Spark: A Novel (7 page)

“And who the hell is sending me champagne?”

“Can’t tell you that, sir. It’s on the gift card and the card is in the box. Champagne is a popular gift right now because of the holidays and—”

“Open up the box.”

“I am sorry, Mr. Mallory. But it is against procedure for employees of Jolly Good Fellow to—”

Five seconds of cursing emerged from the speaker box, followed by the statement: “You are one more example of why this whole bloody country is not competitive in the global economy!”

“We at Jolly Good Fellow are proud of our high level of service.”

There was a buzzing sound and the gate glided open. The sawed-off shotgun was hidden beneath the waterproof smock and I shifted the weapon to my right side as I drove up the gravel driveway.

Mallory’s house was on the top of a hill with oak trees dotting the landscape. I drove past flower beds covered with blue plastic tarps and leafless trees that looked like twisted strands of rope that were reaching toward the sky.

The pale-yellow house had a domed rooftop pavilion and arched pediments above the ground-floor windows. As the van entered the circular driveway, the door opened and Victor Mallory came out wearing a brown tracksuit.

I got out of the van, loaded the gift box onto a hand trolley, and wheeled it over to the door. I had seen Mallory numerous times on my computer screen, but I now encountered the three-dimensional reality. My target had stained teeth and a dissipated face, but his eyes were alert and focused. Smiling broadly, I stopped in front of him and made a grand gesture to the gift box.

“Good morning, Mr. Mallory. Jolly Good Fellow is pleased to deliver you a Special Holiday Gift.”

“Yes. Good. You told me. Champagne. Bring it inside.”

He turned away and I followed him through a row of ground-floor rooms. Mallory didn’t own the house; he had rented it from a former member of Parliament who lived in Ibiza. The rooms were decorated in the English country style with solid, well-padded furniture and paintings of dogs on the wall. There was an artificial Christmas tree with twinkling lights set up in the study, but no sign of any gifts.

We ended up in a large kitchen connected to a breakfast room. A half-filled teacup and plate with pastry crumbs was on the breakfast table as if Mallory had just finished a snack. But the most important feature in the room was a computer monitor that showed four images from the estate’s surveillance cameras. Once I had completed my assignment, I would have to find the video recorder and take it with me.

I wheeled the dolly over to the sink area and placed the gift box on the counter. Watching me carefully, my target retreated into the breakfast room. “Open the box,” he ordered.

“I beg your pardon, sir?”

“Open it. Take out the champagne.”

“But this gift is for you, sir.”

“Make a presentation. It’s part of your job.”

Was Mallory afraid of me? No. He was focused on the box. Perhaps he thought it was a bomb. I shrugged, untied the red ribbon, and opened the box. Four bottles of champagne had been packed in shredded newspaper along with a sealed envelope containing the gift card. Mallory relaxed when I pulled out one of the bottles and placed it on the breakfast table with the envelope.

“There you go, sir. Please thank your friends for having the good taste to pick Jolly Good Fellow as their Executive Gift Provider.”

“Executive Gift Provider?” Mallory muttered. “Bloody nonsense …” But his attention was now on the gift card. First, I examined Mallory’s photograph on my phone and confirmed that I was in the same room with my target. Then I turned away from him, unzipped the navy blue smock, detached the carrying cord, and pulled out the shotgun. I pivoted on one heel and fired both barrels.

Blood sprayed out of Mallory’s body and he fell backward onto the floor. I snapped open the gun’s breech, loaded two more rounds, and then strolled over to the breakfast area. My target was pressing his hands against the bright red wound in his chest as if he was trying to force the blood back into his body.

“Help … help me,” he said. I leaned down and plucked off his headset. Now he couldn’t talk to his Shadow.

“Who are you?”

“That’s not important.”

Mallory started talking, the words spilling out of his mouth. “I know who sent you. Those goddamn Nigerians. Swear to God I didn’t steal their money. The market collapsed and everyone took a hit. There was no guaranteed investment. I told them that from the start.”

“So you’re a businessman?” I asked.

“Yes. That’s right.” He was gasping for air, and the quick puffing sounds filled the room.

“I’m a businessman, too.”

I took out my phone and accessed my file of emotions. About a year ago, I purchased a book published in nineteenth-century France called
Émotions Humaines.
The book had a long essay written by a French philosopher and black-and-white photographs of an actor named Jean LeMarc. Using only facial expressions, LeMarc displayed forty-eight different emotions—everything from grief to joy. I carried the book around for several months and used it to figure out what Human Units were feeling. Eventually, I realized that it was far more convenient to scan and download the photographs.

Bending over my target, I held the phone next to his face and scrolled through the photographs. Mallory’s face showed anger, then confusion, then fear. As a pool of blood formed beneath his body, his face changed one last time. Was it boredom? It looked like boredom. Perhaps it was something different. Acceptance.

“Cold,” Mallory whispered.

“Your body is telling you that, but it’s not true. You’re going into shock because your brain isn’t getting enough blood.”

“Dying.”

“Yes. That’s a logical conclusion.”

“I am”—blood dribbled out of the corner of his mouth, but he managed to say one last word—“dead.”

“Me too.”

As usual, I traveled first class on the flight back from London.

I dislike being touched—even if it’s only someone’s elbow on an armrest. First class allows me to travel within my own defined perimeter. Everything else—the champagne and wine, the cheese plate, the Dover sole sautéed in butter, the fresh-baked scones with clotted cream—was unnecessary. I told the flight attendants that I was fasting and they offered me three different kinds of water.

When I walked out of customs at JFK Airport, I was surprised to see a limo driver holding a rectangular piece of cardboard with the message:
J. UNDERWOOD—BA009
. My birth name is on my passport, but “Underwood” is on my Freedom ID cards.

“I’m Mr. Underwood,” I said. “But I didn’t request a car.”

The driver was a pudgy little man with a badly knotted necktie. He sighed, pulled out his phone, and checked his messages.

“The reservation was made by Edge Tech.”

“I’ve never heard of that company.”

“I talked to a lady named Holquist. She said I was supposed to drive you into the city for a meeting.”

“Okay. Now I understand. Let’s go.”

I followed the driver out of the arrivals terminal and into a five-level parking structure. In the elevator, I noticed a pimple on his neck and flecks of dandruff on his black blazer. I am capable of feeling disgust when I encounter any obvious sign of physical decay:
body odor and bad breath, a hand tremor and rotten teeth. This emotion influenced the selection of my two Shadows; both Edward and Laura sound as if they’re well dressed, healthy, and clean.

My driver answered his phone as we left the parking structure. “Yes, ma’am,” he told the caller. “No problem. He’s in the backseat. We might have some rush-hour traffic, so I would say thirty to forty minutes.”

It was highly unusual to meet Miss Holquist after an assignment, and the idea made me uncomfortable. Did I make a mistake when I neutralized my target? Had the British police learned my identity?

I first met Miss Holquist three years ago when I returned to New York after my stay at the Ettinger Clinic. Dr. Noland had given me the five rules, and now I washed my body every morning and cut my hair once a month. I had gotten used to drinking bottles of ComPlete so my Shell no longer collapsed from lack of food.

But this attempt to act as if I was alive hadn’t solved any of my long-range problems. In those days, a shopping bag stuffed with unpaid bills was on my kitchen table and my landlord was attempting to evict me. I have no idea what would have happened if I had simply remained in my apartment, but one morning a FedEx man knocked on my door and handed me an envelope. I was expecting another threat from my landlord, but it turned out to be a letter from a New York City law firm:

NOTICE OF PROPOSED SETTLEMENT
OF CLASS-ACTION LAWSUIT

Dear Mr. Davis:

If you are a former employee of InterFace Inc., the proposed settlement of a class-action lawsuit may affect your rights.

What Is the Lawsuit About?

Who Is Involved in the Lawsuit
?

Who Represents the Plaintiffs and the Settlement Class?

What Are the Proposed Settlement Terms?

Your Legal Rights and Options in Connection with the Settlement.

Sincerely yours,
Ellen Larson, Esq.

The Freedom to Work Act was one of several bills passed in Congress after the Day of Rage. The new law said that companies were free to fire any employee, but a worker replaced by a nubot that “appears or pretends to be human” had to be compensated.

I sent an e-mail to Miss Larson that said yes, I wanted the money. She told me to show up at her office at 11 a.m. on Tuesday with pay stubs and other proof that I had once worked at InterFace.

Confident that I was going to pay off all my debts, I showed up at 410 Church Street on Tuesday morning, signed in at the security desk, and took an elevator to the eleventh floor. There was a soft pinging sound and then the door glided open.

A blond woman wearing a powder-blue suit sat behind a desk in the middle of a large empty room. Perhaps it had once been an office, but the walls, the phones, the carpets, and the busy employees had probably been replaced by computers with reactive intelligence and a few call-center humans in Bangladesh.

“Jacob Davis?” the woman asked. She had a southern accent—not a strong one, but enough to take the sharp edges off words.

“That’s right.”

“Please sit down.” The woman removed her headset and switched off her computer. “I hope this room doesn’t bother you. We just rented it for the day. I wanted a quiet, private location for our little talk.”

I approached the desk and sat down on a folding chair. Now that I was closer, I could evaluate the woman’s appearance. I’m in my thirties. The woman sitting at the desk had the hands of someone twenty-five years older, but her face was supple and free of wrinkles, and her blond hair was thick and lustrous.

These days, the most expensive medications in the world are the so-called gray drugs that can block the chemical signal that tells a cell when it’s time to die. Gray drugs are dangerous—you shouldn’t use them if you’re pregnant, and the pills can speed up the growth of tumors. But if the inhibitors are used carefully, it really does keep you from aging. Only the very wealthy can afford these injections, and the drugs give the users a distinct appearance.
In the past, economic class was revealed by someone’s accent and clothes. Nowadays old age is the truest indication of poverty.