Anarchy in New Enlgand (7 page)

But the risk!
This was an all-in moment, and Barry was not the type to make tough decisions. As much as he hated being chained to the market, he had always tended to rely on popular demand of the customers to guide his actions; the reason he was successful in the first place. But here he was, one man who had to decide whether to take the risk with such an immense potential reward, but with such dire possible consequences.

Barry was used to betting with his money, but he had never bet with his freedom before. But then true power, in the old sense, had never been on the table. He felt like this was the reward that his whole life was building up to, and to give up on power would leave him only money – which was already at risk because of the pending BER report.

Barry thought that even if he did manage to hold onto his business, and maintain profits, what more could he look forward to in life? The very probable possibility of diminishing profits and less spending money only added to the desire to take this bet, and risk it all. Barry was shaking his head, gazing up in thought, biting and pursing his lips in quick and random succession. As his mind swayed from yes to no and back his body could practically be seen mimicking the thought process, like a drunk man trying to catch his balance after standing up too quickly.

"If there was some sort of insurance policy..." Barry pleaded, unable to commit, though wanting so badly to see the plan fulfilled. He was avoiding direct eye contact with Drake.

Drake was staring squarely at Barry. "How hard do you think it is to flee the area, go somewhere that no one will recognize you?"

"Pff," Barry let out a humorless laugh, "any agency in this hemisphere would recognize us through facial recognition eventually, and collect the probably gigantic bounty."

"There are places to go," drawled Drake as if this was obvious. He knew Barry was on the tipping point. "And we are talking worst case scenario."

Barry thought worst case scenario.
Worst case scenario I take off on my yacht and sail the world
. He thought that might not be so bad. Of course that still had its risks if he planned to go ashore at port, but then again he could choose his ports wisely, and perhaps hire people to buy the supplies he needed. Maybe there would be tropical islands without cameras. He would need to have supplies ready to change the appearance of his yacht enough so that it would not be recognized were he to become an outlaw. The idea was romanticized in Barry’s head, and he briefly imagined himself as a pirate, before becoming embarrassed at himself for having such a childish thought. But still, the rest sounded plausible. Plausible as a worst case scenario, if the ultimate plan, with the ultimate reward, failed.

"We’ll have to do this so that we will get some warning if things sour," Barry was speaking seriously and skeptically. "I’ll be on my yacht when it all happens, and I’ll want to be in contact with you throughout the entire ordeal. The first one you call as the pieces fall into place. Just don’t hang me out to dry."

Drake had convinced him. Drake’s face was the brightest Barry had ever seen it, and he swore he could see a full fledged grin for a split second. "I knew you would come to your senses," finished Drake triumphantly as he held up his glass of wine for a toast. "To government."

Barry smiled. He was entering into the most important contract of his life, what it had all led up to, with the best possible partner. He was starting to once again relax.

"To government!" he toasted.
Clink
.

Four

Molly was going over Barry Arbitration’s numbers at the office. She was only required to come into the office twice a week, but she was the type that didn’t mind the change in scenery from working at home. At the offices of Business Ethics Review there were plenty of workstations of various styles, and each employee had their own small closet to store work items in, to be retrieved and brought to the table, cubicle, or comfortable chair of their choosing. She had one hand in her hair, her elbow resting on the table. The other hand flicked the screen of her extra large tablet, the type ideal for work. It had on one side a 20cm screen, but could also fold out to reveal two 20cm screens which could combine to become flush and form one large screen, or be set at a 45 degree angle with one acting as a keyboard, and the other as the screen to form a laptop.

Molly had the screen on large, lying flat on the table. The earbuds she wore used EEG (electroencephalogram) technology to detect the natural electromagnetic signals the brain gives off. This allowed Molly to take notes without having to physically type anything. She could control virtually anything on her tablet by just thinking if she wanted to, but touch could also be used.

Molly could not believe how much was redacted from Barry’s personal report. It was not quite enough to make a big deal out of the redactions alone, but enough to arouse suspicion – or more suspicion in this case. She wanted to bring Barry Arbitration’s rating down, because she felt that the company deserved it; but she needed to build her case on solid evidence that readers could understand. As a reporter for Business Ethics Review, Molly’s job was to build a case against each company she rated, and present that case to readers. Some businesses were squeaky clean, others had their fair share of baggage. But rarely would a company be found to be so corrupt or unethical as to ruin its business; these revelations became less and less frequent as the years went on, and businesses learned that it was more profitable to remain legitimate.

Luckily, the juiciest news these days was considered corruption in business. This kept companies honest, because so many professional journalists, as well as amateurs, were watching. Since everyday people had pocket sized portables or mini-tabs connected via Internet for video calling, messaging on the go, taking pictures, recording video, and browsing, the news was everywhere.

"Hey Molly, check this out," Molly’s boss, Otto, said as he approached with his mini-tab in his outstretched hand. He spoke with a Northern European accent, which sounded like a mix of various pre-collapse accents, notably British and Scandinavian.

Molly took her earbuds out, and looked at the screen. She was used to her bubbly boss interrupting to show her a video or to talk. She didn’t mind the break.

"Remember this clip?" Otto asked, eyebrows raised.

It was a shaky video of two men sitting at a table in a fast food joint, taken from the next booth over. They were speaking in hushed whispers conspicuously.

"Yeah," Molly replied thinking back, "This was the owner of the packaging facility bribing the reporter to keep quiet, right?"

"Yes and with facial recognition they were both identified and everyone learned of the
heaps
of rat shit in one of the facilities that the reporter had uncovered on a surprise visit." Otto spoke quickly with much expression. He drew in a large breath and continued, "Well it was 6 days ago that the kid who shot the clip sold it to us, and today the entire packing company has closed, for good. Done! I think that’s a new record for BER!" Otto excitedly finished with a geeky smile and two thumbs up.

"Wow!" Molly was impressed, "Were all the factories just as bad?"

Otto launched into a new round of eager explanation, "No! It was just the one that had anything wrong with it, but once we broke the story we got
millions
of hits in the first several hours. It went viral. And when the
same
facility was checked again the situation had already been righted, but by that point the reporter had already sold us the
original
footage to try to save face."

"And no one even got sick? If the owner had just come clean and apologized he probably could have saved his business," Molly exclaimed with a dry laugh, shaking her head in disapproval.

Otto nodded with an almost sympathetic closed mouth smile, and then he was onto the next subject. "So how’s the Barry Arbitration rating going?"

"Eh, its fine," Molly sat back and gave a light sigh.

"Ah, well I think this is going to shape up to be another one of the classic Molly Metis-" Otto made a smashing motion and sound effects, "-destroyers!"

"Oh please," Molly laughed, "I haven’t ruined
that
many businesses. And they were all bad!"

"Still, my favorite was when you audited and brought down the bankers skimming their currency," Otto acted like he had just tasted something exquisite, touching his fingers to his lips with a kissing sound. "Perfect! When I saw the bank close and sell off its assets, I marched right up to the Head Editor for Business Ethics Review, I shoved my portable in his face and I said, hire this woman! And not only did each bank board member get
ten years
in confinement, but they had to forfeit their assets and serve the sentence in adaps!" Otto burst out laughing. "I love it!"

Special advertisers’ apartments were built by security firms to house certain guilty criminals, who were confined to the adap. They would be allowed to socialize with other confines (pronounced with the emphasis on the first syllable) at designated times. Some of the funds from the forfeiture would be used to give confines a weekly allowance which they could only spend on specific items, ordered through controlled closed network vacuum shipping tubes. Of course all the food, hygiene, and the few other items sold were advertised on the walls, and this helped fund the confinement adaps as well.

While this was a typical setup for the punishment of a crime, it was certainly not the only one. When the guilty party did not lose his assets in arbitration, he was often placed under house arrest in his own home and fitted with a tracker, or sometimes limited house arrest with some ability to travel still permitted. It all depended on the seriousness of the crime, and the sentence negotiated during arbitration. There were a handful of serious criminals in New England actually still held in an old style prison at the offices of various security companies, but this was rare, and only applied for crimes like premeditated murder and rape. Of course the rare instances of rape and murder were made even more rare since a good percentage of
attempted
rape and murder ended in the death of the attacker.

"They’re the minority though," Molly humbly downplayed her skills. "Most of my cases play out in the court of public opinion."

"Just as useful! Sometimes hitting them right in the bank account is the most appropriate punishment anyway!" Otto said as he made a slow punching motion. "Anyway keep up the good work, you are invaluable to me and to this company, and I shudder to think what businesses the good people of New England would patronize without your journalism to guide them!"

And with that, Otto was off leaving Molly smiling and shaking her head modestly.
It feels good to be appreciated.

Molly had been courted by a few different arbitration agencies, some offering her a decent raise compared to her current journalist salary, but she loved reporting, and did fine financially. If she went into arbitration, Molly thought she would want to start her own firm. She had been laying quite the foundation for a solid career in the field with her high-quality-reports over the past decade.

Molly was becoming something of an expert on the interactions of people and groups. The non-aggression principle was the foundation for modern common law – no victim, no crime – but there were always disputes on what constituted aggression, and what the victim could do to respond. She studied these cases, analyzing arbitration outcomes and retribution, in order to better scrutinize arbitration agencies and security companies.

For instance, an "equal and opposite reaction" was considered appropriate for a violation of a person’s rights. This meant that if someone trespassed on your property without knowing it, the appropriate response was to escort them off, and shooting them would not be considered an "equal" reaction to the violation (unless of course they had exhibited violent behavior towards the property owner).

Molly learned over time that it was a fine line for arbiters to walk, keeping their customers happy, but also making sure that outsiders were treated fairly. Otherwise the legitimacy of the arbiter would falter, and companies and individuals would stop doing business with them out of fear of unfair treatment themselves, or the desire to not be party to aggression. Vigilant patrons and the public policed arbitration agencies which had on some occasions gone under after a single misstep.

Even less important businesses were not immune to rapid boycott, when it became an overnight faux pas to patronize them. This sometimes happened if it got out that an employee, or a customer had been treated poorly, or if an adap expelled a zero-profit-generating-tenant. The fear of public backlash also contributed to why companies like UtopaCorp would hire pretty much anybody as long as they were willing to follow their rules.

Molly also found it useful and interesting to study groups who did not like the commercial world. Some people preferred to exit it completely, or only use the modern economy for certain high tech medical needs, or the occasional harder-to-come-by product. There were plenty of little neighborhoods and communities around where like-minded people joined together to form their own mini economy. Most of these were agriculture-based, involving many people who enjoyed working outside and with their hands making natural products and living a simpler life. Or sometimes their lives would be just as high tech, but the inhabitants just preferred to consort with their selected group. They would often have their own systems of property ownership and conflict resolution.

Only in extremely rare cases did a security company have to visit these mini societies for a breach of contract on behalf of an outside victim. And like businesses, if the microcosm cared about their public image – which admittedly some of them didn’t – they would give the occasional interested reporter a taste of what life was like in their world, and let the public know if they were free to join, they had to know someone, or couldn't get in even if they wanted too.

Over the decades a few sketchy cult-like communities cropped up, but each time a victim would leave and the perpetrators would be brought to justice on the victim’s behalf when the word got out, collapsing the settlement. There were groups that performed a charity service of finding victims of crimes who could not, for whatever reason, find protection, or bring the assailant to justice. Also, professional bounty hunters made it so that criminals had nowhere to hide in the shrinking world where you could get practically anywhere on earth within 8 hours from some combination of modern travel – usually magnet pods, but also space planes, and skyships.

But there were plenty of places the mag-pods didn’t go, because the people in the area had no interest. Or, in some areas just one pod terminal was required for thousands of residents, for occasional long distance travel.

The midwest of North America was host to several large societies with preordained rules that people had to follow in order to live there. The land would be owned by one person or group, and in order to rent or buy it, the buyer would have to agree to the owner’s rules, and this was the basis for "law" in the region. The attraction was bundled services and a sense of community.

In this way it was much like a town, where if people liked the system set up by the property owner, they would move there, and if not, they would move away. When major grievances arose against a town or city (i.e. if crime rates rose, or it was hard to do what you wanted), it was common to see a rival town spring up just miles away, attracting the disenfranchised folks from the other place. Since these towns were run like corporations, attracting townspeople with good rules and convenient services was necessary, and this created constant competition to form better and better towns where people wanted to live.

If a town became a cartel, and forced their will on people in a particular area without their consent, there were plenty of companies for hire that would set them straight, backed by arbiters who would essentially legitimize a company’s response to violations of others’ rights, by investigating, weighing the evidence, and offering guidelines and backing for an appropriate response.

In other communities rules were looser, and shunning was the most practical form of punishment for non-serious crimes. The Amish carried on, pretty much as they always had, and other groups adopted a more technologically advanced and less repressive version of their societies.

The so-called "social contract" was not forced on people based on geography, but was rather agreed to by people deciding to join a community or not. Since there were many options, anyone could easily choose another microcosm to inhabit without having to move around the world… although moving around the world was
also
pretty easy. And some people just decided to go live alone, or with a small group, take their protection into their own hands, make and grow most of what they needed and otherwise find those to trade with. They weren’t bothered by anyone who valued his own life and freedom.