April 6: And What Goes Around (6 page)

Akron, Ohio -  Jefferson Hobart of suburban Barberton was diagnosed with
Oppositional Defiant Syndrome after encouraging his son not to take behavior
improving medication prescribed by his school nurse. The judge ordered him to
not have any instrument capable of causing serious injury in his home. His
kitchen knives and a number of power tools were removed. Police arrested him
Wednesday after a neighbor reported him in possession of a pruning saw.

Stanley, Idaho – The Idaho court has affirmed that while state fishing
regulations specify what sort of aquatic animals such as frogs and minnows may
be taken for bait and in what manner and with what equipment, legislators did
not specify the taking of non-aquatic animals for bait in the latest rewrite.
While this may have been an oversight the correction of it is up to the
legislature not the court, Judge Wilson ruled. Although the defendant was in
possession of a valid state fishing license the charge of hunting an animal
without a license and not on the allowed list stands for Herman Defray of
Stanley. Judge noted there was no exemption for invertebrates, so his taking of
worms is illegal. His father Woodrow indicated he will pay the fine and not
appeal. He said his son at the age of nine still does not understand the
charges against him, but he will assure his behavior until he reaches an age
where he can understand the state's position. Several sellers of live bait as
well as exterminating companies have suspended operations until they can get a
clarification from the state Attorney General.

Oakland, California – Bestest Brands vs. Henry Briggs
DBA Hank's House of Savings. The California Supreme Court has ruled it  is an
unfair business practice and vague and unprovable claim to label an item at
sale as a "Best Value".

Denver, Colorado – The city of Denver and Colorado
Springs filed suit against Wasteway Corp. and the city of Kiowa in Elbert
county. The plaintiffs claim an ownership interest in the mining operation
emptying the corporation's landfill of material principally deposited from the
two towns during the 2040s. Citing provisions of the contract with Eco-Smart,
the third company in the past to have ownership of the landfill. The cities
claim an interest in any reclaimable materials and cite a theory that the waste
was being held in public trust and storage rather than transferring to the
beneficial ownership of the waste hauler.

It seemed to April that people were fighting ridiculous
battles over the smallest advantage. There must not be any honest way to earn a
reasonable profit so any weapon to be found would be used against competitors.
Likewise the state was anxious to label any activity that could be fined as a
crime. They were fighting over bread crusts. She decided to look at Disney's
take on international news. It was probably composed by a real human translator
not a program.

Rome, Italy - Reports from the city indicate this year's
flu season is somewhat early and heavy. The National Health Service reports
that limited stocks of this year's vaccines are already delivered. They will be
expedited to Rome since the current outbreak has not appeared in other cities.
Ample stocks of vaccine should be available nationwide in two to three weeks.
This is more than sufficient for the progression of a typical flu season. World
Health Organization spox says no other members report an early outbreak.

April didn't pay much attention to that. She was up on
all the normal immunizations. They usually got the same vaccine the USNA used.
Although some people were getting Asian variations since so much commerce was
through Tonga now. She'd had a universal flu vaccine that conferred some
general protection but wasn't as good as vaccine for a specific strain. It did
ease the severity of any flu if they guessed wrong this year on what strain
would be going around. She was finally tired and closed down the pad and headed
to bed.

"It's not
going to work," Deloris said, glancing up at him.

She was sitting
cross-legged on the other end of his bunk looking down at her pad. He hadn't
been sure she was listening since she'd never looked up as he expounded on his
plan. She wasn't emotional about it, as if she had a stake in the idea one way
or another, just flatly sure of herself. It stung because he
was
emotionally invested in his proposal and knew it, even though it was a weakness
to get too attached to an idea. He was emotionally invested in Deloris too, and
wanted her approval. But he was less aware of that than she was.

"Don't give
me that pitiful look. It's not like I'm attacking
you
. I've had a lot of
bad ideas too. If you could ask my mom she'd give you a whole list. Most of
them I tried anyway 'cause, you know, teenage and stubborn."

"At least
tell me
why
it won't work," Barak asked.

"You
mentioned before it's to weed out creeps and sociopaths. Well they already have
tests to do that and maybe ninety percent of the population on Home passed
those tests. Almost
all
of them who came up as company men before we got
a bunch who paid their own way. The tests work somewhat down on Earth, but they
don't work for crap when you apply them to a population who are smarter than
the guys who wrote the tests. I can take one and tell you line by line how they
tie to a previous question and what they are trying to get you to reveal. I'm
not screwy in the head and I'll admit I still answered a few questions with
what they wanted to hear instead of my honest reaction. They want sane to the
point of boring. If I was
that
sane I wouldn't have applied for this
job."

"But it isn't
a sit down and fill the form out test or interview. I want to do it as a
game
,"
Barak reminded her.

"Doesn't
matter, people will know. Look, if a prospective employer wants you to go to a
dinner with them that's a test too and you'd know it. You can't bullshit smart
people into thinking you have a sudden social interest in them outside of
hiring them. The folks hiring want to see if you drink too much or if your
mother didn't teach you any table manners. If you can't resist ordering the
stinger because somebody else is paying or if you are so damaged you can't sit
and talk for an hour without revealing you have extreme views or hitting on the
boss' assistant. Really smart people know it's
all
a test and can mostly
force themselves to act like a normal human being for an hour or two. You don't
just say, "Let's do the interview over dinner!' and not have them know
damn well it's a test. Same thing down below. Earthies will invite a potential
new guy for a game of golf. You can bet you don't beat the new boss and still
get the job. It tests subservience too. You don't want to hire somebody so
competitive they can't stand to lose a single game of golf. They'd have your
job in six months."

Barak was nodding
his head agreeing. "I'm simply going to have to hide the fact it is a test
at all."

"Huh! Lots of
luck doing that. How do you intend to hide it?" Deloris asked, skeptical.

"First step
is I'd like your promise you won't discuss this with anyone else or write it
where it might be revealed. You haven't had occasion to do that yet have
you?"

"Who would I
tell? Alice is the only other person I talk to about non-work stuff. I'll keep
it secret if you like. It's no burden."

"I'm thinking
to make it attractive as a game all by itself, with no promise of a job
interview or anything for doing well. Jeff will have to bankroll producing it
but I want people to buy it, not give it away. We might even make money on it.
I'm thinking maybe six people besides us who will know the real purpose of
it." After he thought about it a minute he added, "In fact we won't
ever
tell people it was the game that made us recruit them. Otherwise it will leak
out and destroy the continuing value of it as a recruiting tool."

"You'll need
to build in ways to cheat and betray other players to the cheat's benefit, if
that's behavior you wish to identify,  but limited so it doesn't destroy the
game." Deloris said. "It might get a bit ugly at times."

"That part
worries me a little," Barak admitted. "Am I going to weed out
somebody who views cheating as merely a natural part of the game but would
never do the same things in real life?"

Deloris looked at
him with a scowl. "You told me when we met that I'm socially more mature
than you. Well, listen up to my wisdom. You have much too generous and
forgiving a view of people. A guy who will cheat you at cards or dice or
anything like that will do it whether it is poker with a 'real' pot sitting on
the table or a game like bridge and nothing but the joy of beating you at stake.

"If you have
to tie it to something you consider
real
charge people to play but let
them get paid back some money for points earned playing. Even let them make a
bit if they are ranked high enough. Just be careful setting the payouts. I'd start
low and
ease
up on the final numbers. It will alienate people if you set
it too high and then have to cut it to keep them from ruining you."

"OK, I'm
thinking a payout and maybe some sort of convention every year. You play for
money but for rank and bonuses too. Besides the whole usual array of challenge
coins and t-shirts and crap. It'll need a really good title. Starship Commander
or Death Voyage Centauri or something. Jeff can have the core programming done
on Home or Central but let all the visuals and music and stuff done in Asia.
He  already has a lot of, uh... data work contracted out there."

"Stumbled and
almost said a secret didn't you?" Deloris asked. She was entirely too
perceptive.

Deloris got this
sudden shocked look.

"What? Does
the concept offend you?" he asked.

"No, no. It's
just that I remembered, I saw a really cheesy old classic movie that had almost
the same premise. In it there was a video game, an early free standing arcade
type game, that was a combat spacecraft. It had been put out to find somebody
with the right skills and reflexes to be a real pilot, but the kid who paid to
play it didn't know that until it lead to his recruitment." She looked
back down at her pad and tapped a few lines in rather than talk to it. "My
God, it's a hundred years old. The Last Star Fighter," Deloris read off
the screen.

"I'll watch
that," Barak said. "I might get some ideas from it."

"It's old
enough you won't understand some stuff in it. I remember there's visuals in it
I had no clue about. But there's a paper on it somebody wrote that puts a lot
of it in context. Neither are in our onboard web fraction, just a brief
citation. Which is reasonable. We are too busy running the
Yuki-onna
to
have much personal time to web surf. We don't need the expense of a huge web
fraction.

"I don't
suggest you request it sent from Home if you want to keep the idea secret.
Somebody smart might be archiving our data stream. I know it's encrypted, but
it's not a random onetime pad so if it isn't easily breakable now it could be
given a little time."

"No, I'll do it when we get back. Jeff will have some time before he
needs a crew." Barak grinned at her. "Besides, we have a couple of crew
already."

*
* *

The next day April
forced herself to take time and run. Mitsubishi was keeping up with the
increased population as far as adequate air systems and water recycling, but
some things got short shift. If she passed on her reservation somebody would
snatch it on standby and she'd be lucky to get one in another ten days. April
suspected somebody would open a gym soon if Mitsubishi didn't expand their
facilities. Maybe they wanted that to happen. They were hit with increased
expenses just like everybody else because of moving further from Earth.
Maybe
I should open a gym,
April thought. They already had a commercial zero G
handball court. It wasn't that radical of an idea.

The run she chose
was an easy one since she hadn't been coming faithfully. It followed an Irish
country road improbably empty of traffic. When her time was up a lady at a gate
invited her to stop for tea. That was a cute way to end it before the illusion
turned off. She went, not to tea, but to breakfast after a shower. Several
people nodded or waved in the cafeteria but nobody joined her.

At home she
studied for a couple classes, spoke for a half hour with a study partner in
Japan in Japanese, and then they switched and spoke English for a half hour.
She went most of the day without viewing any news programs or intelligence
reports. Earth was such a critical factor in their survival it needed constant
scrutiny, but it got old sifting through the whole mess. Instead of commercial
news or economic intelligence she chose Chen's radio intercepts. They were
edited, but still a bit different and she hadn't looked at many yet. After awhile
she felt compelled to call Jeff.

"I'm seeing
some really bizarre things happening in North America. A few of them make the
news and some don't. Some I got because your guy Chen sends interesting radio
intercepts he gets digging for other intelligence. I don't always see how they
are related to the economy at first, but he's pretty perceptive. I usually
agree after I think on it a bit. He grabs a lot down at the city and county
level where they use encryption that isn't all that good. All they really want
to make sure is that the public, or the crooks, can't follow their operations
real time. The lower level of encryption is cheaper and less given to
drop-outs."

"Just North
America?" Jeff asked, puzzled.

"Probably
not," April admitted, "but China is still in chaos from civil war,
and Europe I don't understand. I have to auto-translate a lot of stuff there.
Africa has
never
been anything I'd call normal and your guys like Chen
do most of their spying in North America. Nobody else seems such a danger to us
since China is a mess."

"What do you
consider 'bizarre'?" Jeff asked.

"Well, like
this story," April read off her pad. "Police in Salado Texas have
stopped and seized the fourth truck in the past two years transporting goods to
the Best-Price big box store in Austin. Company officials complain Salado
officers coerced drivers into signing a release of the truck and goods they had
no authority to give in exchange for a promise not to prosecute the drivers on
drug charges. The drivers all insist they were carrying no drugs but the police
claim to smell it on them. The company claims there is an inside connection
supplying information because the trucks stopped were heavy with such easy to
market items as food, electronics, hardware and footwear. Trucks carrying
seasonal and low density items such as produce, party and decorative items,
paper goods and clothing were never stopped.

 "State
police have filed an objection in court that Salado has not made a timely and
accurate accounting of the twenty percent cut of forfeiture items they must
share with the state. Best-Price officials say they are assigned specific hours
and routing by DOT regulations, so they have no options to bypass the town, and
warn they may close their three Austin stores. They have already filed one year
closing notices to retain that option.

"They have
tell them a
year
ahead if they want to close? Isn't that crazy?"
April asked him.

"If they have
more than fifty people yeah. That's the law and pretty standard. It used to be
sixty days and a hundred people. In Massachusetts it's twenty-five people. It's
supposed to limit the economic disruption, and give people time to adjust. If
there is a union they have more stuff they must do. There are ways to mitigate
it though," Jeff said.

"A
year
?
Can you imagine how much money they could burn through in a year?" April
asked.

"Yeah, but
they can cut back hours, close a couple days a week and stop resupplying the
store. They can offer the people at that store jobs in other stores and pretty
much close it down even though it is technically open. If you don't stock it
people stop coming. In Texas I'd say you could stop running the air
conditioning and most of the crew would quit pretty quickly."

Jeff stopped and
looked thoughtful. "Or just stop paying the utility bills and the power
company will shut it off for you. If that doesn't drive the last diehard local
customers away you can triple the prices on everything left in stock. The
government can get you for price fixing or selling under cost to drive others
out of business, but they'll
never
take you to court for being too
expensive. You might even get it down to one manager to make the gesture to
unlock the front door until the end of the year and a security guard."

April looked at
him like he was mad. "How do you know all this labor stuff?"

"You have
been studying banking and economics since we founded the bank and you came home
from Earth. You asked me at the start what to study so I knew what direction
you were going from where I pointed you. I've been studying too, but different
aspects of it. There was no point in us duplicating the same areas. I gave
Heather stuff to read too but she's been so busy with Central. I haven't asked
if she's kept up with her material. I can see she barely has time to eat and
sleep. You, I know you have, because you keep talking about it when something
like this surprises you," Jeff said.

"But you'd
have an empty shell of a building with half a dozen people and no customers
sitting for the rest of the year with empty shelves. It's all a
farce
,"
April objected.

"Yep, I
agree, it's ridiculous, all of it. At the end they'd probably shut off most of
the lights and the last handful of employees would just sit in the break room
and collect their pay until the year runs out. Jobs are that hard to get so
people have no shame to milk it to the last day. The police, the town
government, the state police, the company are all playing make-believe because
of the laws.