She must have been scared. She must have been. Human children are very small, adults, most of them, are very large. To be a human child is to be powerless in society, dependent on adults to look after you, they’re one of the most helpless intelligent life forms in the known galaxy for almost one fourth of their average lifespan.
So how could Fauve have not been terrified? She was. She had to be.
But the same reserves of inner strength that let a human warrior beat his enemies to death with his own severed arm exist within even human children. Or they must, I think, because on the long ride to the center Percival booked for us to speak, she spoke only once.
Her back was straight and her eyes were forward, Percival sat in the front seat and looked in the rear view mirror talking to her, explaining how it would be.
Her parents sat protectively on either side of her while I sat in the passenger seat up at the front. I didn’t put my head out the window this time, it seemed improper to enjoy the trip in any way, but I won’t pretend I didn’t want to.
“I don’t see why we have to do this in front of people… I don’t like it.” Rebecca protested.
Percival finished what he was saying, briefly ignoring the interruption, and then addressed Fauve’s mother saying, “Nobody likes it. But the human element is vital. If we let them use drones, they’re distant, it’s easy to mistreat somebody from far away, it’s a lot harder to be cruel to a kid in person. Why should it only be hard for her?” Percival tapped the head of his cane like it was a nervous tic, and I realized something.
The old man was actually invested in this too. This is one of the highlights of humanity that my professor reiterated to us, out of all the intelligent species in the Universe that we’ve found so far, humans are the only ones to so quickly take to and care for another. Human children tend to prompt this in others most of all, and despite all his professionalism, his question suggested there was more than met the eye in his demeanor.
“It’s fine, mom. It’ll be fine. I’ll be fine.” Fauve reassured her mother, and fell quiet again, though when their hands came out for hers and squeezed them, she squeezed back.
The building we pulled into was a strange, round place, shaped like a ball and painted all white. “This is strange.” I said while Percival parked the car.
“So am I.” He said with a smirk, “This is my building.”
This was my first lesson in the confusion of the human economic system. “Well, not ‘mine’ but it belongs to my Cooporation.” Percival explained.
“Your what?” I asked and cocked my head, I could feel a tickle at the back of my brain that told me something new was about to be learned.
“Cooperation. It’s a way ‘sort of’ around our wealth restrictions. It’s true a company can have large assets beyond the individual, but those are very tightly controlled. They can’t contribute to political elections, they can’t advertise anything but their products, and salaries are proportioned according to profits. The senior leadership doesn’t get a raise unless everybody else does, and pay can’t be cut for the lower levels unless the highest ones are cut first. The ‘Cooperation’ is a descendant of ‘Co-ops’ from the late 20th century.”
“What’s the difference?” I asked, feeling the tickle in my brain becoming an itch I had to scratch.
“You incorporate directly as a co-op, not as a standard corporation. A cooperation not only distributes profits among its members and is directly governed by them, but it allows for the administration of a nonprofit entity that holds excess wealth and acts as a lending agency. It’s run like a bank, but with much lower interests allowing individuals to live beyond the twenty-five million credit cap. However it has some drawbacks.” He acknowledged and tapped his cane as he killed the engine.
“Drawbacks?” I was furiously making mental notes while the old man’s door began to open upward like a bird’s wing.
“Yes, for example the tax burden on individual ‘borrowing’ is high, and you can only cut it by a matching contribution to the public good. In addition, you require approval by eighty percent of the cooperation’s members and a justification for the expense. In theory I could borrow enough to buy a yacht the size of a state to fly through space. In practice most would say no. In addition, you’re accountable for how you spend whatever you borrow. On top of that, other than the founder, all other upper level governance must be rotated out every five years and it is audited annually by government income tax monitors. If a person abuses it… they can go in for thirty minutes confinement, and must live through a life of abject poverty in another era. In addition, they lose everything and are personally liable for the repayment of the financial chicanery.”
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“So the building?” I asked, noticing the divots in the place at last.
“A headquarters is necessary, so I got the board to let me design it. I like golf, you see.” He answered and laughed a little as the rest of the Walkers got out of the car.
I didn’t see. I wasn’t too sure what golf involved, but given the smirk on the old man’s face, I gathered a joke had just been made.
“I’ll be in the back, I don’t do this much anymore, I have people to do this for me, but this is an exception. I’m going to manage the sound so that nobody can overtalk you, Fauve. Say what you need to say when answering their questions, nobody will shout you down.” Percival said and tapped his cane three times on the ground, and she nodded once before we went into the building.
It was hard not to like Percival, I won’t pretend I didn’t want him to scratch my head, but he was focused on the matter at hand and it didn’t feel right to ask that of him.
The parking lot was empty and we crossed it without incident. I got the distinct feeling that we were going in through a back way rather than the front, and that we were arriving well before we were supposed to.
The double doors opened up to reveal a broad empty space save for a single long table where a young blonde receptionist sat typing on a datapad. She stood up when she saw Percival enter. “Mr. Barnum! Good morning!”
Her sudden standing was clearly deferential, but the warmth on her face was obvious, her cheeks fairly glowed when she saw him, she moved from around her desk and came straight up to him. Her arms grasped his and she rose to her tiptoe to give him a kiss on the cheek.
“You can just call me pop-pop, you know.” Percival said reprovingly.
“As if! I’m on the job now, Mr. Barnum. I’m a professional too!” She insisted, I got the feeling this was a very old dispute between the two.
“My granddaughter, Teresa, my stubborn granddaughter, that is.” Percival said by way of introduction, moving aside to give the Walkers and I a clear view of her.
She was a slender willowy woman, in her twenties if I were to guess, and shared his thin faced features and spry demeanor. One could say she looked like a young female version of the old man.
“So this is a family business, I guess?” William asked, and the pair nodded.
“The family cooperation.” Percival said, “Barnum co. not Barnum inc. Chances are you’ve seen our work and never known it. You’re in good hands. So relax.”
Any doubts that we were using a back way were erased when Teresa went to the datapad at the desk, pushed a button, and the sliding automatic doors buzzed as they locked.
Teresa took her grandfather’s arm in hers and helped him walk the rest of the way. We followed and found ourselves in a large open space with round, curved walls and hundreds of small metal chairs lined up. There was also a small stage, elevated five feet from the floor, and a podium with a microphone put into place.
“A little old fashioned,” Percival said, “but that’s part of the design. I wouldn’t normally say this but I doubt you folks will need me again when all this is over. But that ‘old tech’ is in fact the latest. Making it look old fashioned is one way we disguise how high tech it is. It throws people off.” He said with a smirk, “It gives us a lot more control than anyone down there thinks. All the noise dampeners are embedded in that and I can control it from backstage. No wireless stuff, all sealed and secured, unhackable with anything less than the highest level govtech.”
William and Rebecca both let out a low whistle, whatever the old man was talking about, it impressed them.
“Go on, young lady.” Teresa said and pointed to the polished dark wooden podium.
Fauve walked to the stairs on steady feet and faced the nonexistent audience, the sea of empty chairs, her eyes twitched a moment, but then she was statue still again.
“Just relax, practice a few words. I’ll go get the microphone ready, Teresa, come with me, you’ll assist if I keel over dead or something.” Percival said, his cane rapping on the carpeted floor with a dull thud just once.
We took our places behind her, and waited.
Her voice rang out over the empty place as she said random nonsense and spouted movie lines, a few of which I recognized, mostly from the Night of Staying Fate series, a few from Ramnan ⅛, and lines from popular 21st century novels that had become cultural staples like, ‘The Strongest in the World’, ‘Evolution of a Nobody’, and ‘Countdown’.
After a while, it seemed like she was having fun, relaxing into her role, “Queen Fauve the Great and Powerful demands that chocolate donuts be eaten at every meal! Fauve the Mighty commands that handshakes be replaced by headpats, for headpats are justice!”
The flexibility and adaptability of these people never ceased to amaze me.
I didn’t know if she was trying to make her family laugh, herself, or both, but she succeeded.
When the sound projection finally cut off, she knew it was time. The distant panels on the doors of the main entrance flashed from red to green, and even from behind her, I could tell that the smile ran away from her face.
Nobody else could hear her, I knew that. Nobody else present had hearing like mine.
But as the door began to slide open and the first adult males and females entered the room and began filing toward the chairs, Fauve whispered quietly…
“You can do this.”
I never had the courage to ask whether she was talking to herself, or to me.