“Off guard and circle.” The animal ceased growling and proceeded to pace out a ten-foot circle around David. Looking up cautiously, David saw a man-beast. Well, that was what he looked like from a distance through hazy, frightened eyes. And then as he rubbed the tears and sweat away from his eyes, David saw it was a not a man-beast but an unkempt human man with long sleeves surrounded by a pack of dogs. Canines of all shapes and sizes. The man wore a checkered black, red, and navy button-down shirt, open except for the bottom three buttons, and an outdated brand of pants, Under Armour or some such thing.
Wow, those are out of style, David thought. Out of style and out of production. It was a logo David didn’t recognize, something from historical Tertain documentaries. The man’s sleeves covered his left and right arms, completely obscuring any brands. No Productzens were allowed long sleeves. The law stated that your shoulder must remain bare from the neck to the left fingers so that your owner’s brand could be seen clearly. It was also in fashion among the Self-Purchased class of humans to dress without sleeves, to display their bare arms. Surely this man who controlled all these dogs was crazy. This man must be an antique. Someone should tell this guy to get with the times.
“Get up, get up. Fly Ri won’t harm you, eh—what’s your name?” A warm, friendly smile greeted David from behind a large, bushy black beard. Standing and shaking himself off, David took in the sight.
“You’re young. You must be my age. What’s with the illegal brand-covering sleeves and the old-fashioned outfit?” David did not know what else to say. He was still fairly shaken up. Blue brand ink oozed down his arm. Red blood stained his shirt.
“This is Flying Riot, or Fly Ri, as I like to call him. We were running a training routine when you set him off. No dog is perfect,” the dog man said. He dug out some food from a pocket dangling around his waist and signaled his dog. The pocket looked like a kangaroo pouch. The other dogs from the pack all stood back several yards and paced excitedly on a low concrete stoop, exuding boundless energy. It looked as if an invisible barrier held all the dogs on the raised stoop. They rushed to the edge but would not come down. David was happy for this. The attacker, Flying Riot, breathed heavily and barked as his master called him forward. “On guard,” he said, and the savage canine went crazy, barking at David. David jumped back and almost ran again, except for the sudden steadying arm of the trainer. “Stay. He won’t attack. I want him to be familiar with you. He will leave you alone in the future.” The trainer looked at David. “You are harmless, right?” And then he laughed but continued his training.
“By the holy stock. By the stock. Shitting stock,” David cursed as his muscles tensed in fear and his sweat glands began working overtime.
“This will just take a moment.” The trainer called the big dog down and then let him smell David. He then commanded: “Hope.” “Hope” must have meant “friend,” because the dog went off guard and relaxed and licked David’s feet and sweaty legs. The tongue was wet and rough like sandpaper.
“Fly Ri, hope, hhhooopppe,” the trainer repeated, and held out a cloth of silver silk. The cloth was then packed away into a sealed bag at the trainer’s belt. David watched the trainer’s face and saw that the cloth meant something to him. The trainer’s eyes went hazy for a moment, and his soul seemed to disappear from the present and into a murky faraway reality, to some past memory. The look passed as quickly.
Then the dog received his reward, a snack. It was tossed high in the air. The tidbit flew a yard above his head, and the dog leaped and did a backflip as he caught it and landed softly on his four legs. “Fly Ri, climb.” The dog trainer with the illegal sleeve rubbed his bushy black beard, whipped back his long hair, and hid it under a rustic camo hat. Something that was definitively not in fashion these days.
“Waldar the Whisperer?” David read a patch on the front of the man’s shirt in a tenuous and halting voice. “Am I still here?” David patted his chest and arms and legs to convince himself he was still physically where he thought he was. “My career flashed before my eyes.” David’s eyes watered with the thought of death.
“No tears about careers,” the beard said.
David looked over this unique character. “You’re young to own yourself. Musta have been born with a lot of freedoms from a Self-P couple.”
“I don’t fit into your normal categories. I wear sleeves because they feel better than not wearing them. I certainly don’t have any of those silly living-control tattoos. Just out for a routine training walk. Got to exercise the dogs.” Waldar looked at his dogs and tossed a ball down the road and yelled a signal to one of his black-and-white collies. “Isn’t that right, pack?” he said, speaking half to himself as he said it. “Fly Ri wanted to play, and you ran out in front of him right as I tossed him his ball.” Waldar waved his hands in a precise downward motion, and all the canines, including the devil, Fly Ri, lay down where they were. He continued as he looked at David, “That was one of the dumbest stunts I have ever seen someone do. You never run from an animal that has you cornered like that.” Pointing at Fly Ri, he continued more calmly, “His predator-to-prey instinct will go through the roof! You might as well lather yourself up with a steak and lie down and play helpless and scream, ‘Eat me now!” He laughed. “I guess they still need to teach basic survival skills in that Thrive un-humaning school. But let me see that mark of yours.”
David instinctively turned left to show his Nnect brand, as was common courtesy. “Shouldn’t you cut the sleeve off or buy some decent clothes? Honestly, that’s just a shameful way to market yourself. Don’t you think about job security at all?”
“Not your brand, fool. The teeth marks from Ri. I want to make sure you will be OK.” He looked over the cut marks, commenting that they were only small punctures and nothing serious. “You look like you were headed to the gym there. They will have gel aid that you can squeeze on those cuts. You will be good as new quicker than I can spit. Well, not as fast as I can spit.” And he spat. “Sadly, that shiny blue label of yours may be damaged somewhat.”
David looked at the brand and rubbed it. There was no way it would be damaged. It was part of him.
The Whisperer squinted and waved at his dogs, a distinct upward movement of the palm and then a slight push forward. The animals sat and stayed obediently in place, each head bobbing back and forth, some white and some brown and some black with gray-speckled fur. Some with long fur and some with short hair. Some lanky and some petite. Fly Ri seemed a lot less scary in this calm, controlled state around his master. “The way I see it, and the way it is, is that Xchange tried to train proper animals into useful branded tools,” Waldar said. “But they failed. You can’t take the beast out of the beast with a stupid brand. They quickly learned that they could not produce reliable attack dogs, protection dogs, rescue dogs, or even a household pet with their branding methods. Then they learned that a man with a brand could not teach a pet shite—excuse my uncouth Orns. A man who is not his own master cannot master another creature. Dogs follow alphas and not tools. So I have my freedom because I am good at something they need, and they get their dogs. They may hate my approach, but I am part of a small group with the only worthwhile canine results.” He pointed at the brand on David’s arm. “If you ever want to get that off and trade it for a flannel and some old-school clothes and good, honest work, I could always use some dummy attack target or live decoy to help train my dogs for bite work. The people Orns keeps supplying me with are weak and retired people. I need some athletic types to give Ri a proper workout.”
The strange man and his dogs moved as a pack in the opposite direction from the gym. “Have a good day, and may the Creator’s light shine on you,” the Whisperer said as he smiled and jogged away with his pack.
“Good doing to you, sir.” What a strange fellow—obviously out of the system and a little secluded from Mindmonk sermons if he is spitting out historical Creator propaganda. David turned and walked back toward the Thrive gym. Well, he did save my
life. I will not be another sad statistic this day. Back to work and the grind. As he mused on work, the brand activated partially, and he felt a small dose of pleasure, excitement, and energy boost through him and then dissipate. The brand input was not as strong as normal, but David credited the foible to his recent near-death experience and his current fragile state of mind. He ran hard to the front door of the self-improvement center.
Chapter 3
Gym Foolishness
The newly installed Thrive Self-Improvement Center was top in its class. The white platinum dome was an impressive modern structure; the Ssential group must have sent some of their finest engineers to work on it. Mirrored windows circled the base of the building. A video screen that matched the mirror below displayed advertisements such as Tertain shows, stock numbers, and public announcements in brilliant 3D. David recognized the powerful face of the current CEO of Xchange, Saul of Nnect; he was reading off some encouragement speech as David made his way into the reception area. The blue welcome doors zipped open, anticipating his arrival, and the two athletic-looking product-training specialists and gym owners, Lisa and Jason, smiled and waved to David. Lisa and Jason were twins and were highly recommended by David’s cube mates as the best in the industry, at least in the price range that David was able to afford. Gym memberships could be written off as business investments. The owners were highly professional, and they guaranteed impressive and consistent results, very unusual for any facility to do. David wanted to look his best; he wanted to be his best. There was a strong correlation between looks and results. Lisa and Jason were unusual in that they were freeborn and still working. They were the children of the illustrious CEO Sarah of Thrive and did not actually need to work because of something called endowment. David was not an expert but recalled that “endowment” meant “generational wealth.” Furthermore, the twins were known all over Xchange for their daredevil tandem air-surfing dives, one of the most extreme sports legally allowed outside of Orns. The twins were the recent victors of the Orns Air Surf Championships and were entering the infamous Orns Death Surfing Series for the thrill of the challenge. Their mother publicly denounced the twins for their dangerous sporting, but they continued. The fiery redheaded twins were celebrities with impressive résumés. David thought he could learn a lot from these two. Another attractive advantage was that the twins were very kind. This was unusual for free people, who were often, rightfully, very condescending. Looking down on people was to be expected and normal, but it didn’t feel great to David. These two treated him like he owned himself, not like he was just a number. It felt good on a lot of levels coming into the gym today. It felt safe; he looked around and didn’t see any dogs.
“Good doing, David. What will it be today? We have several machines programmed with some potential routines. Which you would like?” Lisa had short-cropped red hair, matching Jason’s in length. She was lean and supple where her brother was broad and powerful. “We actually added a new pull-up sequence into your normal push-and-pull cardio machine routine if you want to give that a shot. There is also the new air-dive tunnel if you want to give your daredevil side a try.”
“Actually, the pull-up routine sounds like just the thing.” David waved his brand with the still-wet dog-bite blood. “I already had enough daredevil events for one day.”
“Bloody stock!” Jason said. “Jumping out of the Gravetless before it stopped?”
“A dog bite.” David failed at sounding brave.
“Here is a gel aid. Should give you proper healing within an hour. No need to go to a Thrive repair hospital unit,” Lisa said kindly.
David smiled as he looked out from behind the reception desk to the main workout floor, tentatively searching for Gayle. The personal training unit machines were twice the size of a human and six feet wide. The workout units were transforming apparatuses with pd-t (Product Trainer) stamped along the high-density composite rubber columns and bars. The computer stationed alongside each PD-T machine would load a program and shape the machine to fit the customer’s routine. These machines could turn into bikes, weights, or running devices and were at the top of the line for human performance. They built muscle without degrading tissue by intensive impact. If you coupled this machine with the personal product trainee advice, you were guaranteed results that would make you look better and be better. Such looks had the potential to keep you marketable all the way to the forced retirement age of thirty-five. Just beyond the second row of machines, Gayle-25 was doing a box jump sequence on her PD-T machine. There were two empty machines near her, one to her left and one a row behind her. Maybe he could have a conversation with her today.
“So where will it be today, and what’s the plan, David?” Lisa handed him a synthetic sweat-absorption towel and energy pill. She waved the key teasingly in front of his face. “I see where you are looking, boy.”
“Can you put me next to Gayle again?” David was embarrassed by the request and lowered his voice when he said it.
“You are beginning to sound more and more like a forlorn lover, David, from those Medieval Storyworld shows you are always ranting about.”
Jason looked up from his computer station and said, “Fantasy-story boy! Love that you are into that sort of thing. By the way, what bit your arm again?”
David welcomed the distraction from the Gayle discussion. “A massive dog that was with a strange canine-whisperer man. The man had no brand.” Lisa and Jason shared a look of recognition at the mention of the dog trainer.
“Waldar,” Jason said to his sister quietly.
Lisa cut her twin off to finish the conversation about David choosing to be next to Gayle. David froze as Lisa’s initially warm smile became stern. “Picking a specific product to get to know and relate with almost makes it seem like you want to buy her, which only a Self-Purchased would be able to afford.” She waved the machine keys in front of him again. “You are getting reckless with your dreams. I may have to report you to the QC for further investigation,” she teased as David went pale and began to stammer awkwardly.
“I am not a creep, Lisa, and I swear upon my managers that I have no past record of discontentment.” David was quick to defend himself against accusations—too quick. Being called out on shit was embarrassing and degrading to him. He was really quite defensive. “I…ah…uh…” Not knowing what to say, he realized frantically that he must have been caught doing something illegal or out of his pay grade, so he shut his mouth. Don’t say anything else, he scolded himself.
David looked nervously around at the blinking computers that advertised along the walls of the open reception area. He wondered if QC cameras were watching, analyzing, and categorizing him as a threat to the city of Xchange. “Uh-oh.”
Laughing in her usual friendly voice, the threatening expression gone, Lisa held out her hand to her brother and said, “Pay up your freedoms on time this time, and don’t act shady like an Orns garbage cleaner employee.” Jason came up behind them and gave her a stack of freedoms. Lisa said to her brother, “I told you I could get him thinking he was a criminal.”
She said with a giggle, “In our facility, you can work out next to anyone you want to, David, as long as you both don’t mind.”
Her large and thickly muscled sibling let out a jolly laugh and punched her in an affectionate way. “Lisa, I swear by baby stocks that David here thought you’d pin him down for trying to marry a fellow Productzen. Hahahaha. David, smile, man, and no harm done. Cease the look of doom and gloom.” He patted David on the back.
Shock and alarm turned into a nervous smile. Maybe the two self-owned trainers were not about to turn him in to QC after all. Self-Purchaseds could influence Quality Control justice. One complaint from them would send David to a personal objectability review. But these two were often boisterous around the gym with the other customers, and things seemed all good here. It must be nice to have a job where you got to interact with the people you helped. David helped people at Nnect but never interacted with them. No
one but his teammates and boss actually understood his position.
He said to her, “So, I didn’t do anything wrong, Lisa?” I need to keep in line with the code of conduct or I will be fired.
“Not at all—well, not in this gym anyway. We encourage our customers to get to know each other. Productzens and Self-Purchaseds are treated the same under our roof. You are humans, too, after all. It is part of our forward-thinking business model and our plan to change the world to a more natural state. Plus, if we can mess things up for the upper class and even stir the system up a little, why not?” David saw Lisa look at her brother when she said the last part.
Mess with the system a little? Huh. David wondered what they meant by that. Must be some joke between the two of them that went over David’s nerdy engineering head. Turning back to him, Lisa said, “How hard do you want it today? Want to impress her some?”
“Yes, yes,” David slurred out in his awkward excitement to impress and connect. He was led through the gym to the left side of Gayle-25 by a meandering path around the obstacles and the people working out. His heart skipped a beat, and he excitedly thanked Lisa as his computer pad beeped a “Welcome” and activated. His personal program was loaded onto the visual control pad. He punched the OK button on the transforming PD-T. “Let’s get to it,” he whispered encouragingly to himself as he began the intense physical program.
An hour later, still with half his workout to go, David finished a sequence of pull-ups, breathing heavily and feeling on the threshold of vomiting from the exertion. A scrap of crinkled white paper slid unexpectedly into his workout space. He looked up, surprised, thinking that it must be another joke from Lisa or Jason. But twisting from his hanging position, he saw Gayle wave briefly, point at the paper, and then walk off. Surprised and intrigued, he jumped down midworkout. Up until this point, David had rarely interacted with Gayle beyond a few socially acceptable words that complimented her on how good she looked and how nice her brand was. He hadn’t yet gotten up enough courage to go beyond meaningless chitchat. He hadn’t even asked her what she did or where she worked or what her career goals were. What an embarrassing failure, David chided himself. He should ask her the deep, meaningful questions that might show he was interested.
A Tale Of Doings Page 4