The Unincorporated Man

by Dani Kollin; Eytan Kollin

  The group’s political history had been brief. It had been formed only within the last thirty years and supported the radical notion that people should, as an inalienable right, control a majority of themselves. This radical idea had very little support among the public at large, and was severely frowned upon by the corporations and the government.

  The humorous point, and one harped upon by a mostly hostile media, was that the bulk of the party’s membership, as well as its entire leadership, had self-majority. It seemed to be an indelible truth of political history that fringe movements survived by the efforts of the desperate and the rich. In the modern society that had emerged since the Grand Collapse there were very few desperate individuals or groups. This meant that the Majority Party was made up of the rich.

  The truth of the matter was, government did so little that most people cared little about politics, and certainly not in the way people of the past had. After all, the government did not tax, which had been the main focus of the people’s concern with government for centuries. No matter what the idiots in Geneva decided, they’d only be able to take 5 percent of a person’s income—ever. This meant that the people could ignore this relatively harmless and predictable aspect of their lives. Truth be told, an individual’s parents took a whopping 20 percent of their earnings, which meant that the family had far more impact on a person’s life than government ever would or could. Which, most reasoned, was how it should be.

  Also, the government services that ancient Americans were once forced to use had been either limited or eliminated. For instance, such societal needs as mail, health care, unemployment, welfare, retirement, and disaster relief were no longer handled by the government. Police and law, formally a pre-GC government monopoly, were constitutionally made open to competition from private enterprise. The current grand old political party was the Libertarians, and they were completely devoted to limiting government power. The opposing party was an offshoot of the Libertarians. They were called the Eliminationist Party, and their platform was predicated on the belief that corporate society had evolved beyond the need for government at all. For decades the Eliminationists remained a fringe party because of their shortsighted insistence on scrapping all government everywhere. Because corporate society was inherently conservative, and the party’s platform too radical, the Eliminationist movement never got off the ground. However, with the rise to power of one Shannon Kang, the party managed to right itself by taking a different and more tactful approach. Instead of calling for the elimination of all government, they began to push for something they termed a “government-free zone.” This “zone,” it was proposed, could be a continent or terraformed moon or planet. In this zone they sought to let the corporate society function without government interference, using the rule promulgated by David Friedman. The rule stated that a society could be run, even at the point of enforcing and creating laws, using the machinery of capitalism itself. And Friedman’s theory had been proposed before the culturally enforcing effect of incorporation had been discovered. The government-free-zone idea appealed to a large enough audience that it had paid dividends politically, and for the first time in centuries an opposition party had come into existence. However, the Libertarians were still in a comfortable majority.

  While this course of political events, certainly with the rise of a new opposition party, may have seemed exciting to someone from pre–GC, to a citizen of the present it would be about as exciting as watching a university chess club discuss its charter. Politics were never a public draw, and the competing party’s only audiences were usually themselves.

  Into this political snoozefest, and trailing the Eliminationists by a light year, came a third political group known as the Majority Party. It started out more as a joke amid some college students needing a fun project for a fluff class they’d all been taking. The project had to do with how to make a positive change in society. After many debates it was decided that the basic idea of the proposed party would be to help those who would have little time or inclination to help themselves. These young idealists decided that since everyone they knew at their wealthy and exclusive school had majority, it would be nice if everyone else did as well—and so was born their platform. Being young and well-intentioned, they created the idea while ignoring the obvious economic reasons not everyone had majority, and had a complete disregard for the consequences of the concept, should it ever come to fruition. The fact that they received poor grades for their “project” didn’t hinder them one bit. They were determined to better society for the common good, even if the recipients of that supposed good weren’t interested. In this they were rather like those well-meaning activists in city governments around turn-of-the-millennium America. Those activists, like the misguided Majority Party, had a similar logic. They, too, lived in large, spacious, well-lit, and convenience-filled homes and apartments. They, too, felt the burning desire to enact laws for the people’s “own good,” often to disastrous results. In fact, “low-income housing of the pre-GC” was still taught in most university econ courses as the epitome of government intervention gone awry.

  But by the time the Majority Party got started, the very real pains that the pre-GC government intervention had wrought were a faded and distant memory, relegated to texts and not reality.

  The Majority Party decided early on that the best way to get everyone a majority was to use the government’s power. The idea of an interventionist government was so abhorrent to society that for a number of years the party existed, it seemed, for the sole purpose of annoying as many people as possible. And in this, much to their parents’ embarrassment and dropped stock values, they succeeded mightily. Of course, only those who were guaranteed a comfortable majority, i.e., the entire makeup of the new party, would be able to flaunt society’s wishes so easily. However, for those truly working their way toward a majority the quickest way to kill a promising career, and therefore not achieve self-majority, would be to come out against private property and be in favor of government theft. Not likely, and hence the reason for the Majority Party’s tepid reception and inordinately low membership. Further, for those who made majority on their own, the thought of having the government take a percentage of their effort and hard work—beyond the constitutionally mandated 5 percent—was beyond the pale. And then, when it was pointed out that the only way to pay for the idea would be for the government to take 10 percent or reinstitute taxes, the reaction turned violent. And so, many an earnest and rich dilettante got the crap kicked out of him while failing to understand why the people he was trying to help the most tended to be the very ones who most wanted to kick the crap out of him. It wasn’t until Sean Doogle showed up that everything changed.

  For Sean, the Majority Party was not a game, nor a way to piss off one’s parents before going into the family business—it was a passionate calling. When he spoke of the rights of everyone to own a majority of themselves, he did so with so much passion and conviction that even the most hardcore Libertarian might be swayed momentarily. Most eventually snapped out of it, but not all. Some became true believers and followers.

  The first thing the exceptional orator did was to end a rift that had emerged in the party. The spat was about direction. Namely, whether to concentrate on giving a majority to everyone, or to simply push for a law that would state that no one who currently had a majority could ever lose it. The clear advantage of the latter school of thought was that in theory it was not only more palatable, it was also an idea that would not impinge on percentages or impose taxes. But after a few ardent speeches by Sean, the group was made to realize it was wrong to leave anyone enslaved. His reasoning, while making the party feel much more ideologically pure, destroyed any chance it would have to win over more than the barest sliver of the discontented.

  But win that group over he did. His mantra was simple. It was all incorporation’s fault. And “all” encompassed everything. You’re poor, you can’t get a good job or good training, your stock price is too lo
w, your girlfriend doesn’t love you because your stock price is too low, your dog died and you couldn’t afford to get him reanimated. The list was endless, the villain an easy mark, and the prophet exemplary.

  The Majority Party headquarters was located in San Francisco in a Victorian building that was centuries old and had been rebuilt countless times. The house exterior was as exact as historical records could make it, and Sean was convinced that Mark Twain or Emperor Norton themselves would not have found the old abode out of place. But for Sean and the purists of the Majority Party that was not the reason for their chosen residence. They were not restorers or preservers by nature, being more interested in tearing down and disrupting. No, the house served a political purpose. As Sean or any of his followers would tell anyone willing to listen, the structure was created by free labor, i.e., noncorporate-built, and as such served as a symbol of the free men they wished their own society would aspire to be. If anyone were to point out that the house was built by Chinese laborers that had most likely been beaten, miserably paid, stolen from and/or taxed by various gangs and bureaucrats—the two not being mutually exclusive—the stalwarts of the Majority Party would have pooh-poohed the suggestion. In fact, one journalist had the temerity to suggest that any of the “free” workers of the past would have gladly killed for a chance to live in an incorporated world, with all its obvious benefits. He was ignored.

  But Sean was not ignoring the media now. While he usually disdained the ilk who’d so thoroughly eviscerated his character and his movement, he couldn’t help but be interested in the buzz that was now infecting the entire system. Plus, like practically everyone else in the Terran Confederation, he harbored a strange fascination for this unincorporated man. That Sean would ultimately be responsible for causing Mr. Cord an unrelenting amount of pain and suffering he could not possibly know. For now, Sean just stared transfixed at the holodisplay as the story of Justin Cord’s mea culpa unfolded.

  There in the holodisplay Justin Cord had spoken an elemental truth. Sean was convinced to the core of his being that this truth was being spoken to Sean, and Sean alone. This truth was ringing clear. So clear, in fact, that a smile appeared on a face that seemed to have been missing one for years. Sean leaned back in his chair and began repeating a mantra that would haunt the corporate world’s upper echelons—and society itself—for years.

  “One free man,” he whispered to himself, “one free man . . . one free man . . . one free man . . .”

  8 Mardi Gras

  Mardi Gra’s a-comin’ and full-on fun awaits you at the rings of Saturn! Don’t miss this year’s rings of ice-refracted laser light show . . . brought to you by Philip Morris and McDonald’s—proud partners in the terraforming of Titan. The show encompasses an area equal to seventy times the Earth’s surface. Quite simply it’s the biggest show in the solar system. And remember, there’s no bad seat from space!

  —FROM AN ADVERTISEMENT HEARD ON ALL THINGS CONSIDERED,

  SYSTEM PRIVATE RADIO (SPR)

  Justin was sitting in his New York apartment giving serious thought to what he was going to wear. This was normally not a problem, as he usually wore what he wanted. It was the rare occasion that would compel him to put some thought into his ensemble. But this was no ordinary occasion. In a little less than two weeks the entire system, from the solar observation platform to the Oort Cloud to every planet, moon, and orbiting piece of debris big enough to hold a human, was going to party like rich college kids on spring break with their parents’ credit cards.

  The few consistent traditions Justin was able to nail down were that Mardi Gras lasted for exactly one week, one could do things during Mardi Gras that would not be mentioned or held against them for the rest of the year, and that what one wore at the start of the festivities should be worn for the entire week. In what little time Justin did find to read, he’d learned about how some people would take weeks off prior to “the week” to not only grow new body parts, but also to learn how to use them—whatever that meant. Apparently, full bodmods—with rare exception—were the rage almost exclusively with those with self-majority. Body nano of so invasive a nature usually took time to generate, and once in place usually took the customer of that transformation a good week to acclimate to—you had to have money, and lots of it, to afford that kind of time and technology. But from the reviews he’d read by “satisfied clients,” the money spent and time preparing was well worth the week of stares they’d receive once the party got going. In looking at some of the modifications available, Justin realized that he could have done pretty much whatever he might imagine—from growing dinosaur skin to adding extra working appendages. In his brief review of the more “popular” getups, he was so taken aback by what he saw that he could only liken the advertised bodmods to creatures out of the more radical sci-fi films he remembered from his past.

  Justin had decided almost immediately that, though he could afford it, a bodmod was not in the cards for him. Getting used to his new, “younger” skin was hard enough; the last thing he wanted to do was switch into another one. So that left him thinking about what type of “typical” costume he might choose for himself. Normally, this was the sort of question he’d bring to Neela, but for some reason she wasn’t available—except by handphone. She’d told him that she’d had to take care of some sort of personal issue, and that she’d meet up with him at their hotel in New Orleans. He knew better than to argue, and so had managed to while away the time, not thinking about what to wear until it was almost too late. So now Justin was left with Dr. Gillette to help him sort out his fashion quandary. He found the good doctor sitting in the kitchen having breakfast and reading a hard-copy newspaper. Thaddeus heard Justin enter, looked up at his patient, and smiled.

  “Justin, my boy,” said the doctor, “I must thank you for your advice concerning printing out the paper . . . on paper, which is where, I guess, they got the name in the first place.”

  Justin chuckled and removed a bowl from the cabinet. He grabbed a bag of cereal from the pantry that tasted enough like peanut butter Cap’n Crunch as to make no real difference. He’d forever pat himself on the back for including freeze-dried boxes of his favorite cereals in the chamber where he’d been found. It was a simple matter for the nanobots to figure out the exact amounts of each ingredient to replicate the flavors and textures of the foods he’d brought along for the journey.

  “I’m glad you like the paper, Doc,” he said, sitting across from his friend and confidant. He offered the doctor some of his cereal. “Cap’n Crunch?”

  The doctor shook his head. “I prefer my food to move, thanks.” Justin still couldn’t get used to “moving” food, which was popular. It wasn’t that the food was alive; it was just . . . animated. Oh, he’d tried it, and hadn’t found the experience unpleasant. For example, he had a type of oatmeal that swirled around in his mouth of its own volition, managing to excite tastebuds on the back of his tongue he never knew existed. That was followed by the sensation of the food “moving” down the throat almost as if scratching an itch he never knew he had. Which was also, surprisingly, not an unpleasant sensation. It would just take some time to get used to. In the meantime, he had his Cap’n Crunch, his Quaker Oatmeal Squares, and his low-fat granola. Quite backward by the social standards; however, comforting by his.

  Dr. Gillette turned a page to follow an article. “At first,” the doctor continued, “this paper-turning thing seemed like a totally archaic and useless tradition. I mean, why have a paper printed when you can just have it read to you or read it from a DijAssist? But after a couple of mornings of experimenting—purely as a matter of research, I can assure you,” he said, almost as an apology, “well, I must admit that I’m finding myself positively addicted.”

  “It can grow on you,” answered Justin, taking pleasure in his recently bestowed if not antiquated gift. Then, “Tell me, Doc, do you happen to know where Neela is?”

  “Depends,” he answered, with an arched eyebrow.

  �
��On what?”

  “On why you need her.”

  “Why,” asked Justin, “should that make one iota of a difference?”

  “Because if you need to ask her a clinical question, then I’ll need to be insulted.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “Then,” smiled the doctor, “I won’t be insulted; that is, I’ll be concerned.”

  “Ahh. No, it’s not clinical, it’s, well . . . um . . . a fashion thing.”

  “I see,” Thaddeus responded, with a jovial grin. “In that case I don’t know where Dr. Harper is.”

  “Dr. Harper? So formal, Thaddeus?”

  “For you, yes. Or, at least, it should be. And just in case I haven’t reminded you enough,” he said, while wrestling spastically with the unbound newspaper, “no good can come of a patient and a reanimationist having anything other than a professional relationship.”

  Justin began to protest, but Dr. Gillette waved him off. “Ever since you two came back from the museum things have changed.” He tossed the paper aside in disgust, muttering something under his breath about “newfangled” devices.

  “Nonsense, Doctor,” answered Justin, managing to get a word in edgewise. He used his best game face, making sure he had direct eye contact. The good doctor wasn’t buying.

  “Oh please, Justin,” answered Thaddeus. “I’m old enough, and certainly expert enough, to know when a man is infatuated—you—but until the VRM that infatuation was not returned—by her.”