CHICAGO, Illinois Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Maxwell hadn't slept well, which was unusual for him. He lay on his back in the dark until 1:00 a.m., then got up, switched on the bedside lamp, a cheap one with a yellowed shade he always intended to replace, and unlocked the system.
He thought of the word "unlocked," and the dashboard appeared.
He spent the next three hours reading it.
The user interface was designed like a polished financial dashboard: clear categories, clean lines, and no wasted space. There was no welcome message other than the one that had appeared the night before. It had no personality, no name, no explanation of its origin. There was only its design. Maxwell liked it in a way he couldn't quite put into words. He had spent his adult life frustrated by over-explanatory things. This system wasn't over-explanatory.
He found the categories organized.
[Achievement Tracking] a list of upcoming achievements and their rewards. The list was long. He flipped through it slowly, reading each item twice. First achievement: A formal promotion in his current job or a new one. The reward: 1,000 shares of Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG). He closed his eyes for a moment. At the opening price that morning those shares were worth about $67,000.
Fourth achievement: Reaching a personal net worth of $100,000, including liquid and illiquid assets. The reward: A villa in Lucca, Tuscany, Italy. Fully furnished. The property is registered in Maxwell's name through a registered limited liability company.
He contemplated it for a full minute.
Then he continued scrolling. There were 42 achievements displayed on the first level. He hadn't read each reward in detail; he would do that later, systematically, but he had read enough to appreciate the magnitude of what he was seeing. He kept his jaw unbent the whole time. Inside, he felt a sound like something massive settling into a new place, a structural change, like a building after an earthquake: it hadn't collapsed, but had been rearranged.
He found the [Hidden Rewards] tab. The description read: Rewards are activated by consistent behavioral patterns. Conditions are not displayed beforehand.
Rewards are awarded upon fulfillment of the conditions.
He found the [History] tab: empty, except for the activation log. March 5, 2012, 6:14 PM. Milwaukee Street, Chicago, Illinois.
He found the [Notifications] tab. One notification pending.
[Hidden Reward - Delivery Pending]
[Condition Met 500 Trips Using Public Transportation (2009-2012)]
[Reward: 2007 BMW 328i Sedan]
[Color: Metallic Silver]
[Mileage: 41,200 km]
[Condition: Excellent Mechanical Condition] It was thoroughly cleaned. The title
papers were in order.
[Title: Maxwell Dragoski]
Location: Parking Lot #12, 2241 N. Milwaukee Avenue, Chicago, IL 60647
[Status: Pending Host Confirmation] He read it three times.
Then the word "confirm" came to him, and he felt a faint internal ringing, a single note, inaudible to anyone else in the room, and the notification changed to "Confirmed."
He turned off the light, leaned back, and stared at the ceiling.
Park #12. His building. The spot was listed on the lease at no extra cost, which is why he hadn't objected when the landlord mentioned it when signing the contract, even though he didn't own a car. He hadn't parked there in two years and four months. That same night, a BMW 328i had taken his spot.
He closed his eyes.
He didn't sleep for another forty minutes. And when he did, it was a deep, dreamless sleep.
Tuesday passed smoothly. Maxwell worked with complete focus, showing no signs of distraction. He answered emails. He attended the 10:00 a.m. call with the Milwaukee food distributor's client, spoke twelve sentences, all essential, and noticed an error in a figure the account manager mentioned: an 8% margin of error, enough to affect the contract recommendation. He politely suggested the correction. Sarah, who was also on the call, looked at him over her laptop screen with a calm, penetrating gaze the look she gives him when something she suspected is confirmed.
He didn't go to parking lot 12 until 7:30 p.m.
He went down the internal staircase of his building, through the emergency exit to the adjacent parking lot, then turned left toward the row where lot 12 was located.
There it was.
Polar silver. The parking lot light was dim and off, but even beneath it, the car looked noticeably clean: meticulously and thoroughly cleaned, not like a factory wash, as if someone had recently done it that way. He walked around it once without touching it. He checked the license plates: Illinois plates, and the expiration sticker was valid. He leaned down slightly and looked under the rear bumper. Nothing unusual was found. He stood up, put his hand on the driver's side window, and examined the interior. Black leather. The dashboard was tidy. He found the car key in the right front wheel well, tucked into the rim.
He unlocked it. He got into the driver's seat. The interior smelled slightly, like a neutral cleaner. The seat was comfortable, as is often the case in German cars: firm but not overly so. He checked the glove compartment: registration papers, a clean title, and his name printed neatly. He checked the fuel gauge: three-quarters full.
He sat in the car for about four minutes.
Then he heard footsteps and glanced in the rearview mirror.
Daniel Reeves stepped out of the elevator, his hands in the pockets of his North Face jacket. A slight look of confusion crossed his broad face before he took in what he'd seen. His gaze shifted from the car to Maxwell behind the wheel, the lines of his brow shifting into a mixture of suspicion and genuine interest: he frowned, his mouth parted slightly, and his head tilted about twelve degrees to the right. His eyes were sharp even amidst the confusion.
"Maxwell," he said, in the tone of someone using a name when he needs confirmation before forming an opinion. "Is this your car?"
Maxwell stepped out of the car calmly. "Yes."
"How long have you had a car?"
"Not too long." He leaned against the driver's side door, his arms crossed, not defensively, but calmly. He'd prepared himself for this during the four minutes he'd been inside. "A colleague of mine needed to sell it quickly. His wife found out he had a second car hidden away. I got a good price."
Daniel walked slowly around the car, his lips pursed, then relaxed, skeptically absorbing and analyzing the information. "What's a good price?"
"It seemed good enough to agree."
"That's not a number, Max."
"No, it isn't."
Daniel pulled up beside the passenger and looked up at him from the roof of the car. His expression changed: the suspicion was still there, but beneath it lay something like suppressed amusement, the look of someone who knew the other person well enough to know when they weren't being told the whole truth, and who had learned to decide whether it mattered or not. He tapped the roof twice with his knuckles. "Okay. Are you going to drive us to the game on Friday?"
"Maybe," Maxwell said.
"Maybe," Daniel repeated, the word laced with irony. "We lost every game against the Chicago Bulls for three years, and now you're adding maybe to it."
"Get in," Maxwell said. "I want to know how it's going."
Daniel's face lit up with his natural smile: broad, genuine, with a few wrinkles around his eyes. Then he walked around the car to the passenger side. "Now we'll talk," he said, and got in.
Maxwell started the engine. The 328i lurched smoothly and precisely, its sound quiet and confident. It slowly pulled out of the parking lot, rolled through the garage, and merged onto Milwaukee Street. The driving was as smooth and precise as he'd anticipated. He drove four blocks north, then turned around and headed back.
Neither of them spoke for the first two blocks. Daniel's hands rested on his knees, feeling the seat, the gearshift, the silence of the cabin, an expression that suggested he was assessing the car without admitting his admiration.
"Well, I'll agree with you," Daniel said finally, as they returned to the parking lot.
"Whoever sold it to you was either incredibly stupid or incredibly desperate."
"Both," Maxwell said.
Daniel gave a deep, quiet laugh that filled the car. "Only you, Max. Only you would see a BMW as a bargain, as if it were expired yogurt." He shook his head, his laughter turning into a broad, affectionate look. "Friday. Let's go to the United Center."
"We'll see," Maxwell said.
He parked in spot 12, turned off the engine, and sat down moments after Daniel got out and headed for the elevator, discussing the Chicago Bulls' playoff chances. Maxwell looked at his hands on the steering wheel. The skin beneath his palms was cold.
The dashboard was locked. He didn't unlock it.
He sat there for a moment, in a car that hadn't existed in his life 24 hours earlier, in a parking lot he'd rented and never used, in a year that had barely begun.
Then he got out, locked the door, and went upstairs.
I had work the next day.
I had a lot of work to do.