The first day of the rest of her life, as Latte and Bill, the nice men in the grey suits, called it, went poorly. She was poked and prodded by the company doctor, interviewed by the company shrink, and audited by a team of three company accountants. After billing for her previous balance, interest, a collection fee, medical insurance, equipment and training, and a processing fee, she was told that she owed Globex a little over half a million dollars. She tried to let legal know what she thought about this.
“Half a million? You bastards can’t charge me for all that shit.”
“Miss Anckner—“
“I didn’t get any choice in this. How can you charge me for collection?” Her voice took on a plaintive tone. “You’re charging me for my own kidnapping.”
“Miss Anckner, you have to understand our position here.” This man’s suit had pinstripes, but he was just as anonymous as the rest. A cog in the corporate machine. Christine hoped it didn’t help him sleep at night. "You were extended a lot of credit to fund your education, and you've left us holding the bag. You made no efforts to repay your loans, nor any attempt to work out a payment plan or discuss deferral with us. So now we're offering you the generous opportunity to work off your debt, and gain valuable technical skills and customer relations experience while doing it, in lieu of our legal right to immediately confiscate your internal organs, which current law classifies as collateral. The police will side with us if they have to be involved."
“How in the hell am I supposed to pay you back all that money? What did you expect me to do when I graduated? I’m not going to strip for money.”
“Don’t worry; we have better uses for you. You’ll pay us in full.”
“This is bullshit, but whatever. What is it that I have to do to get my life back?”
“This is a much more productive attitude, Miss Anckner.
“As you know, when your loans went into default, Sallie Mae sold them to a collection agency. Typically a collection agency would simply harass you and maybe garnish some wages, but we’ve come up with a better plan. Our business model has only been in existence for a few years, since Congress passed the Debt Reduction bill, but it is very lucrative. We buy every loan from cooperating agencies, such as Sallie Mae, that goes into collections at a slightly higher value than standard collections agencies, so they’ll all come around eventually.
“Your value to us derives from two things. First, since we have the right of seizure to your vital organs, you will do anything we tell you, or you will die. Internal paperwork would refer to you as a ‘devalued asset.’ This wouldn’t be that spectacular a business plan on its own. US law still forbids the sale of organs, so clearly it’s in our interest to keep you alive too, and there are only so many strippers we can employ. That business model didn’t work out as well as we had hoped.”
“So what do I do? What was with the ‘equipment and training’ charge on my bill? I haven’t gotten any equipment or training yet.”
“You will, don’t worry.”
“No one’s even mentioned what I’m going to be trained to do. You assholes keep saying things like ‘valuable technical skills’ and never say what they are. Cut the corporate bullshit and tell me what it is you want me to do.”
“Fine. We want you to kill people for us, or for our business partners. Are you comfortable with that?”
“Are you kidding? You’re not serious. Shit, you are. You people are sick. No, I’m fucking not comfortable. Who am I supposed to kill?”
“That depends on the contract. We have accounts with several major multi-nationals in several industries, and each has its own special needs. Some need the local labor movement suppressed. Some need local resources to change hands. Some need a change in local law or regime. We facilitate those needs, by whatever means necessary.”
Christine took a moment to register pinstripe’s seriousness.
“Okay, I think I can understand how kidnapping me is legal, it’s like a car repo, but how is going into foreign countries and killing people for the benefit of private business possibly allowed? Sure, the government does it, but do they really want to let you in on their monopoly?”
“Well, you have a history degree; did you ignore current events? First, with the War on Terror, it was established that American law could only protect Americans. That rule was made more explicit with the immigration debate. The way things stand now, we can kill anyone we want without risk of criminal charges as long as they aren’t Americans. Civil charges are still possible if they work for an American company. We’re working on that aspect of our business model, but for now it does limit which contracts we can enter into.
“Would you like to know where we’re going to start you out?”
Throughout his explanation Christine’s stomach had grown less and less easy. Now it began to feel as if she might start retching. “Sure, why the hell not? Where am I going to be forced to murder innocent people for my own monetary gain?”
“Thailand. Your manager will give you the details, but you’ll be up against a fledgling union and the start of trouble with the local government.” Another man entered the office. “Joe will take you to the orientation room to show you the training video and get you acquainted with your equipment. Pay attention; we paid good money for you.”
Wanting nothing more than to curl up into a little ball until the world saw fit to go away and leave her in peace, Christine stood and followed Joe. They walked through a sterile looking hallway with grey industrial carpeting. There was a water bubbler against the wall with two empty jugs next to it. Such normal surroundings for such an evil company, Christine thought. Still, I’ll bet they have great motivational posters.
As they walked Joe introduced himself. “I’m Joe. I’m going to be your manager. My squad had an opening recently, so you’ll be joining them. They’re already in Thailand.”
“An opening? That doesn’t sound good.”
“You can’t make an omelet, or a good return on shareholder investments, without breaking some eggs.”
Christine didn’t even try to hide her disgust.
When they entered the room at the end of the hall, she sank into her chair and hoped for shock to set in. Her chair was facing the screen. Joe was fiddling with the DVD setup.
At last the screen lit up. A cheerful looking woman in what looked like a fast food uniform made of hard plastic smiled into the camera.
"Welcome to the Globex family! You are now a member of the Asset Protection and Foreign Marketing division. You have in the past failed to become a productive member of society, but your new family is forgiving, and will help you reform."
Christine turned her head toward Joe. "What the hell makes you think you’re my family?"
"A manager’s kind of like a father, right? Shut up and pay attention."
The woman had continued. "As a member of our Asset Protection and Foreign Marketing division, you will be responsible for carrying out directives from your management team designed to protect the interests of our stockholders and clients, and also directives to demonstrate to various foreign interests the strength of our brand, and the potential value of working with us."
"That is such corporate bullshit. Why is she talking out of her ass? Say what you mean."
"Your primary tool for the fulfillment of your mission statements will be this," as she reached off screen and produced a brightly colored plastic gun, "the ExtraValueGun."
"It looks like a toy."
“That ‘toy’ is smarter than you are. If it had legs we wouldn’t need you at all.”
"To use your EVG, simply point the appropriately labeled end," and she gestured to the bright red arrow emblazoned on the top of the yellow gun," at your objective, and click the trigger. Point and click, it's that simple. Your depleted uranium action items will take care of nearly anything the competition will use to block your efforts."
She continued, but Christine had stopped listening. "You can't be serious. You people really want me to carry around depleted uranium? Won’t that ruin the value of my organs?"
"Yes, but you did get health insurance. Besides, you almost never actually get uranium bullets."
"Great."
The woman had continued to demonstrate the rest of the equipment. Apparently the plastic uniform would stop most bullets as well as float, and the helmet was equipped with a built in two-way radio and computerized visor. A palm pilot was included for communicating with management. Eventually the smiling woman stopped trying to convince Christine of the quality of her equipment and the screen went blank.
Joe spoke up. “This way and we’ll get you set up.” They walked into an adjoining room. On a table was a large canvas pack. “This is yours. Try everything on to make sure it fits.”
Christine pulled everything out of the pack and spread it out on the table. Helmet, plastic chest armor with attached armored sleeves, pocketed vest, gloves, belt, armored pants and boots were her uniform. She also had her palm pilot and a small box marked with a red cross.
“I get a first aid kit?”
“It’s pretty simple. You’ve got an aerosol super glue to stop most bleeding, bandages and some pain killer. When you’re in a tropical climate your manager will give you some anti-malaria meds to add to it. Try the stuff on.”
Christine looked at him. “Are you going to leave me alone or watch me undress?”
“I can’t leave you alone until we’ve chipped you and entered you into the system. Not that I’m sorry. Perks of the job. You know.”
“Asshole.” Christine pulled her shirt over her head and wondered what other ways they would find to degrade her before the day was out.
When everything was on and the fit was satisfactory, Joe made her take it all off again and pack up everything but the helmet and palm pilot. “Okay, you can get dressed again except for your shirt. Your bra’s okay.”
“Gee, thanks.”
Joe pulled out the bizarre offspring of a gun and a syringe. “Turn around.”
“What is that? I hate needles.”
“Too bad. Turn around. This is your RFID chip. It lets us track you, and more importantly to you, it lets the rest of your squad know where you are.” Christine turned, hesitantly, and let out a squeak that was nearly a scream when she felt the sharp pain between her shoulder blades. Joe passed her palm pilot in front of her chest. “Okay, now we enter you into the system. Your employee number is your social security number, in case you need it. Put your shirt on.” He stuffed her palm pilot into her pack and handed her the helmet instead. “Put that on.”
Christine pulled the chin strap tight as Joe took an EVG from a cabinet. Handing it to her he told her to shoot him. “You deserve it, prick,” she said, and then felt ridiculous when the gun didn’t fire. “Is it loaded? How do I load it?”
“It’s already loaded, but if you had to you’d just stick a new magazine in the underside. Weren’t you paying attention? You can’t shoot me because I’ve got an RFID like yours. The gun is linked to your helmet, which picks up the signal. I should be outlined in green in your visor.” Christine noticed the aura surrounding him and nodded. “All Globex employees have the chips, so you don’t have to worry about friendly fire. Always put on your visor and make sure that your squad shows up in green, that your map has downloaded and is showing your positions, and that your gun is loaded before any action. That’s your Pre-Engagement Calibration Routine. Every time. You don’t want an equipment failure in the field. Civilians will show up in blue and hostiles in red. Your helmet automatically classifies everyone you see. It’s got facial recognition programs in it as well as other visual processing programs to spot weapons and camouflaged people. If a person matches a downloaded mission objective, he’ll be red, and if he’s armed he’ll be red.
“Your job is basically to go where you’re told and shoot everything that shows up red. Oh, but try not to shoot local police or military if you don’t have to. Public relations nightmare.
“All right now. You’re all set up and ready to go. Put your helmet away. Your plane leaves in three hours. You can sleep on the cot in the corner,” he pointed, “or you can wander around. Keep your palm pilot with you. I’ll text you when you need to come back. And don’t try to skip out on me, I can track you.”
As he left, Christine’s body sank with her spirits onto the cot. She ignored her most recent urge to cry, and tried to sleep.
