“Okay,” says Wendy.
“Not Being Free. Feeling Free. Do you see what I’m saying?”
Wendy nods.
“The way I see it,” explains Lucas, “there are two buy-in options. Level One employees wear The Suit™. They wear it wherever and whenever they want. Their hours are logged and they get paid for this work in American dollars, while receiving the requisite medical benefits: early detection of tumors, for one, not to mention detection of all kinds—the research isn’t complete yet, but we estimate that the average American suffers from at least three treatable undiagnosed conditions. And yes, we sell that data to insurance companies for profit, and we sell that data to pharmaceutical companies, and maybe we sell some of it to Nike, because, helmet or not, Nike wants to target one banner ad to the overachiever who jogs thirty miles per week and another to the aspirational couch potato who tells himself that the only thing standing between himself and the treadmill is the right pair of sneakers.”
“I see.”
“So, that’s our man in Mississippi. He’s happy with that. We’re happy with that. But this is America, and in America, as you know, there’s very little a man won’t do to own a bigger house than his neighbor does. In America, $23,000 or $50,000 or $80 million doesn’t satisfy anyone. If there’s more to be taken, then people will take. And that’s why they sign on to be Level Two employees. Just like Level One employees, Level Two employees set their own hours. The difference is that their hours are only logged when they’re wearing The Suit™ and The Helmet 2.0 in conjunction. Level Two employees live, at least during working hours, in Shamerica. For this, they’re paid more than Level One employees. Not double, necessarily, but enough that it seems worth their while. But they’re not paid in American dollars. No, they’re paid in Sykodollars, which they can convert to American dollars if they wish, though with that currency’s instability, it would not be advisable to do so. Those Sykodollars can then be spent in Shamerica on clothes for their avatars, or the right to paint augmented flowers all over One Police Plaza. And the more hours that users spend wearing their helmets to earn money, the more their helmets will encourage them to buy virtual products in this virtual world, and the more of that money they’ll inevitably feed back, through in-game purchase, to their employer.”
“Who is you.”
“Who is me.”
“Work will set you free, huh?” says Wendy.
“Work will set you free.”
They haven’t kissed yet, but Lucas takes off his shirt, revealing his ugly tattoos. He must have had a youth, Wendy thinks, and it’s a comforting thought.
She puts The Suit™ back on its hanger and closes the closet door. She could leave, now, if she wanted to leave. Lucas, she knows, would not be embarrassed. He would not get aggressive. He would not try to cajole her into just one more drink. He would offer a shirtless handshake, say a polite goodnight. There would be no repercussions. He would not hold this implicit rejection against her. It would not affect her role in the campaign.
To remain in this room—as Wendy seems to be doing, unbuttoning her cardigan, placing it on the bed, now unzipping, letting her jumpsuit drop—is a conscious choice. She picks the jumpsuit up off the floor. She carefully folds it and places it down beside her cardigan on Lucas’s bed.
41.
Michael says, “Fuck this bullshit,” and soundlessly hits the couch’s padded arm with his fist. The scorpion woman does not turn her eyes from the screen. The man with the magnets snores in a chair by their side.
Broder sits on the far end of the L. Onscreen, a newscaster explains that the police found Ricky’s bracelet in a black man’s apartment. Broder didn’t know it was an SD bracelet, whatever that is.
“Impossible,” says Michael.
Broder isn’t certain. He looks at his rash, at the yellowy crust where he scratched off a scab. He remembers unclasping the item from Ricky’s wrist and fastening it to his own. He thought it was a watch. The pawnbroker asked why it didn’t have hands. The pawnbroker gave Broder two tens and a five. The money paid for the bus ticket and Arby’s. This was before the watch was a bracelet. The newscaster says it may be worth millions of dollars. He says it contains a partial fingerprint.
Broder tries to picture a million dollar bills laid out like railroad ties for miles over hills and lush terrain. The image stretches farther than he can see. Michael rocks the tab on an empty can of ginger ale until the tab breaks free.
A face appears on-screen. It is not the face that Broder snuffed out on the night of the party, but a younger version of it, pinker and less puffy. Broder knows this face, the face of twenty-six-year-old Ricky. It’s the face that’s looped for years in Broder’s head, with its sly smile and dilated pupils, its thin coating of lip-sweat, its cruel, silent laughter. It’s the face that looms over memories of Broder’s wedding, and it’s the face that he pictured on the sleepless nights that followed, when Aliana left the house and didn’t return until past dawn. Broder knew that Ricky was still in town and that they were together, somewhere, beneath hot lights, or hovering over a low glass table, or in the back seat of a dealer’s Escalade, rattled by bass. Wherever they were, they were high. It’s the face that Broder pictured on the nights that followed those, after Aliana left for the desert. She told Broder she
