Blockbuster
by Avi Bar-Zeev
Jumping from the balcony of a modern skyscraper seemed simple enough. Ashes to ashes… What goes up… In Buster’s mind, after such a supremely stratospheric rise in fame and fortune, this last thousand feet was just the culmination of a much greater fall.
So what could have possibly gone wrong with his plan? There were no golden parachutes, no known safety nets. There was just Buster and the street, consolidating their merger, so to speak. Yet even with the hypnotic rush of adrenaline through his veins and the wind across his skin, he knew something was wrong.
He hung in mid-air, just outside the 51st floor, like a butterfly in a spider’s web or, perhaps, an old rag doll in an invisible hand.
Through an open apartment window, he caught a glimpse of the 7:20 news. He saw an image of himself hanging there in the twilight, but strangely from above and behind. The image showed the same untoussled hair, the same fine silk suit, the same unfathomable humiliation.
Someone must be filming his fall, he realized. On cue, a swarm of tiny camera-bees buzzed by his face–paparazzi in miniature. They swirled around his head, stinging his eyes with their spotlights, each jockeying to catch the killer close-up of the now imfamous ex-trillionaire incomprehensibly paused while plunging to his death.
Sudden death, apparently, was not the order of the day.
Was it the INDIX building that saved him, he wondered. Wouldn’t that be ironic. Its cleanliness policy was legendary. A splatter of red and gray on its pristine sidewalk was, perhaps, intolerable. So the idea of this ‘invisible hand’–some sort of dumb force-field in all probability–wasn’t too far fetched. Otherwise, the next time the market crashed, the INDIX sidewalks might be littered with the day’s big losers.
So Buster had been saved but not quite spared. After plucking him from mid-air, this invisible hand dumped him into an nearby air vent and, beyond that, the building’s garbage system. Down the chute, he went, sliding along ancient streaks and stains, through smells he couldn’t begin to describe. A moment later, he emerged near the ground floor, sliding out into the crisp evening air.
He landed with a thud, face down in a dumpster, atop a mound of rotting debris.
Buster had finally hit bottom, almost. The true bottom is an elusive beast. Just when you think you’ve found it, your stock falls even lower. Just when you think it can only get better, it often gets that much worse.
A strong pair of hands–this time, a real man’s hands–grabbed Buster by the waist and hauled him out of the fetid mess. Buster saw an alley. Below him, he saw his feet dangling. Still, he couldn’t twist to see the man behind the hands.
"Shit, damn INDIX threw out another one," said the man behind the hands, his deep voice proving worthy of his strength. Gently, he lowered Buster to the ground and turned him, as a child would a fragile doll.
Buster brushed his pants clean without even thinking. Thoroughly stained with dirt and slime, the task proved nearly impossible. It took him another half-second to realize his arms were actually free. Raising them to the sky, he stretched and twisted from side to side.
Buster glanced down the alley. A fine drizzle of rain fell from above. The street glistened in lamplight. There were no INDIX trench-coats waiting to take him back upstairs, no reporters or cameras or creditors ready to snap-up his soul. Buster was apparently free.
The tall black man-behind-the-hands stood quietly, the rain beading off his smooth bald head. He stared at Buster, watching what must have seemed a very strange set of exercises. "It’s okay," he said, "The building spits out a couple of folks a week."
The tall man extended an arm.
Buster didn’t want to talk. He couldn’t talk, not now or ever again, so strong was his vow. He sprinted awaw, down the alley, and turned left on Wall St. It didn’t matter where he was going. He had to get away–as far away from the damn INDIX building as possible.
Buster was alive. He was free. And there wasn’t a chance in hell he was ever going near the INDIX again.
#
When he finally stopped running, Buster didn’t know where he was: somewhere in Chinatown or Little Italy most likely, maybe up by Delancy? He’d visited "the streets" for an occasional power-lunch, out on the town and living dangerously. Usually, he’d just look down on the city from his office. Maybe the INDIX windows had distorted the view, he wondered. Nothing here looked at all familiar.
He was lost.
He pressed his forehead against the cold store window of Maxwell’s Electronics. Thin streams of water trickled down from his soggy mop of hair. But something inside the display grabbed him. He wiped the glass with a grimy sleeve to try and see through.
Within the store display, a series of holoplayers, all different shapes and sizes, showed his parent’s latest interview. The cheaper players just compressed the whole scene onto their small round stages. But the featured unit projected a life-sized image, in full living detail, into the space behind the window. Buster’s parents sat snugly on their love seat, inside Maxwell’s store display, as solidly as if it was home.
The camera cut to a close-up of Buster’s mother.
"We were so proud of him," she said in her thick, almost whiny, Brooklyn accent. She leaned forwards, towards the unseen reporter, as if to whisper a secret. "Did you know, he was valued at over one billion by age twelve?"
"The kid was a prodigy," said his father, his voice quick and strong. The camera cut to a full-body shot. "What a kid!"
The images faded to a chart of Buster’s stock price over time, the same graph he’d seen nearly every day of his life, etched permanently in his mind’s eye.
"My little blockbuster," his mother’s voice said, with a tinge of sadness.
The glass grew misted again. Buster tried to wipe it clean. But this time it did no good. He tried again, even harder. The streams of water, he realized, were his own.
Buster closed his moist eyes and lay his forehead against the cold hard window.
#
On the 34th floor of the INDIX building, in a cramped apartment, young Buster celebrated his tenth birthday and initial public offering. Capped in pointed black and gold and sprinkled with neon-colored confetti, the guest of honor turned away from his amazing price graph for a moment. Buster had rocketed from an initial price of $12 per share to a whopping $67 in his first day of trading. Two hundred million dollars had just been raised and the analysts were still screaming "Buy! Buy!" Now, finally, he could relax a bit and enjoy his birthday/IPO party.
Throughout the living room, his guests chatted and smoked. Dr. Zubra was off smiling at Mrs. Gofarb as usual. The rest of the Board were busy laughing and strategizing. Buster’s President and CEO were off scheming in the kitchen. Formerly ‘The Markoffs’ and then now named ‘The Blocks,’ they were simply known to Buster as ‘Mom and Dad.’
The Markoffs, in no uncertain terms, had been masters of capital marketing, having engineered a couple hundred kids through wildly successful IPOs. Now, after years of planning and hard work, they’d finally gotten their own capital venture off the ground. Buster Block(tm), the product of their labor, was a rousing success.
"A toast," Dr. Zubra called, clanging his glass.
"To toast," Buster repeated, holding up his own pale blue cup. A gentle pair of hands raised him up onto a tall dining room chair. All eyes smiled on their wonder boy–now the most capitalized ten-year-old in history.
Buster smiled too. This was his family. This was his life–the best life any ten-year-old could wish for, he was sure. With a million kids going public every year, Buster was on top of the world–or soon enough would be.
"Happy birthday," his mother sang from the kitchen. The crowd parted to let her through. In her arms, a birthday cake cast a warm yellow glow across her face and bosom. Dozens of candles sparkled like gold in the Board member’s eyes.
Buster counted the candles before making his wish. Sixty-seven, he realized, one for each dollar per share. He blew them out with a little help from his mother.
His father approached the table with his hands behind his back. "To toast," he said, winking to the crowd. "But first, we have a present for our famous son."
Buster’s eyes lit up when he saw the gold wrapped box. He removed the foil wrapping, gently, as he’d been taught. Inside the box, he found a single gold key. He looked up at his father, eyes wide with excitement.
"The hundred and eighty second floor," his father said proudly. "The INDIX is having us move upstairs tomorrow. And you even get your own window office."
"Wow," Buster said, his mouth agape. "And even staff?"
"And even staff."
Buster hugged his father. This was just what he wanted. What more could any kid have wished for?
#
Buster’s stock rose at an unprecedented rate, falling only several times over the years. He fell once during a period of extreme volatility, also known as puberty. He fell again during the recession of ‘65, as everyone did. And he fell again at age twenty. But this time, he fell for Jenny Frankenheimer.
The two of them walked slowly across the abundant roof-garden atop the INDIX building. This whole massive plateau had been landscaped and dressed in shades of green. Set against an uninterrupted backdrop of blue sky, this place felt like the top of the world. Standing nearly a mile high, in a strong sense, it was. "Just a stone’s throw from heaven," read a gold-plated placard.
Despite the serene setting, the young couple fought. Many young couples fought over money at times. But this situation was rather unusual. Jenny, it turns out, was a small-cap: her small initial public offering had brought in only enough capital to finance her Ph.D. in Economics, which was fine with her. And that’s all the INDIX had been intended for, really. After public education and cheap student loans were eliminated, people met the exorbitant costs of private education by securing public capital. For their investment, share-holders garnered a small percentage of the person’s lifetime salary. For those investors who could pick the big bread winners, it was a lucrative game to play. And for hopeful students who weren’t born wealthy, there was little alternative.
So the problem with Jenny was that, as a devout academic, the best she could hope for was an average five percent yearly salary growth, hence the small valuation from the analysts. Buster, on the other hand, was a blockbuster with unlimited upside potential. Their relationship was doomed from day one.
"You could make more as a central banker," he suggested. "Maybe even get on track for a Fed chair. You’re more than smart enough. We could probably raise another ten or twenty million to cover the Sloan school."
"Thanks," she said. "But what’s wrong with just writing and teaching?"
Buster frowned. "Nothing, I guess. It’s just that we seem kind of unbalanced for our merger." He reached for her hand.
"Marriage," she corrected, pulling back. "God, you sound like your parents. I told you, I don’t want your money."
Buster frowned. "It’s not about wants," he said.
"I can’t believe your board still thinks I’m hurting your bottom line. I’m an economist for crying out loud!"
"It’s not that," he said, sighing. "They’re pushing the Katie Goodenov merger again." He looked down, as if to count the green blades of grass.
"You wouldn’t dare," she said, narrow-eyed.
"Course not!" he replied, feeling sorry he’d brought it up. "It’s just that… analysts factor in her upside. And for them… you have no upside."
Jenny threw up her arms. "You know, this whole system is fucked up. People analyzing babies for growth potential. IPOs at age ten. It’s not rational."
"Why?" he said, trying to smile. "Look at me. I’m a huge success."
"Ugh! You are so full of yourself," she said, walking towards the elevator in a huff.
"What?" He ran and caught up by the elevator. The doors had already opened and she quickly stepped inside. "Just because I’m worth a hundred billion dollars."
"Buster," she said, "Economics 101–speculation produces nothing of value. Your whole overblown valuation is speculative. And while you’re a huge success, sucking up everybody’s bank accounts and IRAs, billions of others can hardly get a dime of public funding. There are billions more who can’t even afford a junior college. So what’s left for them?"
The elevator doors began to close, about to shut him out, maybe for good.
"Hey," he said, tapping the doors open. "I didn’t make the system."
"No," she said. "You _are_ the system. Why does everything have to turn to blockbusters? Because people are greedy, that’s why. They see a baby who might make the million-dollar stock trades, or run the billion-dollar companies, or build trillion-dollar empires. Why shouldn’t they pour everything into that kid? Go with a winner–_only_ with a winner. Works for movies and books, even book-sellers, right? It’s just Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand, right? Wrong! Adam Smith was an asshole."
"I don’t care about that," he said. He rushed inside the elevator, deciding to ride down with her after all. Buster took her hand and spoke softly and sincerely. "Jenny, I love you. I’d love you even if we were poor."
She tried to smile. "I know you do," she said softly, "I know. But for how long?"
#
The exact details of the breakup weren’t something he ever talked about. In fact, after he’d dumped his last stock in Jenny, he didn’t talk much at all. It was as if he’d lost his voice completely, as if there was simply nothing more to say.
He still made the million-dollar trades, ran the billion-dollar companies, and was well on his way to building his trillion-dollar empire. But he did so in total silence.
And so it went for another eight or nine years.
Buster’s offices moved higher and higher in the INDIX infrastructure. By the time he was twenty-nine, he’d made it to the 510th floor–the highest floor below God–or at least below the INDIX computers that ran the place. He was at the peak of his success.
But it couldn’t last. There was only one thing that could bring Buster down. And on his thirtieth birthday, he set in motion a series of unbelievable mis-steps that would begin his long fall: selling his biggest profit-center to AT&T, losing a billion dollars on coconut futures, buying and then selling most of Harlem back to the locals for a song. A simple loss of public confidence was all it really took. One emergency board meeting later, Buster quietly handed over the reins to the enterprise.
But it was too late. Within a week, the trench-coats showed up to close him down for good. When securities cops come knocking, they invade like army ants, consuming everything in their path. They confiscated the files, dismissed the staff, and even padlocked the doors.
The invisible hand had acted, just like that. And it was final. Buster was ruined.
#
He waited a few more seconds for the well-dressed crowd to filter out of the better-dressed conference room. Glasses and fine china, half finished catered food and drink, littered the large oval table against a backdrop of windowed cityscape. Beyond the window, a thin balcony advertized its solitude.
Buster’s "welcome down" party had been uneventful in the extreme. A room full of washed-up teenagers and twenty-somethings had spent the last hour chatting with each other about the latest hot stocks or the crisis in North Africa, none of which they could do a thing about.
No one had chatted with Buster. Rumor was that the cops had carried him, kicking, thrashing, but not screaming, down from the prestigious top floor down to this lowly place on the 102nd. Rumor had it there was no hostile takeover. The Unstoppable Buster Block had somehow cratered on his own.
When the last people trickled out, Buster rushed to the balcony door. His lungs demanded what scant fresh air the city could offer. He burst out onto the small terrace and leaned dangerously over the railing.
A thousand feet below, he could almost make out the people on the sidewalks. He thought about the old cliché of people as ants. At least ants had a purpose, scouring the world for food and enemy. These people were more like sand in a hurricane, vast eddies with no rest in sight.
Climbing half-way up the rail, his feet secure in metal slits like stirrups, Buster felt the brisk wind play with his clothes and hair. Even this high, the city smells wafted up to him. New York had a smell all its own, especially downtown. He was lost in dream, imagining his life as if he could fly far away from here.
"You’re not going to jump?" a woman’s voice asked from behind him.
Startled, he nearly flew for real. He had to put a hand down to keep from tipping over.
"Sorry," she said. Her dark-skinned hand offered support.
As she helped him down, he finally got a good look at her face. He hadn’t noticed her earlier. He didn’t think he’d ever seen her before. But she seemed incredibly beautiful. Her eyes were the blackest he’d ever seen, like the darkest pools of water, infinitely deep.
"I’m Danisha," she said, pointing back inside. "Welcome to the billionaires club. Ex-billionaires club," she corrected.
Buster looked out at the city, silently, for a moment more.
"Don’t be sad," she said.
He raised an eyebrow.
"Look," she added, "did they ever ask you if you wanted any of this? No, right? So it’s not your fault you cratered. The INDIX works in mysterious ways."
Buster smiled briefly. He knew she was just trying to cheer him up. Even if she and everyone else in the club had cratered too, it didn’t matter. In his mind, they didn’t understand. None of them did.
She smiled again. "Like I said, welcome to the club."
#
The Billionaires club, also known as Crater City, was more officially called the Individual Resolution Trust Holding Company. It was little more than a half-way house full of defunct individuals: kids, teenagers, twenty-somethings who, for whatever reasons, had utterly failed on the open market. Odd that such a place would be housed inside the INDIX itself. A hundred stories down, the ‘trading floor’ hummed with a thousand journalists and market analysts trading only gossip. Four hundred stories up, sat the INDIX computers that did the real individual trading.
Down here on the hundred and second floor, in a windowless conference room, fourteen fallen stars sat around a table. This was Buster’s assigned counseling group. The same group he’d endured for these two weeks following his financial breakdown.
Danisha sat beside him, as usual, calmly scribbling on her slate. Out of the corner of his eye, Buster watched her drawings dance around the page in elliptical swirls. It reminded him of a market visualization tool he’d often used.
He looked down at his own blank slate.
"Mary, why don’t you go next," the facilitator said.
"Okay," Mary said. She was a young woman Buster had bumped into on his first day. Since then, they’d managed to get not at all closer. But that was just as well, he thought. He didn’t plan on sticking around too long.
"Well, my IPO tripled the first day," she said. "I’d gotten as high as $1.1 billion when my venture issued Indie bonds for another billion. Hard-faxing durable goods globally. We broke even the second year. Paid dividends by the fifth… and then I got pregnant."
Sympathetic oohs and aahs came from the group.
"What happened to the baby?" Danisha said, still doodling.
Mary looked down. "Discharged assets. She’s poised for IPO by six to recoup some of my losses."
Six years old! Buster slammed his slate on the desk.
Everyone turned to face him. "Do you have a comment?" the facilitator asked, a raised eyebrow his only expression.
Buster wrote tensely on his slate: "He should be with his mother. He doesn’t deserve a life like this." When he was done, his text appeared on the other slates around the room.
Mary stared blankly at Buster. He waited for her response, wondering if she agreed. "She," was all she said.
"Okay," the facilitator said. "Buster, why don’t you go next. Tell us about something _you_ regret."
Buster closed his eyes for a moment in concentration. Then he scribbled quickly on his slate. When he was done, he transmitted his text to the others:
"I regret not selling Amazon when I had the chance. I regret that stupid rock musician for ever selling stock in himself in the first place. I regret Jenny Frankenheimer. What we did to her. What I did to her. I regret that only blockbusters get funded. I regret the whole fucking system."
#
After the session, Danisha stopped him in the hall. She pushed him up against the wall with a loaded finger.
"You’ve got to learn to stay quiet," she said. "Don’t let them see what you’re thinking."
Buster frowned. He didn’t particularly care what they thought of him.
"Don’t you get it?" she whispered. She looked up and down the hall as if for eavesdroppers. "This isn’t the end of anything. This is just a friggin holding tank."
Slowly, he shook his head, no.
"Listen Buster, you got the worlds best education. Billions of dollars invested in you, right? But nobody’s going to trust you with a dime after you crater. So what’s left?"
He raised an eyebrow.
She leaned close to his ear and whispered: "Government."
She said it like it was a death sentence.
#
By the time Buster learned of his assignment, he was sure that government _was_ a death sentence. He’d heard of hundreds of fallen stars like him just disappearing after signing on with the government.
Buster leaned out on the balcony as usual. The city was darker this night than ever and without moonlight. The usual bright layer of smog had run south to Jersey for the evening.
"You’re not going to jump?" Danisha joked.
He’d long ceased being surprised by her stealthy approach. Somehow, she always seemed to find him out there. She knew by now he wouldn’t jump. But this time, _he_ wasn’t so sure.
He continued his gaze out onto the city.
"Government isn’t that bad," she said.
Buster watched an eagle fly far below. Perhaps it was a falcon, he never could tell them apart, at least not from this distance.
Danisha came all the way out to the rail. That was a first. She shuddered and clenched the thick metal. "God, I hate heights."
Buster watched the some clouds dance in the wind, twisting and transforming, like a ballerina trapped in silken sheets.
"Well, I got it too," she said, holding out her slip of paper for him to see. The paper fluttered wildly in the wind, threatening to leap from her hand. "Securities and Exchange Commission, INDIX division. Somebody’s got a sick sense of humor up there."
Buster shrugged.
"I don’t like it either. Look, Buster, just come down for a sec. So we can talk."
But he only climbed higher. He climbed up onto a wide concrete post at the corner of the balcony. He felt the wind tease his clothing and hair. It called for him to come out and play.
"Buster, come down," she insisted.
Why, he wondered? Why would they even have a balcony in Crater City–the world’s most depressing place, full of losers and fallen stars. Why tempt us if they didn’t intend us to jump?
"Man, you _are_ depressed," she said. "Don’t you be the first guy to get tossed out on purpose."
He looked back at her. The first, he wondered? The first one with a conscience?
She smiled, but with a sadness in her eyes. She really liked him. He wasn’t sure why, but he knew she did. And for the briefest second, he imagined them together somewhere, happy. He brushed away the undeserved emotion and pointed with his chin in a gesture that said, "What about you?"
She shook her head. "Me? I don’t want to die. I don’t care how bad it gets. Or what bad luck I have. It’s just bad luck, Buster. You just move on."
Buster looked down. "Luck," he cursed out loud, with contempt for the very word.
Now it was her turn to be speechless. She paused while his single spoken word sunk in. "You can talk?"
"I never failed," he said through clenched teeth. He felt like he was betraying himself just speaking these words. He was breaking his long vow of silence. He had no right to talk. He didn’t deserve to even breathe the words.
Her disbelief only grew stronger. She rest her hands on her hips and cocked her head.
"I never failed," he shouted, still poised on his platform, like an Olympic diver who’d just lost the gold. "A trillion dollars, right up to the last day. The last second."
"Then what the hell happened?!"
It took all of his courage to say the next two words. These words were not in his vocabulary. They spoke the secret of what he’d done–and what he was about to do again. And when these words finally came out, they escaped his lungs in a nearly primal scream: "I quit!"
As a look of horror consumed her soft sweet face, she could say nothing. She didn’t even think to move closer or call for help. It wouldn’t have mattered.
Buster didn’t even wait to say goodbye. With a diver’s kick, he resumed the last thousand feet of his fall.
#
His fall, the invisible hand, and the rest was neatly captured by some roving camera-bees for the 7:20 news.
#
Exhausted and still smothered in the stench of soggy garbage from his recent ride through the guts of the INDIX building, Buster collapsed on the sidewalk beneath the awning of a pastry shop. He sunk into a fetal ball, not even pausing to consider the fine food in the shop display.
A rare street car splashed down the rain-soaked street and headed off. Buster looked up and noticed a public phone above him. He stood slowly and wondered. On impulse, he pressed his hand to the id pad.
"Credit denied," said the phone. Its welcome sign flickered momentarily, perhaps as a subtle hint that Buster should return to the gutter where he belonged.
Buster pressed his hand again. But again, the message flashed. He shook the phone in outrage. Then he noticed a button flashing ‘Why not Call Collect?’
"Just a moment," the phone said when he pressed it. "Please hold for a visual confirmation." A white light flashed in his eyes. When Buster’s vision returned, his mother’s image appeared on the screen. Her eyes showed some distress.
"You can’t call here," she whispered, leaning so close to the camera lens as to appear distorted. "It’s not safe."
Buster said nothing.
"Oh Buster, it’s awful," she said. "We lost 75% of our value when you… you know. We’re nearly ruined. Sweetheart, if we could have afforded to buy back your outstanding stock, we would have. Your father and I would do anything for you. You know that."
Buster pressed a key that transmitted his current location to her phone. It would even print directions if necessary. She glanced down momentarily but pretended not to notice.
"Buster," she said, "I’ve got to go. You’ve been reposessed. Discharged. You’re not you anymore. There is no you."
Buster rest his forehead against the phone. His mouth was only inches from the camera now. On his mother’s screen, his lips quivered, faintly mouthing something. Perhaps it was just a question: "Why?"
"I’ve got to go. They’re starting the meeting. Take care. Dress warmly."
The screen went black and Buster returned to the cold comfort of the sidewalk. At least he could dream. They couldn’t take that from him, could they? Tucked in a wet fetid ball, he drifted off to a dreamless sleep.
#
"Kid," a deep voice said. "Wake up."
Buster was vaguely aware of being carried in a strong man’s arms. Dawn-colored windows glimmered to his half-open eyes, but he was hardly awake enough to see the sunrise, or would he have cared.
The strong man-behind-the-hands carried Buster back to the alley behind the INDIX building. They passed through a creaking gate and descended a long flight of stairs. At the bottom, he tucked Buster under his shoulder and carefully opened the door.
A woman stood in the hallway.
"Thank God you found him," she said and helped them inside.
#
Buster lay on a soft cloth couch, stirred awake by the smell of coffee. After a few minutes, he had to open his eyes.
"Hi Buster," the woman said softly.
"Jenny?" he said weakly. Buster forced himself to sit up.
"How are you feeling?" she asked.
He thought about it. But he didn’t quite know how to answer. He’d just lost a trillion dollars. He’d been completely erased from the system, liquidated. And he’d just fallen a thousand feet into rotting garbage.
"I’m fine," he said. "You?"
"I’m good," she said, half-smiling.
"Jenny…" he began. She waited for him to speak. "I… I’m sorry for what we did to you. I never told you…"
"That you crashed my stock," she said. "I wasn’t sure if that was you or your board."
"My directors all told me to break it off. They voted. My parents wrote the press release. But I’m the one who sold you short. I dumped all my stock in you. I even sold on margin when I knew you’d crash. I’m so sorry."
She sighed. "I know. Look, it was ten years ago."
"I’d still be furious."
"I _was_ mad," she said. "But I still owned lots of _your_ stock when we split up. After your price shot way up, I made a fortune selling you too."
"At least you got something out of it," he said, trying to smile. "I’m glad for that."
"No," she said. "Not really. I bought back all my own worthless stock till I was wholly-owned again. I gave the rest of the money away."
"Oh," he said.
"No, no," she said excitedly. "That’s what changed my life. It wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t done what you did. I met Taylor and the Underground. So I’m glad how things worked out."
"Oh," he said, more confused now than before.
"Come on," she said, waving him on, "it’s time you meet my husband."
#
Taylor was still a tall black man with the same strong hands and voice that had rescued Buster from a pile of rotting garbage. Buster found it difficult to notice anything else for fear of disliking the man. He really wanted to like him, more for Jenny’s sake than anything else. But, from Buster’s point of view, Taylor was nuts. There was no getting around that.
"You can’t overturn the whole system," Buster complained, exasperated after their protracted argument.
"Why not?" said Taylor. "There is no social contract. This system is financially flush but morally bankrupt. It prevents ninety-five percent of the population from achieving their dreams. It’s a tyranny of the wealthy overvalued oligarchy. We have to change that."
Buster rolled his eyes. "With what army?"
Taylor shook his head, no. They’d been down this route already. He was an idealist. Buster was a realist. There was very little common ground.
Jenny finally stepped in to make peace. "Both of you, relax. Taylor, Buster’s right. We need to be more clever. We’ve been only nipping at their heels for eight years. A thousand essays and editorials haven’t even made a dent. Nobody listens except when there’s a crisis, and then they forget all common sense." She turned to Buster. "But you have to admit, the system needs radical reform. You’re living proof."
He exhaled deeply. "Maybe. Yeah, if people like you always get stomped on by people like me."
She smiled. "That’s why we need your help. We want you to _stomp_ the system. If not for us…," she said, patting the small bulge in her abdomen. "Otherwise, he won’t have a chance."
"I don’t know if I can do it," Buster said. "I don’t even have any money. I lost it all."
"We’ll raise money," Taylor said. "We have some supporters."
"Supporters." Buster sighed. This went against everything he’d been taught. But then again, everything he’d been taught was probably wrong. Hundreds of millions of dollars spent on training and educating him to be a blockbuster. And they couldn’t teach him to enjoy it. What a monumental waste.
"Okay," he said, feeling a deep pit in his stomach. "What did you have in mind?"
#
Six months passed with only modest gains. Buster had taken the Underground’s small warchest and only multiplied it by ten times. He apologized and promised he’d do better next year.
Three years passed. He set up a fictitious individual: Rebel Star(R), age two and a half, value unlimited. This was not Jenny’s new baby, Charlie. There was no need to ruin his life too. They used his picture. Buster would have to fake the rest.
He knew he could do it. He knew the system inside out, better than his parents even. He’d already ridden it to the top and learned the market’s secrets. He certainly learned the most important one: possession may be nine tenths of the law but perception is everything.
He faked Rebel’s test scores–a little money goes a long way. He faked Rebel’s genetic profile using much of his own. From behind the curtain, he promoted Rebel like the next messiah. For this imaginary child, Buster had secured the highest evaluation possible–’triple-A-star’–even better then his own had been. Had they known he was pulling the strings, The Markovs would have indeed been proud.
Twelve years passed. Buster held off Rebel’s IPO till age eleven to build suspense. There was already plenty of mystery surrounding him: who was this boy wonder, the kid who traded like a pro? Neither Rebel nor Buster made public appearances. But who needed to be seen in public when holophones and holovids made everything more real than reality?
And there were certainly those who were suspicious. The SEC trench-coats were always asking questions of Rebel’s associates, and to no avail. But none of them ever bothered to check the basement. To them, an Underground was inconceivable. And Rebel’s results spoke for themselves. No one could believe that such a successful kid could be a fake. Fakers always tripped up eventually. So success itself brought the ultimate legitimacy.
At age eighteen, Rebel was worth one hundred billion dollars. Charlie, the real Rebel, was off pursuing an art career in Madrid. By this point, Buster had set up a full media production facility in the basement. He’d hired actors to play Rebel’s part, make speeches, attend parties. He’d hacked together holos of Rebel going to school, Rebel dating, Rebel running the show.
But Buster ran it all: the public relations, the financials, the vast network of companies–in total, the biggest capital entity in history, dwarfing Rockefeller’s empire by an order of magnitude at least.
By age thirty, everyone who owned any stock, owned some of Rebel Star(R). And that was virtually everyone.
#
Jenny gently touched Buster’s shoulder.
He’d fallen asleep at his desk again. Buster opened his eyes and gazed up at his Jenny. To him, she was a true angel. She’d aged very well those last thirty years. She’d had a few more children, written a few more treatments of the social malady. She was extremely well regarded in her field. They’d both just entered their sixties and grayness had firmly taken hold. But to Buster, she looked as radiant and alive as when they were twenty.
He, on the other hand, had become a mere shadow of himself. A ghost with a sole purpose: to haunt the system, to give it the fright of it’s life, to make them all stand up and listen.
"Buster," she said, "it’s time."
"Don’t tell me when it’s time," he snapped. "I’ve run this thing for thirty years. Don’t you think I know what time it is?"
"Come on," she said, taking his hand.
He secretly loved it when she ordered him around. She was still the only one he let do it. Taylor didn’t dare.
In a way, Buster had gotten his dearest wish. These last thirty years, he’d lived his life beside hers–inside hers. Taylor didn’t even resent his feelings for her anymore. It was just a fact of life, like he was just a member of the family. For Buster, the last thirty years were worth all the money in the world.
But it was all about to end. Not only was he about to kill off his greatest creation. But there’d be no more reason to hide within their lives. What would happen next? That scared him more than anything else.
Buster and Jenny took the elevator up towards the old roof-top garden. She smiled softly, but neither one spoke. He could see she was nervous too. Thirty years in the making, this was their big moment. This would change everything, they hoped.
The elevator doors opened to bright sunshine. Flowers and trees filled their view. This was the perfect place. The top of the world.
The press had already assembled for Rebel Star’s supposed major announcement. They sat in neatly spaced rows of chairs, waiting impatiently for something to happen. They sensed it would be big. The journalistic juices flowed.
Buster approached the podium.
Looking down, he checked the real-time update of his stock price, or rather Rebel Star’s. It might as well have been his stock. The ticker read $147 ¼.
Looking out at the crowd, he found a sea of expectant faces staring back. And off in the corner he saw one face he hadn’t seen in thirty years. Danisha stood by the elevator in a long grey trench-coat. Beside her, several other SEC trench-coats stood ready. With a nod, she sent one to cover each exit.
Buster smiled at her. She’d done a good job figuring out his deception. But she probably needed proof before arresting him. He was about to give her all the proof she could ever want.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he began.
He looked down. So far, the stock price held steady.
"Where’s Star?" a man shouted.
"Who are you?" another yelled.
"We’re here for a speech from Rebel Star," said a third.
"Rebel Star is not coming today," Buster said coolly, "or any day."
A coarse whisper rippled through the crowd.
The stock price fell slightly to 140 ½, on anticipation of bad news.
"Rebel Star does not exist," Buster said.
Shouts and calls erupted from the reporters. Dozens of camera-bees rose up from the crowd to catch the action from all angles. And a thousand questions were fired at him. Was he dead? What happened to him? When did he stop existing?
Investors who hadn’t planned to watch the speech were tuning in now. And trading was heavy. No one wanted to be caught with a falling rock in their pants. And some didn’t even wait for the rumor to be confirmed. The more people sold, the more others thought _they_ had inside information, and the more people sold in kind. Buster waited a moment for the stock price to fall to 100, then to 87, then 63.
Then he raised his arms as if to quiet the crowd. It barely made a dent. "Please," he said. "Please be quiet and I’ll explain."
It took just a moment more for the stock to fall through 40. It seemed to hover at about 37 ½. Even with a potential disaster, some people still wanted it. It had always gone up. Perhaps they believed it would go up again.
"I’m here to confess," he said. "I created Rebel Star from nothing. I ran the company. I created the hoax. All of it."
"Who the hell are you?" came several shouts. "What gives you the right? Why?" Still a few more just cursed and moaned. The stock fell to 10 ¼, a ten-year low. The stock was searching for its true bottom, wherever that was. The bottom: that magical point where everything else was up, where everything from that point on would somehow be okay.
"My name is Buster Block(tm)."
The crowd burst into commotion. And not only because of what he’d said. They were watching the real-time feed from the INDIX too. His stock had neared dangerously low levels. But that wasn’t the half of it. Other stocks, even ones that had nothing to do with them, began to fall too.
It was illogical. But mass psychology has never been dictated by logic. Everyone owned a piece of Rebel. Everyone just lost a paper fortune on him. They suddenly felt poorer, scared, unsure. They feared other hoaxes as convincing as Rebel Star(R). Mostly, they wanted to cash out to make up for the uncertainty. So people sold whole blocks of perfectly good stock with little or no thought at all. And then panic set in. As prices fell across the board, the water began to drain from the lake.
"You’re killing the market," a panicked voice shouted. With the new wave of mass selling, Rebel Star tumbled even lower. It finally broke the two dollar limit–the two minute warning for any stock. Time was running out. The true bottom must be near.
At ten cents a share, Buster’s automatic-buy program kicked in. It had been waiting all this time to see the bottom. The program used his remaining cash to buy back every outstanding share of Rebel Star. At this price, it hardly cost him anything. And, in a matter of seconds, Rebel Star was again wholly-owned. The man who’d never been, was whole again.
"Trading is halted," someone shouted.
The crowd sighed relief. As was policy, the market was not allowed to crash, at least not all at once. Trading was halted to prevent catastrophes like ‘29, ‘87 and ‘09.
But, for Buster, crashing the market was not the plan. Once the panic abated and people came to their senses, they’d see the failure of Rebel Star as an isolated incident. The market would eventually recover and be no worse for the wear.
"Now," Buster said over the continuing melee, "While Rebel Star, the man, doesn’t exist. Rebel Star Enterprises, the set of companies we started, is doing just fine. We have solid fundamentals. We have a newly appointed management team, rock solid. This company is going to be around for a long time."
"It’s a fake," someone shouted.
"It’s all a fake," Buster shouted back. "Don’t you get it. I took a fake company and made it solid–because you all chose to believe. It’s just an illusion. It’s time to start investing in things that can’t be hyped or faked, things that don’t fall apart when you look too closely."
"Like what?"
Buster looked over at Jenny. She was smiling, somewhat dazed, glassy-eyed, but happy. They’d won, almost.
"Ask her," Buster said, introducing Jenny. "She’s the expert. She has the answers you need."
"And what about you?" a reporter demanded.
"I… I don’t even exist," Buster said.
He stepped down and walked from the podium, right towards the edge of the roof. This was the highest building in Manhattan. The highest in the world.
It was a long, long way down.
"You’re not going to jump?" a woman said from just behind.
Buster smiled and turned to face her. "It’s been a long time, Danisha."
She smiled too. "Well, you’re a hard man to find. But I knew you’d turn up sooner or later. Congratulations. You got what you always wanted. You’re on top of the world."
He laughed. "Am I?"
"No," she said. "You know we’re going to take it all away. We have to. You knew we can’t let you win. So what did you possibly hope to gain?"
"I don’t know," he said, lowering his head. "I made them listen."
She shook her head, no. "Just look at them."
Buster looked back at the reporters. They were huddled around the frozen real-time quotes, praying for their precious stocks to shoot back up when the market re-opened.
Buster shook his head too. "I don’t know."
Danisha signaled her cops. Two trench-coats grabbed him from the sides. This time, she’d be ready to stop him. This time, there would be no jumping, no escape, no death.
She smiled, but that quickly changed to a frown as Buster began to rise.
The cops tried to hold him down, but it was no use. The force was too strong. Buster rose four feet in the air, just high enough to clear the outer ledge, and they had to let go. Jenny screamed and ran for him, a lone reporter chasing her and her story. Danisha reached out to hold him down. But it was no use.
Buster floated out over the edge of the building. And he just hung there, a mile above the hard concrete sidewalk, like a butterfly in a spider-web or, perhaps, an old rag doll in an invisible hand.
The INDIX had indeed saved him once from this very fate. And what a shameful mistake that turned out to be. Perhaps this is what they meant by a market correction.
"Adam Smith was an asshole," Buster cried as the invisible hand finally let go.
#
An army of tiny robots emerged from the base of the INDIX building. They scoured the sidewalk like ants, looking for debris to return to their nest. The building’s cleanliness policy was indeed legendary; the splatter of red and gray on its pristine sidewalk, intolerable.
This day, the little robots were excited. There was so much work to do. They carried the remains of the body, piece by piece, to the recycling bin. It took them at least twenty minutes to pick the sidewalk clean.
In the bottom of the recycling bin, a computer tallied the net worth of the raw materials. Carbon, calcium, iron and salt. Some water to be purified and bottled.
Two dollars in the coffer, give or take a dime.
# THE END #
