Page 1 of A Better World

The Sinking Ship

“Some people aren’tsuited. It’s nothing personal,” Jack Lust said. “They’re simply a wrong fit.”

This guy was a clown. The creepy kind. Linda Farmer didn’t like him, but she smiled at him because she had to.

“For instance,” Jack said. He enunciated every syllable like a disappointed preschool teacher. “Character is paramount. When we hire people who are going to live in our town, mix with our top-level executives,becometop level, we need to know they’ll behave.”

Linda nodded as if to say:We have character! We ooze character!

“You’ll have no cause for concern with us,” Linda’s husband, Russell, said. They were sitting together on the sunken couch, looking up at Jack Lust in the high wingback chair like a couple of kids who’d been caught doing something bad.

“Our community is small and like minded. We prefer collaborative types. It’s counterintuitive: to get to this place that you’re at today, an interview for a coveted company job in a jewel like Plymouth Valley, you must outshine all your competition,” Jack said. His bespoke black suit hugged his bony body like shrink-wrap. Linda pegged him at a vim and vigorous seventy-five years old. Cosmetic surgery, healthy living, clean air—company town people kept it tight. Nobody in their seventies looked this good on the outside.

Jack was accompanied by a small entourage of likewise elegant men, none of whom he’d introduced. Two appeared to be taking notes and two were security, waiting outside the Farmer-Bowens’ apartmentdoor. Linda hadn’t checked—this had all moved too fast—but she suspected that the leather straps across their chests held pregnant holsters.

“But once you’re in Plymouth Valley, you must be a team player,” Jack said. His primness, his perfect posture and absence of expression, vibed to her like contained rage. This was a huge leap in all logic—itdefinitelywasn’t true—but he reminded Linda of one of those guys you hear about on the news streamies, who murder people in weird, excessively neat ways. They lure the random unhoused into their lairs, then exsanguinate and store their blood in jars on their freezer doors. They sneak incrementally larger arsenic doses into a friend’s tea over months and years, just to watch with secret pleasure as their hair and teeth fall out. But she was thinking this only because she was nervous. This three-piece-suited company shill had a lot of power over her life. Her family needed for Russell to land this job. My God, they needed this job.

“Your record is the strongest I’ve seen in a decade. You must have worked night and day to get to this place. Am I correct?” Jack asked.

“Yes,” Russell agreed. He was nervous, trying too hard. She didn’t blame him. “I had days off, but I didn’t take them. My inbox was always too full.”

“The next step is to bring you to Plymouth Valley to interview with our science department. This is a rare opportunity. We almost never open our doors to outsiders. Even when we outsource, it’s typically through other company towns.”

“I’m so honored,” Russell said.

“Itisan honor. But it’s an honor you’ve earned,” Jack said.

Linda grinned at the compliment despite its smugness. “What’s it like inside a company town?” she asked.

“They’re all different. Plymouth Valley is the best. Very safe. Very happy,” Jack answered. His beady eyes connected with hers. He didn’t smile. She pictured the shining, bright kitchen in his perfect company town house, maybe a severed head or two in the subzero freezer. It was a game now. A tension release that made this interview less horribly momentous. “If you’re lucky, you might see for yourself. If you’re even luckier, you might get to stay. The reason I’m here, that I asked to meetyou in particular, Linda, is that these hires can get tricky. Relocating and housing entire families is costly for the company. We avoid it when we can.”

“Totally,” Linda said. She waited for him to say something like:But we’d be glad to have you! The more, the merrier!This didn’t come, so she elaborated. “We’re a very happy family. The twins are practically grown. They’ve never been in trouble. None of us have been in trouble.”

“We know that from the background check,” Jack agreed.

“Thank you…” she said, flustered. Had she and Russell agreed to a background check? They must have.

“What I’d like to impress upon you both is that Plymouth Valley is a privilege. We have many customs. To an outsider, they might seem peculiar. But you’ll understand them with time. The longer you live in Plymouth Valley, the clearer the picture.”

“We’re prepared for anything that comes,” Russell said.

Linda nodded, suppressing a cough. She’d heard that company people thought outsiders carried disease and didn’t want to give anybody the wrong idea, even though this year’s super bloom was hell on her allergies. “We’re easy people. We get along. We can adapt to any culture,” she said. She had no idea whether this was true. They’d only ever lived in Kings.

Jack leaned forward, talked even more slowly. Did he think they were half-wits? Yes, she realized. He did. And it probably wasn’t personal. He likely thought everyone he knew was a half-wit, and that went double for outsiders. “The first year is the hardest. But if you make it in our town, if you’re accepted, you’re set for life.”

“Great,” Linda said.

“Your children will be set for life.”

“We’ll be the luckiest people in the world,” Linda said, smiling big, eyes wide, voice enthusiastic but not flirty. “I’m so glad you’ve come, Mr. Lust, so I have the opportunity to tell you in person. We’re all in. One hundred percent.”

Jack surveyed the apartment for the first time. He’d avoided this before, made a point not to look at all, as if to spare them the shame. Now, he didn’t compliment their framed kid-art hung askew, or therack over the dining room table, from which she’d hung long spoons that, in moments of whimsy, they all played like an instrument. It wasn’t a nice place to live. The furniture was threadbare, the big screen cracked. Josie’s dirty soccer crap had migrated to the corners of this living room like rats’ nests. Still, you had to admit: their apartment on Bedford Avenue had character. The Farmer-Bowens had character.

“Our predictions show that this part of town will be underwater in ten years,” Jack said.

“That soon?” Linda asked.

Jack nodded. “We’re not worried about that in Plymouth Valley. We’ve thought of everything. Wehaveeverything. We think of PV as the last lifeboat.”

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