The Code of Happiness (9 page)

“You won't kill me.”

While the ogre can't speak, he seems to understand
with a questioning grunt.

“You won't kill me because you are me.”

The ogre scratches his head.

“You need me.”

The ogre unleashes a high pitch screech!

“Kill me and you kill yourself.”

The ogre storms away annoyed, no more than a boy does
who understands the rules but finds them unjust. He looks at Jamie
from afar, his attitude changing to one of beloved pet. He returns
with a snort and licks Jamie's face, savoring the flavor of sweat
and fear. It forces him to consider Jamie one last time. Is he
friend or is he foe? Jamie offers his hand. A moment of truth. A
gentle touch. The ogre retreats to his corner debating with
himself. Jamie slumps opposite and watches the ogre who is now
without purpose or rage, and whose breaths are heavy with
acceptance. There's nothing to fight against. In mere seconds the
ogre shrinks to a miniature.

Jamie's struck by sadness. Of loss. He'd finally got
through to him; they almost understood each other, kindred spirits
on the verge of friendship. Now he's gone, reduced to a toy. He
understands the ogre is part of him and crawls toward the
miniature. The little ogre is small enough to hop onto his pinkie.
Jamie watches him walk up and down his bony finger. The heat from
Jamie's skin disturbs the ogre; it has an unexpected quality. The
ogre melts, his body sliding to his feet until there's only his
head looking at Jamie asking to be saved. Jamie's helpless as he
watches the final disintegration, only capable of staring at what
remains; a thin film of liquid. What's left enters Jamie through
the pores of his skin. He curls into a ball and cries.

*****

The metal tube flings Jamie toward his floor at XXLI.
Today it's different. The sensation of a bullet racing without a
target. He imagines heading toward the nebulous, the orange orb on
an
unpronounceable
billboard,
our future, in your
hands
. Monday has come to soon. He doesn't care about codes and
happiness, or the conundrum of who is spying on whom. There's an
overriding sense of the pointless. He faced his monster and won.
Victorious, yet defeated, he is a man in a loop again. The elevator
doors open, two security guards are there to meet him. They fire
tasers, ripping ten thousand volts into him.

When he awakes his eyes are met with a blaze of
white. He's on a white couch, the ring from his pinkie gone. A
shadowy figure approaches; he contorts in defense, the only thing
to do.

“The doctor says you'll be okay.”

It's Grace.

“There was a glitch, we're looking into it. Security
should have escorted you, not shot you. There'll be
compensation.”

“What's going on? Why escorted? Where's my ring?”

“You're being promoted.”

Jamie faints.

A new elevator. It reaches higher in the sky. Project
Happiness Phase Two, where the happy people go. An office of five
with palm trees and the elegance of a nineteenth century tearoom in
Tangiers. The riffraff are kept away. Contact with his former
colleagues is prohibited. Michelle's in charge, and she glows the
significance of her work. They test people in Test Room X, she
tells him. Blaze's preference for prosaic titles extends even here.
To reach the extraordinary the plain must be present. One-way
vision glass divides the office from their subjects. Rows of men
and women sit in pods answering questions, their impulse signals
measured and coded. They rank what makes them happy on a scale of
one to ten, the company seeking a correlation between their body
reaction and what they're saying. They test people in Test Room Y.
Here men and women are engaged in sedentary activities, listening
to music, playing games, or watching a show. In Test Room P adults
play tennis, bowl, and swim. They're all hooked up for their
measurements to be converted into code. The search for commonality
in euphoria. All the relevant data from these tests, and Jamie's
great work from Phase One, are stored in a pint-sized silver box.
He is to be the star of the show, the man to find a form of
happiness to provide their customers.

“Life is more than a pill, Jamie.”

It's Blaze, another person who can read his
thoughts—or is he just obvious, why not just give them a pill and
be done with it?

“We want people to engage with life, in the products
they buy. I'm confident you'll find the code to embed. Our
guarantee of happiness.”

From Jamie's neutrality Blaze seems a little mad as
he fills in the crucial detail.

“Happiness is a signal. The code will be transmitted
from any product. Beep beep beep—silently, of course. And in the
long term, we will individualize, not just to general personality
characteristics but to each and everyone's own. Meta data can
finally be used for good. Take your seat. Lean back.”

The events of the last few days spin within Jamie as
he sits. They run in the background of his mind needing a solution,
a key to crack its own code. He's wary of being sucked in, like he
was at Phase One. How that sickened him when he looked back on
those months. No wonder Po lost respect. He never asked who he
replaced in department xH, where they went, what became of them.
Now it's his first question.

“You're the first,” answers Blaze, “we didn't have
enough data until now.” It's obvious Jamie is distracted and Blaze
has to address the issue, as is his wont. “Sorry about the mess
earlier today, shouldn't have happened. You'll see this clearly in
a few days.” He brings Jamie into the fold with a patronizing
tap.

“Imagine the excitement from unwrapping a new gift,
or unboxing the latest gadget, but now you can have that same
feeling every day? An argument at home? Look at your microwave.” He
throws Jamie a magnetic key with a black heart-shaped key ring.
“Actually, you don't have to imagine. Check parking spot 201, level
two, creating happiness is well rewarded. Go to Grace. She will
show you.”

Burnt orange. Wet dream.

“I'm with the luckiest person in the company.”

“I was tasered.”

“Promoted. Your skill set fits, and it's not even on
your records.”

He won't answer her subtle question. She's all Blaze,
a disciple. He likes her. But trust her? No. The man stole his
dreams, or whatever that experience in the ionizer was. Bulls were
trampling all over him.

“Someone needs to cheer up, you've got a great
parking space.”

Jamie dangles the car keys over a drain.

“Oh my...” Grace is in disbelief. “You're going to
refuse the job?”

“One day I'm going to tell you something.”

Jamie puts the keys in his pocket and turns away from
the car, undecided.

“I'm free on Thursday,” blurts Grace.

He's too tired to drive, the company will pay for a
cab. They own them too. His mind backtracks. Did Grace just
say…

Grace is wondering too, half hoping Jamie didn't
hear.

He halts in his tracks. A better idea. He tosses the
keys over, a little wayward but she's quite athletic this one.
Grace stretches and catches with aplomb.

“Volleyball,” she says offering up an explanation for
her prowess, a tidbit of information to color her personality.
Jamie doesn't play, so the color turns gray. He likes her though.
She's almost funny.

“Grace, do you ever get a feeling something is a
little odd?”

She's a little blank. “Here?”

“Come on. My feelings tell me you're not going to be
missed this afternoon. The car's yours if you drive me home.”

“Thursday's come early.” She hops in.

Grace slips through the gears. She glides between two
vehicles. Another side to her personality. The color stays.
Aesthetics have their place. For all his disdain and disappointment
at Blaze's tactless reveal of being the dream thief, the burnt
orange wet dream is as good as. He watches Grace handle the car,
where her eyes fix, the sparkle in them, and her small muscles
tensing and relaxing to the needs of the vehicle. Part of him wants
to drive, part of him wants to be driven. If he continues down this
path he could be bought. For the first time he sees the compromise
within, the point where he's prepared to give up, and throw in his
lot with Blaze and XXLI.
Fight
. A waste of time, of energy.
He'd fought enough only to remain a shadow of himself, and the
humbling truth was not knowing what the fight was about anymore.
Blaze was offering more than a side; he was offering a permanent
escape. And next to him was Grace. For a split second he could see
a future. Safe. Secure. Happy. He looks over to her again—yes—a
future. He'd never had an inkling of one. He was in a cloud when he
first started at XXLI, and before he lived looking over his
shoulder, trapped in a bubble, no more than an ogre. Now the choice
was clear. In a moment of weakness he could be bought. And there
were moments when he wanted to acquiesce, or be lobotomized. It
would be easier to let go and live without resistance. He watches
Grace edge closer to his apartment. Silence is amenable. They're
both keen to avoid awkwardness, so remain unaware of shared
thoughts.

“Thanks,” says Jamie when the time comes.
“Thursday?”

“What about the car?”

“Whenever. I've survived this long without one.”

Home. The pod recreated. A reminder of Ray and Po. He
owes them an apology—not that he ever outright accused them of
skulduggery. He had a little black box of their data. He was a
thief too. His tepid shower provides no answer so he scrubs harder
until his skin is red. There's a scratch he didn't see before. If
he was paranoid he'd believe it to be a deliberate incision for a
Nano device. Sleep evades him all night. His magic box of tricks
begs a question. Examine or delete the data? In the end it seems
Ray and Po were innocuous, if strange. Blaze was the true
deceiver.

*****

Two days later Jamie returns clean shaven to
unpronounceable
in the belief he was doing it on his own
terms. He watches the automatons troop into Test Room X. Men and
women obey their guides, placing their hands into a holder to
measure their body metrics. Jamie drifts off, as usual seeking
arguments to justify his decisions. Blaze was leaving him a trail
to follow, always an answer around the corner. He could walk out of
XXLI when he wanted, hands clean, just like the other day with
Grace—he and Grace—but she wasn’t ready. There wasn't a dark side
for her at
unpronounceable
. He batted away any notion of not
knowing her at all. During HR sessions they had ventured behind
each other’s facade for the briefest of moments, enough to know
there was more. But daring to, to agitate one's own ugliness, drew
a fear of failing to shape up to the others hopes. Sticking to the
artifice had worked. Now Thursday loomed, the superficiality
between them destined to be peeled back further, or sealed
permanently. He'd neither fight life at XXLI nor comply with its
bounty. If there was to be a future worth living it required an
additional dimension. Each passing day he knew Grace had something
to do with it. How exactly, he was uncertain. In leaving XXLI there
was an implicit threat of cutting ties and losing connection with
her, just like he was forced to do with his former colleagues at
Department xH. Blaze, he'd bet, was banking on that to keep him in
line.

“We all search for a piece of happiness.”

Blaze alongside Jamie watches the conformists for
fifty dollars, a voucher, and a future commitment to an unpaid test
to undergo examination. Drab plasticine faces, a little place in
the sun, made to believe they're doing something important while
earning a little extra for a gift, a loaf of bread, or their kids
favorite brand of
unpronounceable
cereal.

“And they said water would be the commodity of the
twenty-first century,” opines Jamie.

“How prescient.”

“Do you really think this can work?”

“I have every faith in you.”

They watch a man reel away in agony. Blood oozing
from his finger. An attendant rushing to his aid. Unable to hear,
it appears a mime to Blaze and Jamie. Irate man pushes back
attendant. A stand off ensues. Man backs down.

“In five minutes he'll be happier than before he
walked in,” says Blaze. He lets Jamie follow the man's journey on
his own, the subject unaware he's been watched from the other side
of the glass. He's treated with basic first aid, enough to clean
and shore up the wound, and guided to an office where his anger and
suspicion of being in the belly of the giant corporation
subsides.

“He's a player,” says Michelle, “you can see it in
his eyes, waiting to see how much he can skin us. We get one every
couple of weeks. Our employees are authorized to pay out up to ten
thousand at their discretion and keep these guys quiet.” XXLI had
this down to a T. They had calculated for failure and accounted for
the downside. Jamie would be privy to this circus every day.

The silver box of data awaits. The information of
lives. Ordinary people. Their seconds of joy recorded and coded.
Emotion a number. Jamie was ordinary too despite being Blaze's pet
and Ray's messiah. His blood though remained unspilt. With each
passing hour he drifts further away from the enthusiasm he had at
department xH. There's no Beanoe. They may have mocked him and his
position but his true worth was seen in hindsight. Those were the
good times. Blaze's barnstorming, the virtuous goal derived from
dubious sources echoed hollow. It was empty speech. Working here
would be a charade, but for Grace, he would do it. He'd done it
before, head down, sticking at it—and for less, nothing as noble as
striking a real relationship with Grace.