The Water Thief

by Nicholas Lamar Soutter

  The first and most obvious incident was an article in the Scientific Review Daily, which had said that they had found fillers, like sawdust and powdered plastics, in a number of Ackerman-branded baby formulas. This might seem like an obvious write-up, but it was a lead story, and by now there were probably hundreds or even thousands of Ackerman colleagues reporting it. The only people who would make a dime from it were the early reporters, people who paid off the local newspapers to get the story before it was off the press. By now it was worth fractions of a penny.

  You couldn’t look for stories like this, things that stood out. The art to finding a quality incident was in looking for what was discreet. Run away from anything bold, underlined, highlighted, glowing, or in those metallic inks that change color. Literature was designed to be eye catching, to draw attention. The professional perception manager was drawn to the things people ignored.

  The first good incident I found was an article on a youth soccer league that couldn’t practice because their last ball ruptured on a hard kick. It looked like a sad story, until you realized that they needlessly mentioned the brand of the ball (an Ackerman subsidiary). This wasn’t an account of some poor soccer team; it was a takedown piece about Ackerman dashing the hopes and dreams of a bunch of kids. I clipped the story and wrote up a report. I suggested that we argue that they had over-inflated the ball, hit them with a modest fine for slander, and warn them (for their own sake) about making libel claims in the future without first having an expert determine the actual cause of failure. Then we mention that Ackerman-branded soccer balls actually have failure rates far below average (which they might) and direct people to the nearest retailer. I took all of these suggestions, put them into the pneumo tube and sent them off for review.

  Next I found a wonderful story on how one of Ackerman’s diet pills was causing dangerously low levels of calcium in the blood. Some people were even getting rickets. I recommended a few ways to discredit the findings. I also forwarded a copy of my report to Marketing. That way, if there was any truth to the story, they could rebrand the pills as a cure for calcium-induced arthritis.

  While my approach was to find the subtle stories, it wasn’t the only way to eke out a living on the seventh floor. The Shotgun was a common strategy too: submit as many reports as you can, as fast as possible, in the hopes that you hit something. The Poachers were people who never paid for literature, but spent all their time trying to gleam stories from “casual” chats with colleagues. Leoben, one of the managers, was a quintessential Stabber—working just enough to look busy, all the while making his principal income from ratting out colleagues for crimes, real or imagined, against the firm.

  Bernard, on the rare occasions he actually worked, was a Nuker. He would find the most obscure article, a ludicrous or innocuous account about nothing in particular, which drew nobody’s interest. He’d spend hours researching and writing up long, fantastical yarns on how, if the planets aligned just right and the rules of gravity shifted for a moment, as a parallel universe opened up and suspended the laws of physics as we know it, this article might just represent the worst thing ever to happen to Ackerman Brothers (if not the universe as a whole). He’d highlight it, put little arrow stickers all over it, tie it in a ribbon, stick it in the pneumo tube, and send his dire predictions on their merry way.

  A supervisor called Bernard’s work genius.

  Thane Corbett, on the other hand, had his hands in many different pies. He wrote only a few reports a day. He worked hard on them and did a professional, solid job (though they were never quite the masterpieces he thought they were). The rest of the time he was working on so many different things that it was impossible to remember just which was his current get-rich-quick scheme. He’d invested in a traveling carnival for a while, then in professional mentoring. He was taking a course in sub-zero wilderness survival, presumably to lead expeditions into the wasteland outside Capital City. His latest serious project was real estate, buying up Low Security (LowSec) neighborhoods and squeezing them for every penny he could.

  I finished a number of other stories that morning. One was a particularly alarmist Op-Ed on how Perception Management, as a practice, was leading to artificially inflated stock prices that would result in a global economic collapse. Another defamatory story claimed that Ackerman had assassinated an executive from a rival corp. Lastly, there was an article that argued that our influence within the Karitzu had grown too strong.

  I packed my things, ready to head out for my lunch with Linus Cabal. As I headed out through the curtains, I caught an elbow straight to my face. I stumbled back and then toppled to the ground. My literature flew into the air and scattered across the room—Bernard’s own papers tossed into the mix.

  “Oh my god,” Bernard said, “I… I… I didn’t see you. Oh, I hope you’re not hurt?” He made a mad dash for the clutter of papers. He scrambled over them, but his fingers were so thick that he couldn’t slide his thumb under them, so he hastily stuffed crumpled fistfuls of literature into the crook of his arm.

  “Get out!”

  “Just let me get my papers, a million apologies!” he said.

  “Those aren’t yours!”

  “Oh, well they’re all pretty much the same among colleagues, eh? We’re all on the same team. I’m sure I saw a few land on your desk. Let me see... Say, have you seen Corbett? I was hoping to get a ride home. Ever since I got mugged, well, I just don’t...” he stuttered.

  “Get out!” I cried, shoving the oaf out of our cubicle. He vanished in the darkness, a trail of crumpled papers behind him. The damage was done; anything of any value was gone, and what was left behind was mostly the junk he had brought in with him.

  For a moment I considered what the firm would charge me if I put a bullet between his eyes. It would have to cover all his futures—probably not enough that they’d hang me for it, but they might hock a few of my organs. Maybe I could find a way to convince Linus to cover the tab. He certainly wouldn’t care if I killed anyone. But Linus didn’t do favors—he collected debts, and a debt to him was never fully repaid.

  No, it was fun to joke about, but the math was against me.

  Frustrated, I began straightening up the mess. I didn’t have the budget to buy more literature, so I’d have to try to salvage something from the scraps he’d left.

  As I was tossing the stray papers into my safe, a page caught my eye. It was simple, delicate, an Ackerman court record—printed on a piece of tissue paper so thin that it was translucent—almost impossible to scan or copy. Why would anyone bother with a court record? They’re expensive, and trials are for litigators, not Perception.

  “Memo,” cried an Epsilon, blindly thrusting a sheet into the cubicle. I took it, tossed it into the trash and went back to the report.

  The story covered the arrest and preliminary hearing of an Epsilon, a terribly low-ranked woman named Sarah Aisling. She had been living in LowSec, the last bastion of anything that resembled civilization before the destitute wasteland outside, and home to a vast number of poor, low and null-contract colleagues and employees from smaller corps. A Good Samaritan had turned her in for stealing rainwater. She had been collecting it in buckets, and then used a solar still to extract the evaporite. The result was drinkable water.

  It was a crime, sure, but she was already in the system. The report had cost someone a hundred caps to get, but you couldn’t make a dime on it.

  She couldn’t afford an attorney, so obviously she didn’t deserve one. Still, she seemed to argue the point.

  Sarah Aisling: Rainwater belongs to all of us. That Ackerman Brothers has a slip of paper saying it is theirs does not—

  Judge: It’s not the paper, it’s the effort. They spend a fortune protecting the environment from pollution and abuse so they can sell a quality product. Every cup you take out of the air is a cup less they can harvest, and a cup less you buy. You’re looting them, their stockholders, colleagues, even their paying customers who have to make up the di
fference in higher prices. You really need to hire a defense to explain—

  Sarah Aisling: I don’t have the time, money or experience to find a good litigator, insure against a bad one, research that insurance, protect against insurance fraud, or learn all the applicable contracts myself.

  Judge: You have futures available; you can sell against those to retain counsel.

  Sarah Aisling: Who wants to invest in the futures of someone looking at jail time? My futures fell to pennies when I was charged.

  Judge: And whose fault is that? Your futures are worthless because of your own actions. Don’t use some sob story to mooch a litigator.

  Sarah Aisling: But you’re assuming I’m guilty.

  Judge: They found six solar stills in your home!

  Sarah Aisling: Of course, I was taking rainwater. But that doesn’t mean I’m guilty.

  Judge: Doesn’t mean… It’s the definition of guilty! Stop making—

  Sarah Aisling: I can’t defend against these charges because I can’t afford a litigator. But I can’t afford a litigator because I’ve been charged.

  Judge: You should have had insurance against contract suits.

  Sarah Aisling: I did.

  Judge: So what’s the problem?

  Sarah Aisling: They canceled my insurance when I filed the claim.

  Judge: So sue them!

  Sarah Aisling: I can’t, I don’t have a litigator.

  Judge: That’s very cute, Mrs. Aisling. But again, it all comes back to you. Isn’t it possible that you should have saved a bit more, been more careful with your money in case you needed it? Or—here’s a novel idea—maybe you could have worked harder instead of plundering other people’s work. If you’re resourceful enough, there’s always a way.

  Sarah Aisling: That’s a myth used by those with power to justify tyranny against those without it.

  Judge: You could sell an organ if you had to.

  Sarah Aisling: Why should I have to sell my futures or an organ to defend against charges that should never have been brought?

  Judge: Honestly, I’ve never seen someone complain so much. You have a lot of excuses why this is everybody’s fault but your own. That’s how you get through life, isn’t it? Excuse after excuse as to why your life is a failure.

  Sarah Aisling: My life is not a failure.

  Judge: One deserves precisely and exactly the defense one can afford, and you are a living testament to that. If you had spent less time complaining and stealing, and more time improving your value to the corporation, you would earn and deserve better representation.

  I looked nervously around my cubicle. It was scandalous, rebellious. I was grinning from ear to ear—it was like watching a train wreck, seeing this woman square off with the judge. She already knew the outcome: she’d be fined, spend some time doing hard labor, maybe lose some rank. But she continued to argue. It was as if she wanted to be punished, thirsting to have more suffering heaped on her.

  I logged in and purchased time with the full transcripts. As I read on I nearly fell out of my chair.

  Sarah Aisling: Your Honor, I request that you recuse yourself.

  Judge: On what grounds?

  Sarah Aisling: You can’t be impartial. You work for the people I am accused of stealing from.

  Judge: That’s what qualifies me. I understand the consequences of these crimes on the victims.

  Sarah Aisling: I want a trial by jury.

  Judge: Juries are a colossal waste of time. For every case you have to take twelve people off the street, explain the applicable contracts and procedures and how to make a fair decision. You get cases being decided by people with no court experience who just want to get out of there as fast as possible. It’s the most inefficient system ever created! You’re being tried by a certified and experienced judge, a judge of your peers.

  I continued reading, heedless of the meter. I had never seen anything like it. She was contemptuous, dangerous, and didn’t care in the slightest that the judge held her future in his hands. But he was so arrogant, so eager to exercise his power over her, that he missed something.

  She was educated.

  I would expect a LowCon to bemoan the “injustice” of the system. But Aisling wasn’t angry, belligerent, or insulting. Her arguments were eloquent, coherent, and rehearsed well above her grade. She was talking about juries and property rights in ways nobody had taken seriously for centuries.

  Who is this woman?

  I plunged into her background, buying records from every source I could think of. She was born into a HighCon family that owned a software firm in Europa. She had been wealthier than I could ever hope to be, destined for Alpha-grade executive work, and had already contracted into a low Alpha by her early thirties.

  But when she was thirty-five she began causing trouble for her corporation. She gave to charity, for starters (the Moral Hazard of which can’t be underestimated. “Teach a man to fish,” Linus would say, “and he can eat for life; but give a man a fish, and he doesn’t need to learn anything”). I couldn’t imagine the damage she wrought on corporate efficiency. She gave lectures on how some individual rights actually superseded corporate rights (this, despite the obvious and undeniable fact that corporations represent the welfare of millions of people).

  I checked, but I didn’t find any record of her ever being admitted into an insane asylum.

  The only thing I did find was a story on a hotel fire. Hundreds died—in fact she was one of a handful of people to make it out alive. She changed after that.

  It was compassion. The fire must have somehow infected her with it. By the time she downgraded to a low Delta she was booted out. We took her on as an Epsilon in a small subsidiary that rented out friends. By all accounts she was destitute, destroyed by her own ego and a desire to muddy the waters. She lived in LowSec with other Epsilons, Zetas and even people with no contract whatsoever (despicable NullCons).

  I tried to track down her fortune. Some of it had been given away, some poured into the small, socialist, not-for-profit hospitals that exist in a few areas of Europa. All told I could account for about ninety percent of her wealth. The remaining ten percent, still a staggering amount of money, was unaccounted for. If she had spent it, where were the receipts? If she had given it away, where were the transaction records, who were the beneficiaries? No, she simply pulled it out of the bank and walked away with it.

  And yet here she was, living in LowSec, refusing to get an advocate.

  She still had the money. I knew it in my bones. She could afford an advocate, or a hundred; heck, she could just pay off the charges. She didn’t do it because she thought she shouldn’t have to.

  This wasn’t a colleague. This was a citizen.

  I could write up a report on this that could pay off ten electric bills at almost any price! It might push me out of high Delta into a low Gamma contract, maybe even get me onto the ninth floor. I trembled, holding the paper in my hand. I shook so hard I thought I might tear it.

  All I had to do was craft it right.

  And craft it right, I did. I crafted a perception of her as a heretic, a purveyor of arcane and religious dogma—a belief that human beings had value above what they could produce. She was a pagan, a devil worshiper who abandoned morality, nature, and even common sense for a belief in the debunked “social contract,” and in so doing undermined the good of all people cradled in the benevolent, invisible hand of the free market.

  But that was just the beginning. Oh, I turned her into a seditionist, someone who proselytized and encouraged colleagues to abandon natural selection, competition, and evolution. She was, I wrote, “a citizen, a communist, extremely dangerous and likely representative of a much larger group of citizens who pose a serious threat to Ackerman.” If Bernard could profit by taking a tiny issue and turning it into a catastrophe, then by God I would elevate her to the leader of a revolutionary movement.

  When I finished, I had, simply put, the best report I had ever written. It was profess
ional, concrete, not overly emotional—simple and to the point.

  I leaned back in my chair and put the end of my glasses in my mouth. I chewed on them while I studied the thin blue piece of paper that had yielded a report that could so change my life.

  What will this do to her?

  The trouble she was in now was nothing compared to what might happen if I filed.

  But that was my whole problem. I was always one bad utility bill away from bankruptcy. I had worked for Perception Management for years, but never adopted the ruthlessness Ackerman expected of me. It was the man who could most brutally stab a colleague in the back who was the richest. I wasn’t there to protect her, to decide what was right or wrong. I was there to provide an indictment. Submitting the report was my job; defending herself from it was hers. If she failed, it wasn’t my fault. Besides, my report would go through three hundred other offices for investigation or follow-up. I reported things; accuracy was another department. Heck, by this point I’d be liable if I didn’t speak up.

  I had been falling behind for a long time—not to people who worked harder, but those who did the job they were supposed to do—churn out reports to throw into the maw of Ackerman’s perception machine.

  And I had tired of the burden of ethics.

  And, on some level, didn’t she deserve it? She was so smug—the assumption that somehow she could lecture anyone on principles. Oh, how I’d love to be able to do that. But I didn’t have rich parents who gave me the luxury of things to give up so that I could feel superior.

  Hope is the slow death of man, and she spread it like a venereal disease: hope that there was something more to life than what you can produce. She shouldn’t get to believe in that. Every child born to this world knows for certain that he or she is special, that they’ll grow up to be a CEO, to become rich and famous, to change the world for the better. That is hope, and it’s never true, and so we live lives of resentment and pain—inflicted on us by the gradual and repeated death of our dreams.