Pink Slip Prophet

by Donnelly, George

  Two of the Marias were already catching on. He caught them spoon-feeding their families. The others he encouraged to network with each other. These people had to be kept alive and it was up to the Marias.

  The Marias enabled this kind of behavior. Ian created them. Ian debated his guilt or innocence in the matter. If not for my girls, they couldn’t sit around all day doing nothing. This is my fault.

  But if I hadn’t invented the Marias, someone else would have. Furthermore, Jack and I are not living in Funation. So it’s a personal choice. I didn’t even suggest this choice to them, much less did I force it upon them.

  Ian served himself another cup of coffee from the coffeemaker. It wasn’t very good but it was real coffee. It was hot and it was black.

  For some reason those words triggered his sex drive. He felt a jump of blood flow down there. He set the coffee down on the breakfast bar and walked over to Candy. She was awake now. She sat on the leather couch actively playing something.

  Ian considered the possibilities. Jack was still asleep. Stacy and Michael wouldn’t notice. Hell, Candy might not even notice.

  Candy was heavier now. Her gut spilled out of the space between a stained light blue t-shirt and her too-tight pilates pants. The aesthetic effect was not pleasant and dulled Ian’s interest.

  Not ready to give up, he bent down and thought about just kissing her. She sneezed and a whiff of her breath reached him. It stank. Is she even brushing her teeth anymore? Little white spittle cakes stuck to the skin below her lower lip. She farted.

  Ian swung around and headed back to the kitchen. Yuck!

  There was a sharp, double knock at the door.

  How excellent! Ian jumped lightly to the entryway and opened it.

  A man in a cheap suit two sizes too big stood there. His face was gray and the skin under his eyes sagged.

  “Mr. Ian Blake,” the man said.

  “That’s right.”

  The man shoved a sheaf of papers into his hands and stepped back. “Good luck. It doesn’t look good. Thanks, by the way.” He stood across the hallway, against the black Maria’s apartment door.

  Paper? Who the heck still uses paper. Ian looked up at the man. “Thanks for what?”

  “For hitting him. This is the first lawsuit filed around here in a month. I thought they were going to pink-slip me.” He smiled and headed for the elevator to Ian’s right. “Well, good luck with it.”

  Ian studied the papers. As best he could make out, Larry was suing him in federal court for damages stemming from that punch in the autorest. Ian closed the door behind him and set the papers down on the breakfast bar. The punch. He smiled.

  Ian took a swig of coffee and flinched. It was truly horrible. He picked the papers up again and studied them.

  This is all backwards! The papers said that Ian went looking for Larry in the autorest. That Ian harassed Larry and then beat him to within an inch of his life, leaving him with twenty-three broken bones and massive internal bleeding. What the hell?

  Ian counted the zeroes in Larry’s damages request: ten billion dollars. He buried his head in his hands. What am I going to do now?

  ***

  Who would have thought a domestic robot would make life so boring? Or maybe it was the VR gaming tech. Ian just couldn’t get into it. It disoriented him, gave him blinding headaches. He lost time in those virtual worlds, among the three-eyed beasts of an alternative Earth and in the blue-leafed forests of Xpalk. It just wasn’t Ian’s thing.

  What he needed was a woman. But they were all busy in those VR worlds. Or just plain fat and disgusting. Candy just didn’t move anymore. It was out of control and he refused to think about her expanding gut or failing personal hygiene. It turned his stomach.

  He sat at his desk and paged through his old high school yearbook. There she was: Francesca. God she was beautiful back then. The long, straight blond hair. She was athletic and so bright. Full-bodied, vivacious. He pulled his screen closer and typed her name into the search engine. She came up immediately. She was heavier now. He grunted in disappointment. But who wasn’t heavier now? Ian gave the wrist-twisting thumb-and-pinky-finger gesture to call her.

  The line connected and a sleepy male voice answered.

  “Francesca, please?” Ian said.

  A long sigh came across the line.

  “Who is calling?” It was an older man.

  “My name is Ian and I’m an old friend of—”

  “Francesca passed away last week. We’re just getting back from the funeral now,” the man said.

  Ian’s mouth hung open as he processed the information. A heavy, paralyzing disappointment came over him. He slouched back into his chair. “What happened?” he whispered.

  “These damned Maria things!” The old man spit out the words. “She had diabetes and got lost in one of these damned fantasy worlds, you know. Her insulin ran out and the damned robot did nothing as she lay there dying!”

  Ian’s mind reeled. Oh, shit. Is this me? Did I do this? Am I responsible for killing her. “Did her Maria have the medical add-on? It should have—”

  “The hell if I know!” the man yelled. “She wouldn’t listen to me. Some old boyfriend of hers invented the damned things and she thought they were wonderful and could do no wrong. But I’m out a daughter!”

  Does he know? Ian gritted his teeth to keep from saying anything.

  “What’s your name, by the way? I can send you the death announcement. I’m her father, as you prob—”

  Ian drew his flat hand across his body, cutting the connection. He stood up and banged his forehead against the wall. Damnit! Damnit! Damnit! A sharp headache spread through his brow and the left side of his head. Am I responsible? Did I do all of this? Is this on me?

  ***

  “Dad!” Stacy whined at him again from the bathroom. She flushed the toilet and walked out into the living room. She was stooped over and swung her arms from side to side like an orangutan. Her face was puffy and bloated. She stank of the thick odor of dirty laundry.

  Ian stood at the breakfast bar, drinking good coffee and reading the news on his screen. It was folded to half-size and he tapped the edge to turn the page. Nothing much at all seemed to be going on and almost all of the articles appeared to be machine-generated. He looked up at Stacy and raised his eyebrows.

  “Can you program Maria to help me, you know, go to the bathroom?” Stacy asked.

  Candy and Michael stood up and took their goggles off. They both leaned forward and put their hands on their knees. They both breathed heavy. Their faces were blank and their eyes looked far away.

  “That’s a good idea, Dad. You should do that,” Michael said.

  Candy nodded. She plodded to the bathroom herself.

  Ian took a sip of his coffee. “Bathrooms are simple. You go there. You pick up the seat and do your business. Why do you want a computer involved? Do you want to calculate the optimum angle of release or something?” He suppressed a giggle.

  They didn’t notice his humor. Stacy made her way to the sofa and sat back down. “Ow, my back.” She laid a hand on her lower back and pushed.

  Ian went back to the news. Finally, an op-ed about the empty streets. He started to read it.

  Stacy interrupted him. “Dad, seriously. Maria feeds us now, so why can’t she help us with, you know, the other end of things.”

  Ian raised an eyebrow and set his screen down. “So you want the same hands that feed you to receive your excrement?”

  “She knows how to clean,” Stacy said.

  “Just go to the bathroom,” Ian said. “You guys could use the exercise.”

  “Oh, ha ha, Dad, yeah make fun of fat people. There’s something new in humor,” Michael said. He turned to Stacy. “He’s a sexist so why shouldn’t he be a sizeist, too?”

  “Michael, what happened to your goals?” Ian asked. He looked down his nose at the young man and his growing paunch.

  �
�We used the money you gave me to abort all three fetuses.” Michael shrugged.

  Ian’s eyes rolled up into his head and he gripped the breakfast bar hard. A chill ran up his spine. “Are you—” He cut himself short. He took a step toward the kitchen, then turned around, unstable in his steps and headed back towards the living room. He opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out. “Are you freaking kidding me?” he yelled.

  Michael looked at him with an expression of surprise. “No. We even got a group discount.”

  The feeling that welled up in Ian - he couldn’t name it. It was a heavy weight on his heart. Three grandkids dead. I paid for it. He wanted to cry but the self-disgust stopped him. He turned and leaned over the breakfast bar then pounded on it with his fist again and again.

  ***

  “Dad,” Stacy said from the couch. “I have a statement Larry wants me to sign but if you give me fifty thousand dollars for the trip to Europe, I definitely won’t.”

  Ian stood at the picture window looking out. There was no visible movement for weeks now. There must be some people moving around somewhere. But Ian wasn’t seeing them. Ian’s attention shifted. There was a large delivery truck pulling up to the curb right in front of him. Finally. That would get people—

  Marias in all the colors of the rainbow poured out of the three buildings. They formed an orderly queue at the back of the truck and began receiving boxes. Each one left the line with three large boxes each. Who was handing these boxes out? The person or machine was hidden from his view.

  His own Maria headed out. He needed to upgrade her as she was falling behind compared to the latest Divergent models.

  Ian replayed Stacy’s words in his mind. He turned around and scowled at her. “What statement?” He walked over, grabbed her screen and read.

  “…that I did witness Mr. Ian Blake of 67 Exeter Avenue Apartment 2304 strike Mr. Larry Kunkle repeatedly on August 23rd 2035 at the Kensington Pride autorest. He did so without provocation and with the most merciless and mean-spirited of…”

  “You weren’t even there,” Ian said. “How can you…?”

  “It’s nothing personal, Dad,” Stacy said. “Larry’s going to pay us.”

  “Yeah,” said Michael, “just business.” He shrugged.

  “You’re good at business, Ian,” said Candy. “Just make us a better offer.”

  Ian studied the three. Parasites. Feeding off of me. He fought the idea. They’re your family. They’re blood-sucking leeches! He shook the idea away. “None of you were there!”

  They looked at him. “So what,” Michael said.

  “So,” started Ian, “if the court finds out and this goes to trial, you can be prosecuted for perjury.”

  Stacy and Candy stared at him, unfazed.

  “What’s perjury?” Michael whispered.

  “It’s lying in court,” Candy said. She kept her eyes on Ian.

  “You could be fined or imprisoned,” Ian said. He surveyed them warily. What was their game? His money was ultimately their money. Why would they help Larry take it? Legally, they were his kids, not Larry’s. They’d be smarter to just kill Ian and inherit the money.

  Shut up. Yeah, I shouldn’t even think that. If they weren’t so lazy they might do it.

  Candy turned to her children. “Your father would never let that happen, would you, Ian?”

  “Larry promised us a share of his winnings,” Michael said. “And you love us too much to send us to prison.”

  “It’s just a good business deal, Dad,” said Stacy. “Unless you want to pay us more than what Larry is promising?”

  The outrage boiled over. “I’m not paying you a goddamned cent! You stupid, ungrateful little brats. Are you too stupid to see what Larry is doing? He’s screwed me over more times than I can count. What makes you think he won’t screw you over, too? What makes you think he’ll actually pay you anything at all, if he wins? Which he won’t.”

  “He’s our real father,” Michael said with a glint of hurt and resentment in his eyes. “Yeah, we know now and we know you were keeping it a secret from us. He really loves us. If you loved us, we wouldn’t have to do something like this. You’d just give us what we wanted! I hate you!” Michael put on his VR goggles. Candy and Stacy followed suit without so much as a glance at Ian.

  Chapter 9

  Ian took his seat at the defendant’s table next to his lawyer. The room was large, with lots of dark wood everywhere and light green walls. Directly in front of him was the judge’s raised box. To his far left was the jury box.

  “Don’t worry,” his lawyer said. “This one is in the bag. I don’t know where this goof got the money to take the case this far, but he’s going to feel really stupid in a few minutes.” The man laughed to himself and pulled out his screen. “Tell me again, how he got your family to testify against you.”

  Ian turned around in his chair. “How you holding up, buddy?”

  Jack lay on the long, curved bench in the first row. He sighed. “I want to get home and work on my robots. This is so boring!” The boy teared up. “Why didn’t you just pay him? We could have been done with this.”

  “It’s a matter of principle, son.”

  “Principles just aren’t very practical, I guess.” The boy rolled over and faced into the back of the bench in the fetal position.

  The doors at the back of the courtroom opened and Candy sauntered in, a look of mercenary satisfaction on her face. Michael walked in behind her and held the door open. Stacy came in next, tripped over Michael’s feet and fell forward into her mother’s rear end.

  “Watch where you are going!” Candy loud-whispered.

  “It was Michael’s fault,” Stacy said.

  “I was just holding the door. I’m not responsible for your big feet,” Michael said. He walked in and sat in the back row.

  “My feet are not big!” Stacy said. Her words echoed throughout the room. She slapped her hand over her mouth and sat down next to Michael.

  Candy forced them to move over and she took the aisle seat. She glanced at Ian, then jerked her head in the opposite direction.

  The court’s Maria activated. It was an older, silver model with the law enforcement add-on. It had a yellow, star-shaped logo over its torso. “All rise for the honorable Erwin K. Blickstein,” said the recording it played.

  The judge entered the courtroom from the other side of the judge’s box and took his seat.

  Ian’s lawyer folded his screen up and put it into his jacket breast pocket.

  Ian started to stand then noticed no one else was standing so he hesitantly sat back down.

  The judge looked at his wrist. “I have my regular golf game this afternoon so let’s wrap up this up quickly, shall we, gentlemen?” He fake-grinned before glancing up at Ian and his lawyer and then at the table where Larry and his lawyer should have been. He frowned. “Where is the plaintiff?”

  Ian’s lawyer stood up. “Your honor, I move for summary dismissal.”

  “I’m inclined—” Judge Blickstein started.

  A boom sounded at the back of the room. Larry and his lawyer burst through the doors. “I am so sorry, Erwin,” Larry said in a loud voice. “But lunch ran late and then—”

  Judge Blickstein slammed his gavel into its wooden base. “Silence!”

  Larry’s gut hung out beneath the tails of his dress shirt as he made for the plaintiff’s table. His lawyer was even heavier than him without a similarly shoddy appearance.

  Ian covered a smile with his right index finger. The long-awaited public crushing of Larry Kunkle was at hand. And in a courtroom no less. Ian could just sit back and watch the crushing from a distance. It was beautiful.

  “As to the matter of Kunkle vs. Blake, I am ready to render my verdict. I find for the plaintiff and award him damages of five thousand dollars with punitive damages of nine-hundred ninety-nine million nine-hundred ninety-five thousand dollars.” He banged his gavel and retreated the
same way he had entered.

  Ian’s smile froze, then fell ever so gradually as the words registered in his brain. They weren’t the words he expected. He couldn’t remember the words he expected to hear right now but those definitely were not it. He looked at his lawyer.

  “I’m sorry, Ian. You win some, you lose some.” He laughed and put his briefcase on the table. He stood up and shrugged.

  “Now, wait a second,” Ian said. “What just happened.”

  “He found for the plaintiff.”

  The word entered Ian’s mind but the meaning didn’t register. “I’m the plaintiff, right?”

  “No, Mr. Kunkle is the plaintiff.” He shrugged again. “Sorry. These things can slip away from you sometimes. It must have been your family’s testimony that put him over the top. It’s hard to beat witness testimony these days.” He stepped towards the exit. “Oh, and Mr. Kunkle is a government employee, of course. That always helps!” he said with a smile.

  “But the surveillance video? It showed exactly what happened!” The panic and confusion competed inside of Ian.

  His lawyer shrugged again and took a backwards step towards the exit. “Some people are really anti-tech these days. It’s a big movement and all now. Judge Blickstein clearly gave the human testimony superior precedence.”

  “Superior precedence?” Ian got up and chased after his lawyer, who was almost at the door. He grabbed the man’s shoulder. “Did this happen because the judge is anti-tech?”

  His lawyer half-turned, shrugged and ran. Then he stopped. “I just got word on your appeal,” he yelled.

  “My appeal?”

  “I filed it as soon as the verdict was in,” he said, walking backwards again.

  “They denied it. It’s final.” The lawyer ran around the corner.

  Ian collapsed against the wall and buried his head in his hands. What the hell is going on?

  ***

  Larry pulled Ian up off the floor and carry-walked him back into the courtroom. He set him down in the last bench. He looked behind him at Candy, Michael and Stacy, and smiled at them. He tucked his shirt into his pants and opened his mouth.