6
Perfectly Legal
Nine people live on island A and one person lives on island B. The people of island A unanimously vote to disallow using resources on island B, including the person on B. Explain the moral hazards and the likely destructive consequences. Identify two alternative incentive systems that produce better long-term outcomes.
—Accel. Topic: Incentive Engineering. Module: Macro-Incentives.
The governor of the Great Blue State of California looked at the news page and groaned. He handed his tablet to the attorney general. “I think we’ve suffered a serious leak.”
The attorney general took the tablet and scanned the article. He was shaking as he returned it to the governor. “‘Cogent News’ my eye. All she ever reports are facts. She has no idea what truth is, or how much more important it is than mere facts. Well, the good news is, nobody reads her damn rant sheet anyway.”
The governor tapped his tablet. “You’re almost right,” he conceded. “Very few people read Ms. Postrel’s rants. Unfortunately, about half the people on our civil forfeiture priority list are among her tiny readership, and the rest have friends who read that damn rant sheet.”
The attorney general’s face froze in place. He hastily opened his own tablet and started working through a number of queries. “Goddammit!” he screamed. “You’re right. And they’ve already started leaving.” He shook his head. “Well, there’s no help for it. We have to move into civil forfeiture proceedings immediately against all the ones we can still get our hands on.” A gleam entered his eye. “And we’re going to start with that damned Toscano bastard. He moved his money out of the state when he moved out SpaceR’s funds, but he still has a house in Palos Verdes.”
The governor shook his head. “Too late. They sold it almost a week ago. They took a smaller than typical profit on it if that’s any consolation. But it’s almost as if, after we seized the SpaceR factory, Toscano figured his house would be next.” The governor tried to maintain good humor and continued, “Can’t imagine why he’d think that.”
The governor rose from his desk and went to his bar for a scotch and water. “Believe it or not, we have a bigger problem.”
The attorney general stared at him in utter bafflement.
“With some judicious cuts we can probably squeak through this year without a budgetary crisis, but only if our costs don’t go up dramatically. Unfortunately, the Red media have picked up on Postrel’s story. So it’s not just loons wanting factual news who know what we’re doing. All the independent truckers who bring goods into the state have heard about it. They’ve stopped coming in-state. Some sort of driver association is demanding that Dennis get his truck back before they’ll make any more deliveries. The California truckers’ union is happily offering to pick up the slack, going all over the nation to pick up goods, but—”
“No!” The attorney general turned pale. “We can’t afford that!”
“We certainly can’t. Glad you see the problem.”
The attorney general joined him at the minibar for a shot of straight whiskey. “I guess we could set up transfer stations at all the major border crossings. The independent truckers could drop their loads at the border, California union drivers hitch ‘em up and carry them the rest of the way. It’ll still cost more, but it won’t be exorbitant.”
The governor closed his eyes for a moment. He hated asking the following question, for which he already knew the Attorney General’s answer. “I don’t suppose we could just give this Dennis fellow his truck back? And back off on the civil forfeitures for a while?”
The attorney general stared, just speechless for a moment. The governor’s mantra might be, “Get ahead of the media and stay there,” but the attorney general’s mantra was simpler: “Once you’ve got the money, never give it back.” His answer to the governor, of course, had nothing to do with his mantra. “Governor, giving the truck back is absolutely unworkable. It would be an admission of guilt. Which is crazy. We haven’t done anything wrong. It’s all been perfectly legal.”
The governor opened his mouth as if to object, but then thought better of it and instead took a sip of his Scotch.
Major Zhang took little joy in terrorizing the peasants as he had been ordered. He had made sure his troops didn’t enjoy it too much either. Other commanders might take joy in stirring up a little rebellion for the sake of having the opportunity to put it down, but not he.
Still, he had obeyed orders. He had done a little terrorizing while rumbling about the countryside in search of the disruptive interloper. She seemed to have disappeared from the province, however, along with the father and the son on whose behalf she had intervened. He could track them down, of course, unless they’d left China. China might have over a billion people, but it had over two billion surveillance cameras. No one could escape the eagle eye of the State.
But tracking down the foreigner and her proteges did not seem worth the effort. They no longer represented a threat to the state. Looking at the father’s social credit rating, Zhang couldn’t help thinking the province was better off without him. Let someone else deal with his disrespectful attitude.
He had turned the trucks around, loaded the troops, and stepped into the passenger’s side of the lead truck when his phone demanded his attention. The headmaster again. Argh. “Major Zhang here. How may I help you?”
The headmaster spluttered in poorly controlled anger. “I hear you’re leaving without having found her.”
“She’s gone, sir. Apparently, she departed the day after your encounter with her.”
“Well, she’s back again. She’s giving joy rides in an illegal helicopter.”
An illegal helicopter? That sounded interesting if nothing else. It might be worth checking out. Perhaps he could persuade the dastardly villainess to give him a ride home in the copter, letting the troops find their way back without him. Though that might make the wrong impression. Still… “Why are you so certain that this copter is being operated by the same person?”
The headmaster hesitated for a moment before answering. “What are the odds that two different foreign women would stir up trouble out in this backwater at almost the same time?”
The major had to concede the headmaster made an excellent point. “We’ll check it out,” he promised.
He still wasn’t exactly sure what to do about it if he found the woman who had stolen the headmaster’s prisoner. She hadn’t actually broken any law, and he had considerable personal sympathy for anyone who tweaked the headmaster’s nose. If she really did have a copter, and it really was illegal, he would mete out punishment that would satisfy his superiors. If not, he might find himself just offering to buy her a drink. Hmmm… Mission. Duty. Honor. Not necessarily in that order, however, he found himself thinking.
Dash held the door to her office open for Ben, carefully masking the dismay she felt as she watched him shuffle in on his walker, now accompanied by a nursing bot. He was deteriorating with astonishing speed. She took a deep breath, acknowledging to herself it was foolish to be surprised. The speed of his deterioration was, after all, what Dark Alpha had implied when it said Ben had only three weeks left to live. That was the reason she was taking this exceptional step.
Ben maneuvered to the chair next to her small table, and the nursing bot lifted him gently from his walker and set him down. Dash sat down across from him.
His body might be dying, but his eyes were still alive. He spoke in a wheezy voice. "Dash, it's always so wonderful to see you. I confess I hope you asked me in to share some good news."
Dash sighed. "I do not know if it is good news or not. Chance has come up with a radical idea for how to give you a small amount of rejuvenation." It disturbed her that Chance was the one who had come up with it. Radical as it was, it was also obvious. Dash considered it a grave failure on her part to have not come up with the idea herself. She probably needed to back off on helping Matt and Rhett and the others with their projects. She needed to focu
s.
"Wonderful!" Ben paused. "Uh, what are the chances that I will die in the process?"
"The chances are a hundred percent that you will die. The interesting question is, what are the chances that we can bring you back? This will be as much a reincarnation as a rejuvenation."
Ben sat back in his chair. "Aha. I can see why you're not sure whether the news is good."
"Exactly so." Dash reached out and gently touched his hand with her fingertips. "I would not suggest it were your situation not so dire." She smiled mischievously. "I need to do my best to protect my funding sources, after all."
Ben waved it away. "I know I'm still your biggest investor, but let's face it. You made enough profits from the successful rejuvenations at this point to be self-funding. You don't actually need me anymore."
"Perhaps not. But there will no doubt be other ventures in the future, and I would not like to have to break in another partner."
Ben started to laugh, but it turned into a wracking cough. "Well played, Dash." He looked at her more seriously than he had ever looked at her before. "When do we start?"
“Now, Ben. Right now.”
Dash stood over him by the bed and held his hand while Chance gave him the injection. Dash explained, "This is a much more aggressive version of our most recent therapy. You will not be immune to it."
Chance continued the explanation. "The current normal version of the therapy has twice as good a chance to rejuvenate the patient as the version you received in the very first test. For a randomly selected candidate, that version gives a fifty-fifty chance of getting younger on the one hand, or dying on the other."
A hopeful expression filled Ben's face. "So I have a fifty-fifty chance?"
Dash let him see her dismay. "No. You are not a random patient, and this is a much more aggressive version than normal. We have successfully characterized the patients who will live and who will die."
Chance joined in with a chipper note in her voice. "As I think Dash told you earlier, you have a hundred percent chance of dying. Since this is even more aggressive, you'd be even more sure of dying, if that were possible."
Ben shook his head. "I see. I know you told me so, but somehow I just couldn't quite bring myself to believe it."
Dash glared at Chance, then spoke to Ben. "Because it is so aggressive, even you will respond to the therapy. As you die, your cells will be infused with the ability to replace themselves with younger versions."
Ben gave her a wheezing laugh. "Perhaps I can be a good-looking corpse."
Chance shook her head. "You'll be dead before they have a chance to start replacing themselves." Her eyes gleamed. "That's when the exciting and fun part begins."
Ben looked so pale and ghastly, Dash held up her hand in a stopping motion. "Enough," she said to Chance sternly. "I don't know that Ben can take much more cheerful explanation." She flickered a light between Ben's eyes to check his pupils. Then she glanced at the monitors. "It has begun."
Both women sat quietly, one on each side of Ben's bed, watching the monitors. Occasionally, Dash would gesture and specify a drug, and Chance would add it to his intravenous drip. Soon enough, Ben started breathing in short, painful gasps. "Oh my. This seems to be the painful part. I'd heard about what happened to the other patients who died, who chose lethal injections rather than live with the pain anymore." He closed his eyes and winced. "I don't suppose you can just kill me now?"
Chance answered first. "Not yet. The more dying you do, the better the outcome will be."
Dash rolled her eyes. "Chance, your bedside manner needs to be improved upon."
Ben interrupted. "Can you just knock me out? Or inject me with ketamine? I had a wonderful lucid dream the one time they gave me ketamine."
Dash placed her hand on his forehead as if to check him for fever, though it was unnecessary. "I am so sorry. You already have such a stew of chemicals in your bloodstream, we cannot take the chance of interfering with the progress of the therapy."
Chance added, "Or the chance of killing you in some unanticipated way we aren't prepared for. That could actually leave you dead."
Dash reached into a drawer. “Having said that, I do have something to help you. Quite primitive, from my days as a surgeon in remote areas of Bali, but still somewhat effective.” She pulled out a leather strap and held it to his mouth. “Bite this.”
Sweat broke out on Ben's brow as he bit down. He clenched his right hand; his left shook. He mumbled around the strap, "You two are the bosses."
No one spoke as Ben grimly clung to the excruciating pain of life. Finally, he passed out.
Chance leapt up. "Okay, let's get ready to revive him."
Dash rose more slowly, holding up her hand in a stop gesture. "Not yet. We must wait." She thought about it. “We can hook up the vampire, however.” They inserted the needles for the high-speed blood filtration system, the system Dash had invented originally to extract polonium from Dmitri’s circulatory system.
One by one, the monitors around the room toggled to show glaring red warnings. An emergency beeper went off and Dash silenced it. Another sensor started whining, and a siren wailed, and Dash moved about the room silencing them all. Chance watched in frustration. As the last warning lights came up, Chance started pacing. "Okay, he's dead. He's really dead. The pseudo-viruses have had plenty of time to patch up his telomere chains. Time to wake him up."
Dash calmly turned on the heart and lung machine. A soft whir filled the room. She stood by the bed as her eyes roamed the monitors. "Not yet." She seemed calm, except for the way she clenched and unclenched her right hand. Eventually, she put her hand into the pocket of her lab coat. And there she stood, as Chance paced at an ever faster rate, back and forth, back and forth, while her face took on the expression of a rictus of pain not unlike Ben's just before he’d passed out.
At an obscure transition in the status reflected in the screens, Dash finally spoke. "Now!" Dash shut down the standard heart-lung machine as Chance flipped on the vampire filter. The vampire whirred ever louder as it went into high gear, flushing Ben's blood at extraordinary speed, filtering out the pseudo-viruses, and pumping the blood back into his body filled with nutrients and bursting with oxygen that should kick-start his cells and systems back into operation. Chance started the cardio massager that would periodically attempt to reactivate his heart.
More time passed; several hundred years, as far as Dash and Chance could tell. Finally, a squiggle appeared in one of the lines on the monitors and the amplified sound of a heartbeat filled the air. Both Dash and Chance slumped in exhausted relief. Chance spoke. "Let's avoid doing that again."
Dash removed her hand from her coat pocket and spread the fingers in an effort to get the kinks out. "I concur." She steadied the monitors. "It looks like we rejuvenated him for about three years." She looked down at Ben. "Not much, but enough to get him off that walker while we figure out something else."
Ben's eyes flickered open. "Two beautiful women standing over me. I guess I didn't make it. I'm in heaven."
Chance laughed, perhaps a bit too loudly. Dash once again put her hand on his forehead. "No, Ben. You are on the BrainTrust."
Ben closed his eyes, chortling. "Close enough."
Lenora looked once more at the gilt-edged invitation as she stood outside the Crystal Skull conference room. She was on the Top Men Warehouse-themed deck: the passage walls were covered in renderings of wooden crates, haphazardly stacked, stamped with labels like Top Secret and Classified, that ran in snaking lines off to infinity in all directions. Here and there the depiction of an ancient artifact marked a location in the throng of heavy boxes; she had turned left at the Ark of the Covenant to get here. She entered the conference room and was relieved to see that the skulls had been displaced from the wallscreens to make room for live video from the bottom of the ocean.
Although the room was filled with people, her attention focused on Qi Ru, who stood in front of the screens wearing a three-piece suit. He loo
ked past Lenora at the wallscreen on the opposite side of the room, where three other men in three-piece suits were displayed, looking intently at Qi Ru and the display behind him.
That display showed a scene of bustling activity despite a mostly pitch-black background. Tiny lights like the ones on Christmas trees outlined each bot and each building, and immensely powerful spotlights illuminated a few circles on the muddy sea bottom where scattered nodules lay, waiting for collection. Based on silhouettes you could make out the nodules carried by the bots to a building where the nodules dropped into one of a clutch of baskets. An occasional bot veered off to another building to exchange batteries. A basket filled with nodules started to ascend, lifted by mylar balloons, some filled with hydrogen, others filled with oxygen. The whole system, Lenora knew, was derived from MARS, the Monterey Accelerated Research System Cabled Observatory developed decades earlier to study the sea bottom.
Lenora turned to look at the wallscreen with the three men. She recognized the conference room wherein the potential financiers sat: a room on the GS Prime, the isle ship built by Goldman Sachs and over half populated with Goldman Sachs employees. It was the same room where Lenora had made her own pitch to the BrainTrust Consortium to build the Fuxing and Prometheus archipelagos.
Lenora stayed by the door and tuned into the conversation. An argument seemed to be in progress.
The financier wearing a black pinstripe suit and a brilliant gold tie complained, “Still, Qi Ru, $1.2 billion! Even our three companies together can’t put up that much money. And besides, we’d like to see investment from people with a more direct stake in the project as well.”
Rhapsody For The Tempest (The Braintrust Book 3) Page 8