The Water Thief (24 page)

People think that a liar gains a victory
over his victim. What I’ve learned is that a lie is an act of self-abdication,
because one surrenders one’s reality to the person to whom one lies, making
that person one’s master, condemning oneself from then on to faking the sort of
reality that person’s view requires to be faked. And if one gains the immediate
purpose of the lie—the price one pays is the destruction of what the gain was
intended to serve.

Was that Zino’s
Objective reality? The biggest complaint I ever heard against socialism was
that it was idealistic—that it didn’t take the selfish nature of man into
account, that people would game the system. But here was Zinov’yevna saying
things as idealistic, unrealistic, and unhinged from reality as anything said
by Karl Marx. Kate was right; the capitalists in the bible were all gentlemen.
None of them lied or took advantage of their superior positions. When has a
person ever been like that except in a work of fiction?

But maybe Zino
was right. Maybe all lies did come back to destroy the liar. Maybe that was why
we were all going to come to such a terrible end. But that never seemed to stop
the lies, never seemed to stop the violence.

I had seen
people suffer their own lies. But I had never seen anything so magnificent as
to suggest that no one who lied had ever profited from it. And certainly when
they lied, they didn’t just injure themselves. More often than not, the
innocent suffered lies at least as much the guilty.

The engine of
the economy ran on lies, and those who profited the most were those who learned
not to get caught.

Zino believed in
unbridled competition. But how could that be any less extreme, idyllic or naïve
than the thought of sharing all the wealth? We called socialists “plunderers”.
But if capitalism proved anything, it was that those who loot and plunder don’t
need socialism to do it.

If all people
were as gentlemanly, honest, and honorable as Zino’s capitalists, socialism
would have worked too.

I put the book
back in its place and surveyed my cell. If you truly wanted competition, if you
wanted the best to rise to the top—you needed everybody to start at the same
place—no handouts or legs up, earn only by the sweat of your brow. But I never
saw a HighCon so committed to that principle that he’d deny his family the
advantages of wealth, let his family get the same education, healthcare, and
police protection as everyone else.

No, Kate was
right. HighCons were hypocrites who lectured on the Moral Hazard of giving
people things they didn’t earn, while taking for themselves every advantage
handed to them.

How could a
LowCon compete against people who had private gyms, libraries, servants? A
HighCon would tell you that he deserved these rewards and ridicule LowCons for
failing to compete. But the game was rigged against them.

And when a
LowCon was so rude as to point this out, to ask for fair treatment and access
to essential services, HighCons complained, argued about class warfare and that
people were trying to take what was rightfully theirs—rightfully inherited,
rightfully stolen, or rightfully leveraged off the sweat of LowCons.
Corporations demanded that governments take their thumbs off the scale—remove
the regulation—so that they put their own thumbs on. They would hold up the few
rare exceptions (which could be counted on one hand)—the LowCons who had risen
through the ranks all the way to executive—and say “See, it can be done,” as if
the poor who were kicked out of their homes or starved to death simply didn’t
want it badly enough.

The few generous
people I had ever heard of, those who actually built companies, employed
people, and put money back into the system, the ones HighCons point to when
people accused them of pillaging, were almost always the ones who started poor.
Those born into wealth thought they deserved it and made money destroying.
Those born poor who became rich from their own ingenuity and hard work were the
ones most likely to be charitable. If the system was right, why would those
very examples of the success of that system– those who truly earned it
themselves—be generous? The people who had lived on both sides of the economic
spectrum, who had the best perspective from which to judge, most bemoaned the
terrible inequalities against LowCons.

The butler
arrived with my sandwich. It smelled divine, made from real meat, a delicacy in
a world with such little space for livestock. But I couldn’t eat it. I opened
the refrigerator and looked for the least expensive thing I could find, but it
was filled with fruits and cheeses.

In the living
room I found a small velvet box sitting on top of the television. It was a
poker set. The dice were made of tiger bone, the shooters elephant tusk. The
entire set was easily worth more than the sum total of the staff and equipment
of the whole seventh floor where I worked.

I turned on the
television. It had (of course) every channel I had ever heard of, and many I
hadn’t. Some charged as much as three hundred caps a minute. I laughed, turned
it to the CEO channel and left it running.

Let them bill me for this
.
I’m not getting out of here alive anyway
.

A seminar popped
onto the screen, a CEO giving a lecture on management.

“The second
postulate is ‘Perception is everything,’” he said. “Reality isn’t important,
and you have no control over it, so there’s no point in worrying about it. Even
caps aren’t real. They’re paper, bits of electrons stored electronically. You
cannot eat them or live in them. The only value they have is what you can trade
for them, and you can only trade what someone else
thinks
they’re worth. Convince someone that they’re worth less, and
you earn more caps from sales; convince someone that they’re worth more, and
you spend fewer on purchases. It’s all perception.

“Every year
perfectly sound banks are destroyed because someone starts a rumor that the
bank is unstable. This causes a run on the bank, which then loses capital.
This, of course, makes it unstable. The perception actually creates the
reality. Manage perception, and you create reality.”

I went back to
the library. I looked for Nash, but couldn’t find him, though I did find more
than one copy of
The Origin of Species
.

I was leafing
through the books when I noticed a small cabinet down at the bottom. I opened
it to find a ream of paper and a small typewriter. It was old and worn, so much
so that it hardly looked like it belonged.

What on earth is this here for?
I
wondered. Had they left it there by accident? Did they want me to write
something? If I did, they’d almost surely destroy it, or use it against me in
court. Still, I was going to be there for weeks, maybe months. I’d need
something to do. I made a note of it and returned it to its place.

“The third
postulate,” continued the voice on the screen, “is ‘Fire ten percent of your
workforce every year.’ This makes your corporation leaner and more efficient.
You should be hiring about that much anyway, so you shouldn’t shrink much. But
the fear this instills, the drive to compete, is invaluable. Also you’ll be
bringing in fresh blood, which can help you find the newest bright
stars—colleagues with executive potential. You’ll also save money, since even
at the same grade, the new contracts will start at a lower rank. The real
problem will be people who have been in the corporation the longest, the ones
who you pay the most. Consider finding ways of replacing them with lower-rank,
less expensive colleagues.

“Now, it’s
become common for employees—especially those represented by advocates—to
protect against this by working tenure clauses into their contracts. Avoid
hiring these troublemakers when you can. But if you really need the talent,
remember that you can always fire for cause, which is, of course, just another
matter of perception. If the employee doesn’t like it, he can always litigate.
But the first one to litigate, you destroy; bury him with motions,
cross-motions, and injunctions. The process is expensive, but do it once and
you’ll never have to do it again.”

I opened the
cabinets in the kitchen and found loads of dishes: complete sets of silverware,
place settings, wine glasses and serving trays. I checked the sofa. Sure
enough, it was a foldout.

Guests? Are they expecting I’ll entertain?

“The fourth
postulate is to always keep things moving. Never let the company stagnate.
Every eight to sixteen months you should come up with a new division, a new
paradigm, or a new mission statement. Pick a new product that you can tell
people will be the next big thing. Much of being a CEO is paying people to dig
ditches so that you can pay other people to fill them in again. Busy people are
easier to control. Corporations are in a constant state of decay. You have to
continuously re-organize to keep your people occupied.”

I laughed.

“The fifth
postulate is ‘Always lie.’ Lie about everything. If your stock is doing well,
say that you don’t like how it’s going; you’ll be lauded for your ambition. If
the stock is bad, admitting it makes it worse, so say you’re pleased with it.
Figure out how it could’ve been worse and focus on that. And for God’s sake,
never tell the same lie twice. It’s lazy, and it’s how you get caught. If
paychecks were late last week because of a worker’s strike, next week they
should be late because of an accounting error.”

This must be the channel that Linus watches.

“If you’re
telling the truth about anything,” he continued, “you’re missing an opportunity
to leverage. Information is power, and if you’re going to give accurate
information, make people pay through the nose for it. The truth is a commodity;
manage your stock of it.”

I fell onto the
orchid-white couch. For a moment I worried that I might stink it up, but that
wasn’t my problem. Still, I felt my face, and realized I could use a shower and
shave. I was loath to avail myself of any of these luxuries. Besides, maybe
meeting my interrogators smelling like a rotting pig was its own rebellion. But
I wanted to face them with my head held high, with pride.

I hopped into
the shower. The water was warm, clean, and decalcified. The soap melted away
all my dirt and left me smelling fresh. I hadn’t realized until then just what
a good shower did, and I stood there for fifteen minutes, doing nothing but
letting the water run over my aching body.

I realized that
could probably even drink the water. I wondered if maybe my life had been
harder on me than I had ever understood.

I could feel
myself rejuvenated, ready to face whatever they threw at me. Now was the time
to collect myself, to formulate a plan of attack.

They would
interrogate me. They would know about Kate, and maybe about the Republic. I’d
have to steel myself against attacks on that front. She might have already been
captured, but I had to hold out hope. If she had been real, she’d need my help.
Against torture, nobody can hold out forever. But I’d hold out long enough.

They’ll offer you your life back—a bump in
grade. Make them think you’ll take it, let them keep offering more and more.
But never, ever take it, no matter what! Let them come, in the end, to see that
I have no price.

I would have to
begin enjoying myself, I thought. I must make it look like they have me, like
I’ll bow to their demands. I would eat their food, read their books, use their
gym and watch their television.

I lathered up a
second time, grinning, ready to fight.

But what if that
was what they wanted? Was that how they’d break me? Maybe they wouldn’t offer
me anything; maybe they already had Kate, and destroyed the Republic. If they
needed me to get her, would they have waited so long to begin my interrogation?
Certainly they were as aware as I was that every minute helped her and her
friends get away.

I thought
desperately on how to foil these people, to ruin their plans, whatever they
were. Whatever they wanted of me, I needed to do the opposite. If they wanted
me sad, I would be happy. If they wanted me to suffer, I would relish. Defiant,
I would bend.

But I had no
idea what they wanted. I didn’t even know if the Republic had been real or not,
let alone if they’d ask me about it.

At that moment I
knew that they had me right where they wanted me.

The guards came
for me later that evening. They gave me modest encouragement, told me not to
worry. After years of working there, they said, they could spot the ones who
would make it and the ones who wouldn’t. I had a real chance—Ackerman wouldn’t
let Retention destroy a valuable asset.

“Cheer up!
You’re corporate material!”

We wound through
the hallways till we got to a beautiful glass elevator overlooking the atrium.
It dropped down all twenty-three floors, through the ground floor and down
another dozen or so, to an underground labyrinth of rooms. They took me down a
white hallway, past rows of sliding doors. Finally we got to one at the end,
and they stopped.

“Whatever
happens, Mr. Thatcher,” the guard said, “keep your chin up!”

Stepping through
the door was like stepping into another world. There was a small foyer with a red
wooden bench. Chinese scrolls hung from the ceiling, and beads hung in the
doorway. The main room was oriental (at least how the oriental designs appeared
in books—most of those lands had long since flooded). Red, gold and black
paintings and icons hung everywhere. Cherry and ebony tiger, dragon, and
warrior figurines were on nearly every conceivable surface. An ancient Chinese
writing desk squatted against the corner of the wall, and two large silver
dragons lined the adjoining sides of the room, with several lacquered screens
in the corners. Atop the writing desk I saw a small wooden case, gilded and
adorned in black enamel. I knew immediately what it was: a poker set.