by Jon Ricker
of 99percent, Occupy Wall St Movement
jcrpda@gmail.com
In a dirty park in the middle of an all-but-forgotten corner of the city, a well-dressed man and woman are arguing. This landfill-turned-park is just off of the river. The only scenery is the scrap yard on the other bank of the river and a decaying power plant. Drizzle is falling from a dark grey sky; it’s been falling ever since two in the morning and in the last seven hours the ground has become so saturated that it is practically oozing under them. No one comes to this park by choice. No one except these two arguing souls.
The man is slightly taller than average with wavy brown hair and a stocky build. The woman contrasts him in almost every way. Her jacket is bright red while his is a subdued greenish brown. Her body is skinny and her small face is framed by extremely straight reddish-blonde hair. Nothing about them indicates how they happen to know each other and yet, on this dismal cloudy day, they make lively hand gestures, point fingers, and raise their voices.
Ansel shifts his feet on the soggy grass. “You don’t understand. We’re out here because I’ve discovered something that greatly compromises everyone’s freedom, and I think every corporation in existence will be after me if they know I was the one that breached their security.”
“I think I understand just fine; you’ve finally lost what little sanity you had. Take off your tinfoil hat and look around. People aren’t disappearing. There’s no big government policing our thoughts. We’re free and healthy. Even though I agree that the corporations have taken more than they deserve from us, I’m tired of your propensity to blow things like this out of proportion.” Tasha waves her hand dismissively.
The ground makes a sucking sound when Ansel takes a step toward Tasha. Her dark skin and athletic build have accompanied him so many times in his bed. If only she could see his point of view without making a snap judgement on it. “I never blow things out of proportion. You just don’t want to worry about anything.”
She points at him and stamps her foot, splashing some muck onto her red leather boots. “Fuck you. I worry about plenty of—”
“Just stop. I found a site where corporations bid on what spin they want INN to put on news stories or whether the stories get aired at all.” He stops in mid-step, just a couple feet from her. If he didn’t love her so much, he’d just leave without her, just use his connections to disappear and never contact her again. His heart aches with the hope that she’ll stop being angry and actually listen. Why is reason so far from people when they need it the most?
Her face scrunches in annoyance. “Didn’t I just say I was tired of your tinfoil rants? What you’re saying is way over the top. INN was set up so that neither governments nor corporations can influence it. They give the people both sides of every issue; their mission statement says that they are there to bring the truth to light. I wrote a paper on it, so I probably know more about it than you do. Please calm down so we can go somewhere and get out of the rain.”
Pushing down the urge to yell, Ansel tries to regain his composure. He only has about twenty minutes before he has to begin the next stage of his plan. “Then how do you explain what I saw?”
“Some nut was probably playing a joke. I once saw a site that claimed to be selling mail-order brides, but when I clicked on the link to see pictures I laughed my ass off. I think I showed it to you—the pictures were of juice boxes dressed up like women. There were even little profiles for each of them.” A small smile makes it onto her face.
Annoyance wells up in him. Has she always been this difficult? Is she mocking him? “That was clearly a joke; what I found wasn’t. If you look at the data I managed to pull from the site, you’ll see why I’m sure—”
“I don’t care if it’s real or not. We can’t do anything about it. Your friends think you’re the best hacker out of all of them, so I don’t think you got caught. Even if you did, you can’t run from the authorities in today’s world.” She offers her arm as her anger fades and her expression becomes one of genuine concern. “Let’s go back to my place, have something to eat, and watch a movie or something. I’ve had times when I was mad at the world too.”
Dizziness washes over him as he wonders what’s happened to her. This isn’t the Tasha he knows. “When did you become such a golden consumer? You’re okay with INN being compromised?”
With a sigh, she runs a hand through her drizzle-soaked hair. “What’s wrong with being a golden consumer? I have amazing credit, I get the best discounts and I can buy products the silvers don’t even have access to. Like I said, I can’t do anything about INN, so I don’t care..." A thoughtful expression forms on her face as she crosses her arms. "Do you see me for who I am or who you want me to be? A lot of the time I think you only see what you want to see.”
Ansel wrings his hands and frowns, trying to understand what’s going on. Does he really only see what he wants to? Has he misjudged her by always giving her actions the benefit of the doubt? Frustration wells up in him. Why can’t she be just the way he envisions her? Why are people so opaque to him? “I don’t get it. Why are you with me then?”
“Sometimes I don’t even know. Your vidtek was what drew me in; your intellect, bank account, and talent between the sheets kept me around. I care about your art and generous personality, but I don’t care for your paranoid hyperboles. I agree, the world could be better, but I’d rather live in it than fight against it.” She shakes her head. “I would have brought an umbrella if I knew we’d just be standing out here in the rain this long. I’m okay with getting a little wet, but this is getting ridiculous.”
Fazed by his own inability to fathom how he started to go out with this woman, he just stands there. Anger, misery, surprise, and self-loathing are colliding in his head. He accepts his emotions and gathers his resolve as his logic clicks into place. Emotions don’t control him anymore, only reason does. The expression on his face becomes blank. All he can do now is try to learn from this and move on. Before he’s able to start saying goodbye, she starts talking again.
Holding up a finger, she gives him the look. “The first time I thought about breaking up with you was when you said you loved me only a week after we met. This is the second time. Not only are we in the rain, but we’re probably in the only wireless dead spot for ten miles. I can’t even tweet about being soaked with drizzle. Complaining on Twitter always cheers me up.”
In his nearly emotionless state, the look has no effect and her attempt at levity is ignored. “I hacked last night because I knew there would be drizzle today in case I got caught. On a sunny day, a satellite could optically track me after I went to this dead spot and turned off all my communication ports. I picked this dead spot so that you wouldn’t broadcast our conversation. I was pretty sure that you’d get mad at me if I told you to turn off all your communication ports, so this was the next best choice.” He takes his large backpack off and puts on latex gloves before pulling out his popper and an air horn. Then he puts the backpack on. Looking at the popper, he thinks about how he's been conditioning himself over the past couple months to be able to hold this two-and-a-half-pound out-of-date non-lethal weapon. The weight is annoying, but the obsolescence is a very good thing—if this gun was recent, it would never make it through security.
She watches him intently and then straightens when she sees the popper. "What are you going to do with that? You and I both know it doesn't work." Her eyes look at the ovular body of the device and then into the lens on the front, and her brow furrows as if she's wondering about the truth of her statement.
“It turns out that parts for this are only nearly impossible to find. Gabe helped me get it working.” As he talks he flips the waterproofed power switch. A counter at the back starts at 4.37 seconds. After two seconds pass, a small screen says, “Readjusting: Rain” and almost two more seconds get added.
Seeing the glow of the gun’s red and amber indicators reflecting off of his coat, she brings a hand up to her mouth and touches her lip. “Ansel, why are you pointing it at me?”
The numbers in the counter are replaced by red letters saying “READY” and he steels himself for what he’s about to do. He’s practiced shooting this in his basement, but this is the real thing. Controlling his breathing, he manages to remain calm. “I can’t chance you running and telling someone anything I’ve told you, not for a while. I don’t want to chance screwing up your implants, so please turn off—”
“No! Don’t!” She turns to run.
He toots the air horn with one hand while he pulls the trigger with the other. In a thousandth of a second two laser pulses come out of the gun. The first one turns a tiny area on the side of her jacket into plasma, and the second beam excites the electrons in the plasma to cause an explosion of electric potential and a small amount of concussive force. The air horn masks the shriek she makes from the immense pain of the electric current as it stuns her into unconsciousness, and the loud pop the expanding plasma makes. She falls backward in mid-turn and lands on her back. The fact that she fell lying face up is good; he doesn’t have to turn her over to prevent her from drowning in the mud.
The pain in his ears isn't so good, but he's sure that if there are any police mic's in this poor part of town, they didn't hear her scream or the telltale sound of the popper. He makes a couple more toots with the air horn before putting it in her hand. Now someone will think she has a very odd sense of humor. She will probably have trouble explaining why she has an air horn, and why she got mud all over her designer clothes, if someone finds her like this. The more confusion surrounding what just happened, the better. He better get moving; he isn't sure how long she'll be out. He'd tie her up, but that would make it easier for her to convince the authorities that her story was true.
After turning off the popper, he puts it back in his backpack and takes off his gloves. He jogs until he's out of the low area where he left Tasha and within eyesight of the people in the nearly-condemned apartments just next to the park. The dead spot in the network stretches for many blocks in this area.
A couple of skinny Sudanese boys are looking toward him, probably wondering what all that noise was. If they were much older, their health might compromise their curiosity. The larger boy is in his mid teens and has baggy clothing that Ansel knows will fit him, while the smaller boy looks like he’s around eight or nine. He walks calmly toward the boys. The anger he feels about what modern society has done to this area and these people scratches at his resolve.
The people that live here are what the corporations call "lead consumers;" they didn't pay their bills on time, didn't keep jobs for long, left too many bad reviews on products, and used way too much tech support. Police only care if the crime in this area makes it into other areas. These people don't have any connection to the internet, so they can't do any real damage. They don't even live that long, because they are provided with only the most basic medical care, and pollution regulations are completely cut back in the areas they inhabit. The only reason corporations slightly care about these people is that they are an example to other consumers. Well, that and the very cheap labor they provide.
Going into this area is probably the most dangerous part of his plan, but he's confident he'll make it through this. One of the kids walks up to him with a blind confidence that only a teenager can have. His chest is puffed out enough to stretch his ripped blue jacket. "What're you doin' here, precious? Aren't you out of your element?"
It's been a long time since Ansel's been called that. Every level of consumer other than lead is a precious metal, and almost every lead on the planet has taken to calling anyone with a higher rating "precious" as some sort of sick societal joke. How this term spread, Ansel may never know, but it probably was just due to the transient nature of the leads. "Tell your parents that I have a deal for them."
“What’s in it for me?” the boy says as his younger brother shyly hides behind him.
He moves closer to the boy and speaks in a low voice. “Your parents will have tickets to the zoo and gift certificates for medical care for your whole family.”
"Why should I believe you?" Brimming with bravado, the boy tries to poke Ansel in the chest to accentuate his statement, but Ansel dodges to the side nimbly. The teenager becomes confused when his finger misses and tries to poke Ansel again, only to miss again.
When the boy tries to touch Ansel a third time, Ansel dodges and puts some distance between them. The younger boy starts laughing quietly while Ansel looks at the taller kid. "I have a plan that will help bring down the corporations, but it won't work if your DNA is on my clothing. It's your choice whether to trust me. I don't want to have to find a different family to work with, because I don't have much time."
The taller boy's entire facade crumbles as he weighs the risks and benefits of Ansel’s proposal. The shorter boy looks out from behind his brother and then speaks quietly to him. "He's too silly to be a real bad guy and papa needs help. We should help him."
Looking down at his brother, the older boy says, “I have to make sure of something first.” He looks at Ansel’s face with narrowed eyes. “You said you’re going to take down the corporations... Are you a terrorist?”
With a slight shake of his head, Ansel says, “No, hurting people is not how I plan on fixing things.”
With a nod, the boy motions for Ansel to follow him. “Then I think your plan might work; follow me.” The boy leads Ansel through smelly hallways with peeling paint and up stairs with loose railings to apartment 259. He knocks twice and the person inside opens the door.
An average-sized man with greying dreadlocks in a haphazard ponytail stares at Ansel. Then he looks at his boys and says something in Arabic that Ansel’s implants translate into “Why is he with you?” and display as subtitles in his visual field, using a direct link with his optic nerve. He lets the boy answer the question, not wanting to emphasize his affluence in front of them.
The boy looks at Ansel and then back at his guardian. “He wants our help and he’s got some great stuff to give us in return. He said he has medical gift certificates.”
The man reaches for something behind the door and then shows a long sharp knife to Ansel. “Okay, I’ll listen, but if you do anything I don’t like, this knife will be in you before you can blink.” The man steps back and opens the door.
Once inside, as Ansel is setting down his backpack, the man puts his knife to Ansel’s throat. The motion the man makes is simple and quick, catching Ansel completely off guard. Ansel is stuck in an uncomfortable half-standing half-crouching position as the blade threatens to slit his throat. The only way this could be worse if if the man was grabbing him.
The man's voice is only slightly aggressive and he sounds somewhat confused about this situation. “Too bad you’ve already done something I don’t like. You walked into this lead town with your gold clothing and gold accessories and you asked a lead with two children for a favor. Are you shitting me? How do I know that you’re not some combat cyborg that’s going to kill all of us because the corp that gives you a paycheck said that I’m dealing in corporate secrets from the last temp job I had?”
As Ansel realizes that his plans may end here, his emotional control wavers. His breathing and heart rate increase. He has to get this guy to back down without touching him. If genetic material from this man ends up on him or vice versa, things won’t work right at all. He has to bluff. “For my plan to work, you cannot touch me or be this close to me. If you get spittle on me or any other genetic material, you might end up in prison. I’m wanted for crimes against Derguess Corporation and there’s a man hunt for me.”
The moment Ansel mentions Derguess Corp., the man’s eyes widen. He puts his other hand in front of his own mouth. “Working for them is one of the leading causes of death in this town. You’re their enemy?”
Good, he bought it. Ansel slowly puts a hand in front of his mouth. “Yes, I got some dirt on them that I’m going to put up on INN. The corporate council might shut them down over it.” The longer the knife is near his throat, the closer it seems to get. Ansel can’t stop from tensing up his neck.
“Why should I believe you?” The man moves the knife a couple centimeters away from Ansel’s throat.
Ansel’s neck muscles relax, but his heart rate is still pretty fast. He manages to breathe more slowly and starts to get some mental leverage against his emotions. “What do you have to lose? I obviously don’t have any need to steal anything from you, I’m not going to ask to be alone with your kids, and I promise that I’m planning to shift the balance of power back into the hands of the consumer.”
The young boy pulls on his father’s shirt and speaks in a quiet voice as if he doesn’t want Ansel to hear him. “If this man has stuff to give us, we might be able to get your kidneys looked at. I don’t want you to die, papa.”
Taking the knife away from Ansel’s throat, the man gives it to the older boy. “Keep this pointed at the precious until I tell you to stop.” He pats the little boy on the shoulder. “Okay, I’ll try it your way.”
Looking up at his father, the young boy says, “Thank you, papa.”
The confident boy is holding the knife out with both hands, but his expression is one of great interest, not one of malice. His eyes are wide and his mouth is just slightly upturned.
Now that his life’s not in immediate danger, Ansel notices the wonderful black-and-white photographs that are decorating this home. Photos of Antelope Canyon, the Empire State building, downtown Chicago, and the Louvre are among them. “These are great photos; did you take them?”
Furrowing his brow, the man looks at Ansel. “How can you ask such a question just after I had a knife to your throat?”
“I understand why you did what you did; I don’t have a lot of time to dwell on events that are already past. I was going to keep this all business, but these photos deserve at least some attention.” Ansel looks at the one of downtown Chicago. Stairs leading to the subway are at the perfect angle to accentuate the shops around it. Falling snow is spread perfectly throughout the image. It’s like the photographer captured a perfect moment when the wind was still and the pedestrians were all posed just right. His heart rate slows as he looks at the image.
The man’s face brightens slightly. The smile has sorrow behind it that Ansel can’t read. “My deceased wife took them before we lost everything. I’m not going to talk about it.” The sorrow disappears and the man looks Ansel sternly in the eye. “Tell me what you want.”
The sudden intensity from this man causes Ansel to take a step back. “I’m going to give you some medical, food, and zoo gift certificates and some silver coins for two sets of your son’s clothing.”
“Silver coins?” Genuine curiosity softens the man’s expression. “How old?”
“Late eighteen-hundreds,” Ansel says as he stretches his legs.
The man’s mouth becomes slack with surprise and his eyes look off in the distance as if he’s imagining all the things he can do with Ansel’s goodies. “All you want are some of my son’s clothes?”
“Yes, and one other thing. I’m going to cut my tongue and bleed on my clothing. Then I’m going to cut holes in my clothes where the blood is. I want you to hide my clothes in a place near where the scum that makes this area dangerous are active. If you don’t, you might get in trouble for having my bloody clothes. I won’t give you anything until I’ve bled on them.” Ansel tries his best to sound like he’s sane when he knows what he’s saying is quite the opposite.
When the confident boy tries to speak, the father puts his hand out and shakes his head. “You want to cut your tongue? Wouldn’t cutting something else be better?”
Time is running out. He needs to get out of here soon so that he doesn’t chance Tasha waking up and ruining any hope he had of getting away. “I need my voice to sound different. I’ll get it fixed later. Do you have a problem with anything I’ve said? I have to start doing this now or my plans won’t work. I need baggy clothes and if you have a cane, I need that. I need two different sets of clothing. One drab looking and one slightly more presentable.”
The old man snaps his fingers and points at the taller boy. “Jay, put the knife away then go get one of your athletic outfits and a pair of sweatpants and that big shirt with the ugly pattern on it.”
“Okay, dad,” the teenager says before going into the kitchen and putting the knife away. Then he walks out of Ansel’s sight.
Ansel looks at the old man and points at the floor. “I’m going to cover your floor with plastic; don’t come near me until I’m done. Watch your kids and make sure they don’t come anywhere near the plastic. I’m going to burn it, but I don’t want to risk anything incriminating getting on my clothes.”
“I’ll just go and wait in my son’s room, then.” The man leaves the room quickly as if he doesn’t want to see what’s about to happen.
Ansel opens his pack, grabs a pair of latex gloves and puts them on. Then he takes out a roll of painter’s plastic and lays some of it out over the carpet. He puts the rest of the plastic in his pack before standing in the middle of the plastic and taking off all his clothes. He will miss his shirt. It has sensors that can give him feedback about his heart rate, breathing, skin conductivity, and skin temperature. When he has everything off, he turns his pants and shirt inside-out and lays them out on the plastic. He pulls a knife and a small butane torch out of his backpack.
After turning off his pain receptors, he grabs the end of his tongue and cuts the tip off. Dropping the tip on the plastic away from his clothes, he sticks his bleeding end out of his mouth and seals his lips around it. He picks a few spots on his shirt and pants and lets the blood fall onto those areas.
After those areas have a lot of blood on them, he heats up the knife with his torch and cauterizes the end of his tongue. Turning his clothes back right-side-out, Ansel waits for his knife to cool. Each place that there’s blood, he makes a cut in the clothing. When he’s done, he puts the clothes inside a black trash bag. Then he wipes the knife off on one of his gloves and burns the remaining blood on his knife until it turns black, trying to destroy any evidence of what he’s done with this knife. He hopes he didn’t burn his fingers in the process; not having his pain receptors on has its drawbacks.
Taking off his gloves, he lets them fall onto the plastic and puts on a new pair. He puts the clothes inside two more trash bags. Using the knife, he cuts his shoes up to make them look unrecognizable. No logos, no perfect seams, ratty laces and plenty of scrapes. To get the scrapes to look right and to mangle his laces, he pulls the knife along them without cutting into them. The serrations on the knife catch on the fabric and tear it instead of cutting it. Next he cuts up the treads of his shoes. He cuts a lot more tread off of one shoe than the other.
When he’s all done, he calls for the man. “Hey, I’m rea'y.”
The man comes out and looks at Ansel’s naked body and the blood on the plastic, and grimaces. “I’ll bring the clothes.” He looks in the room when one of the boys says something Ansel can’t make out. The man says “No you can’t! Give them to me,” in Arabic.
Ansel holds out his arms and says, “Dhrow me da clothes,” using his crippled tongue.
The man tosses the clothes and Ansel catches them. He puts on the ugly blue shirt, underpants, socks and sweat pants. Then he puts on his shoes. The shirt seems thick enough to work without a jacket. The clothes are perfectly baggy, hiding his body shape. “Oh, I need a cane.”
The man dashes off to his bedroom and comes back with a perfectly ordinary brown wooden cane. “Want me to throw it?”
“Yesh,” Ansel says, trying not to slur, but failing. When the man throws the cane, he catches it and puts it next to his pack. He concentrates on speaking clearly. “Now, you have do hake these clothes out of da two ouder bags when you pud ‘em in the spot. Burn da ouder bags when you’re done.”
He tosses the bag at the man and the man catches it. “Got it; can I have your part of the bargain now?” the man says as he sets the bag down.
Reaching into his pack, Ansel pulls out a plastic bag with the coins and gift certificates. He opens the outer bag and walks closer to the man. “Don’ touch, cadch.” When the man holds his hands under the bag, Ansel lets it slide out. “No time for danks, go back in da room and wait till I leave.”
With a nod, the man goes back into the room and Ansel hears him speaking jovially with his kids. Ansel carefully gathers up all the plastic and heads out of the apartment.
Once he’s out of the building, he looks for smoke and eventually sees a homeless person burning some trash in an alley between two of the complexes. The bricks of these buildings are chipped and dirty. His emotions are seeping back into his consciousness as he walks. The dreariness of this place, the limp caused by what he did to his shoes, and his severely impeded speech are giving him a dark helpless feeling.
This fire will probably be put out by the authorities if it goes on too long, but the stuff he’s about to put in there is quite flammable. The homeless person that owns this fire is in a faded and cracked wooden chair and is fast asleep. This is even better than Ansel could have hoped. He throws the evidence he wants to burn, along with his current pair of gloves, in the trash and then puts on another pair of latex gloves before going through his pack. If he’s quiet, he might be able to use this alley to get in disguise.
He takes a medical mask out of his pack and puts it on, then he takes out a hat he made out of a scarf he found caught in a bush behind his house a couple weeks ago, and makes sure to stuff all his wavy hair under it. After that he puts on dark brown contacts that make his light brown eyes look almost black. Getting them in is a bit of a chore due to his deadened nerves and the fact that he has gloves on. He pulls out an old teal umbrella, his fake T pass, a fake ID, and a big shopping bag. After he puts his pack in the shopping bag and puts the teenager’s clothes on top, he grabs the cane and practices with it.
A day after he read about algorithms that could be used to identify people based on their gait, he got the idea of screwing up the bottoms of his shoes and using a cane. His cover is a lead consumer with immunodeficiency caused by exposure to pollutants. This guise allows him to wear a mask and look really sick. He also can get through security check points because his ID says that he’s a paranoid schizophrenic and is terrible with authority. According to his profile, he bit the tip of his tongue off and spat it at someone who told him he talked too much.
As far as they’re concerned, he’s not worth the trouble. Lead consumers don’t have methods of getting controlled materials because they have so many restrictions on what they can buy with their lead-level credit cards. Cash is no longer accepted anywhere. Lead consumers barter when they’re dealing with each other. When they buy groceries or other goods, they have to go to what most people call “slum stores.” The coins he gave that man can probably be pawned to give him a lot more credit on his card. That is, if he’s smart and claims that he found them in a box his parents left him or something. If anyone suspects he stole them, he’ll end up in jail without a trial and his kids will have to fend for themselves.
One good thing about there being no cash is that leads can’t steal each other’s money. Their cards only work inside specific stores when the person who owns the card is present. Mugging is much reduced due to the absence of cash and the extreme security of modern money handling. It’s hard to mug a gold consumer who uses implants for all his shopping. You can take his clothes and jewelry, but that’s about it.
There’s one last thing he needs to do before the list of tasks for this part of his journey is complete. He takes out his popper and uses a multitool to open it. Once he has access to the insides, he removes a couple little cables that connect the circuit boards and puts them inside a fake capacitor that he glued to the inside of the gun. No one will have any clue that this isn’t just an antique. The people that know how the inside of this thing should work have long since moved on, and intellectual property law prevents access to specifics on this gun. He had to join a crazy antique weapon community online to finally get schematics of this outdated marvel. Putting the gun away, he makes sure every pocket on his pack is zipped before hiding it even more carefully with the clothes than he did last time.
Ansel limps his way out of the alley and stops dead in his tracks when he sees Tasha looking for him. She looks straight at him from about fifty feet away, and he meets her eyes out of habit. In the brief moment he stares into her eyes, a feeling of total failure fills him. This is it: if anyone can figure this all out, it’s her. He can’t look away, he can’t move. His breath is caught in his throat.
A look of disgust forms on her face and she turns away as if she doesn’t even want to know what’s wrong with him or spend another second in this hell hole. She stomps away in the opposite direction, fuming with anger, but lacking something to focus it on. His mood warms as he watches her beautiful hips moving away from him. Stunning her with the popper appears to have had no detrimental effect, and even though she spent the last two years with him, she can’t see through his disguise. Every part of his plan is working so far.
The sudden rush of joy almost sweeps him away, but then his reason locks into place. It’s going to be a long lonely walk to the light-rail platform and he can’t allow emotion to blur his focus.
The End
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