Stories About Corn

by Ri, Xesin

  “Are you insane?” asked No-bit. “I’m not telling anyone anything for you, especially not that.”

  “Fine, six thousand.”

  “What? Are you serious? What’s going on?” No-bit looked to Raewyn who just shrugged her shoulders.

  “Ray,” called out Jack. He didn’t even try and hide the fear in his voice.

  Ray turned and said, “Shut up.”

  “Sixty-five hundred. That is my last offer. Not a penny more. And you will tell every last person that I bought this thing from you. And I want to know the exact date when you will release this thing for all to enjoy.”

  “Not for another six weeks. We’re milking it before it goes to the public.”

  “Ha! Anarchist capitalist pigs! Great, just great.” Ray pulled out his wallet. “Driver, what is the most I can get out of an ATM?”

  Jack stared at Ray.

  “You speak English, don’t you?” asked Ray.

  “Yeah; I have no idea how much you can get out of an ATM. I guess the max is only limited by what’s currently in the machine.”

  “Mr. Yewstone, I need you to get that three thousand you owe me. I want you to quickly go, walk, to the bank across the street and get that cash.”

  Jules opened his mouth then thought better of saying anything. He headed towards the doors where the bank across the street was visible through the lower level of the parking garage.

  “Now, you two stay here with my driver. I’m just going to the ATM there,” Ray pointed out the machine. “So you should be able to keep sight of me—and I of you, got it?”

  Raewyn and No-bit nodded.

  Ray walked to the ATM. He never looked back. He found his legs were in perfect shape.

  Jack stood with Raewyn and No-bit, and he was still too nervous to know whether Ray was up to something or not. He tried to nod to No-bit, but the guy just stared back with what was surely supposed to be menace in his eyes.

  Ray returned.

  “I need you to get me a waffle cone, with chocolate ice cream. Here’s a hundred. Make sure you get me plenty of napkins.”

  “Ray, this is crazy. We are probably on a hundred—“

  “They control the cameras,” said Ray nodding to Raewyn and No-bit. “Get me an ice cream, keep the change.”

  Jack held the bill in his hand and shook his head.

  “Go,” said Ray.

  Jack left the three of them.

  Ray looked at No-bit. “How did you two get these documents?”

  “We got them through a third party. This person—“

  “Remember the law,” said Ray. “I am only curious how you two freelance journalists got information from a notoriously secretive company?”

  “How did you get other reports from them?” said No-bit.

  “I don’t know anything about that. I am curious how you got these documents, however.”

  “Our third-party player sent us this information looking to be a whistleblower. We wanted to help out, but we realized that the cost of the information would be very high. We are both journalist majors, and we both realized that just putting this out there wasn’t going to be valuable. Limited release to people like you would make more of an impact. We take your money then we can finance bigger goals bringing down bigger companies and bigger people, way bigger than a little fish like you.”

  “And that makes you an anarchist how?”

  “Freedom isn’t always supposed to make sense,” said No-bit.

  “Let me give you both a word of advice then. You are being very stupid, both of you.”

  “Hey!” yelled No-bit. “I am tired of that jabbing. Why don’t you shut up and get us our money.”

  “This is a terrible meeting place,” said Ray ignoring No-bit. “Your friends cannot be trusted. And you shouldn’t trust me or anyone like me. Controlling the location is paramount in what you do, and these days public places aren’t what they used to be. Settling the price and knowing what someone is willing to pay is equally important in negotiation. And—and this is really something you need to take to heart, fake names should never be memorable or simple nicknames—like No-bit—names people actually call you are of no value to your anonymity whatsoever.”

  “What do you know about anything except stealing people’s livelihoods and foreclosing on people’s homes?”

  “I know your girlfriend there is in a lot of trouble if she thinks dyeing her hair red, getting tattoos, and a bunch of piercings will protect her from anything. And using a name like Raewyn, you might as well tell me to remember you, and only you.”

  “We don’t need your advice. We just want the money, piggy,” said No-bit getting right into Ray’s face.

  “Listen child, and lo, hear the voice of Ray Synad, your God. In the past few months, some of my people, some of who I knew, got killed. One may have been a suicide—nobody knows for sure—except me, I am sure he was scared to death.”

  “You just got cash from an ATM. You don’t think they keep records on that. Your name. Your face. Your account. All accessed here, and all on camera,” said Raewyn.

  “Yeah,” agreed No-bit. “You aren’t smart.”

  “You are very smart, Raewyn. If you guys get through this, you call up my office and I’ll get you a job. But you both are still being stupid. Did you see me get a receipt? Did you actually see me take the money from the machine? No. Because I didn’t take any money out of that ATM. The only person drawing money out of any account will be Mr. Yewstone.”

  Jack was returning with the waffle cone and the ice cream. “Here you go, sir. I hope everything is going well here?”

  “Things are great. Hold onto that cone for a moment.”

  “Yes, um, yes, sir.”

  Raewyn stood up. “He’s not your driver.”

  “No, he is an idiot whose only use is getting me ice cream in the mall.”

  Jules came through the doors. He was nervous. Jack, Ray, and No-bit all looked behind him to see if there was a threat just outside the doors.

  Ray took the cone from Jack.

  “Here is the money, Ray.”

  “Good, thank you, Jules. You can go now. Goodbye.”

  “Oh, great. I’ll see you for golf then, double-or-nothing.”

  “Certainly, I’ll call you for our next game.”

  Jules left through the glass and steel mall doors in a hurry. He nodded only to Jack as he went out.

  Ray pulled thirty –five hundred from his wallet and stacked it up with Jules’s three thousand.

  “Here is your money, sixty-five hundred dollars. And remember, part of that is that you will tell people Ray Synad bought it. You should have a very good description to give them when they ask.”

  “Yeah,” said a confused and annoyed No-bit handing over a printed copy of the document Raewyn produced from her purse.

  “I didn’t expect paper.”

  No-bit counted the cash.

  “Much easier to control,” said Raewyn.

  “Very smart, very smart,” said Ray looking through the document quickly. “Is there an electronic copy you can give me?”

  “It’s extra,” said No-bit.

  “I’ll let you have fifty dollars for it,” said Ray producing the bill almost as if he had foreseen this.

  “Sure,” said No-bit.

  Raewyn handed him a disc that also came from her purse.

  “Our business is concluded,” said Ray. “Young lady, take my word of advice, conspicuous behavior is best when used as a disguise in small towns. And to you both, be sure you can describe me to whoever else you talk to. My courtesy is likely to save your lives. Good day.”

  Ray bowed and went to the doors.

  Jack opened the door for Ray.

  In the garage, Ray tossed out the ice cream in the first trash bin he saw.

  “Let’s get to the car, Jack.”

  Ray walked fast and out front of Jack who was taller and younger than Ray but could barely keep up.

  Jack looked to Ray to see wh
at the hell was going on, but he feared to ask another question. He noticed, unlike before, Ray’s breath did not create great clouds about him as he briskly walked up through the parking garage. The temperature was still freezing, the light was the same, yet there was no heavy fog emanating from Ray now. Jack thought, “Even his breathing is designed to throw you off.”

  The Mercedes’s lights flashed and its horn honked signaling it was now unlocked as Jack and Ray approached.

  Ray got in. Jack got in. The doors were shut. Jack started the engine and started pulling out of the spot right away. Jack wanted to get out of the garage and the area fast.

  “That was a success, Jack.”

  The doors locked as Jack drove forward.

  “Why?” he asked Ray.

  “We just got a document worth my entire fortune and every penny you make every year for only sixty-five hundred dollars. We can now be fortune-tellers for ourselves. And I just saved the lives of two foolish anarchists—probably. And I might have just met my fourth wife.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Jack as they waited for the light to change and let them out of the garage. How is any of this good? How can that document, which you haven’t fully read yet, be worth six thousand five hundred dollars?”

  “The title is ‘ADD’s Compliance with Future High Hydrocarbon Corn Industry Consolidations.’ Kinda dry, right?”

  “Is it ‘compliance’ that you are so interested in?”

  “Good try, and close, but no. It is ‘consolidations’ that we should be afraid of and glad we now know.”

  The light turned green. Jack followed the car in front of him very closely trying to get out and onto the road.

  “You know, Jack, this is the moment when we get hit by a car or a hail of bullets kills us dead.” Ray laughed. “Ah war, kid, war! Risk, baby, risk! I love this! I live for this! I love Chicago!” shouted Ray beating his hands on the dashboard like a madman.

  Jack took his Mercedes left through the intersection and drove as fast as he could from the mall which seemed to be the source of Ray’s newest case of insanity. Jack hoped it would fade like the exhaust from a car, lingering and drifting and fading away on a cold January day.

  Early-February

  Too Far Down Lower Wacker

  Her ears were pounding from the now absent drum beat. Out of the door and into the cold of night, she found herself in blue and green lights. The blue, a muffler shop. The green, a stop light screaming go. The darkened club’s glowing exit sign reflected off her sweaty arms just a moment before she pulled on her jacket and let the club’s door swing shut behind her. Despite the warmth just within the door, a handful of smokers and their friends were standing around in the night shivering. She didn’t know them; they didn’t know her; they smiled; she smiled. She had admirers.

  She was sweating all over from the all too high heat within the doors of the pink and red and black decorated interior of the club. Her fifteen piercings, most being recent, and her four new tattoos ached much more pleasantly under the calm of drugs and alcohol. Her long red hair had flashed into her sight with the flashing beat of the concert lights. Her Blonds-style dress felt tight and cold in the new air outside the club. Despite the cold, the freezing cold, she was soon warming inside her long, black wool coat. And, for the first time in a long time, Raewyn Alistair was alive and kicking.

  It was nice to pretend to be happy. It was great to pretend to be a friend. It was wonderful to be someone who others truly cared for. Friendly people were all around her. She’d run into so many people in the last month, and they all quickly re-counted her as a friend; and some bestowed the title of local icon of the Chicago scene; it was strange to be an icon of a dead scene, but she still loved it so. So many had told her different, but for her, twenty-five didn’t mean she had to die. She was just beginning the party. She believed in this moment more than any moment of her whole history. She wasn’t encultured—she was culture.

  But that man, that Ray Synad, had jinxed it. No-bit stood next to her on the street talking to his associates. He was either sober or on something that didn’t show. No-bit had been just a friend with similar beliefs just a few years ago. There had been forty of them in the beginning when she started with the group four years ago. They were anarchist-hackers. They still didn’t have an official name since even that was too much organization. To prevent total confusion, they all, spontaneously, decided to call themselves the group, without capitalization to prove the point. A group committed to changing the way the whole world works and stopping the American government’s tyranny by bringing the massive corporate criminals under closer scrutiny. “Get the information out!” was one of the rallying cries Raewyn first heard when she went to a group meeting. No-bit wanted a world where people would totally take care of themselves without a government. The way to achieve this was through upsetting the balance of companies; destroying the public trust in the government; revealing government secrets and directly challenging the economic markets of the world where government manipulations are at their highest strength and are the most important tool of control. The only thing that had happened to Raewyn since then was that she took off to gain deep footing for the group with the intention of bringing them to the forefront of the war against organized governments’ control and manipulation of all the world. Important work she got paid for when No-bit gave her most of the money made off selling the ADD information, but she didn’t quite understand how any of what she had done moved the cause forward. What had taken lies, manipulation, and great planning had seemed like an amazing experience that would yield incredible results, but it barely ruffled the feathers of No-bit’s so-called “true” capitalists. Ray Synad, that angry, quick little talker, made it all so much worse; and he did it so easy. He made No-bit look like No-body. He flung off games and tactics she and No-bit had planned for weeks like they were sheets on a bed. Money and devastating information could be traded over ice cream at the mall with ease. And Synad was a business man, a powerful man, an intelligent man, a healthy man and a rich man. He was everything No-bit and the group hated and wanted to stop and bring down, the old world sort of man. The Mr. Synads of the world were the very people she knew were corrupting the happiness and joy that people were supposed to feel. He was the embodiment of the obstacle that needed to be removed to make the world better; and it would be better without its silly laws, systems, logic, and so-called common sense. But Ray Synad would be just fine in a world of chaos, thought Raewyn. If everything did change tomorrow and there were no more governments, no more laws, no more anything, and she and No-bit and the group got just what they wanted—just people living free lives—Ray Synad would still be just fine, just fine. He would adapt and thrive. Raewyn shook her head thinking, “Mr. Synad might even be better off.”

  Raewyn walked in a little circle waiting for No-bit to end his conversation with some of the other group anarchists. They had all come here to celebrate the release of the ADD documents to the internet. They celebrated the proof that their movement wasn’t impotent; but it was Raewyn who had made the decisions, done the editing, decided on the documents to use, and gotten the documents from ADD in the first place; yet, there they were celebrating tomorrow’s 4 AM release, less than five hours away, like it was a group effort.

  As Raewyn strolled about, still waiting in front of the club, feeling fine in the sub-zero temp, she gazed at the toes of her shiny black boots. She could see the reflection of the world off the black leather. The streetlights reflected there, off that glossy black. She could see the club’s name too. And the anarchists and No-bit and the doorman. Her breath rolled away from her lips in the soft, glossy black world. She felt strong and powerful. She felt like a woman of great ability and skill. She felt athletic in the high heeled boots she’d been wearing all night without feeling any great need to rip them off as soon as she got home. But Ray Synad had jinxed everything. He had been better, faster and stronger. He knew the game better than she or No-bit or anyone she knew
would ever know the game. Synad breathed in information—and breathed out—decisions. Decisions that could create or devastate anything he contacted. No-bit had said they would change the world if she was willing to do the things that needed to be done. The others, who hacked their own phones, talked and promised support for a movement that they thought destined for greatness and now, even now, praised her for her courage and willful nature—they sold the information they had gotten from ADD for cash because they didn’t have jobs. They sold the information because free and open information can make life very difficult for those that don’t own their own farms, own their own water supply, own their own food, own their own land. Land owners did have more to say than others. And free information, she realized, was great in the land of ideals—sold information, on the other hand, can keep a person fed.

  Raewyn looked at her new boots and sighed. She wondered in silence, “They are so pretty, how long until I have to pawn them for cash?”

  “Let’s go,” said No-bit finally.

  Raewyn smiled at her new friends and the doorman, turned and followed No-bit off into the night followed by cheers and high pitched whistling blown through the cold, un-gloved fingers of her admirers and friends. To again be surrounded by the envy of others made her feel outrageously magnificent.

  No-bit walked away fast. Raewyn had to jog in spurts to keep up; and as they passed thin trees rooted along the sidewalk, and as they walked by buildings and late night clubs and on into the dark side streets—he didn’t look back.

  Raewyn wondered what he was so upset about. The celebration should have had him dancing and singing too. “Maybe he’s really high on something?” she thought to herself.

  No-bit had never been violent with her, but she was afraid of him tonight as he seemed to be nearly running from her.

  He stopped and turned to her just off the edge of a pool of yellow light pouring down from a very old street lamp.