Taking the Highway

ACROSS THE ROOM, BOB Masterson raised a hand as Andre entered. “Andre LaCroix! Get yourself in here.”

Conversations stopped, heads swiveled, coffee cups paused halfway to mouths, as a room full of fourths stared at Andre. He thought that eight fifty-five would be plenty early for a nine o’clock meeting, but the small conference room was already full. He was mildly surprised by a pattering of applause. Bob must have been talking up yesterday’s near-robbery.

Andre moved to a more comfortable conversational distance and shook Bob’s outstretched hand. “Do you always meet at the bank?”

“Walter Glass is a messenger for Bank of America. His boss likes him, lets him use the conference room.” Bob pointed out a tall black man with huge, soft eyes and cheekbones so sharp he could cut paper with them. “Walter’s our president.”

“What about these other guys? Shouldn’t they be at their day jobs?”

Bob laughed. “This is their day job. Most of these guys are full time.”

Andre counted heads. Twenty-four people, all of them full-time fourths? How did they do it? Even if they were all NFA—and he doubted that—they still had living expenses. Fourthing paid, but it didn’t pay well.

Walter Glass called the meeting to order. A dozen people took seats at the center conference table while the overflow stood against the wall. Andre declined the offered chair and stood by the propped-open door.

“Thank you everyone for coming,” Walter said. He spoke quickly, as if wanting to get the meeting over with and get back to work. “I see some old friends and some new faces, so thank you for spreading the word.”

Andre scanned the room, wondering how many of the others were newcomers, and if they’d come for the union’s agenda or their own. But everyone looked the same—young, well-groomed, sharply-dressed, proudly displaying their fourthing badges as if it were the secret handshake for the clubhouse. There were two women, their business suits a little more conservative than the mens’, probably overcompensating for the unfortunate assumptions. A man hired for a thirty-minute ride was one thing, a woman hired in the same way still dealt with the connotations.

“A follow-up from last meeting,” Walter continued. “We have those tax regulations that everyone wanted. Is anyone still not clear on the acceptable deductions?”

A man in back raised his hand. “So, we are allowed to deduct the license fee as a business expense?”

“There are income thresholds that have to be met. Basically, the IRS needs to know if you’re doing this as a job or a hobby.”

Laughter burbled around the room. Walter continued in that vein, detailing every single way to comply with the tax code.

Andre shifted his weight to the other foot and leaned against the doorframe. He’d been forced to attend union meetings as a rookie police officer and pretty much ignored his shop steward ever since. Now he remembered why. There was only so much of this a person could take.

The questions around the room made it abundantly clear that these men all paid their taxes in full every year. He’d never seen anything like it. No other cash business on the planet would do that. Certainly only a fraction of his own fourthing income ever got on the books.

He stuck one foot outside the open door, hoping to slip through without being noticed. He had to make a call. Sofia would not be pleased that he’d reached another dead end. But if the mafia was muscling in on fourths, it wasn’t these fourths.

“I’m all for paying my taxes,” said a voice from the corner, “but if I don’t have enough income to tax, then what? Administrative bullshit isn’t going to help me. Action will.”

Andre stopped on the threshold and turned toward the speaker, a man with a pallid face and a southern drawl.

Walter exhaled into the murmur of disapproval from the crowd. “We’ve been through this, Hugh. We’ve been through this numerous times. Until our membership is larger, going on strike will hurt more than it will help.”

Hugh glowered theatrically, “Do you know how many fourths were robbed last year? How many were hit by careless drivers in bad weather?”

“A strike will hurt us,” Bob said. “Nobody else will care.”

Murmurs of “That’s right, man,” and “Shut up, Hugh,” moved through the room.

Walter cleared his throat and looked uncomfortably down at the table. “Now then,” he continued. “On schedule C, you find the self-employment taxes.”

Andre stepped out of the room and kept walking. He’d made it through the bank’s front door and onto the street when he heard Bob’s voice behind him. “Andre, wait up!”

He turned. “Sorry, man. I just don’t think I belong there.”

“We’re kind of pathetic, aren’t we?”

“Who’s that Hugh guy? What’s his story?”

“Hugh Ingersol. His story is that he’s a nutjob.”

Andre reached into his pocket and set his datapad to record. “What kind of nutjob?”

“The guy never shuts up. Talk, talk, talk. But to get him off his ass and actually doing something? Forget it. He won’t even take meeting minutes or post flyers for us.”

“Always about money?”

“Mostly. Last meeting he bitched endlessly about the cost of fourthing badges. Called it an illegal tax on fourths. He talked for twenty-three and a half minutes. I timed him.”

“A lot of fourths think the fee is prohibitive.”

“It’s a thousand bucks a year! If a fourth can’t make that in less than a week, he shouldn’t be fourthing.”

“Any idea where Ingersol lives?”

“The exurbs somewhere, practically the country. I don’t know how many rides he gets.” Bob waved a dismissive hand. “Do we have to talk about that phony? I feel like doing something real. Come on.”

Andre trailed after him. “Where?”

Bob looked up and Andre followed his gaze down Wilson Street, over the silver bell-like sculpture on the edge of the park, back along a series of building profiles rendered golden by the midmorning sun. “My gym is three blocks away. One cycle of Exersleep and you’ll be a new man.”

“Exersleep? What’s wrong with real exercise?” Andre tried to bury his apprehension by keeping his tone light.

Bob rolled his eyes. “I’m much too pretty to sweat in public. So are you.”

Andre stopped walking. “Look, I’m very flattered but—”

Bob kept going, forcing Andre to catch up. He waved a hand. “Please. I don’t flirt with straight men. I owe you one, okay? For rescuing me at the FIT.”

“That was nothing. I’m sure you would have done the same for me.”

“See?” Bob pointed both index fingers at him. “That’s the attitude the union needs.” They passed under the aqueduct-like People Mover, full of children pressed against the windows. Had to be on a field trip, Andre decided. They were on the museum Loop, and the Graphic Lit retrospective at the Institute of Arts was huge with teachers.

“How far is it? I need to move my car.” Perhaps that would be enough to divert Bob and he wouldn’t have to go through with it.

“You drove?”

“I didn’t want to be late.”

Bob gave him a look.

“What?”

“You drove to a meeting of professional hitchhikers. That’s good. Anyway, it’s just ahead.” Bob pointed to the rather imposing facade of the Detroit Athletic Club. He hurried to the entrance. “Welcome to my gym.”

Andre ran his eye over the edifice and whistled. “You can afford to belong here just by fourthing?”

Bob held the door open. “Without a mortgage payment or rent?” He leaned in to say quietly, “Barely. I have to do a few extras here and there, but the facilities are worth it.” He smiled broadly at two women leaving the facility. “Lan! I haven’t seen you in forever, girlfriend!” He bent to kiss her cheek. “Betty! You are very bad. You were supposed to call me yesterday.” He introduced Andre as a fourthing friend, and they exchanged small talk before the women went on their way.

After which, Bob greeted—and was greeted by—five other people between the front door and the main desk, and introduced Andre to all of them.

“Is there anyone you don’t know?” Andre asked.

“I don’t know you,” Bob answered.

“What’s that supposed to mean? Of course you know me.”

“I don’t even know what you do when you’re not fourthing.”

Andre had prepared for this. “Wait tables.”

“A lot of fourths do that. Where do you work?”

“Private parties. My friend has a catering company. Julia’s Delectables.”

“Sounds like a sweet gig. How do you like it?”

“Great. I like meeting people.”

“Me too. I like people more than money.”

“I like money too.”

“People are a better investment. Money is just money.” Bob made a show of signing Andre in as a guest. “I’m nearly forty. At the most, I’ll get five more years out of this gig.”

“And then?”

Bob led him to the locker rooms. “Then I settle down, find a place to live, get respectable. For now, I’m free.”

Andre watched Bob’s easy swagger as he followed him to the locker room. He thought of himself as free, but a fourth was just as enslaved as any office drone. Instead of a job, he was tethered to a system. One that involved constant selling of the self.

The locker room smelled of harsh cleaning products. But better to smell antiseptic than to reek of old sweat. Andre waited until there was no one nearby. “So the Detroit Athletic Club doesn’t care that a member has no fixed address?”

Bob grinned. “No need to whisper. It isn’t a secret or anything. I can’t remember exactly, but something like a tenth of the members have the club address itself listed as ‘primary residence.’“ He gestured at his locker, big as a good-sized closet. “I keep a season’s worth of clothes here and have two storage units in case I’m out for the day, one in South Lyon and the other in Livonia.”

“Both kinda close to the zone,” Andre said.

Bob shrugged and carefully hung his dress shirt. “As long as they’re still outside, they’re fine. I take it you’ve never considered living the NFA dream?”

Andre took the proffered wick-suit and thought about living out of lockers. Would it be all that different? He was working so hard to pay for his house that he hardly spent any time in it. But giving up his house would mean giving up his books, his wine cellar, and most importantly, his garage.

He handed over his suit hangers. “I guess I couldn’t get used to the idea of not having my own space.”

Bob gestured expansively. “The whole city is my own space. I’ve been a member here since the DAC franchised Exersleep in, but I have a universal membership with any Somna facility I want to go to.” He led them out and turned his smile on the young woman behind the counter. She was wearing a black skintight that ate light and made her a lovely silhouette with a slightly disembodied head. It was an interesting effect, but a little unnerving. “Hello, Kit.”

“Hello, Mr. Masterson,” she turned a warm smile on Andre, “and Guest.”

He held out a hand. “Andre LaCroix.”

“Two sets, please.” Bob’s voice dropped into a murmur. “Can you convince my account I was here yesterday for one of those?” His hand was on the counter with a bill peeping out from under it.

Kit dimpled and flickered a wink. “Of course, sir.” She touched his arm playfully and the bill was gone. She tapped at a holographic interface that was just a blur of light from their side. Have you ever tried Exersleep before Mr. LaCroix?”

Here was his chance to get out of it. There were plenty of fairly benign medical conditions that precluded the use of Exersleep.

“He can’t wait.”

“Actually,” Andre said, annoyed enough to show it, “I’m still not sure I like the idea.”

“Oh Andre,” Bob tsked, “you aren’t going to pretend you have epileptic seizures or anything as tiresome, are you?”

“No. I don’t feel comfortable with the idea of losing that time.”

Bob said nothing more, merely looking at him.

Fine. He truthfully assured Kit that he did not have any health condition that could make the procedure a danger.

She turned back to Bob. “Half cycle, today?”

“Full cycle,” Bob said. “I think Andre can handle it, seems to be in pretty good shape.”

“He does,” she murmured with a half smile. She touched the interface again and reached under the counter to come up with two headsets that looked a little like ancient Greek laurel wreaths. “I’ll see you back in two hours.”

Two more attendants, neither of them as stunning as Kit, led them into a room that looked like a high-tech version of a medieval torture chamber, filled wall-to-wall with exercise equipment that looked disturbingly like cages. Most were empty, but some of them contained people going through a proscribed series of movements. The word “zombicize” sprung unbidden into his mind.

He vaguely remembered one of the attendants fitting the wreath around the back of his head.

Then he was in the cooling room, the attendant stepping away with the headset. He gasped. His body ached everywhere—not pain exactly, but the deep muscle ache of strenuous exercise. He checked the time. Sure enough, two hours had passed and it was lunchtime. He probed for the missing hours and found just enough sense of the passing time to be comfortable.

“So?”

“Just like they say,” he told Bob. “I feel tired, but not tired.”

Bob laughed. “Everyone sounds like the ads after the first time. Two hours worth of work-out and eight hours worth of sleep at the same time.” He stretched. “Endorphins rock.”

Andre flexed experimentally and followed him back out. Kit was assisting three more incoming Exersleepers, but she caught Andre’s eye and slid a wink over him. He shook his head—two hours for her, two minutes for him. Weird.

He availed himself of one of the private shower and dressing rooms. When he came out, Bob was sipping out of a water pack and frowning at his datapad.

“Problem?”

Bob started and hid the datapad. “Ah, my plans for the night fell through. The downside of Exersleep is that you have to over-schedule yourself for the hours of sleep you don’t need anymore.”

There was slight tension in his expression and Andre wondered about the “extras” Bob had mentioned. Bob’s finagling of his account proved that he was, indeed, living just at the edge of his means.

“Since you’re free this evening, could you get over to Greenfield Village? My brother is having a big party to fund his next run for city council. I was told that a few fourths would be a welcome addition.”

Bob grinned. “We do make agreeable scenery. How welcome will we be?”

“He usually pays three hundred.”

“That’s more welcome than I’d be just standing around on my own. God, I haven’t been to Greenfield Village in ages. I could watch the glass blowers for hours.”

“Yeah, you won’t be seeing them.”

“I love those antique model T’s that drive the perimeter of the park.”

“Those won’t be running either. My brother only rented the central green.”

“We have to walk past a bunch of cool stuff to be corralled onto a patch of grass? Like sheep?”

“It’s our job to make the other sheep happy.”

Bob pressed his water pack to his forehead and closed his eyes. “I don’t know if I can do that for three hundred.”

“Come on, I thought the city was your space.”

Bob laughed. “True. But you have to drive me there. I’ll find my own accommodations afterward.” He lowered the water and opened his eyes. “I’ll tell you what you can do. Front me the three hundred and get your brother to pay you back.”

Andre patted his pockets in slow motion.

Bob chucked the empty water pack into a recycle bin. “Your brother will hire me? I’m not just there to audition?”

“Sure, sure.” Andre opened his wallet and handed over all the cash he’d earned for the last two days.

While Bob went to change, Andre opened his datapad and blipped Oliver. He could count on his brother—or anyone his age—giving him an instant reply.

[STILL HIRING FOURTHS FOR TONIGHT?]

Sure enough, he waited only seconds for Oliver’s return blip. [MY GUEST LIST IS FIXED. SO IS MY BUDGET.]

[THIS ONE IS WORTH IT. YOU’LL SEE.]

[HE’D BETTER BE.]

[PUT US ON YOUR LIST. ME PLUS ONE.]

He shut down the pad before Oliver could reply. Cheap bastard. Of course his little brother was expected to attend for free, but heaven forbid he would have to pony up some cash for real talent.

He stashed the pad when Bob came back, smoothing the fold-over lapels of an ornate-style suit. The inside of the lapels were floral print, taking the place of a tie. He caught Andre’s look. “Too formal?”

“Thanks a lot.” Andre squared the lapels of his own basic blue suit. “You make me look like the ass-end of a rhino.”

“If my brown tie weren’t in Livonia, I could—”

“You look fine.”

Exercise had made Andre ravenous, but Bob wouldn’t consider lunch anywhere else but the athletic club, insisting it was his treat. “Please, you’re a guest in the nearest thing I have to a home.”

Andre waited until they’d been seated and made their selections. “Do you know anyone else who’d like to come to the fundraiser tonight?”

Bob played with his silverware. “The trouble isn’t getting people. It’s choosing which ones.”

“Like all the fourths at the union meeting this morning?”

“That’s a start.”

“But not Hugh Ingersol.”

Bob rolled his eyes. “God, no. Can you imagine? He’d go on strike, never show up at your party, and want to get paid anyway.”

Andre laughed with him, until Bob turned serious, straightening and re-straightening his fork and knife. “A strike would be devastating,” Bob half-whispered.

Andre picked up his goblet and took a sip of ice water. “You don’t think it would help at all? Raise our profile a little bit?”

“They could unionize every single fourth in southeast Michigan, have them all go on strike at once, and it still wouldn’t help.”

Andre imagined the possibility. “It would bring the city to its knees.”

“We don’t want the city on its knees.” Bob broke off as the waiter brought their appetizers. He picked up his fork and poked at a crab cake. “Do you remember the satellite crash?”

Andre swallowed a bite of crab. “Who doesn’t?” It had been over five years ago, but he still remembered how they’d had to use telephones and two-way radios with the police communication network out. There had been other, bigger problems in everything from aviation to shipping to medicine, but it was four days of working blind that he remembered most. It had been exhausting and a huge pain in the ass, but also more interesting. He talked to people, not machines. He did what his gut told him, not the computers. Getting any kind of police work done took longer, but somehow felt more satisfying.

Bob continued to play with his food. “How long did it take your phone company to figure out how to reroute your calls?”

“Sometimes I think they still haven’t figured it out.”

“I’m serious.”

Andre put down his fork and considered. “About a day and a half.”

“Exactly.” Bob sat back in his chair. “Banks still did business and people still drove without GPS, and television got a lot more local and a lot more interesting. By the time the satellites were fully restored, it was too late. The techshun movement was born.”

“The origins of techshun go deeper than the sat crash.”

“Yeah, yeah. The historians will say it was the collapse of the Asian economy, or an offshoot of the environmental movement, or that it had its roots in the privacy laws and the death of social networking sites, but trust me, it was the sat crash. For the first time, the masses had an alternative, and they took it.” Bob finally speared a bite of crab cake. “Now, let’s say that every fourth in the city goes on strike at the same time. Do people stay home, or do they find an alternative?” He chewed and swallowed. “And that’s the end of fourthing.”