Those the future left be.., p.1
Those the Future Left Behind, page 1
THOSE
THE FUTURE
LEFT BEHIND
Copyright © 2021 Patrick Meisch
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
Published by SparkPress, a BookSparks imprint,
A division of SparkPoint Studio, LLC
Phoenix, Arizona, USA, 85007
www.gosparkpress.com
Published 2021
Printed in the United States of America
Print ISBN: 978-1-68463-079-0
E-ISBN: 978-1-68463-080-6
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020918799
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
For Steve and Christine
for teaching a young boy to dream.
1
0001 – The Gambler
“Good evening. I’m here for Mr. Chaezka on behalf of the Bureau of Fortune. He, most likely, is not expecting me.”
After hearing my introduction, the young woman in the snappy gold and green vest paused for a second to look me over as concern surfaced in her expression. As she decided what the best course of action would be for her, admittedly, small part in the following performance, I surreptitiously admired her gaudy outfit before my gaze defaulted to somewhere around her shoes. Given the shoes were obviously bespoke, and the tiny rakes with which they were adorned real gold, and they alone were most likely worth more than my relatively pedestrian garb in its entirety, bestowing these outfits on a lowly greeter such as the lady before me, who was in the process of circulating her fist above her head as some sort of signal, was a tremendous show of wealth.
I glimpsed an imposing woman moving directly towards us through a crowd of revelers behind the greeter. Her outfit was all boring black except for a white button–up shirt. Even centuries from its inception, the clothing used to portray an individual employed as security has not changed much, although, in an establishment such as this, the individual marching towards me was anything but inconspicuous.
“Thank you for waiting! Ms. Alexia will be taking care of you until Mr. Chaezka is ready to receive. Please ask her anything that is on your mind, and I am sorry I was unable to assist you further.”
The greeter finished with a practiced, sheepish grimace. She sidled past me on to the next guest and, as I looked back around, my eyes were met by the stern countenance of Ms. Alexia, presumed security woman extraordinaire. She turned her head to check that no one was attempting to eavesdrop, and I noticed the barely visible, yet telltale slit scar of a ComCom implant procedure rippling along her muscular neck, which lent credence to my previous presumption.
“Good evening, Collector, and with that out of the way I’ll drop the bullshit and we can move on. Sound good?” Ms. Alexia asked, in a smoky voice.
“I appreciate your candor, Ms. Alexia, it seems as though you know my purpose in being here this evening.”
“Candace is fine. And affirmative, but you seem to have arrived sooner than Chazz expected. He is still preparing, so he asked me if I could distract you for twenty minutes or so. So how ’bout it? Have anythin’ in mind?”
“I suppose I could be distracted for a bit with a tour if you wouldn’t mind taking me around. I’ve never been to one of these casinos before, and I hear The Govy’s Rake is supposed to be the best of the best, though you don’t strike me as the guiding type.”
Candace emitted a short, tired laugh at this and then replied.
“I’ve been ’round enough to take you for a spin, I guess, and I could probably clue you into a few things the rest of these bimbos don’t know about. Chazz told me to spare no expense while I ‘distract’ you, so it’s probably the least I can do. I’ll bring you to some of the best spots ’round if you tell me you’ll answer a question for me when we’re done. It’ll be a personal one, so I understand if you turn me down … and I don’t know if I can trust a Collector at their word.”
“Though it might not assuage your misgivings to hear me say it, you can trust that I’ll answer your question. Unfortunately, I doubt that I’ll be welcomed back to try my luck at the tables when I am finished with my work here anyhow.”
“Fair enough.” She said as she gestured me over to the entrance of the main floor. “Why don’t we start at the start and you can tell me if I left anything out since I’m sure you already know the lay of the land from your intel.
“These statues here,” Candace began by gesturing at pairs of bronze statues cast in the likeness of Greek gods that flanked the three entry hallways into the casino proper, “combine an Old–world charm with cutting–edge tech.”
Candace proceeded to demonstrate her herculean strength by tilting one of these statues over to show me the housing panel underneath.
“Inside is a GC reader, much like you’ll find in typical stores, just in a purtier package.”
“From where do you hail originally, Candace, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Atlanta, SER. You gonna take me away for the accent next?” She jabbed.
I chuckled one of the more genuine chuckles I had in quite some time.
“Hardly. I think standardizing the language of the business world to English was enough. Attempting to squash its accents is overkill in my opinion. I find your SER drawwwwwwl to be mighty charmin’!” I offered in my best imitation of the accent. She returned a look that made me feel as though she was terribly offended and then softened up and laughed at the fleeting expression of doubt I must have shown.
“Trackin’ guests has never been easier. Since the worth of the credit account you have linked to your CFOB is taken down as soon as you walk through these here doors, we know how much yer comin’ in with and, hopefully, how little yer leavin’ with. That’s also how we knew you were trouble when you walked in. Non–standard CFOB ping. Most of the time, you would have been promptly escorted off the premises, as we only allow possible customers on the floor, but Clete, our head of visual security, said you had a different look about you and Mindy, your greeter, confirmed that and gave us the signal to move in. Speaking of which, have you noticed the walls?”
It’s true that I had looked the place over as I had come in on top of the intel I had gone over tirelessly before arriving. The infrequent check–ins on my ComCom allowed me the opportunity to review if necessary, as well. I knew that cameras were ubiquitous in casinos and that this was no different here, but the way Candace put it was good enough to include in this memoir of sorts and the sight was quite spectacular, especially due to the fact that the average person wouldn’t notice or appreciate the difference.
“Ain’t a single place an ant could shit on this floor where we wouldn’t be able to find ’im, and we’d be able to squash ’im no more than thirty seconds later. Part of the reason Chazz chose the emerald color for The Rake is that the cameras that are woven into the one– way mirror walls give off a twinkle if yer lookin’ at ’em at the right angle, so he said that the walls will look like real emeralds shinin’.”
“Fashion and function.” I quipped. “You do have quite a spectacular venue.”
“Do you want to see the tables?”
“Lead on!”
All of the floor employees of The Govy’s Rake had been trained to glide amongst the throngs of customers with a mesmerizing, swaying motion, which made the trip to whichever table would most likely be your financial demise a pleasant experience. Candace was eschewing this training at the time and a perspicacious eye could see she was nervous, despite her security background. We walked along the floor, which was made of a fluffy green synth–fur, the wispiness of which reminded me of an Old–world treat I had read about known as cotton candy, which was not made of cotton. I told Candace about this musing, and she opened up a bit while a pair of personal defense drones buzzed overhead to promptly escort a newly–creditless dignitary of some kind, who was causing a ruckus behind us, off the premises.
“My great great grandpappy used to run one of those cotton candy machines in the summertime for a while. Actually, you kinda shot the bull about the Old–world look. Chazz is obsessed with the Old–world look. In fact, not just the look. I’m sure you’ve noticed the music.” She said, gesturing around to the ceiling and wall panels in which indistinguishable microspeakers had been embedded. I had noticed.
“I’ve heard this kind of music only once before. When I was really little, I was playing with one of my neighbors in a unit next to our orphanage, and his grandmother would fall asleep in an old wooden chair listening to this kind of music every night. Although this song had less of … that,” I emphasized by pointing up, “blaring digiment in it.”
“That ain’t no digiment,” Candace said, listening to the music with her eyes closed for a few seconds and snapping. “That’s the real thing. A real trumpet.”
“Huh. Amusing. I thought imitations had become advanced enough to be indistinguishable in this day and age.”
“Naw. Hearin’ this tune every week kinda makes me sad,” Candace said, her expression becoming somber for a moment, “to think about what we have lost with all the streamlinin’ we’ve done, I mean. But I guess that’s part of the reason I accepted the job here.”
Candace took me past each table, most of which were at capacity with guests in various states of inebriation cursing and carousing, enumerating each game as we went: Blackjack, Choice Poker, 5–Card Draw, UTH, Skitsgy, Mahjong, Craps, Cortifo … The green floor and brown wood of the sides of each table made the casino look almost like a forest, something I had yet to see in my travels but I had heard about on the fairytale stream channels one of my caretakers, Graciela, used to cue up for me in my youth before she went off on her errands. As I walked through this forest, I did not sense that any wolves were creeping up on me. No ambush. Only Candace. I wondered why there had been no signs of resistance so far. Many of the example cases in the BoF training vids ended when the Collector was ambushed by a larger force, but there seemed to be no danger of that sort, at the time.
“Do you have a favorite game?” Candace asked me.
“I’ve only ever gambled a little bit in makeshift parlor units. I know about many of the games, but most of the ones I’ve played are Old–world in origin. I suppose Texas Hold ’em is my favorite, but I’ve not really played enough to be terribly good at it. Plus, these days ComComs can calc part of your odds for you, so there’s much less risk.”
“That’s why we have readers to check for ComCom activation at each table. You’ve heard about these, right? Ours are a bit more specific than the types installed in school classrooms to detect cheatin’, but they work on the same principles.”
“Ah, yes, I have. Unfortunately, in the parlors where I played, while most of the people who played were too poor to afford a ComCom, some people were able to get their hands on devices that were similar from black market sources that would only do calcs and would have no other functionality, so many players would be ‘cheating.’ I stopped playing after watching a vid on a parlor where the house player strangled a person to death who was suspected of cheating using one of these types of devices, and then it turned out that she was just really good.”
“Fortunate that we won’t ever make that mistake,” Candace said while showing me a table and the window–like slits where the ComCom readers were housed. Then, she took me behind the tables into a Pit Boss Room and showed me a screen that tracked tables. “Each unfilled circle is an empty seat at a table, green is an active player, pink is a player stepping away momentarily. If one of those circles starts flashing black and red, that’s a ComCom or like calc app activation.”
“What do you do if a calc app starts up?”
“ComCom and other direct calculation applications must be deactivated before a player starts playing at any table. If any accidental or intentional application reactivation occurs during the remainder of play at the table, all winnings that the user has are stripped, the user is blacklisted based on ComCom ID Number and CFOB Number and banned for life from all of Chaezka Casinos. Your ComCom can still ping paramedics and carry out any other typical functions, but if the direct calculation application is engaged, yer outta here.”
“So when did the table I was just at pick up on my calc app?”
“The average scan distance is about fifteen meters. Calc app users that are on the floor but not at a table are tracked with floating blue dots on the screens that I showed you.”
“Impressive. There were very few blue dots on the screen that I saw, so most of your customers are either returning or they know the rules pretty well.”
“Yup. We try to run a tight ship ’round here. Anyway, I was informed that Chazz is ready to see ya’ now. Are you good to go?”
“Since I arrived,” I replied, checking my surroundings for the sixty–second time in the seventeenish minutes I had been on the floor. “However, I did enjoy the tour! The peek into the Pit Boss Room was completely new to me.” I smiled at Candace, feeling a slight sense of remorse that I’d only spend a few more moments with her, but that’s the job.
As we walked up to a personal elevator whose frame was cast in the shape of a golden lion’s head, Candace waved off two more security guards that were sizing me up and they proceeded to walk the floor.
ComCom: transmit location: penthouse elevator on approach to target EndCom
“There’re only three people in this building that know what you are about to do, and, when you leave, I’m going to be the only one stickin’ around who is allowed to remember. I won’t say a word about it for the rest of my life, and I’ll go with whatever story is concocted by yer Bureau, but I do still want the answer to that question you promised me. Whatever happens next, I want you to know that Chazz is a good man, and he has taken mighty good care of us for as long as he could. You’ll be free to walk out of here on my and Chazz’s honor if you can trust us at our word.”
I was not expecting this kind of treatment for one of my first jobs. Unfortunately, in this kind of work, it is all too common for these types of scenarios to turn into a bloodbath and I was prepared for that eventuality. A saying I had heard from a veteran of the Bureau was: “The luckiest Collector is the one who only has to collect one life per job. The unluckiest Collector is the one whose one life is collected instead.”
“I certainly trust you, and I imagine I can trust Mr. Chaezka. I’ll answer your question whenever you are ready to ask.”
An archaic ding sounded the arrival of the elevator door, and Candace and I walked in. If she was going to betray me, this was the moment. My body tensed in response to the close-quarters environment. After she turned an old, metal key, a panel opened, and she pressed the revealed button.
“I wanted to be a Collector once,” Candace sighed, “but the officers conducting my test said that I wouldn’t qualify because I showed signs ‘demonstrating a lack of resolve to finish a job.’” She said this last mimicking whatever monotonous government psych officer denied her. “They were right. I’d never be able to kill someone like Chazz, but you can.” She looked at me holding back tears, undoubtedly out of habitual restraint. “I was angry the day they refused me, partially because my future was uncertain, partially because it made me feel like I wasn’t good enough. A month and a half later, I joined a general security firm and a year or so later Chazz hired me because he wanted to take a gamble on a kid that was down on her luck. I’ve worked for him, with him, ever since. Sixteen years and change.”
Ding. We walked into a gorgeous marble foyer. Clack clackclack clack the sound of our shoes as we walked up a large ballroom staircase. ComCom chatter about backup mobilizing.
“Now I know that being refused was a blessin’. So, Collector,” she stopped, and I turned to face her. I can’t remember her face well enough to describe her in that moment, likely due to the nervousness I felt on my first real Collection, despite all of my mental training, “my question is: Do you feel satisfied doing what you do?”
“I believe it is honestly too early for me to tell you exactly if I am satisfied or not and why. I know that probably isn’t a satisfactory answer. I know that it will probably not set you at ease in any way. What I can tell you is that I have asked myself this question before, and I will never stop asking myself this question, and, by the time I am done, I can promise you that I’ll have a definitive answer. … Will that be enough?”
Candace opened the door in front of us, and I saw a man sitting and shuffling a deck of cards behind a desk.
“I hope that it will be, for your sake,” she said, softly, any sign of tears in her eyes erased.
I watched Candace walk into the room ahead of me and stop. The man at the desk put the cards down and stood up, looking directly at Candace.
“How do I look?” He asked, arms up and swiveling slightly from side to side.
“Like a million bucks.” Candace crooned.
“Goodbye, Candy.” He said, a tone of finality in his voice.
“Goodbye, Chazz.” She returned with an air of stoicism.
Then, Candace turned around and walked past me, nodded once, donning the mask of a quivering smile, ding, and she was gone.
“Good evening, Collector!” Mr. Chaezka boomed. “Come on down!”
I proceeded into Mr. Chaezka’s penthouse with trepidation, checking every corner, listening and watching with all of my being. Compared to the casino floor, his quarters were less ostentatious, though not lacking in style by any means. Candace mentioned Mr. Chaezka’s love for the aesthetic of the Old–world, and he was beginning to walk over to what was, undoubtedly, one of his most prized possessions.
