Chapter 20 Facade
Killer Plans
Darren and Amber didn’t discuss the Amy thing any further for more than a week. Even though she seemed content with the whole truth coming out, Darren wasn’t sure what was going on in her head. Was she really okay with being made into Amber so that they could have a life together?
“Do you remember why I wanted you to look at the Line data about me?” Darren asked.
“Do I look like a moron, Darren? Just because a girl gets upset doesn’t mean she’s lost her mind like some PMSing freak.” She grinned. “You wanted me to see what the biggest hits were to you SIN Score so you could use your tags and comments at the news agency to try to counter them.”
“And?” he asked.
“And, aside from being totally distracted by that Amy bi-otch, I did see a few things. First, you, we, still owe a baby to the State. What are we going to do about that? You said you were working on something. You’re not wanting to give up our baby when it’s born, are you, because I…?”
“No. Absolutely not. Don’t worry about that, Amber. We’re keeping our family unit intact, including our new baby. Isn’t that what you want?”
“Yes, it’s what I want. So what’s your plan then?”
“Maybe there’s someone in one of our families that would do it for us.”
Amber giggled. “Ah, are you forgetting that I don’t have a family? The commune, remember? Did you take a stupid pill on the way home or what?”
“This is a new way of thinking for me too, Amber. After nearly four years, I pretty much thought of you as being part of the Miller family,” he said. “They’re still your family, you know. They loved having you. What about their daughter, Peggy?”
“I haven’t talked to her in about six months. Last I knew, she was seeing some guy. I don’t think it was serious. Who knows, maybe she ended up pregnant and he skipped out. That would be a stroke of luck for us, huh? But then again, if that really happened, why wouldn’t she just do the Class Advance Incentive and turn her baby over to the State herself? Or, better yet, because her parents are rich upper class she wouldn’t need to give her baby away for any reason, much less to help us. You’re not really thinking, Darren. But I’ll give her a call anyway. You got any other bright ideas?”
“If we knew an A class couple that was pregnant, maybe by accident, who didn’t really want kids…”
She cut him off, “What A class couple is going to help us scum? I doubt whether anyone in their right mind would help a C or D class couple.”
They suddenly looked at each other and smiled. “But someone out of their mind might.” Darren said.
Amber was starting to see a light bulb moment. “I gotta hand it to you. If you could trick me into 4M treatments as you did, I bet together we could find someone who is pregnant, trick her into a few 4M treatments and she’d be ours to do what we wanted. Her baby would clear our debt and afterwards, she’d be happy as clam.”
“Okay, Amber, that’s a great plan. So priority number one is to clear our baby debt. I’m glad we’re doing this together because I didn’t know what I was going to do. I always feared the day I couldn’t pay the baby obligation and they’d come looking for payment somehow. And you wouldn’t have known what the heck was going on.”
“What else did you see in my Line data?’’ he asked.
“Oh, some girlfriends, and pregnancies. Even visits to an escort service. My gosh, Darren, were you really that hard up for a date? I always thought you were so cute in your pictures from back then so I can’t imagine you having trouble with the girls. Only the escort service hurt your Score, though. If you had gone there only once, maybe not at all. But you must have gone there often. I guess there’s no point in asking why now.”
“You can’t do anything directly about the escort service. But I think a ‘good marriage’ is good for the SIN score,” she continued. “So plan number two should be to flood the Line with stories about you getting married, being happily married, being a devoted father, and other stuff like that. It’s all true so it should be easy to come up with. I’ll help you.”
“The only other things that stood out in your Line data were some anti-government and anti-commune rhetoric.” Amber made a dumb look. “Really, Dar, do you think you can mouth off to the government and have no repercussions?”
“Yeah, I know. Most of that was years ago, but I guess I’ve made a few comments in recent years too. I didn’t think it would end up on the Line,” Darren said.
“We’ll always have to assume that everything we do will end up on the Line and in our SIN Record somehow,” said Amber.
“I think plan number three has to be to flood the Line with ‘I love the government’ propaganda. Of course, this will all be lies so we’ll have to be clever in our approach,” she said. “So when you’re at the news agency you’ll search the articles you’re uploading for anything to do with family or the government. Then post a comment using our prewritten responses, which we’ll carefully craft ahead of time. You’ll be able to post a lot of comments a lot faster that way too.”
“What would I do without you, Amber?”
“Probably slither back to the escort service. Or a girly magazine and your right hand. Or are you left handed, Mr. Darren?”
Darren was shocked. “How do you remember saying that?”
“Ah, ‘partial erasure,’ dumbass. Do you honestly think my entire brain was erased by the 4M treatments? What science fiction books have you been reading lately anyway?” sneered Amber.
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