Humbug (The Unwinding of Ebenezer Scrooge): A Science Fiction Adventure, page 2
“Why would you make their environment so unpleasant, sir?”
“It’s all about the message.”
Confusion wrinkled the droid’s nose. “The message, sir?”
“Get in line.”
The droid cocked his head, expecting more.
“That’s it, get in line. Gets to the point, doesn’t it? And that is the point. You know, it’s time to rethink the slogan. I see it now, the avocado logo with a label stamped across the midsection. Avocado… Get In Line.” He swiped an open hand across an imaginary banner.
“Jacob would be disappointed, sir.”
“Jacob is dead. Rest his soul, he was a good man, a great man.” Eb sniffed. It was a little easier admitting to Jacob’s altruistic greatness now that he was no more. It still stung, just a little. “He was my brother and I loved him. He also turned over all his shares to me. How nice of him.”
“I did that, sir. Not Jacob.”
“What? I’m sorry, I couldn’t understand… aren’t you supposed to erase that bit of information?”
The droid frowned. Moments later, a slight downturn of his lips indicated he had erased that information from his database and all traces of it.
“Jacob Marley is indeed dead, sir,” he muttered.
“As a doornail,” Eb said. “Now bring on the hammer.”
The droid’s shoulders slumped, the lower lip out and pouting. Eb ignored the tantrum on his way to the open door. When the droid didn’t follow, he turned.
“What now?” Eb said.
“The stockings, sir.”
“What are you talking about?”
Eb knew very well what he meant; he saw them hanging from a cherry-red pipe above the company kitchenette, one for every employee with a name stitched along the white, fuzzy collar.
“The employees, sir. They will be disappointed when they return from holiday.”
“Becaaaaause…?”
“They will be empty, sir.”
“And there should beeeee…?”
“Candy in them, sir. Sometimes little toys for their children or memorabilia.”
“Are you saying Santa won’t visit if I take them down?” A delicious smile licked his lips.
“It was Jacob that filled these stockings, sir. Not Santa.”
Eb narrowed his eyes. The droid’s shoulders slumped further, a loud sigh passing more oxygen than lungs could possibly hold. He didn’t need to breathe, obviously. The sigh was purely a display.
Where did he learn such things?
Eb left the door open. “Remove the stockings. And the tinsel and the garland and all those trees. Christmas is over at Avocado, Inc. It’s dead, just like Jacob. Let hard work reign.”
He pumped his fist.
Bah!
If only there was a better word.
TWO
~
Steam obscured the far side of the shower.
Eb felt his way along the slippery wall. His James Perse micro twill robe was just outside the shower room. He slipped into it and cinched the belt and carefully dried his knees, calves and feet before stepping onto the self-propelled hoverboard.
Electric motors whirred as he leaned forward, grippy rubber wheels gliding past the bidet and squatty potty, the Jacuzzi and sauna, the jet-stream bathtub and massage table. A broad display of sinks and mirrors greeted him. Padded slippers awaited his supple, dry feet.
He twisted the black ring onto his right hand, the second one onto his left, but not before thoroughly drying his splayed fingers beneath a high-capacity vent. His hands tingled; a ticklish sensation travelled across his palms, up his arms and rang his head.
Connected.
He flicked his hands at the mirrors, his thoughts distributed to the house system. Newsfeeds streamed around the mirror, everything from liberal chatfests to conservative outlets, financial reports, world news and technology insider. Gossip, too. Oh, the guilty pleasure of gossip, sitting back and judging whoever stepped into the public crosshairs. He liked to stay current, stay on top of what the kids were doing these days. Follow the kids, find the money.
The revised mission statement.
He propped the round glasses on his nose and dialed the lens tinting to clear. The time was in the upper left lens. 11:40 p.m. He liked to be out of the shower by 11:30 p.m. He could shave ten minutes off his post-shower routine.
Three tiny flashes in the upper right signaled the glasses were fully charged and recording. The life of Ebenezer Scrooge was uploaded to a cloud daily. One day the world would see what he saw, know what motivated him, how he ran his life; they would place his thoughts in some technology hall of fame, displaying them like gems.
He’d be long gone before that happened. Last thing he wanted was someone judging him the way he judged them. Besides, people loved others more when they were dead. Weird.
With twenty-five voices talking over each other, he began his post-shower ritual. Some newsfeeds were reporting on Santa’s progress from the North Pole to deliver all his free stuff to children on the nice list. Not the naughty, though.
They got diddly.
Eb inspected his nose hairs. Next, ear hairs. Stragglers were plucked, long ones trimmed. Then there was lotion for the feet and hands, cream for loose skin on his elbows, jojoba oil beneath his eyes, rosehip oil over all his chins, and tamanu oil behind the ears and across the forehead. He combed a sharp white part on the left side of his scalp; his ink-black hair lay perfectly in place.
Lathered up and fresh, he downed a heaping dose of melatonin.
The Avocado logo appeared in one of the newsfeeds, a black ribbon tied to the stem. Eb dragged it to the center mirror. Palm up, he increased the volume.
“A bit of somber news this Christmas Eve,” the putty-faced reporter said, “Jacob Marley was laid to rest this morning. He was sixty years old and died of an apparent heart defect. Considered a leader in technology, Marley was co-founder of Avocado, Inc., a company that first investigated artificial stem cells. Mired in ethical debates and legal battles, the company struggled to bring its discoveries to the general public, but Marley never lost hope.”
“We will prevail.” Jacob’s face filled the mirror, displaying that casual smile that put enemies and advocates at ease. Eb jumped a tiny bit, seeing the ghost of Jacob in his mirror. He preferred his longtime friend’s eyes closed. The man had a way of looking into your soul.
That was the last thing Eb needed.
“Avocado stayed financially solvent through the development of artificial intelligence and gaming,” the reporter said. “His breakthrough algorithms regarding artificial intelligence spawned an entire generation of computer programmers and subsequently the success of servant droids. However, Marley often stated the mission of Avocado was helping humankind, not entertaining it.”
“Fool,” Eb said.
They never got the story right. So many details of failure swept under the rug of obscurity, dusty tidbits that would otherwise muddle a good story. The artificial intelligence, they got that part right. Eb was there to see it. That was all Jacob. But Avocado’s medical research was financial quicksand.
“A very private man, Marley’s inheritance will be closely watched by the technology sector. The company was preparing to go public at the time of his death. That decision now rests with the surviving co-founder of Avocado, Ebenezer Scrooge, who was a no-show at his late partner’s funeral.”
“Wrong!” Eb shouted. “I was there in spirit. You know I was. You media… always with the story.”
The funeral scene appeared—the tent and the rain, the preacher and the coffin. The dull gray droid stood out among the dour crowd like a clown at a… well, like a clown at a funeral.
“Some speculate Scrooge’s surrogate was a shameless plug for the company’s development of droid technology, while many of the Marley faithful saw it as a sign of respect.”
“There we go,” Eb said. “Respect.”
“Concern for Scrooge’s mental health has been a talking point for years,” the reporter continued. “A well-known introvert, insiders suggest the public-shy genius has been heading toward Howard Hughes infamy for years now.”
A flyover of Colorado replaced the reporter’s smug grin, a white landscape of rolling hills. Perched on the side of a craggy mountain face was a sick mansion, an architectural feat unrivaled anywhere in the world, as if a titan crammed a Frank Lloyd Wright into solid granite.
“How’d you get that shot?” Eb said.
He owned that mountain and the one next to it. Those were no-fly zones, including drones. Someone’s getting sued, Eb thought. But he was soon distracted by the awesomeness that was named by the media as Castle Scrooge, later to be shortened to just the Castle. Anyone that talked about the Castle knew it was Scrooge. And once you got popular with one name, well, that meant you made it to the top. The media made that happen.
They weren’t always bad.
“It’s been several years since the introvert has been seen in public”—smug-face was back—“but his people did release a statement following the funeral.”
My people.
Scrooge had a small army of droids, not people. People were emotional and irrational and had bad breath. He was an introvert by choice. A logical decision. He wasn’t some helpless emotional invalid that couldn’t tie his shoes in public. He was smart. That was why he’d built Castle Scrooge.
The newsfeed showed the released statement. In fact, several of the feeds were covering it. Scrooge’s silky, confident voice overlapped in row, row, row your boat fashion. His masculine, square-jawed image looked nothing like the saggy flesh bag standing in front of the mirror. Except for the eyes, he had the signature eyes.
One green, one blue.
A genetic flaw, some said. Eb considered it an honor to be so unique. He was one of a kind.
His sculpted image spoke words of sorrow and regret concerning his childhood friend; the sudden passing had taken everyone by surprise.
Right on cue, he sniffed back emotion and pinched his nose, his eyes red and glassy. The round spectacles were clear so the public could see his sorrow in hi-def. Scrooge would have to pass along his compliments to the droids. They doctored the emotional display wonderfully before passing the projection along to the media.
Kudos.
Someone was laughing.
There was nothing funny about this. Eb’s statement clearly demonstrated sadness and mourning and everything that was appropriate. He grabbed the laughter in the lower left mirror.
“This is hilarious,” one of three hosts said. “Nothing could be faker. I mean, look at that chin.”
The host, a twentysomething fashionista, piercings all around her ear, grabbed a still frame from Eb’s statement. A bright red line circled his beautifully sculpted chin, dotted the Hollywood dimple and underlined the square powerful jaw.
“Did he pull this from a comic book?” Earrings said.
“I think Hell Boy,” the one in the middle said, this one with a pink stripe down the middle of her face.
“And what about the hair?” She scribbled a mop of red lines over the well-groomed coif. “Did he come from Milan men’s fashion week?”
“Seriously,” Pink Stripe said.
“Seriously,” Eb mimed. “Did a cartoon drive down your face? I’m suing.”
“You know what he is?” the third one, a middle-aged man with a shiny scalp and tiny glasses, said. “Captain America.”
“Oh. My God.” Earrings covered her mouth. “You are so right. Without the shield and the mask and the muscles and brain. And good intentions.”
“Of course,” the other two weirdos said.
“And the green eye and blue eye thing,” Earrings said. “He’s trying too hard to be memorable.”
“Real!” Eb announced. “Real, you idiots. Take a look—”
“I’ll bet he’s fat,” Pink Stripe said. “Not obese, but sort of middling fat, you know the kind of belly that’s hiding a basketball with a toupee of chest hair.”
Eb gasped.
He didn’t need to open his insanely expensive robe to know she was spot-on. His round belly was stretched tight. And indeed there was a patch of thinning chest hair above the top fold.
“And hair plugs, the doll kind,” Pink Stripe continued. “He parts it with a ruler.”
Eb worked his fingers through his beautiful black hair then quickly combed it back into place.
“I bet his teeth are super white,” Bald Tiny Glasses said. “The kind of white that could blind pilots.
They took turns drawing electronic graffiti on the still, scrawling the word LOSER over a fake crown. Eb pulled his robe shut, his reflection grimacing in the holographic newsfeed.
“And toenail fungus,” Pink Stripe added. “I’ll bet he’s got big, thick yellow toenails that could chop wood.”
“Suing! I’m suing, I’m suing. All of you! Dum-dum!”
“He’s going to run that company into the ground,” Bald Tiny Glasses said. “You watch.”
The avocado logo teetered over Eb’s still-frame image like plump mistletoe dancing on the graffiti crown. And then a big bite fell out of it.
“Dum-dum!” He waved off the newsfeeds. “Dum-dum!”
The droid’s gray face appeared in the mirror. “Yes, sir?”
“Get their names, all of them.” Eb’s cheeks were flush and steamy. “And their family names, too.”
“We are not the mafia, sir.”
“Just do what I say.”
“May I suggest not watching the newsfeeds, sir? It only raises your blood pressure.”
“They can’t say things about me, not like that.”
“It is the freedom of the press, sir.”
“I don’t like it and I have a lot of money. Get their names and send them up. I want them sued for slander and bigotry. We’ll give the proceeds to charity.”
“You will, sir?”
“I’ll think about it.” He wouldn’t.
He rested his left arm on his belly and propped his right elbow to tap his chin. All right, so he was fat. That wasn’t slander. But he could still sue.
“Anything else, sir?”
“Maybe we should, I don’t know, tone down the… you know, the projection of me a little bit.”
“You think, sir?”
“Yes, I think. A little less, you know…”
“Greek god, sir?”
“Yes.”
The droid nodded, his eyes snicking closed for a moment. His face began to fade.
“And get the exercise room ready for the morning,” Eb called.
He would get in shape. It was a new year. A new life. Jacob had passed. No more holding back Eb’s vision for what the company could do. Or how much money it could make. Eb would hit the equipment and get super ripped. Next time the public would see him in the flesh, not some projected image of a top-shelf athlete turned Oscar-award-winning actor turned trillionaire. And he’d laugh right in the fashionistas’ faces.
After he sued them.
Eb rode the hoverboard into the bedroom and changed into his silk pajamas. Twisting the black ring off his right hand, he slid it under the cool pillow. The left ring remained on his hand. The next night he would alternate so as not to start a rash.
With a thick, padded blindfold in hand, he lay on his side, with the blankets tucked under his armpit, left arm on top. It was almost midnight. Right on schedule, he was ready to sleep on his side, arm out. Because that was how he did it.
His head sank into the pillow, the scents of his various lotions and oils filling his head. He would fall into a black sleep and wake refreshed in the morning.
He tapped his glasses. The record went off. It was exactly midnight when it did. He would remember that detail for the rest of his life.
“Hello, Eb,” Jacob Marley said.
THREE
~
JACOB WAS SEATED ACROSS the room, legs crossed. Eb sat up, stripping his glasses off. “Dum-dum,” he muttered. “Come here, Dum-dum.”
“Why do you call him that?” Jacob said.
“Ah!” Eb crawled behind his pillow.
Jacob’s laughter was uproarious, a sound Eb had heard many times during his life, a laugh that others described as infectious and uplifting. For Eb, it was more like fingernails in his ears.
Eb swallowed. “You’re a ghost.”
“Do you believe in ghosts?”
“I do not. But, Jacob.” Eb swallowed again. “You’re dead.”
“Yes, Eb. I know.”
“I had nothing to do with your death.”
Jacob chuckled. “Of course you didn’t, my friend.”
Was Eb sort of happy that his childhood friend had died? Yes and no. He didn’t want Jacob to be dead, that was the truth, scout’s honor. But Avocado was Eb’s now. Not exactly a bummer.
Jacob brushed his thighs. He always had cat hair on his slacks, always brushing it away. His black skin blended into the dark corner, but the knitted beany he insisted on always wearing was evident. He wasn’t see-through, not hovering near the ceiling or wearing chains.
It was Jacob.
“If you’re not a ghost, then what are you?”
Jacob bobbed his head, pensive, searching for words. Before he could find them, the droid burst into the room.
“What is that?” Eb jumped from the bed. “You see it, too. Tell me you see it, too.”
The droid’s eyes widened, gears turning, processor processing. He looked up. “It appears an image of Jacob is projecting into the room, sir.”
“You see?” Jacob pointed. “He’s not so dumb, Ebenezer.”
“I can see the projection,” Eb said, sounding a bit insulted because of course it was a projection, he knew that. “I want to know what it’s doing in my bedroom.”
The droid initiated a silent investigation, connecting with the networked computer system that integrated the Castle with the Avocado plant in California to become an adaptive, intuitive learning program that anticipated Eb’s wants and needs, a network that adjusted the shower to the right temperature, that brewed coffee to the right bitterness, that adjusted the furnace to fit his mood, all without Eb having to ask for it.
