4:3ality II
Brody, it’s a good strong name.
Thanks sir, my parents were Yuppie-punks too.
Well, you’re a lucky man in that regard then Brody, my parents lacked any clear vision about the best way to live. Look, I’ll get straight into this.
Ackman suddenly looks bored.
You’re a decent kid Brody, but you’re not what I want for the Assets team.
I knew this was coming but it still stings
I didn’t want to turn you over to HR to fit into the first available post in audits or some shit like that, so I spoke to Gomez and he’s willing to give you a go in sales.
I appreciate it sir.
Look Brody, you’ve got to be a bit more ruthless to reach your potential you know? You’d do well to stick close to your mate Chen, that guy’s ruthless but a lot of fun. He really had Reagan lounge rocking the other night. It’s a real shame they didn’t let you in huh?
Ah that’s okay sir, no harm done.
This is what I’m talking about Brody. You should have been pissed, don’t roll over so easily.
I guess you’re right sir, I appreciate your guidance.
Ackman sighs. Clearly, I’m not getting it.
You should know that I asked Chen to take your post. It’s a sideways move for him but he’s a good fit for us. I thought you should hear it from me rather than through the grapevine later on.
I am now actually pissed.
That makes sense sir, he’s a good friend, I’m pleased for him.
Ackman sighs again and shakes my hand. I go to my desk and start boxing up my personal effects.
Chen is not a good friend. Chen is the arrogant fucker left me standing like a lost puppy outside of the Reagan lounge and stole my cocaine whilst he did so. Chen is the fucker who keeps calling me Johnson even though my name is Brody Johannsen. Chen has just stolen my job and relegated me to fucking sales where I will crash and burn because I am not like Chen, I am not an over-confident little prick.
Ackman gives me the last few hours of the day off, so I jump the monorail to the financial district and call my sister.
Kylie, I’m just down the road from your office, let’s get some nosebag.
Kylie is four years younger than me but already more successful on every metric that could be considered to matter, unless you regard success as a very solid collection of Gravure reissues covering 1987-98.
How bad is it this time Brody?
This isn’t insight on her part; I only turn up on her doorstep when I have a problem.
It’s not the end of the world I guess but I could certainly use a sympathetic ear.
She tells me she won’t be finished until 7pm, another hour, so I hole up in the closest thing the financial district has to a yuppie-punk bar which is a generic retro joint called Analogue. There are hipsters sporting conspicuous mods sitting at the bar, giving every girl that comes in the eye. I take a booth and use my pad to log into 4:3ality. I’m one of those few people who aren’t grandparents but prefer a dedicated screen over an AVR overlay. The video of Chen standing on the table screaming at the crowd in the Reagan lounge has become a meme, captioned with the phrase “take the city” or variations thereof. The fucker is on every thread, standing over a burning landscape, a besieged city of Troy, a prohibitive price tag on Dead Channels, or shrunk to miniscule size and waving his fist at rows of kittens. I leave the public threads and look for some comfort in my private groups. AestheticLifeShinja is clogged up by three members comparing different clones of the FUJIX-DSX and, frankly, coming to the wrong conclusions but I opt not to get involved; some people just don’t get what this is all about you know? Bored, I check the Dead Channels auction site; my bid for a replica Casio calculator watch from the late 2010s has been surpassed whilst I was getting kicked out of my sweet post at work; my mood sours further. I finish my beer and order a pitcher of Long Island Iced Tea; I’ve drunk most of it before Kylie arrives. I’m watching a 4:3ality tutorial on VideoToaster emulation when she sits down opposite me.
Thanks for coming sis.
I realise I’m slurring my words, Long Island does it every time.
Kylie laughs, just a little, then she smiles and orders burgers, pizza and more drinks whilst I tell her of my woes.
Jesus Brody, why are you still involved in this shitty little scene? You’re 29 years old, too old to still be a slave of mum and dad’s weird world view. The 80s were shit and yuppie-punks are boring, amoral wankers who don’t even understand the culture they seek to recreate.
I offer a shrug as I chew on some unnecessarily doughy pizza.
This is a chance to get out of that shitty job and to move to a real company that actually has money. Do you forget that you work for a company called MegaSolutions that provides fourth tier investment services to people with strange religions that think any tech from before the Decline is amoral? This whole ‘we are flying the flag for the anti-tech-everyman’ is just a ploy to hire yuppie-punk wankers.
Like me.
Yes Brody, like you. I make more money than senior management over there do. You live in a frankly terrible part of the Eastern Boroughs just because the building is 80’s themed and they advertise on 4:3ality. You can’t do these things and be surprised when your life turns out to be a bit weak. Let Chen be their king. Come and rejoin the rest of the world Brody, before it is lost to you.
She makes a compelling argument and I tell her so. This seems to cheer her and she orders some more drinks and we talk about things I haven’t discussed in a long time; politics, god, our hopes, our fears. Then we stagger our separate ways uttering soon to be forgotten promises to see more of each other. I have the weekend to make some choices.
I wake up late, hungover and with an urge to get out of Ginza Hills before I can give in to familiar temptations; bidding on ‘untested’ walkmans has become something of a Saturday morning ritual. I shower, throw on my new stonewash jeans, a fresh white t-shirt and my favourite red lumberjack shirt. The house AI tells me that it is cold out so I throw on a suit jacket that is sitting crumpled on a chair; the one that was deemed incorrect attire for the Reagen lounge the last time I wore it. The bad memory almost compels me to go and find something else but the hangover is getting worse and I don’t like the thought of Chen dictating my actions any more than he already has.
Dressed, I head out of the door with no destination in mind. I get on the subway and head to the inner districts and alight at a random stop, a place I’ve never been to before. As I exit the station I am greeted by a large stream running from left to right. The banks of the stream have been turned into a park complete with botanical garden zones and play areas. Small groups of well raised children charge around whilst their parents sit nearby, engaged in their own activities on their AVR. Chapedrones whirr around, using nudge psychology to shepherd any overly excited kids away from the water’s edge.
The layout of the surrounding residential and commercial areas are stunning, I would guess entirely AI designed. I spend some time marveling at the outlandish audacity of it all. The way the light interacts with the water, the way the surrounding buildings give both a sense of space and futurism despite being over 60 stories high and packed together like 80’s salarymen on the Tokyo subway. Maybe Kylie is right, any sane person would want to live here, not in the shitty old boroughs. I sit down and eavesdrop on conversations, study people’s fashion and mods. Not a single one of them seems to even be aware of the 80’s, of 4:3ality or any of the things that occupy my every waking moment; there’s not a shellsuit in sight. My hangover melds with this sense of alienation and it all becomes unbearable. I consult my AVR and have it guide me to the nearest 24-hour bar, just under a mile away. As I walk my vision becomes tunnel-like, I focus only on the AVR’s HUD giving me directions and that magical riff from Europe’s Final Countdown which blasts at me through my AVRs cochlear implants.
The bar is an unstaffed chain with no noticeable design aesthetic. Like many successful businesses it is soulless but cheap and clean. It is also empty, so I sit at the bar and order a Long Island via my AVR and wait for the push message to tell me it’s ready, then I collect it from the numbered dispensing cubby. I’m close to finishing my third when I realize there is a man sitting next to me. Right next to me in a bar sporting less than three patrons.
Yuppie-punk.
A statement, not a question. There is no follow up to this opening gambit and this leaves me wrong footed. I was preparing to bat away a sad, lonely old man; not have him lose interest in me in under a minute. We both go back to our drinks. I find something in my suit jacket pocket and take to fiddling with it.
I guess it’s not working out?
A question this time.
Oh, give it a rest please mate. I’ve got enough on my plate without total stranger sticking their dick in my ear.
He laughs. It’s a good laugh, unrestrained or managed.
My apologies, I’ll get the drinks in.
And he does; two pitchers of Long Island. The stuff here is pretty terrible, straight from a carton with some generic coke splashed on top. Even stirring it is apparently more trouble than we are worth but whatever; it looks like I’m getting drunk again.
None of my business, but I hate to see a young person so glum. What ails you kid?
I’m pretty far from sobriety, so I give him the anonymized and abridged version. He nods sagely as I speak. Give the man his dues, he’s a good listener. He says nothing when I’ve finished. I don’t know why, maybe I don’t like the silence, but I ask him, what the fuck would he do in this situation?
What I would do doesn’t matter kid. I wouldn’t be a yuppie-punk. My parents were far worse than yours; tech-cultists. I got away as soon as I was able to and I’ve strived to live a humble life ever since, but that doesn’t matter either. A hippo has no business telling a lion how to conduct themselves; nor can I tell you what to do. I will say this however, you’ve got to live with whatever you become. If you want to move on and make a change then do so, if you want to be the chief of your tribe, then you’d better get on it. Either way, I can heartily recommend getting drunk, scoring some drugs, altering your mind and taking your worrying, self-conscious pride out of its dull little routine. Once you do that, you’ll know what needs to be done. Then it’s just a matter of doing it.
That’s the part I’m not good at.
We only flounder when we don’t fully believe in what we are doing. When we use it as a distraction from our boredom. The vast majority of people will opt for pretty much anything over being bored and that includes working a shitty job and buying things they don’t really care about. Contrast that the Ministers though; those fuckers are the most terrifying people on the planet because they don’t separate their lives into means and ends, into pleasure and work, past present and future. They don’t fear boredom because they can frame it as part of their journey. You know they uncovered one who had been doing a shitty admin job for 35 years, just so she could gain the trust of an ops-manager at Vantage and convert them to their faith? Together they wiped out three generations of a dynasty that had made its money from the oil trade. Everything they do is part of their purpose and the average human simply cannot compete with an entity such as that.
With that he excuses himself and stumbles off to the toilets, taking out a few adjacent bar stools as he goes. I take the object I’ve been thumbing out of my pocket and look at it. I double take and smile as I look at it again. I head down on street level and I am walking, dictating plans and questions subverbally to my AVR as I head back to the station where I board the first of trains that will take me to the Docks.
I arrive back home 36 hours later in what I would generously describe as worse for wear. I take some downers that I scored from the taxi driver who brought me home. Sleep won’t come for some time but these will stop me bouncing off of the walls. I have my AVR transfer all of my dictated notes and search results from the last day and a half to the large A2 tablet on my coffee table. I sit for a long time, writing, reading, plotting and planning. I fall asleep where I sit on the floor, between the smoked glass coffee table and white leather sofa. I sleep for over a day. I wake up on Tuesday and keep working on my idea, questioning and refining it. On Thursday I take the elevator up to Chen’s apartment and tell him my plan. He is very much in.
On Friday I go to work. I have many, many missed calls and unanswered messages from various managers, supervisors and HR staff. MegaSolutions is organizationally so top heavy I’m surprised it hasn’t toppled over into the fucking sea. The suit I’m wearing arrived just last night and it is choice. I know it is choice because I sat and I read and I spoke to people until I knew all of the minutiae, all of the dull bullshit that makes one suit bad and another so very good. Then I spent a lot of money acquiring myself this suit and a lot more getting all of the other crap that is required to make this suit look at home on me. The gaudy rolex watch, the contrast collar shirt and very importantly, the loafers. Finally I got the haircut, complete with a tub of bright green hair gel that sort of has bubbles in it and doesn’t completely wash off of your hands, regardless of how much soap you use. I was wearing my new outfit when I met Chen this morning and he was deeply impressed.
Back in the office I do not report to sales, I do not report to HR. I go to the bathroom, take a look at myself in my spectacular new threads, do a few lines of coke that I picked up at the docks and channel my inner sociopath. I tour the offices and I make a point of greeting every manager and up-and-comer that I see, complete with a personalized little quip about something they said or did. Thinking of them all has taken me many hours. I make them feel good about themselves and therefore I make them notice me, the new me complete with new threads and cocky attitude. Everyone who falls outside of the Venn of power and/or potential however is ignored and ignored with disdain, because I want them to notice me too. When I see Chen we take a moment to make sure everyone sees me pass him a large envelope that suggests it could well be full of cash. Everyone looks at me. Most people wonder just what the fuck has got into me whilst the remainder wonder just who the fuck I think I am. Having stirred up every department in the entire company I saunter into Sales. It is 11:30am.
My new desk is in the corner of the office furthest from the window; Gomez was never going to give me a shot. Ackman is a lying shit but none of this surprises me or phases me. I look at the desk with scorn and park myself and my boxes in the departmental conference room where I sit back, put my feet up on the table and start clearing out my inbox via my AVR. At this stage Gomez walks in and slams the door shut.
The balls on you Johannsen. No word since last week and now you roll up half-way through the morning and …
He waves his arms around, presumably to express annoyance at my annexation of the conference room. I smile my best smile because Gomez has made the error of coming into my room. The fact that it’s not actually my room is not important, he came to me and that puts him on my turf. Management 101 states very fucking clearly that you summon minions to your office.
Take it easy chief. Ackman gave me the impression this was a place for go-getters but if you are one of those micro-managers then please, kick me down to HR or out of the door and I’ll take these deals with me.
Gomez is wrong footed but fair play to him he recovers with no little finesse.
We only deal with go-getters here Johannsen. If you say you have contracts then you should be bringing them to me so I can mark you up on the weekly tally.
Oh those contracts? For MegaSolutions? Oh fuck that chief, I’m talking about personal revenue streams. I was under the impression you’d be wanting in. Ackman said … well he led me to believe that you were a man that understood the way of the world.
Ackman of course never had a kind word to say about Gomez but he did let slip that he had gambling debts all over town and was midway through his second divorce, which was all I needed to know.
Gomez sizes me up for a while, he’s trying to make me sweat, but I know he’s broke and has poor impulse control; he is already in my pocket but he is, as yet, unaware.
Okay Johannsen, talk to me.
I spend the next ten minutes spinning a web of bullshit that I’ve been refining over the last few days. A contact in one of the big investment houses, insider trading and other things that probably barely make any sense anymore. None of that matters, the thing that does matter is that I’m offering him ten percent return on his investment, per week, guaranteed. Of course, my guarantee is worth only slightly less than nothing but I know he’s going to give it a try. I have gone missing for four days and come back dripping in expensive clothing. Something has happened and he wants a piece of the action.
Sounds doable, I’ve got 1000 cred, I’ll get it at lunch. Just 7 days you say?
I look embarrassed, I pinch the bridge of my nose and look at my feet and murmur something to myself.
Shit, look chief I’m really sorry if I wasn’t clear, but this is … well it’s the big boys table, high rollers and all that. 20k absolute minimum and really, that’s me doing you a favour. Anyone else I’m not taking less than 100k and that’s only if I like them. You understand how these things are. Anyway, the cut off is in an hour so plenty of time to get a few shekels together.
Disappointment hits Gomez just a fraction of a second before another part of his mind starts scheming; I watch this theatre play out on his face. The disappointment is quickly forgotten as he makes his excuses and leaves to raise 19k. 42 minutes later Gomez is back with none other than fucking Ackman and someone they tell me is one of the managers in finance. Together they hand over 20k creds in cash, not a common sight these days.
I write them a receipt for their money, the header of which bears the Proton Fund logo and registered business number. I give them the receipt but snatch it back from Ackman’s hands as soon as he’s read it.
You know what lads, this is barely worth the effort. Here’s your money and the promised 2k return, no reason to wait until Thursday. I looked bored by the whole affair.
Gomez stammers something but I’m looking out of the window already. What a crappy view. I turn back to face them.
Don’t sweat it chief, it’s just a few k, chicken feed for high rollers like us right?
There are a few murmurs of agreement.
Obviously, I understand, you didn’t want to get your feet wet until you knew there wasn’t piss in the pool but now we can all trust each other I’ll let you play for real next Friday if you want. Do note though that it’s 100k minimum stake because, well you know, this isn’t exactly legal and I can’t be hassling my contacts over pocket change.
But how? Asks Ackman. You’re not the brightest kid around here and definitely not the most connected. How is it that you got to know someone involved with a major investment house?
Well maybe boss, between you and me, just maybe I took your advice and got closer to Chen, but that’s absolutely not to leave this room. Like I said, this may not be entirely legal and he wants to keep his nose clean on this one. Shit, I’ve said too much already but I would like to think that I can trust you three, as would Chen I’m sure.
Smiles break out, hands are shaken and promises sworn. They have something on me now, everything makes sense, and everyone is happy, except me. I’ve just handed over the equivalent of six months’ savings that I had to beg from my sister but I’m on the path now; no turning back even if I wanted to.
That night Chen offers to take me to the Reagan lounge to celebrate a successful day but Chen is too high profile now. I have some Lite beers delivered to my apartment and we sit on the balcony, discussing our next move.
The thing is Chen, we really need to get these guys to pony up a lot more money than they look like they are capable of. My contact is adamant this only has a matter of months, maybe even weeks to run. I need you to get them thinking big.
I know, that’s why you wanted me on board right? Sales and credibility. That’s what I do.
It’s win-win. They get ten percent, we get five percent each and my man on the inside gets to bump his numbers plus whatever else he’s got going on in there. Best of all, we are risk free. Pure profit for us!
We laugh and down our beers.
Seriously Chen, I wasn’t joking when I said I needed this money. I want to get on with my life you know? Make a name for myself, live that 80’s dream.
Chen jabs a finger towards me as he sips his fourth beer.
I’ll be honest with you Johnson, when I stole your coke that night I wondered how you’d react, if you’d get all upset and cry like a little girl or come back stronger and I won’t lie; I would have bet against you. But my man, you’ve really raised the bar with this little investment operation.
Some very good luck is what it was but I’m making the most of it. If we can get the guys at work to put a few hundred k through my Proton investments company, I’ll have enough cash flow on the books to get a sit down with some investors that my sister knows and I hope you’ll be along for the ride.
Chen punches the air in delight.
Yes, this is what I’m talking about Johnson, living the dream.
We will be if you can get our investors as excited as the crowds at the Reagan lounge.
Don’t sweat it, I’m taking Ackman and the rest of them out tomorrow. I was gonna invite you but…well I thought it might be easier if it’s just me. I can get into the zone you know?
Sure Chen, I’ve got some things to be getting on with. This is your show.
With that he retires to his apartment, making sure to mention the fact that he lives 10 floors above me as he leaves. What a shit, even when we are playing a non-zero sum game he just can’t help but be the alphamale.
Friday rolls around and Ackman, the de-facto representative for whatever little syndicate Chen has helped assemble, shows up in the sales boardroom with 200k in a briefcase. I feign disappointment but I’m delighted they didn’t get more. I give them a receipt and leave. I take the money home and check it for any tracing or identifying marks with black light and a cheap tracking detector I got once after watching a Bond movie. I walk 99k of the money around the corner to a bank where I deposit it into Proton Investments’ account. 100k or more and I’ll have to show where it came from. Then I max out every available line of credit. I borrow from my parents, my sister. I discreetly sell everything that I don’t need. I even acquire temporary funds from unlicensed payday sites but I raise 30k. I do all of this without concern or second thoughts. I am perfectly sanguine about my ridiculous mountain of debt because to do this and fail is nothing compared to not trying, to returning my life to its previous equilibrium.
On the following Thursday I withdraw the money and add the extra. I drive into work in a brand new, authentic reissue of the 1982 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am. It’s an absurdly expensive boutique daily rental of course but I fail to mention that to the circle of admirers who gather around it in the basement parking lot. It’s a lovely car I confess, but I’m not sure it’s really what I’m looking for and in all honesty I would probably pass up on the Scheffe option if I were to buy one; I find the red lights rather juvenile. I have my now customary pre-show lines of coke before I head up to assets. I shoot the shit the with a few random types looking to get closer to Chen, as it’s now the worst kept secret in the building that he’s the real brains behind this deal; something he is only too happy to encourage.
Chen arrives around 9:30; neither of us are even pretending to work anymore. I give him his share of the supposed profits as everyone pretends not to be looking. Then I head down to sales to find Ackman waiting for me. He’s trying to look like he just happens to be visiting Gomez, but he’s clearly sweating bricks. I turn on my bravado, my impersonation of Chen basically, hands are shaken, backs are slapped, and nervous energy suppressed. I give Ackman his 220k and he is as happy as a GM pig in a humane yet mud free cage as he signs the receipt.
And now it all comes down to this. What will Ackman bring me tomorrow? Did Chen come through or are the nightmares I’ve been having about the syndicate falling apart some kind of premonition?
We’d like to go for 1 million tomorrow.
I catch myself before I do something silly.
That’s not an insignificant sum of money, big man.
Chen thinks he can handle it, he gave it the okay last night.
He’s talking down to me, I’m just another grant.
Well, he’s running the show guv, I’m just the bagman. Same time tomorrow then. I give him a mock salute from my reclined position behind the desk which, as always, my feet are resting on.
He leaves, closing the door behind him and I’m internally dancing and jigging. 1 million shitting creds. Chen really is very fucking good. I was hoping for maybe 400 or 500k but never a million. The next 24 hours is a blur of nerves and excitement but before I know it, I’m heading home with 2 bags holding a combined 1 million creds. Back in my apartment I check the money carefully and then spend the next few hours running around town paying off my debts. I make sure to give Kylie a lot more than I owe her, not that she needs it but maybe she’ll find a use for it one day. This city has no patience for the poor and we all fall on hard times at some point. I deposit the cash into the Proton Investments account. As expected, the cashier gets the manager, and the manager does a nervous dance around the issue of money laundering. I produce a receipt of sale for a Compulsory Purchase Order of 1 million credits for land in one of the rewilded zones in the southern provinces. I purchased the receipt online last night for 130k from an anonymous government clerk; he got his money in cash today in exchange for the paper. The certificate is actually real if you check it online, which the manager of course, she does. Because there was no money attached to the sale it will escape notice at the governmental end for the 24 hours that it will exist before it is deleted and marked as an administrative error. The poor sap whose name was used to enter the transaction will probably be fired once this all comes out but if I’ve learnt anything lately, is that being forced into a new way of life is not always the terrible thing I thought it would be. I use my company stamp to authorize the immediate withdrawal of corporate tax at 23% because that’s just how it is with cash nowadays. The government has their share and the money is clean. Just one task left.
The feelings that I have as I make my way to Chen’s apartment are, unsurprisingly, not those I had anticipated. I had planned on feeling great joy and vindication but I mostly feel tired; all the adrenaline of the past few weeks has taken its toll. I knock a few times and Chen has the apartment let me in. He’s sitting on his sofa, Dead Channels Auction site on the wall screen, spending his newfound wealth. He’s already got a burgeoning collection of LaserDiscs in the last few days and a Roland Juno of some kind that looks fresh out of the box; the display case has LEDs that change colours.
Johnson! Am I the best or am I best? 1 million baby, that’s how I roll.
That’s what I needed, a little push to get me over the line. I throw him his 70k and he catches the bulging envelope. I play with my AVR slate as I talk to him.
I can’t argue with that. You made us both a tidy little sum. Huh, my AVR has lost connectivity, can I piggyback your household portal?
Chen does something subvocally and my AVR has basic net access. I run my connection through a few VPNs, it looks like the poor attempt to hide traffic that it is. Then I transfer the money from the Proton Investments fund to a numbered, offshore account.
You know, I’m just getting started. I can get them to double down next week easily. There’s at least five senior members of the syndicate who I’ve still to convince to remortgage their apartments.
That’s probably unlikely Chen, seeing as there’s no return on the million they just handed over.
He looks up from the screen like someone’s just shot him.
The fuck Johnson? We can’t not repay them.
Yeah, I can definitely see that’s going to be a problem. It’ll be interesting to see how you’ll explain it.
He looks at me, realization dawning, narrowing his eyes.
Me? Not you, not we?
Well, everyone in the company knows you’re the brains behind this. I’m just the bagman, you pay me a salary and that’s where my involvement ends.
A salary? And how do I do that?
Through Proton Investments of course, I’ve got all the paperwork.
He squints, bites his lip and fiddles with the Mont Blanc pen he’s had in his hands since he bought it last week.
Johnson, are you telling me you’ve stolen a million creds and somehow pinned it on me?
I smile, not because I’m proud of what I’ve done, but because I’ve done it. For once I’ve seen a plan through and maybe that matters more than screwing Chen and the MegaSolutions staff that were so happy to write me off.
You dropped your ID card in my pocket when you lifted my coke outside the Reagan lounge that night.
I was pretty fucked up; that was really good coke.
Well, I took the liberty of opening up a business in your name, along with a company account. It’s shockingly easy to do, as long as you don’t want to borrow money or deal with VAT. I barely needed your ID to be honest. The receipts for the money are all in Proton Investments’ name, which is in your name. You told everyone you were the genius running the show, because you are a very vain man. Besides, I didn’t steal anything at all. The money is divided between that cash in your hand and an offshore account which as of now there’s a record of the traffic on your home AVR portal. I imagine the law will confiscate it all very quickly.
I look him in the eye. I want to see regret for the way he has treated me. Then something quite unexpected happens, he smiles a smile of pure joy.
This Johnson, is fucking amazing. You are a genius. I love it, god damn it if I don’t love you, you mad man! This is the perfect yuppie revenge story.
I just stare at him, slack jawed.
I mean you couldn’t get any more cliched 80s if you fed everything from the golden decade into an AI and asked it to write you a story in the style of the most whisky-soaked hack imaginable. This is going to be legendary my man! There’ll be a feature about this on 4:3eality before the year is out. The Chen-Johanssen rivalry! Freud, lies, crime, drugs and revenge!
So you do know my name, you fuck.
Of course I do, but I like calling you Johnson. Johnson is a better name for you. You should change it.
I like Johannsen.
Do you? Have you seriously sat down and considered the relative merits of any alternative names?
Well no, but it’s my family name, my heritage. People don’t change their names on a whim.
Why shouldn’t you change your name on a whim? It’s as good a reason as I’ve ever heard.
Why are we talking about my bloody name? Don’t you want to kill me or something? Aren’t you even slightly annoyed?
Well, I am on one level Johnson, I was rather enjoying having a lot of cash around. You know, I might even do actual prison time for this, you know? Not much, I don’t think, there’s definitely plausible deniability there, seeing as I actually didn’t do it, but enough time that I can make it a central part of my personality and worldview.
He is positively gleaming with joy.
Are you fucking mad Chen? Prison is a terrible place.
Of course it is, if it wasn’t it wouldn’t make much of an experience would it? Two years on the beach never made anyone into a legend. This is life Johnson, it’s about getting out there and experiencing it, getting stuck in, doing as much as you can before you die. You can’t have fun if you never suffer. It’s going to be great; I’ll get a deep understanding of the criminal mindset, learn some tricks, make some contacts, maybe reinvent myself as some sort of white-collar criminal mastermind and be out in no time at all. We can continue our rivalry, or maybe we can get a start-up of some kind going together; the shady money is definitely going to follow us around from here on in. I should be thanking you really, I’ve been getting far too comfy at MegaSolutions.
I am fucking gobsmacked. What do you say to this kind of madness? I sit down and pour us both a whisky. Chen has acquired a range of very nice bottles of late.
I’ve got to say Chen, this is not what I expected. I didn’t…I don’t have a handle on you at all. You are a strange being.
It is you who is strange Johnson; you take seriously all of the things that should be fun and you block out all of the things that are serious. For all of that Johnson, you have my sympathies but please don’t expect me to stand around explaining things you should have worked out yourself. I’m probably going to be incarcerated in the very near future, so I’m going to jump in a taxi and head to the Spire; I might as well enjoy myself whilst I can; I mean, I doubt they’ll let me keep any of this money. He stuffs the cash-filled envelope into his pocket and walks to the door. I sit and swig my whisky and I realize he’s holding the door open with his foot whilst he uses his phone to presumably book a taxi. He finishes, puts his phone in his inside jacket pocket and stares at me with a look of faint exasperation.
For fuck’s sake Johnson, aren’t you coming?
I have to smile.
Yeah Chen, why the fuck not.