The Algorithm of Chaos

‘My job is to make you a proposal that you can’t reject, Mr. V. So the applicant is you and your prospective employer’s known in certain circles as the Institution. And please, before we start the negotiations, don’t shorten my name to mere W’.

‘In this respect, count on me, Wal. Now, why me and what makes you think I need some fucking Institution?’

The interviewer’s nod conveyed sad empathy before he answered the question, 2 in 1, actually.

‘I won’t lure you with the pudding’s filling though it’s quite creamy, take my word. No, you’re above that, you can survive on manna in the morning and soup of acrid insects for your dinner. Moreover, you’re free, no wife, no kids, no in-laws. A lucky man! You easily can spend your life with these toys’. Wal shortly jerked his chin to indicate the secondhand notebook atop the desk by the wall and sighed, and shook his head in pathetic envy.

‘They are fine playthings, I concur. And those literary passages you try your hand at and delete day after day, they’re fine as well’.

‘You’re hacking my toys?’

‘No need, pardner. When typing you dictate your fingers, you think thoughts out before they’re fixed in lines, as simple as that. Wired undercover cops, spy cams are there only for entertainment of the public, action movies, court-room reports, you know. That way you can’t prevent mass shooting of innocent kids at Sweet-16 parties, neither dirty wars nor other nasty shit that constitute, in too big part, the world’s constant balancing on the razor edge. The enterprise objective is retroaction from the future removing past snafus a second before the final fall of the guillotine knife.

So, besides the mentioned creamy salary, collaboration gives an opportunity to live a glorious though inconspicuous life, V. No medals, PhD degrees, no laureatizing but when retired in due course you may choose writing your own King Lyre or stuff. How about that?’

‘How about a bestseller?’

‘We’re not in for that shit, pardner. Otherwise 5 minutes back you’d have cinched off your left foot prosthesis and riddle-smoked me with a round of dumdum bullets from the in-built machine-gun and get away by the fire escape. All dummies become happy and start picketing your house 24/7 with kvetchy demands for a sequel doodled in their placards.’

‘You can negotiate, Wal’.

‘Not for nothing I keep the Diamond Star Decoration of the World Champion at Hassling in my desk down-most drawer’.

‘I have to think your offer over. How do I contact you?’

‘No worry, we’ll contact you when you make the right decision’.

* * *

23

V raised his head and under its back he tucked the lace of his trellised fingers then lowered it back onto the same tree root. The ribbed rind surface was a bit too hard for his DIY pillow. But he thought he cold endure it for a short stretch lying that way on the the moderately tilted ground in this summer woods. And why not once in a while?

The lofty columns of trees respectfully gave rather a wide birth to each other. The soft rustle of the breeze in their tops’ leafage merged with with low buzz of rare flies or bees, or who knows what else air traveling insects and an occasional drum roll of a busy pecker. The wood shades made the sunny day mild, pleasant. Stretched prostrate on the warm ground he felt good, this here once in a while. He turned his eyes to where she was sitting, cross-legged, looking away.

‘And you too,’ said he, ‘Bro Brutus! Joined the team in the best traditions of corporate solidarity’.

‘No need,’ she shook her head watching a squat blackberry bush. ’You agreed to Wal’s proposal before our meeting’,

‘He told you so? Grabbed my thoughts out the noosphere?’

‘I had known it before he offered yo to join in. I know you too well, V’,

He released his hands and crawled, still in the prostrate position, backward, closer t to the trunk to lean his back onto. ‘So why this kind of a romantic meeting? To finalize the deal? Last nail in the coffin lid of a freelancer’s freedom?’

‘You always rode a too high horse. Could you talk in plain words?’

‘Will we be meeting as co-employees?’

‘I don’t think so. The Institution is a too diversified enterprise’.

He pinched a weeny piece off the moss between the tree roots, rubbed it between his fingers then smelled them. The smell was that of moist earth. She looked up to meet his stare. The ping of since long suppressed and fully forgotten pangs reached him and made cast his eyes down.

‘Wal missed or rather obviated answering the first from the 2-in-1 questions: why me?’

‘It was R’s decision when he found out that the Institution headed to a crunching halt, impossible workload and things getting out of hand completely because of your and my baby. Too much depended on that kid..

‘What the… we didn’t have no baby!’

‘It was due in a couple of years. That’s why we split’.’

‘Who’s nuts? I or you, or R? It’s a sheer madness!’

‘It’s the world we live in, V’.

‘Have you manipulated me? Later? By those goddamn retroactions?’

No. Just looking after. Maybe a couple of close calls. At most. I didn’t want you become a wheel-chaired gimp because of a car accident and stuff, you know’.

‘The alarm call by 2ic was one of the preventive moves?’

‘Not exactly. A part of a wider plot. R’s retiring, he looks for a substitute’.

‘Has he found any?’

‘You know yourself’.

‘Leya’s in?’

‘Nope. Her “saving” you was an unforeseen turn. We had to improvise later’.

‘Improvisations, huh? You’re fucking manipulators’.

‘You can’t let the world be ruled by senile morons ready to annihilate it to revenge their natural mortality in a kinda forestalling slam of the door. Neither want you younger morons driven by greed or stupidity, or both’.

‘Another Theory of Conspiracy? The Dark Wing scenario? Come on! They are baubles for high-school kids.’

‘ Bravo, R! He’s right about you aptitude at wild guesses’.

‘Fucking manipulator motherfucker!’

‘Slow down, V! You are in presence of a lady. Would you allow a toddler drop down thru the railing or thrust his hand into a working…’

‘Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Do I express myself plainly enough?’

‘Which I take for your polite “good-by”, Sir. Fare thee well!’

She rose on her feet and walked down the tilt towards the black SUV on a desolate dirt road in the wood.