The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2015 Edition by Rich Horton

Author:Rich Horton [Horton, Rich]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: Science Fiction, year's best, Anthology, Short Story, Fantasy
ISBN: 9781607014621
Publisher: Prime Books
Published: 2015-06-02T05:00:00+00:00

Petard: A Tale of Just Deserts

Cory Doctorow

It’s not that I wanted to make the elf cry. I’m not proud of the fact. But he was an elf for chrissakes. What was he doing manning—elfing—the customer service desk at the Termite Mound? The Termite Mound was a tough assignment; given MIT’s legendary residency snafus, it was a sure thing that someone like me would be along every day to ruin his day.

“Come on,” I said, “Cut it out. Look, it’s nothing personal.”

He continued to weep, face buried dramatically in his long-fingered hands, pointed ears protruding from his fine, downy hair as it flopped over his ivory-pale forehead. Elves.

I could have backed down, gone back to my dorm, and just forgiven the unforgivably stupid censorwall there, used my personal node for research, or stuck to working in the lab. But I had paid for the full feed. I needed the full feed. I deserved the full feed. I was eighteen. I was a grownup, and the infantilizing, lurking censorwall offended my intellect and my emotions. I mean, seriously, fuck that noise.

“Would you stop?” I said. “Goddamnit, do your job.”

The elf looked up from his wet hands and wiped his nose on his mottled raw suede sleeve. “I don’t have to take this,” he said. He pointed to a sign: “MIT RESIDENCY LLC OPERATES A ZERO-TOLERANCE POLICY TOWARD EMPLOYEE ABUSE. YOU CAN BE FINED UP TO $2,000 AND/OR IMPRISONED FOR SIX MONTHS FOR ASSAULTING A CAMPUS RESIDENCE WORKER.”

“I’m not abusing you,” I said. “I’m just making my point. Forcefully.”

He glared at me from behind a curtain of dandelion-fluff hair. “Abuse includes verbal abuse, raised voices, aggressive language and tone—”

I tuned him out. This was the part where I was supposed to say, “I know this isn’t your fault, but—” and launch into a monologue explaining how his employer had totally hosed me by not delivering what it promised, and had further hosed him by putting him in a situation where he was the only one I could talk to about it and he couldn’t do anything about it. This little pantomime was a fixture of life in the world, the shrugs-all-round nostrum that we were supposed to substitute for anything getting better ever.

Like I said, though, fuck that noise. What is the point of being smart, eighteen years old, and unemployed if you aren’t willing to do something about this kind of thing? Hell, the only reason I’d been let into MIT in the first place was that I was constitutionally incapable of playing out that little scene.

The elf had run down and was expecting me to do my bit. Instead, I said, “I bet you’re in the Termite Mound, too, right?”

He got a kind of confused look. “That’s PII,” he said. “This office doesn’t give out personally identifying information. It’s in the privacy policy—” He tapped another sign posted by his service counter, one with much smaller type. I ignored it.

“I don’t want someone else’s PII. I want yours. Do you live in the residence? You must, right? Get a staff discount on your housing for working here, I bet.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.