oh,” Hack said. “You don’t want to get in trouble?”

  “Right.”

  He felt mad. There was no point in stopping after McDonald’s; the point of the whole exercise was Nike. “Gee, I’m sorry. I thought we were doing this because it was right. I thought we were standing up to corporations like McDonald’s because someone has to. I didn’t know we were doing it out of self-interest.”

  “Uh,” Thomas said. “It’s just that—”

  “Hey, I’ve got an idea! Why don’t we put advertising on our uniforms? We could get sponsors, and funding—”

  “That’s not what I’m—”

  “—and we’d only attack our sponsors’ competitors, and we could charge a lot of money and design a logo and advertise and we’d be just like them!”

  There was a long pause. Then Thomas said, “I’m sorry, Hack.”

  “Then get lost, you corporate sympathizer.” He hung up.

  First Leisl, now Thomas. Hack was losing footsoldiers. It was amazing, he thought, how everyone bitched about corporations but no one was willing to risk pissing them off. Hack was disappointed at the level of motivation among this society’s counterculture.