The Water Thief

by Nicholas Lamar Soutter

  I had done it—hit the mother-lode. She was a colleague—no, a friend—of Aisling’s.

  “Wow, a real flesh and blood communist.”

  “I’m not a communist, Charlie,” she laughed. “God, no.”

  “You do things for free, isn’t that the definition?”

  “No, and I don’t do everything for free, by any means. And I do get something out of helping out a friend, just nothing you can put on a balance sheet. We make each other laugh, we have fun together. When was the last time you laughed?” she asked.

  “A colleague of mine went long on a thousand shares of Senya right before it went belly up. That was a riot.”

  “Ever laugh when it wasn’t at the suffering of someone else?”

  “Comedy is just tragedy from the other side of the street.”

  “Really? Have you ever had a colleague who would stand by you even if you couldn’t make it worth their while?”

  “That’s socialism.”

  “I see…” she said. “You know, socialism is a very specific set of theories. Tossing out that word is a great way to kill an honest discussion, but having friends does not a socialist make.”

  “It’s unnatural.”

  “Really?”

  “Everybody is selfish. We all want money, power. People who deny that are just afraid to compete or are just too lazy,” I said, futilely.

  “And people who say that are simply trying to justify their participation in a vicious system. You need money, sure, you can’t live without it. But happiness is a need too, Charlie, not much point in living without that. Tell me, are you happy?”

  “Nobody’s happy.”

  “Nobody you know is happy. They all have to buy their lovers. They compete like a hamster on a wheel—every step they take does nothing more than bring the next one closer. Nobody’s the best, someone is always coming up right behind you, so there’s always further to run. You compete, you guard yourself against everyone you meet, and then you die. Pretending you’re happy costs less than admitting you’re not.”

  I looked at the floor. I wondered if this was what all friends did—lecture you on how you’ve screwed up your life.

  “So your life is perfect?” I asked her.

  “Of course not. I could use more money, but I wouldn’t trade my freedom for any contract Ackerman has ever issued.”

  “Everybody’s free,” I said. “You can do anything at all, so long as you—”

  “…pay for it. Yes, I’ve heard. But money doesn’t buy freedom, Charlie. Freedom is a right.”

  “That’s not what the Bible says.”

  “Ahh, yes, Zino’s Bible. The only book in the world that you can bet, the more someone quotes it, the less likely they are to have read it. Most CEOs don’t even bother with it.”

  “It’s the bible of capitalism, of course they read it.”

  “No, they think it’s silly. It has too many rules,” she said.

  “Rules? There are no rules, that’s the point!”

  “Oh, Zino’s Bible is full of rules. Rules like honesty, integrity, pride in one’s work. Zino thought these qualities were paramount to capitalism. She argued that lying never worked and that cheaters were always caught. I wish that were true, but as a foundation for a system of governing? Christ, that’s insane. Like Marx before her, Zino had a great theory that hinged on completely unrealistic, even idealistic, assumptions. Capitalists are people, no more or less trustworthy than socialists. People choose the path of least resistance, and for most people that includes cutting corners.

  “No, most CEOs don’t read the Bible. But they do love to quote it. It convinces the masses to cede all power over to corporations, and that any failure is simply their own fault. It argues well—seductively—for the virtual elimination of government and any sort of regulation of power. People cling to the ‘free hand of the market’ as a perfect god. They’re so eager for a solution that can be neatly applied to every situation that they’re desperate to overlook its faults. Those born to HighCon—children of affluent families—think that they built that wealth themselves, and that their claim on the privileges and protections of fortune are stronger than those who work under the yolk of poverty—simply by virtue of their birth..

  “The wealthy say that hard work should be rewarded. But they gloss-over the fact that most poor people work far harder than they do.

  “Try to get a HighCon, a man who purports to believe that competition builds character, and that giving unfair advantages is a Moral Hazard, to send his kids to a LowCon school. Ask him to start his child on a level field with everyone else and compete from there, and you’ll hear a different tune.”

  “Yeah, but governments were inefficient, bureaucratic nightmares. That’s why they called them leviathans.”

  “That’s not why, Charlie. And you act as if you’ve never worked a day in a corporation. How many bosses do you have? How many supervisors? How many memos do you get? If you need to requisition something, how long does it take? How many litigators does Ackerman have? How many rules does the Ackerman Employees’ Blue Book have?”

  “Corporations eliminated crime,” I answered

  “There aren’t any laws! They didn’t eliminate crime; they simply defined it out of existence. It’s been capitalized, that’s all. Under a republic, police didn’t create crime, firemen didn’t watch buildings burn, and people weren’t allowed to die simply because they couldn’t pay for healthcare.

  “Ackerman can pay for health screenings at airports, but it would cost them money. They don’t, so tuberculosis gets in from Europa and it spreads. Ackerman can then make money treating the sick, and whatever paycheck you got last week goes straight back to them—you work for free now. Corporations try as hard as they can to make you think that they care about you, while simultaneously trying to rob you blind. Insurers are incentivized to cut corners and drop policies, firemen to burn down buildings, and cops to create crime.”

  “So your system is perfect?” I asked.

  “No system is perfect. If finding fault with a system is all it takes to throw it out, you’re in for a world of disappointment. I don’t need perfect, but I can ask for better. A lot of the time competition is best. I like fast cars, tasty cornflakes and soft toilet paper. Capitalism makes those things possible. But we all have needs common to the human condition. We need air, medical services, and insurance—not against our own failings, but acts of God that can strike anyone. We need police, and some form of guaranteed legal recourse against people who violate contracts or hurt people. We need education and a skilled workforce. And what blows my mind is that even HighCons would benefit from these things! If a poor man gets drunk and drives, that’s fine so long as he pays for whatever damage he does. But if he puts a family of five in the hospital, or God forbid kills them, how’s he going to compensate for that? Just how many times can you reclamate him?”

  “That’s why a leviathan is better?”

  “Government, Charlie, not a leviathan. A republic. They gave the mass of people a say, a means to be represented, an unbiased third party to protect people with enforceable laws.”

  “You mean corral them, herd them and regulate them.”

  “Yeah, Charlie, because you’re completely free now. Life is a grand old tart!”

  “But people took advantage of the system.”

  “Of course they did! That’s what people do. That’s what people have done from the dawn of man. That’s why power needs to be distributed evenly, why the poor must have a voice, and why people need to be engaged.”

  The rain was still coming down. I had never had an argument like this before. It was exhilarating. She was a seditionist, a pagan—a worshiper of gods long dead. I had been so busy fighting her that I hadn’t realized how much I was enjoying it.

  “If they were so good, why did they fail? Corporatism beat out government fair and square.”

  “Another of Zino’s assumptions that isn’t even close to true. Even in the corporate
world, the best product doesn’t always win. Ackerman has horrible brake pads, but the firm is so big that they can leverage every competitor out of the market. General Automotive was one of the best car manufacturers in history; Panther Inc. made worse cars—at a higher price! But they had better Perception Management. Don’t lie to my face and tell me that the best product always wins—I’m not even sure it wins half the time. Three quarters of Ackerman’s budget goes to Marketing, Perception Management, and Litigators—and that’s not including Retention. Tell me how any of those departments make products better? How that’s efficient? If a corporation put its money into nothing but making a better product, they’d get wiped out.

  “Once we lost the ability to moderate competition, it stopped working. Nobody makes real products, they make consumers. Darwin is a messiah, and if I don’t say that I believe he’s always one hundred percent right, I’m a blasphemer and a socialist who’s afraid of honest competition. We’ve lost the ability to believe in any power but unadulterated self-interest. Communism may breed laziness, but capitalism breeds greed. And it’s killing us.”

  “And what does corporatism breed?” I asked.

  “Paranoia.”

  She had already proven herself worth far more than I was going to have to pay for her. She might have been insane, but I’d have paid ten times the hourly rate.

  We argued for hours. I threw everything at her, championing the joys of corporate life and the natural simplicity of free markets. Her answers all refused to disappoint.

  “Tell a man he’ll get food for free, and he won’t buy any. Tell him he’ll be insured against unemployment, and he won’t work.”

  “How do you figure that? I’m not saying you give away steaks and apple pie. We can make protein bars. They taste awful but you can live off them. We could feed the world Charlie—not animals or livestock—but flesh and blood people who are starving. Nobody says ‘Well, I’d rather starve to death than work.’ And if working gives you a chance to buy better food, get that video game you’ve always wanted, or take a girl out on a date, you’ll do it. Why do capitalists always espouse the value of an honest day’s work but assume that given the chance, nobody would ever do one?”

  “So you would run a capitalist economy solely on electives? You can’t make any revenue that way,” I said.

  “Less than ten percent of Ackerman’s revenue comes from essentials. The rest is from people competing with each other for prestige and comfort. You want to get a man to buy a new car, let him see his neighbor driving one. People are never satisfied: they will always want better pools, homes, cars, boats—everything. Capitalism does that so well; it flourishes in so many places. What blows my mind is that it’s always the capitalists who have no faith in the ability of the system to succeed on electives alone. Saying that we should capitalize everything is avarice. Everything, even capitalism, has a point where its use is excessive. The pigs are walking, Charlie.”

  I had never in my life met such an extraordinary a woman. I loved it. And I loved her.

  “Oh dear lord,” I exclaimed. “It’s nearly five a.m.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize the time. You’ll be billed a small fortune for this!”

  “No, don’t be silly, I’m the one who’s sorry. You’ve got another job.”

  “I do. But I’m really glad I stayed. I guess most people would have thrown me out after the first five minutes. I had fun tonight, Charlie.”

  It was the first time someone had ever said that. Well, it was the first time I believed it, anyway. And it was the most incredible feeling I had ever felt.

  Chapter 7

  I overslept, and when I finally got out the door I couldn’t help but stop on the bridge along my route. I gazed at the soot-covered trees, the hazy sky and the dirty river, and found hope—not because I believed in republics, but because there was someone else who did.

  When I finally got to work I found forty or so memos on my desk, most of them from half a dozen supervisors, each expressing varying levels of concern about the fact that I hadn’t filed a report in over fourteen hours.

  At lunch, Bernard prattled on as he always did.

  “Did you ever wonder why a Delta is lower than a Gamma, even though the letter D comes first in the alphabet? It’s from the Greeks. Their alphabet was Alpha, Beta, Gamma… and, well you know the rest. Honestly, the Greeks are dead and buried. People just use that archaic alphabet to seem smart. You could have an A-Con, B-Con, C-Con and so forth. Or use colors: red, green, blue…. maybe metals like copper, gold and platinum. This Greek business is so unnecessary. They meddle in our contracts, our language, even in our poker…”

  Having failed to garner any attention, he spoke louder. “The business suit is outdated, too. Who still believes that you can tell the quality of a colleague by his suit? A suit tells you nothing! I waste time just putting it on. Between keeping it clean and in repair—heck, even getting in and out of it—the time I waste is like throwing money out the window. I should be able to come to work in my underwear if I want. The work is all that matters! The work!”

  Corbett snickered.

  “I know my mugging came at an inconvenient time,” continued Bernard. “But this bill is ludicrous. They added a surcharge for it being an after-hours call. It’ll take me a month to pay this off. I swear, next time I’m just going to hand my money over to the robber and be done with it.”

  Corbett couldn’t restrain himself anymore. “The police saved your life, and you’re upset over some little surcharge? You can afford it.”

  “They brought in an entire SWAT team. Against two hoodlums with a bat? Nobody was going to kill me. And after-hours? That’s when muggings occur! How can that be a separate charge?” he said, stuffing his face with an apple fritter.

  “Christ, Bernard, all you do is complain. The cost of air is up half a point, the humidity is too oppressive, Greeks are meddling with our alphabet, the cops charged you too much for saving your life… Give it up!

  “Everything that goes on here is above your head,” continued Corbett. “The Greek, the suit, corporate jargon, customs and traditions—it’s a dialect. I can spot an Epsilon—even in an Alpha’s suit—a mile away, because he doesn’t wear it right. He’s stilted and uncomfortable. A man who has taken the time to know which fork to use and when, who can use the right language, who knows when to be polite and when to be rude—that man communicates precision. You know who you’re talking to,” he said, staring at the fat man nearly bursting through his clothes. “Your suit tells me more than your ledger ever could. But yeah, I guess the way you eat, I’d complain if I had to clean that suit too!”

  “Bull! It’s dominance, pure and simple. I’ll bet you Takashi tears off his suit the first chance he gets, dances around in his briefs!”

  Corbett shook his head. “If you took all the time you spent complaining and actually spent it working, you’d make so much you wouldn’t have to worry about it. Honestly, you’re the laziest man I know.”

  “I’m two ranks higher than you, last I looked!”

  “Well, we’re the same grade, Bernard. And you’re, what, ten years older? I’ll be on the ninth floor in sixteen months, and you know it. And you know what else? At least I don’t steal reports.”

  “Who’s stealing reports?” Bernard asked.

  “You!”

  “I don’t steal anything!” he said, shocked. “I work hard; I’m one of the hardest workers here! Of all the jealous, petty, inhuman things to say.”

  “You’re a thief!”

  “Go on, say it again! I’ll sue you for libel. I have witnesses!”

  I sipped my coffee. He wouldn’t be filing any lawsuits. This was just part of the negotiation. Five caps here or there, maybe a game of poker, and the matter would be settled. Millions of caps a week changing hands, tamping down corporate flare-ups… an unending flotsam of cash trading hands.

  “You think like a LowCon!” Corbett said. “You have no idea how anything wor
ks!”

  “Oh, like you’re some expert on low-contract colleagues or how they work.”

  “I am! I have this small community I’ve been investing in,” Corbett continued, “right along the Capital City wall. Nobody wants to invest there, ‘cuz twenty percent of the people don’t pay their electric bill in full. You’ve got to constantly get on them if you want your money. But I solved that problem. I wrote up a flyer letting them all know who hadn’t paid. If I don’t get one hundred percent payment from everybody, I’m cutting them off—all of them! They’ll be so screwed. They should just bring back horses and carriages, lamps, frigging kerosene lamps! I’m not going to take this. They’ve got alternatives, and I’ve got quotas to make. You think Leoben isn’t treating his sectors the same? If they don’t like this corp, they should move. Did I tell you about Grandma Millie? She’s a moocher, called me up and said she needs electricity because her grandson is on some electric heart pump. I said ‘Perfect, now you have a real incentive to make sure your neighbors pay.’ Honestly, the audacity to think her son is my problem. But that’s the deal with these LowCons, always trying to pawn responsibility off on someone else. There’s a reason they’re low-contract; it’s a mind-set, this ‘oh, poor me’ garbage. Sound familiar?”

  “They’re not all like that,” I mumbled.

  “Of course they are. That’s the definition of a LowCon,” snapped Corbett.

  “I met one,” I said.

  “A LowCon? Who hasn’t?”

  “No, no. Someone who believes in leviathans.”

  “That thing from the Jewish Bible?” Bernard asked. “A whale or something? They’re all dead, aren’t they?”

  “No, you ton of lard, he means government! He met a citizen. God, you really don’t know anything,” said Corbett. “I would love, just for a day, to have the sense of denial these people have about the world, to pretend that you can care about other people and the world will be just great. Forget actually getting anything done, building something, keeping people safe…. Name one leviathan that ever worked—ever! You can’t! And yet in the face of overwhelming, insurmountable proof, you still find these people. How wonderful it must be to have the ability to completely believe in something no matter how utterly nonsensical it is. Let’s all believe in unicorns and fairies while we’re at it—that’s productive.”