W: The Planner, The Chosen (26 page)

The call ended, and Kris wrote a message on a sticky note to remind her to call Penny back. She had a meeting with Leonard Scott in the morning, so she could ask him whether he had any information on where families would relocate to. Then, reluctantly, she turned back to her computer screen and finished typing the inventory.

By the time she left the office it was past 8:00. She felt exhausted. Now that her credits had been restored, she could actually eat three meals a day again, but she barely had time to eat. When she got back to her housing division, she would walk over to the dining hall and take her dinner to go. That way she could eat and then fall into bed. FMPD rules prohibited removing files from the office—even to take work home. If not for that, she could have taken part of the remaining files home with her to see what she still needed to do on each one. 

From the commuter train, she tried to use her mobile phone to call her mother. Since the incident involving the weapons’ violations and the ensuing punishment, Kris had called her mother almost every day. Because Kris had added Janine’s mobile number to her own mobile phone billing plan, the suspension of credits had not affected their ability to talk. Now that the suspension was over, she still called daily just to check on them. She had been too busy working to call over the weekend, and she had not been able to reach her mother at all for the last forty-eight hours. This was now Wednesday—she hadn’t spoken to Janine since Friday evening.

Once again Kris heard the same message that she had been hearing for the last two days, “The party you are trying to reach is out of the service area. Please hang up and try your call again.”

“The party I am trying to reach is definitely not out of the service area,” Kris thought, “And during the next election period I am changing mobile phone providers.” This was infuriating. So much did not work at W—the solar-powered electricity which did not keep the lights on past 9:00 at night, the internet connections from the government-contracted service provider who provided only intermittent service at best—even the emails which were stored on the server for increasingly longer and longer periods of time and now often reached their destinations twenty-four hours after being sent. But the mobile provider was a private, non-government entity, and their service should work.

From her phone, she logged onto her email account to see if, perhaps, Janine had sent her an email.  Finding none, Kris sent one of her own, “Hi, I have been trying to call you for the last couple of days, but I can’t get a call through.  There must be some kind of interference in the area. I just want to make sure that you are both okay. Please shoot me a response email when you get this one. I am just checking in.”  She hit “Send” and then waited a minute to see if there were an answer. No answer came, but that meant nothing. Janine might not receive the email until tomorrow, and Kris might not receive her response until the next day. Logging on to Friendshare, she checked her mother’s page to see if Janine had any new postings. Again, there were none, but that also meant nothing—Janine hated social networking. Kris messaged her essentially the same message as the email. If she didn’t hear from them by morning, she would take the train out after work to check on them. She was certain that everything was fine—as fine as it could be in such a place.

“I wonder what disgusting little concoction the dining hall cooks have prepared tonight,” she silently mused as she stepped off the train and headed in the direction of dinner. Oddly enough, she remembered just a few months before describing the meals of the dining hall as “pretty good.” Now she could hardly force herself to swallow them. She was not really sure whether the quality of the food had actually deteriorated to that great a degree or whether her own attitude about the Smart lifestyle had just soured so much that she hated everything associated with it. One thing was certain—since Michael had submitted his “do-not-eat list” on her behalf, her meals had become especially intolerable.

Just outside the dining hall she heard her mobile ring. “That’s probably Mom,” she thought as she pulled the phone out of her purse and looked at the caller ID. To her surprise, the screen read, “Karyn Conners.”

She stopped short of opening the door and turned aside to answer the phone, “Hi, Karyn.  What’s going on?”

Karyn’s usually cheerful voice was filled with anxiety. “I need to talk to you. Do you have a minute?”

“Of course I do. Is everybody okay?” The stress in Karyn’s voice was very concerning—Kris had never heard her so upset.

“Jeff and I got a letter from the Federal Municipal Planning Division. It says that all of the houses in our neighborhood are being taken through eminent domain to make way for a new, more environmentally-friendly community.  I think the letter called it a ‘Smart Community’.  It says that when the community is finished, we will be offered space in it in exchange for our home. In the meantime, we will be provided housing in Section W Division 1. There is a phone number on the letter, but I have not called it yet. I know you work for FMPD so I wanted to call you first and ask about this.”

“Do you have the letter there with you?” Kris asked. When Karyn told her that she did, Kris replied, “Read me the phone number please.” It was the number and extension of the Level I Planners—Kris’ office.

“Look, Kari, I don’t know what’s going on. You’re the second person I have gotten a phone call like this from today. I am a Planner for Section W Division 1 but we don’t allow families—at all.  It is strictly a seniors’ community.  Either they are building a bunch of new units that I don’t know about—which I certainly hope is not the case since they do such a ghastly job managing the ones they already have—or somebody sent out a whole bunch of letters with the wrong information on them.  Considering what a mess this place is, my money’s on the latter.”

“I don’t know what to do, Kris,” Karyn’s voice cracked as she spoke. “Jeff stayed home from work today. He did not sleep at all last night—he just paced up and down. I’ve never seen him like this. He says that the government will end up taking our kids—that we will be separated as a family. He’s talking about putting the whole family in the car and driving to Canada.”

“Nobody is going to take your kids. You are two of the best parents I know. But there is a lot of weird stuff going on right now with eminent domain. All of a sudden, I am hearing some really bizarre stories about the Feds taking people’s houses, and I will tell you this for sure, you do NOT want to come here. Even if they are building a whole new family section here, and they forgot to tell us, this place is like being in Hell while you’re still alive….” She stopped. She had not told Karyn about the problems that Janine and Jim had experienced or about any of her own problems. She knew Keith hadn’t told her since Keith and Karyn didn’t talk; whether Janine had told Karyn anything about their experiences in W, Kris did not know.

If Karyn did know what had transpired in the last few months, she did not let on. “You don’t have to convince me. I know I don’t want to go there. We sank everything into getting this house when we moved to Dallas. Jeff did all of the work on it himself. We have had to scrape every month just to make the payments. 

“I just can’t believe that the government can send us a letter like this telling us that they are taking away our home.  How can they do that? And how can they provide us with housing twelve hundred miles away and call it compensation? What are we supposed to do about jobs?  What about Faith’s soccer team?  What about our church and our friends? Our whole life is here.”

“I don’t know, Karyn, but for right now, don’t do anything. I have a meeting with my boss in the morning, and I will find out what I can about this. If he doesn’t know anything I will keep asking until I find somebody who can give me some answers. It’s possible that this is some kind of crazy mistake—you’re right, it makes no sense at all to relocate people hundreds of miles from their current homes.  Let me see what I can find out, and I will call you back tomorrow.”

By the time she ended the conversation with her sister, Kris had no appetite left. She turned away from the dining hall and walked back to her unit as a nervous, unsettled feeling enveloped her.

A
fter a night of tossing and turning, Kris was up early the next morning. Her meeting with Leonard Scott was at 10:00; she wanted to make sure that she could present him with an accurate and updated list of the work still pending on each file.

Just as she was about to head down to his office at 9:50 she got a phone call from his secretary—Director Scott had been called out of the office and had postponed their meeting until 1:30. That would give Kris a few extra hours to type the remaining inventories, but it was annoying. She did not like meeting with Scott under any circumstances, and knowing that she had to meet with him and then having it postponed was worse than waiting for the dentist.

The day was growing late, and still her mother had not called back. She had checked several times for an email or a message on Friendshare, but none was there. Now she was starting to get really concerned. She was certain there had not been any disciplinary problems or she would have heard about them already, but something must have happened. Janine never ignored her calls.

Maybe her mother had gotten sick. Picking up the phone, she dialed the clinic at W. There was no answer—the phone rang and rang and did not pick up. After thinking for a minute, she dialed the clinic at her own FE community.  Michael had written the prescription for Janine’s high blood pressure medication, and he often filled in when the doctors at the other units were understaffed. If there were a problem out at W that kept the clinic from operating, he would know about it. The PA answered the phone. “Hi, Eric, this is Kris Mitchell. Is Dr. Linton in?  I need to talk to him.”

“Dr. Linton did not come in today,” was the response.  “He messaged us that he had to take a few days off for personal reasons. Is there anything that I can help you with?”

“How strange,” Kris thought. In all the months that she had lived there, she had never known Michael to work less than a twelve-hour day, six days a week.  He never took time off. “Listen, Eric. I am trying to get through to the clinic at W. Nobody’s answering the phone over there. It just rings and rings. Have you heard about any problems in W? The internet has been down for about four days so I can’t get through to anybody.”

“No,” Eric answered. “We haven’t heard anything, but I’m sure that everything is fine. If there had been any problems, the supervising physician would have called us right away, and he hasn’t.”

“If you hear from anybody, will you please tell them I am trying to get a call through?” Kris hung up the phone.

She looked at her watch.  It was now 1:15.  Her reports were ready, and she emailed them to Leonard Scott so that he would have them in advance of the meeting. Getting up from her desk, she walked upstairs to his office for the second time that day.

This time the receptionist showed her into the small conference room. Kris had not been in this room since her initial meeting with Leonard Scott and Pat Kilmer when she had accepted this job. Much had changed since that first day almost eight months before.

Leonard Scott did not keep her waiting; his large jocular face was red, and he was puffing as he walked through the door as though he had been outdoors exercising.  Pat walked in behind him. Both of them greeted Kris.

“Do you know why we called you here today?” Scott asked after they had been seated.

Kris was genuinely puzzled. “I thought it was to follow up on the status of the disposition of properties for the residents of W. All of the real property and automobiles have been transferred to the ownership of the FMPD, and the deeds or titles, as the case may be, have been recorded.  We do have some inventory items that still need to be completed.  About thirty minutes ago, I emailed you a detailed list of these.”

“I will review your email this afternoon and let you know if anything is missing. Meanwhile, there is another item that we need to discuss.”

“Before we do, I would like to bring a couple of things to your attention, sir,” Kris interrupted. Leonard Scott was notorious for calling these meetings and then not allowing the planner to get a word in edgewise.  He nodded, and she continued, “First, the internet connections are down at W again, and this time the phones are down, too. I am very concerned because I can’t get in touch with anybody, including the doctors at the clinic. If we can’t get calls in to them, that also means they can’t get calls out to us, and with a senior population such as the one we are housing there, I think this is a potentially serious problem.”

“I will look into it,” Scott promised.

“Also, I have gotten two phone calls in the last twenty-four hours from people from different parts of the country who are under the impression that they are moving to Section W Division 1. These are people who have children living at home. They have received letters regarding eminent domain seizure of their homes with instructions to call us to arrange for new housing. I tried to explain to them that Section W is exclusively for seniors….”

“W is not exclusively for seniors. It is for specially-selected populations.” Scott corrected her. “Up until now, that has been seniors.”

“Okay,” Kris paused, “does that mean that we are going to be housing these people? Do we have additional units in Division 1 that I don’t know about? Because every unit on the map that I have is filled—I am showing no vacancies. And I don’t know what to tell these people who are calling me for help....”

“We have many plans for Division 1. Give me the names and phone numbers of the families you talked to, and I will have somebody get back with them. You are not going to be concerned with this any longer.”

“Excuse me?” Kris just stared at him. Her only thought was, “Are you firing me?”  Two months ago that would have been a horrifying thought. Now it was just a surprising one.

“You are being transferred to Division 3. This is an excellent advancement opportunity. You will be a Planner Level II. Division 3 is headquartered in Connecticut—I think you will find the surroundings to be a pleasant upgrade from Arizona, and the FE quarters there feature some amenities that our facility here does not offer. You will be helping to implement Smart Seniors with residents of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. The project will be more than three times the size of this one, and you will find yourself working with a socially and ethnically diverse population. It should be professionally challenging and a great proving ground for your skills.”

Kris was more shocked by this announcement than she had been when she thought she was being terminated, “Transferred?” she repeated blankly.

“You have done good work, here,” Scott answered. “Efficiency is extremely important to the FMPD. You have proven yourself able to work under pressure and meet tight deadlines. More importantly, you understand what we do here now—what Smart Seniors is about and how it operates.  You know the rules. That makes you an ideal candidate for a supervisory position in Division 3. Basically,” he gestured at Pat, “you will be the ‘Pat’ of your new Division.”

“Director Scott…I can’t just relocate across the country.  My parents are here, as you know. I am their only child who lives in the immediate area. If they need something, they will have no one to call….”

“Your parents are the responsibility of Section W. The Smart Seniors community will meet all their needs for the remainder of their lives. They don’t need you, and you don’t need them. What you do need is to see this relocation for the opportunity that it is. If you work very hard, within ten years you can be me—in another Division, of course. This transfer is the first step on the road to a rewarding career, and it is not optional.

“You will receive your transfer orders by the end of the week. Your work here is finished. You are not to return to W or have any more contact with anyone in W. You will report to your new assignment within ten days. Your credits are fully transferrable to the new community—the rent that has been deducted from your pay will be pro-rated to your new housing so that the transition will be seamless. Congratulations on a job well done.”

Kris shook his hand, but she did not comment. She did not thank him or Pat as she stood to go. Within ten years she could be Leonard Scott—giving parties for subordinates in a house she could not begin to afford while the former owner’s wife prayed each morning for a husband she had little hope of ever seeing again.

And her parents—she now knew first hand just exactly how well Smart Seniors cared for them. She shuddered to think what would have happened if she had not been there to get in touch with Keith and get them supplies for that awful month. Just as she finished that thought, another more terrible one crossed her mind. What if their unit had been searched specifically because of her? What if the search and the resulting punishment were some sort of perverse loyalty test—some grotesque initiation into the cult of Big Government?  After all, Scott had just told her that she now understood how Smart Seniors really worked.

For the last eight months, she had told herself every day that she was lucky to have a job at all. No matter how degrading or difficult or demanding the circumstances of her new life or her employment might be, she had reminded herself that after two years of job searches she should be grateful just to be working. Now, she was getting a sizable promotion, but Kris did not feel grateful or lucky—she just felt dirty.

She did not return to her office; there was no point since she was no longer allowed to work at W. On her way downstairs she stopped in to tell Cindy that she was taking a personal afternoon.

“If by any chance my mother should call, can you tell her to call me on my mobile?”

“Sure,” Cindy replied.  “Oh, by the way, this came for you early this morning.” Cindy produced a small, sealed, brown-padded envelope with the letters ‘KRIS’ written across the front.

“Who left this here?” Kris asked as she examined the small package.

“I don’t know. Some guy. He came in with it just as I opened the door. I forgot to give it to you earlier.”

“Thanks,” Kris dropped the still unopened parcel into her purse and headed out of the building to catch the commuter train back to FE. And as she pondered her past decisions and current choices—or lack of them—she realized that she had only one course of action left.

The moment she got off the train, she pulled her phone out of her purse and dialed Keith’s number. He answered on the first ring. “Hey, what’s up?” he sounded a little more cheery than usual.

“Keith, I’m sorry to call you this late in the day, but I need for you to pick me up at my unit as soon as you can.  We need to go see Mom and Dad.”

“What did they catch the old man with this time—a machete?” her brother quipped.

“No, nothing like that. Nobody’s in trouble for anything, but I have made a decision. I’m leaving here.  I’m quitting this job. I want to go pick up Mom and Dad. If you can give us a place to stay for a few days, I promise that I will get on my feet, and you won’t have to do this anymore.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Whatever I have to. Wait tables, clean offices—I’ll clean houses for the same people I used to sell houses to if that’s what I have to do. But I’m not doing this anymore. I’m done. How long do you think it will take you to get here?”

“As a matter of fact, I’m already here,” Keith answered. “I’ve been here for a few days checking something out. I’m just finishing up. What if I pick you up in two hours?”

“Thanks,” Kris ended the call and ran up the stairs to start packing her few possessions. When she opened her purse to see if she had some tape, she once again noticed her odd little package from the unknown visitor. This day just kept getting stranger and stranger. She was almost afraid to open the envelope, but she did so anyway. Inside was a small cheap pink cell phone like those for sale at the superstore registers and a note which read, “Kris, I am sorry that I could not see you before I had to leave. Call your brother and ask him to pick up you and your parents and then get as far away from here as you can. DO NOT TELL ANYONE THAT YOU ARE LEAVING. Throw away your mobile phone. I will call you in a few days.  Michael.”

Kris put the envelope, the note and the pre-paid cell phone back into her purse. Going to the closet, she grabbed all of her personal items and loaded them back into the boxes she had moved in with. She dragged everything down the three flights of stairs and waited for Keith.

As she stood there she checked Friendshare one last time.  This time she found a message from Janine, “Kris, the internet has been down for days.  I have waited all day by the computer hoping that it would come up so that I could send you this message. Now I don’t know how long it will stay up, so I will have to be brief.  Something is very wrong here. On Saturday afternoon, the Regional Director of the Smart Seniors community came here and called a meeting of all the residents. I am sure that you probably know him—he is a fat, obnoxious, balding man—medium height—with piggish little eyes that look like little green marbles. All of us met in the community center—the staff people who came with him went from door to door knocking on units to make sure that they had everybody.

“He said that it had come to his attention that there were a lot of problems at W, and he wanted to hear a list from everyone of all of our complaints. His assistant made notes. It took hours. All of the residents here complained about everything—the food, the lights, the internet, the heat, the water….Then after everyone was finished, he said, ‘I want to assure you that within a week’s time, every single one of these issues will have been completely resolved.’