The Water Thief

by Nicholas Lamar Soutter

  The library intrigued me. I had never had time to read for pleasure, and most people found it rather snobbish anyway. The shelves hosted books on nearly every subject, even ones I had scarcely heard of—long dead Eastern and Western philosophies, like Buddhism and Christianity—as well as the usual litany of books written by CEOs on the importance of greed and loyalty.

  There was a bounty of delights for me to indulge in, and I had just scratched the surface. But the simple act of ordering a sandwich had already made me feel guilty. People in LowSec were starving, and I was getting a sandwich with real meat. That, in their eyes, was why I was broken.

  Then I spotted an original copy of the Zinov’yevna Bible. I hadn’t looked at it in years, and while I quoted it often, I hadn’t actually read it fully through. It wasn’t a bible, in the conventional sense, but an epic fairy tale, a story about a group of capitalists who remake the world into a utopian free market. I opened it to a random page and began reading:

  People think that a liar gains a victory over his victim. What I’ve learned is that a lie is an act of self-abdication, because one surrenders one’s reality to the person to whom one lies, making that person one’s master, condemning oneself from then on to faking the sort of reality that person’s view requires to be faked. And if one gains the immediate purpose of the lie—the price one pays is the destruction of what the gain was intended to serve.

  Was that Zino’s Objective reality? The biggest complaint I ever heard against socialism was that it was idealistic—that it didn’t take the selfish nature of man into account, that people would game the system. But here was Zinov’yevna saying things as idealistic, unrealistic, and unhinged from reality as anything said by Karl Marx. Kate was right; the capitalists in the bible were all gentlemen. None of them lied or took advantage of their superior positions. When has a person ever been like that except in a work of fiction?

  But maybe Zino was right. Maybe all lies did come back to destroy the liar. Maybe that was why we were all going to come to such a terrible end. But that never seemed to stop the lies, never seemed to stop the violence.

  I had seen people suffer their own lies. But I had never seen anything so magnificent as to suggest that no one who lied had ever profited from it. And certainly when they lied, they didn’t just injure themselves. More often than not, the innocent suffered lies at least as much the guilty.

  The engine of the economy ran on lies, and those who profited the most were those who learned not to get caught.

  Zino believed in unbridled competition. But how could that be any less extreme, idyllic or naïve than the thought of sharing all the wealth? We called socialists “plunderers”. But if capitalism proved anything, it was that those who loot and plunder don’t need socialism to do it.

  If all people were as gentlemanly, honest, and honorable as Zino’s capitalists, socialism would have worked too.

  I put the book back in its place and surveyed my cell. If you truly wanted competition, if you wanted the best to rise to the top—you needed everybody to start at the same place—no handouts or legs up, earn only by the sweat of your brow. But I never saw a HighCon so committed to that principle that he’d deny his family the advantages of wealth, let his family get the same education, healthcare, and police protection as everyone else.

  No, Kate was right. HighCons were hypocrites who lectured on the Moral Hazard of giving people things they didn’t earn, while taking for themselves every advantage handed to them.

  How could a LowCon compete against people who had private gyms, libraries, servants? A HighCon would tell you that he deserved these rewards and ridicule LowCons for failing to compete. But the game was rigged against them.

  And when a LowCon was so rude as to point this out, to ask for fair treatment and access to essential services, HighCons complained, argued about class warfare and that people were trying to take what was rightfully theirs—rightfully inherited, rightfully stolen, or rightfully leveraged off the sweat of LowCons. Corporations demanded that governments take their thumbs off the scale—remove the regulation—so that they put their own thumbs on. They would hold up the few rare exceptions (which could be counted on one hand)—the LowCons who had risen through the ranks all the way to executive—and say “See, it can be done,” as if the poor who were kicked out of their homes or starved to death simply didn’t want it badly enough.

  The few generous people I had ever heard of, those who actually built companies, employed people, and put money back into the system, the ones HighCons point to when people accused them of pillaging, were almost always the ones who started poor. Those born into wealth thought they deserved it and made money destroying. Those born poor who became rich from their own ingenuity and hard work were the ones most likely to be charitable. If the system was right, why would those very examples of the success of that system– those who truly earned it themselves—be generous? The people who had lived on both sides of the economic spectrum, who had the best perspective from which to judge, most bemoaned the terrible inequalities against LowCons.

  The butler arrived with my sandwich. It smelled divine, made from real meat, a delicacy in a world with such little space for livestock. But I couldn’t eat it. I opened the refrigerator and looked for the least expensive thing I could find, but it was filled with fruits and cheeses.

  In the living room I found a small velvet box sitting on top of the television. It was a poker set. The dice were made of tiger bone, the shooters elephant tusk. The entire set was easily worth more than the sum total of the staff and equipment of the whole seventh floor where I worked.

  I turned on the television. It had (of course) every channel I had ever heard of, and many I hadn’t. Some charged as much as three hundred caps a minute. I laughed, turned it to the CEO channel and left it running.

  Let them bill me for this. I’m not getting out of here alive anyway.

  A seminar popped onto the screen, a CEO giving a lecture on management.

  “The second postulate is ‘Perception is everything,’” he said. “Reality isn’t important, and you have no control over it, so there’s no point in worrying about it. Even caps aren’t real. They’re paper, bits of electrons stored electronically. You cannot eat them or live in them. The only value they have is what you can trade for them, and you can only trade what someone else thinks they’re worth. Convince someone that they’re worth less, and you earn more caps from sales; convince someone that they’re worth more, and you spend fewer on purchases. It’s all perception.

  “Every year perfectly sound banks are destroyed because someone starts a rumor that the bank is unstable. This causes a run on the bank, which then loses capital. This, of course, makes it unstable. The perception actually creates the reality. Manage perception, and you create reality.”

  I went back to the library. I looked for Nash, but couldn’t find him, though I did find more than one copy of The Origin of Species.

  I was leafing through the books when I noticed a small cabinet down at the bottom. I opened it to find a ream of paper and a small typewriter. It was old and worn, so much so that it hardly looked like it belonged.

  What on earth is this here for? I wondered. Had they left it there by accident? Did they want me to write something? If I did, they’d almost surely destroy it, or use it against me in court. Still, I was going to be there for weeks, maybe months. I’d need something to do. I made a note of it and returned it to its place.

  “The third postulate,” continued the voice on the screen, “is ‘Fire ten percent of your workforce every year.’ This makes your corporation leaner and more efficient. You should be hiring about that much anyway, so you shouldn’t shrink much. But the fear this instills, the drive to compete, is invaluable. Also you’ll be bringing in fresh blood, which can help you find the newest bright stars—colleagues with executive potential. You’ll also save money, since even at the same grade, the new contracts will start at a lower rank. The real problem will be people who have bee
n in the corporation the longest, the ones who you pay the most. Consider finding ways of replacing them with lower-rank, less expensive colleagues.

  “Now, it’s become common for employees—especially those represented by advocates—to protect against this by working tenure clauses into their contracts. Avoid hiring these troublemakers when you can. But if you really need the talent, remember that you can always fire for cause, which is, of course, just another matter of perception. If the employee doesn’t like it, he can always litigate. But the first one to litigate, you destroy; bury him with motions, cross-motions, and injunctions. The process is expensive, but do it once and you’ll never have to do it again.”

  I opened the cabinets in the kitchen and found loads of dishes: complete sets of silverware, place settings, wine glasses and serving trays. I checked the sofa. Sure enough, it was a foldout.

  Guests? Are they expecting I’ll entertain?

  “The fourth postulate is to always keep things moving. Never let the company stagnate. Every eight to sixteen months you should come up with a new division, a new paradigm, or a new mission statement. Pick a new product that you can tell people will be the next big thing. Much of being a CEO is paying people to dig ditches so that you can pay other people to fill them in again. Busy people are easier to control. Corporations are in a constant state of decay. You have to continuously re-organize to keep your people occupied.”

  I laughed.

  “The fifth postulate is ‘Always lie.’ Lie about everything. If your stock is doing well, say that you don’t like how it’s going; you’ll be lauded for your ambition. If the stock is bad, admitting it makes it worse, so say you’re pleased with it. Figure out how it could’ve been worse and focus on that. And for God’s sake, never tell the same lie twice. It’s lazy, and it’s how you get caught. If paychecks were late last week because of a worker’s strike, next week they should be late because of an accounting error.”

  This must be the channel that Linus watches.

  “If you’re telling the truth about anything,” he continued, “you’re missing an opportunity to leverage. Information is power, and if you’re going to give accurate information, make people pay through the nose for it. The truth is a commodity; manage your stock of it.”

  I fell onto the orchid-white couch. For a moment I worried that I might stink it up, but that wasn’t my problem. Still, I felt my face, and realized I could use a shower and shave. I was loath to avail myself of any of these luxuries. Besides, maybe meeting my interrogators smelling like a rotting pig was its own rebellion. But I wanted to face them with my head held high, with pride.

  I hopped into the shower. The water was warm, clean, and decalcified. The soap melted away all my dirt and left me smelling fresh. I hadn’t realized until then just what a good shower did, and I stood there for fifteen minutes, doing nothing but letting the water run over my aching body.

  I realized that could probably even drink the water. I wondered if maybe my life had been harder on me than I had ever understood.

  I could feel myself rejuvenated, ready to face whatever they threw at me. Now was the time to collect myself, to formulate a plan of attack.

  They would interrogate me. They would know about Kate, and maybe about the Republic. I’d have to steel myself against attacks on that front. She might have already been captured, but I had to hold out hope. If she had been real, she’d need my help. Against torture, nobody can hold out forever. But I’d hold out long enough.

  They’ll offer you your life back—a bump in grade. Make them think you’ll take it, let them keep offering more and more. But never, ever take it, no matter what! Let them come, in the end, to see that I have no price.

  I would have to begin enjoying myself, I thought. I must make it look like they have me, like I’ll bow to their demands. I would eat their food, read their books, use their gym and watch their television.

  I lathered up a second time, grinning, ready to fight.

  But what if that was what they wanted? Was that how they’d break me? Maybe they wouldn’t offer me anything; maybe they already had Kate, and destroyed the Republic. If they needed me to get her, would they have waited so long to begin my interrogation? Certainly they were as aware as I was that every minute helped her and her friends get away.

  I thought desperately on how to foil these people, to ruin their plans, whatever they were. Whatever they wanted of me, I needed to do the opposite. If they wanted me sad, I would be happy. If they wanted me to suffer, I would relish. Defiant, I would bend.

  But I had no idea what they wanted. I didn’t even know if the Republic had been real or not, let alone if they’d ask me about it.

  At that moment I knew that they had me right where they wanted me.

  Chapter 20

  The guards came for me later that evening. They gave me modest encouragement, told me not to worry. After years of working there, they said, they could spot the ones who would make it and the ones who wouldn’t. I had a real chance—Ackerman wouldn’t let Retention destroy a valuable asset.

  “Cheer up! You’re corporate material!”

  We wound through the hallways till we got to a beautiful glass elevator overlooking the atrium. It dropped down all twenty-three floors, through the ground floor and down another dozen or so, to an underground labyrinth of rooms. They took me down a white hallway, past rows of sliding doors. Finally we got to one at the end, and they stopped.

  “Whatever happens, Mr. Thatcher,” the guard said, “keep your chin up!”

  Stepping through the door was like stepping into another world. There was a small foyer with a red wooden bench. Chinese scrolls hung from the ceiling, and beads hung in the doorway. The main room was oriental (at least how the oriental designs appeared in books—most of those lands had long since flooded). Red, gold and black paintings and icons hung everywhere. Cherry and ebony tiger, dragon, and warrior figurines were on nearly every conceivable surface. An ancient Chinese writing desk squatted against the corner of the wall, and two large silver dragons lined the adjoining sides of the room, with several lacquered screens in the corners. Atop the writing desk I saw a small wooden case, gilded and adorned in black enamel. I knew immediately what it was: a poker set.

  If the contents of my room were worth more than the entire seventh floor, this room was worth more than the entire building.

  Never in my life, in my wildest dreams, had I thought that such power existed.

  “Hello, Charles.”

  One of the small screens obscured a thin hallway, from which came an executive. He was the man I had met in Kate’s apartment. He wore a black suit with a golden tie, and was so well groomed and preened that even Linus would have looked disheveled by comparison. It was as if the man had been born an adult, in his suit, and he wore it like armor, like he was bulletproof.

  I could make out his features much better than the last time I saw him. His skin was a burnt bronze, his hair a dirty blond, and he had a very thin beard, like stubble, but shaved in deliberate, sharp lines at his cheeks and neck.

  He walked past me to the writing desk, where he opened a hidden recess in the back and withdrew a bottle of whiskey.

  I wondered how many other hidden compartments this place had, and what else they held.

  “I understand you drink whiskey?” he said.

  He motioned to the sofa and invited me to take a seat. Two glasses were already set out on the small table. The executive poured some of the golden liquid into only one. He re-corked the bottle before concealing it back in its original place.

  “Do you know why you are here?”

  “You’re going to torture me.”

  He laughed.

  “What a barbaric mind you have, my friend. No, you will not be tortured. You are here because you are broken. You are a complex machine, which for some reason doesn’t run right. You can’t even perform rudimentary tasks properly. You are here to be rehabilitated.”

  “Rehabilitated?” I mused. We
both knew that my fate was already decided.

  “Of course. Nobody is mad at you or wants revenge; that would be immoral. If you can be repaired, returned to some level of usefulness to the corporation, we’d like to see that. You have a massive debt to pay off, and you could do a better job of that if we fixed you rather than if we simply sold your organs off for scrap. We’re not barbarians.”

  He raised the glass and held it. “This,” he said, “is called scotch. It used to be very popular, but it came only from Scotland. They called this particular kind a ‘peat’; it came only from the southern swamps. They’ve been frozen solid for centuries. Even if the world were restored back to its original climate, the swamps will never come back. Another bottle of this will never be made by man,” he said, taking a large gulp.

  I looked at my own glass, which he had failed to fill.

  “Oh. Well, I would like very much to offer you some, but your palate is nowhere near refined enough to taste the difference between this and goat urine. It would be a shameful waste—quite literally a crime—to share this with you. I have too much respect for the company, without whose profits I could not have purchased this, to do that. Respect, Charles.”

  I laughed.

  “What’s so funny? Please, contrary to popular belief, I am always eager to hear a good joke.”

  “You act as if you are so much better than me, but you’re not. You’re not, and we both know it. Do you think I’m impressed by your scotch?”

  “Oh my, you misunderstand,” the executive said, his arms moving in broad strokes. “No, no, no, I’m not trying to impress you, by no means. I make in a single day what you make in a year. Since this conversation started I have already earned more than you will ever have. I would be a pretty shallow man indeed if, in spite of all that, I cared at all about your opinion,” he said, taking another sip.

  “Say what you will,” I answered. “You care. You’re a joke, showing off with your material wealth, trying to intimidate me, show me how successful you are.”