“Not even for a second,” Micah replied. “Although, if every transaction is open and available to the public, it will stop a lot of problems before they start. Corruption and theft being the big two.”
The application was finished, two weeks later. Micah came to find her in the Field, at her assigned silo for the day. Laura tugged self-consciously at her pinned and tied hair and the unflattering overalls. “Shouldn’t you be at work?” she asked him. There were engineers within earshot. They were doing their best to look busy while straining to hear.
Micah gave one of his little smiles. “Care to guess when I last took a day off?”
“Years?”
“At least.” He lifted up his arm, showing her the inside of his wrist. “It’s done.”
“Really?” She looked at his wrist. “I guess nothing will show, will it? Do I have to install the application on the Forum?”
Micah shook his head. “It will install itself the first time you use credits. Let me buy something from you.”
“What?” She touched her hair again, self-consciously. “You stole my scarf,” she pointed out.
“The necklace you’re wearing. I’ll buy that.”
She touched the apple-seed necklet. “For how much?”
“How much do you want for it?”
Laura wrinkled her brow. “I have no idea.”
“How many energy rations would you take for it?”
“Oh! Well, that’s different. I guess…let’s say, one hundred energy rations.”
Micah nodded and held out his wrist. “Touch your wrist to mine.”
She brought her wrist up against his thick one. Instantly, she could feel the chip in her wrist working. “I’ve never noticed it working before,” she said. “Most of the time, I forget it’s there.”
“I made it vibrate at a very low rate, for that reason. You need to know the transaction has taken place.” He gestured to her board. “Have a look on the Forum,” he said.
She pulled up her public profile. There was a new table listed there, with Micah’s name and one hundred credits in the far right column.
“Look at mine,” Micah said.
She switched over to his almost completely blank profile. The table there showed a zero balance. There were two transactions above it. The first said “energy exchange”, and showed a positive entry of one hundred credits. The second was a payment to her, with a negative entry of one hundred credits.
“You based the currency on energy rations?” she asked.
“To start, yes. If this works, then eventually the money will become disassociated with energy and become true fiat money. We have to use something to fix values to start with. You didn’t know what price to put on the necklace until I asked for its energy value, then you knew straight away.”
He held out his hand. “And now I’ll have the necklace, thank you,” he said gravely.
Laura unclipped it and dropped it into his hand. “You are a brilliant man, Micah. No wonder I love you.”
She could feel her own mouth drop open.
Micah grew very still, staring at her. “What did you say?”
Laura pressed her lips together. “I didn’t know for sure until I said it just then,” she said quickly. “You know how hard it is for me to even think about anything that…permanent.”
He cupped her face. “You honor me,” he said, his voice very low. He kissed her, pulling her up against him in a tight hold. Laura wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back, blinking away her tears.
She stopped noticing the grime, the noise and the other engineers standing nearby, watching them with open-mouthed amazement.
* * * * *
On her next rest day, Laura pushed Micah out of bed early, fighting off his attempts to keep her there. With feigned grumpiness, he dressed and made coffee. She served breakfast for both of them. Afterward, they used the train to travel to the Aventine. It was already busy when they got there, with all the stalls running.
Kelly Peck had his big stall filled with delectable treats, including the year’s first cherries.
Laura’s mouth watered at the sight of them.
“Hey, Laura!” Kelly said, his tone pleased. He smiled hugely. “One of my favorite customers.” His gaze flicked toward Micah and his smile faltered for a moment. Then he looked back at her and gave her his sunniest expression.
Micah pointed to the cherries. “Would you like some?”
“Let me do it,” she said, her voice low, for Kelly was glaring at Micah.
Micah nodded and moved away.
Laura smiled at Kelly. “I could give you fifty energy credits for a bowlful of cherries.”
“Energy credits?” he repeated, his smile fading. “What would I do with those?”
“Anything you want,” Micah said from three paces away from the stall. He had to lift his voice to do it. “Including using them for energy.”
“Or printing, or buying produce off your other customers to sell here,” Laura added.
Kelly stared at her. She could see that his mind was moving very fast indeed. “No one can give energy to someone else. You can only use it yourself.”
“We made a way that will let you,” Laura said. She held out her wrist. “Put your wrist against mine and I’ll give you the fifty energy credits.”
Kelly glanced around the stall. There was another customer standing at the other end, prodding the berries there. The woman had a regretful look on her face.
“Can she give me energy credits, too?” he asked.
“Once you’ve taken mine, yes. Think of it as a virus,” Laura said. “A very benign and useful one.” She lifted her wrist again.
Kelly pushed his wrist against hers. His eyes widened as the chips worked. He frowned, raising his wrist to look at it.
“Look at your public Forum page,” Laura told him.
Kelly’s frown got deeper. He pulled a board out from underneath the table and studied it. “Stars above…!” he breathed, his eyes growing even wider. He lowered the board and looked at the woman hovering over the berries. “I can give you a cupful for twenty credits,” he told her.
The woman looked startled. “How do I give you my energy rations?” she asked.
Kelly held out his wrist. “Put your wrist there,” he said.
Micah gripped Laura’s fingers. “He swallowed it without a single objection,” he whispered.
“I told you he would grab it and run.” She looked up at him. “Kelly has hundreds of customers. How many of them do you think he’ll convince to give him their credits?”
“If he’s as smart as you say, all of them,” Micah said slowly.
“And they will use more credits, with other stall owners.” Laura breathed out. “I didn’t think it would work this well.”
“I did,” Micah said firmly. “You invented it. Of course it was going to work.”
Laura looked at Kelly. He was busy talking to yet another customer, while the woman was walking away with a bagful of berries, looking closely at her wrist. Kelly was waving his wrist, talking at a fast rate to the next customer.
“Do you think I should just take my cherries?” Laura said.
* * * * *
The credit system spread across the ship within two weeks, which was faster than either of them had anticipated.
Laura knew it had taken that long, because it was just over two weeks since her first transaction with Kelly Peck when Micah and she were invited to call upon Captain Middlesworth.
Chapter Thirteen
As they neared the Bridge gate, where the uniformed guards stood watching their approach with suspicious eyes, Micah squeezed her shoulder.
“It’ll be fine,” he said, his voice a low rumble.
Laura drew in a ragged breath. “Okay.” She wasn’t convinced.
“Besides, the Captain is a Hawks fan,” Micah added.
Laura glanced at him, startled.
His mouth was twitching.
“How can you j
oke about this?” she demanded.
“Easy. You’re next to me. Nothing bad can happen while you’re right there.”
She sighed. “I wish I had your confidence.”
They reached the gate. Their wrists were scanned to establish they were who they said they were and they were let through. Two guards escorted them through the corridors of the Bridge, into a wide one with only four doors along it. One of the big center ones opened onto an office area with desks in the middle. There were individual, walled-off offices all around the edges. The plasteel glass on most of them was set for transparency, except for the largest office. The glass on that one was milky white.
Everyone working at the desks looked at them as they were escorted into the office. One of the men at the back got to his feet. “Micah Thorn? Lauressa Hyland?”
Micah nodded and took Laura’s hand.
“I’m Conley Horner, the Captain’s Chief of Staff. This way, please.”
He walked over to the milky-white walls and opened the door for them to enter.
Captain Middlesworth was a handsome woman with graying hair and delicate features. Her hair was pinned back tidily. Her sharp eyes studied them as they walked in.
“Thorn and Hyland, Captain,” her Chief of Staff announced.
“Ah!” She waved them over to a sofa in the corner and sat in the small armchair in front of it.
Micah sat in the very middle of the sofa and Laura sat next to him. She would have sat right next to one of the arms of the sofa, if she had been alone.
The Captain looked at them, the corners of her mouth lifting. “You two have cut through a conundrum that has vexed this office for over a hundred years, with your energy credit system.”
Laura drew in a shaky breath. “We did?”
“You also handed us a dozen other headaches to take its place and that is why you’re here.”
Micah didn’t speak.
Laura couldn’t either.
The Captain smiled. “You’re not in trouble,” she said. “Well, not much. We’ll get to that. Did you know that the best minds on the Endurance have been trying to figure out a way to stabilize and regulate the explosion of promissory notes? A hundred years ago, people bartered directly and there wasn’t an issue. Suddenly, the notes started appearing and that raised issues we’ve never had to deal with before.”
“Defaults and disputes,” Micah said.
The Captain looked at him thoughtfully. “Yes, indeed. We considered a money system. We could never find a commodity that didn’t spoil or lose its value in some way. For a while, we even considered using cocoa beans.” Middlesworth’s eyes twinkled. “They are rare, hold their value or increase it and divide quite nicely. The only problem is that people would eat them instead of spending them.”
Laura let out another shaky breath. “People don’t eat energy,” she said.
“No one thought of using energy directly, until you two put your system in place,” Middlesworth said. “Now I have analysts slapping their foreheads and claiming they had thought of it all along, yet discarded the idea for a dozen different reasons.” She rolled her eyes.
Laura held back her own smile, not quite sure whether it would be well received.
“The other issue you cut through very nicely for us was one of acceptance.” She looked at Micah directly. “Your system wasn’t government issued and spread organically, faster than anyone said a government-sponsored system would be accepted.”
“It was needed. That’s why it was adopted,” Micah said shortly.
“It was needed.” Middlesworth nodded. “Did either of you stop to consider the problems it would cause?”
“We solved most of them before we launched it,” Micah said shortly.
“Did you?” Middlesworth said calmly.
Micah explained their thought processes and what they had done to counter all the problems that introducing currency to the ship would create. The public accountability and untamperable electronic credits were just two.
Laura let Micah do all the talking. In a stressful situation like this, she would have trouble remembering all the salient points, without Emma to guide her.
Instead, she watched Micah, fascinated. He was speaking freely, yet the scowl and the dark expression he always wore when dealing with anyone but her was still in place.
She could understand why everyone thought he was an unpleasant man, only she didn’t really understand it. Not anymore. When she looked at him, she saw a man with a hard past, who was trying his best to off-load it and deal with the world from the place where he now found himself. He had adapted and survived, despite the scars.
She saw his scowl and it made her remember how his smile always altered his appearance, like sunlights being switched on and bathing the area with warmth and light.
She would look at his hands and arms and the strength in his shoulders and remember what he could do to her with that strength and those fingers and forget completely that he had earned the strength playing tankball, which was now lost to him.
The Micah she saw was not the same man everyone else saw. She could live with that. In a way, she preferred it.
Once Micah had finished explaining, Middlesworth sat back. “There’s something you forgot to include in your preparations,” she said. “That’s the problem you’ve handed us.”
“Captain?” Micah said politely. He didn’t seem to be worried at all, despite the stern tone Middlesworth had used.
“You forgot that the Endurance is a closed system,” Middlesworth said. “The work we do on this ship, all of it, is essential to the ship’s longevity. From the lowliest mechanical engineer to the organic coders who help develop DNA combinations for the Quickening program, every single profession is needed to ensure the ship will go on to reach Destination. Your money will disrupt those essential services.”
Laura swallowed.
Micah merely looked thoughtful. “Competition…” he said.
Laura jumped. Competition and perceived value. That was something Micah had talked about before and she had read it in several of the endless texts he had made her study.
“Exactly,” the Captain said. “How long will it take before people realize they can make money designing clothing or painting pictures? How long after that before they choose to earn their living doing the far more pleasant creative work, instead of the essential yet far from glamorous service to the ship they have been providing until now?”
Laura squeezed Micah’s hand. “Actual profit and subjective value,” she whispered. “The chart I made.”
He glanced at her. Then he nodded.
“Explain,” Middlesworth said sharply.
“It would take a long while to explain,” Micah told her gravely. “It would take charts and full immersion into basic economic theory. Laura and I have been studying it for nearly a year now and we are only really starting to understand how it works.”
“Then give me the simpleton’s explanation,” Middlesworth said.
“You have to change the perceived value of the essential services.”
“You make them desirable,” Laura added and swallowed when Middlesworth looked at her with her sharp gaze. “I mean…pay more for the work.”
“Not just pay more,” Micah added. “You have to make the work look valuable and worthwhile so that people will want to do the work and be proud to be doing it. It’s a culture shift.”
“A mindset….” Middlesworth said slowly. Then she nodded. “How long do you need to do it?”
“Excuse me?” Micah said, for the first time showing anything other than a calm expression.
“You said you were both experts. Very well, then. I want you to solve the problem you created. Find a way to ensure that essential services aboard the Endurance do not suffer in this new economy you have invented.”
“My job…” Laura said slowly.
“You have a new job,” Middlesworth said sharply. “Both of you.”
“With a new pay scale, of co
urse,” Micah replied.
“Pay?” Middlesworth repeated. Her expression was flabbergasted.
“Pay,” Micah repeated firmly. “Let us be the examples, going forward. Pay us what we are worth, in energy credits. It will make it much easier if you act as you insist others behave. Pay us, as a new essential service.”
Middlesworth frowned. Then it cleared and she laughed. “I think I’m going to enjoy working with you two. Very well. Negotiate a rate of pay with my Chief of Staff. You won’t have to teach him how to use the credit system. He already has it installed.” She lifted her wrist. “We all do.”
* * * * *
Laura gave up her job as a software engineer, to the astonishment of her supervisor and co-workers.
The suite in the Aventine that Micah so rarely used became their new base of operations and the two of them began to research and develop systems and strategies for ensuring the long-term survival of the ship via the essential services that kept it operational and the people aboard healthy and productive.
Each night they would return to her house in the Esquiline. Many of those nights, Laura would spend tending the garden on her roof, while Micah sat with his back against the parapet, his left leg stretched out in front of him, watching her work. They would talk…and sometimes they didn’t. The silences no longer bothered Laura. They were peace-filled and contented moments.
One night, after a long day of frustrating meetings with Bridge staff to report on their progress, Micah connected the car to the Artery and sat back with a sigh. “They still don’t understand,” he said.
“They will. Once they use credits enough, they’ll get it.”
He picked up her hand and rested it on his thigh and stroked her fingers. “Relax. Work is done for the day.”
She grinned. “And I don’t have to go home and wash up, like I used to.” She glanced out through the hood of the car. “Hey, we’ve passed the Esquiline exit.”
“There’s something I want to show you,” Micah said.
“In the Palatine? Did Erron’s cow have the twins, then?”
Micah said nothing.
The car parked itself in one of the Palatine stalls. When Micah got out, he reached into the back stowage area and pulled out one of the green bags.
Promissory Note Page 13