Arthur was built for obedience. He accepted the nickname, Art, long ago, one among many acts of contrition during his perfectly mirroring life. Art was a master of being what the people around him wanted him to be. From 7th grade history class, knowing the names of the countries yet only intervening in the teacher’s questions enough to be liked by both Mr. Chester and the rest of the class. Now, his willingness to try to bear the burdens nominally held by both his boss and his boss’s bosses was stretching his affable nature to a thin film.
“Art, what’s the deal this week?”
I’m ready to be done with this shit is the deal.
“Nothing. Tired of being remote.”
“You don’t seem like yourself. You should take some time off next week.”
Don’t tell me when not to work, asshole.
“I’ll take some days soon.”
It was the next day that the business press, starting with the exclusive in the journal and citing anonymous sources, broke the story. Art’s company had been selling personal information from the system implementations from companies whose data was never supposed to leave the servers where they lived during their projects. Both Turkish military intelligence and Eastern European advertising agencies had been using the trove of extremely personal information from banks, grocery stores, and pharmacies to market both products and ideas to millions of people.
Art had a standing one on one with Jamus in the morning.
“This is wild. Do you think we’re going under?”
More like to jail.
“I’m sure things will be fine. This is just too absurd to be real, right? Some disgruntled former employee making shit up, gotta be.”
“I don’t know. Seems like something Mike H. would do.”
Like something that he did.
“I gotta go. Mister Ayche just texted.”
“Good luck. That guy can’t be having a good day.”
I’m about to be living in his hell.
Mike H. was Art’s boss. And livid.
“FUCKING WHAT THE FUCK!”
Very much not a good day.
“What can-“
“Find out where this bullshit came from, who’s telling this shit nonsense to the press. And get me everything you can find on that fucking piece of shit journalist. We are going to sue the shit out of his entire family in UK courts, where decorum is still a real fucking thing.”
“I’ll-“
Mike hung up.
Art had been preparing himself for this day for several weeks. Anonymous tipster had never been on his list of things to do, but he really liked this reporter. Marra was beautiful, principled, and ensconced in a profession that made his lackeyhood seem like something people who deliberately decide to phone it in might choose. But it was much easier to direct his obedience in her way than it was to continue to pretend that working for Mike was satisfying, ethical, or worth the money.
Art knew if we quit now, the jig would be up. He had to be the third or fourth person to leave the company in disgust after these easily proved allegations started working their way into the courts and cutting away at the revenue that paid salaries – not a lot of finance nerds in his division, but most of them understood cause and effect.
Art diligently dug up benign facts that were mostly false about the reporter’s past, all of which a cursory Google search or Wikipedia click-around could disprove. But Art wasn’t in the business of making Mike happy anymore, particularly now that he needed to bail out before someone sniffed him out as the whistleblower. He had been in the business of making Mike happy for long enough that there was no possibility that Mister Ache (Art’s longtime nickname for his jailor-nemesis) would suspect obfuscation. He couldn’t bring himself to start pretending to put together facts that he might inadvertently point at someone obviously innocent of his transgression. And he held off sending the lame dossier.
The case file on Art’s death was brief because the case file on his crimes – theft of company property and its sale to economically and politically interested parties – was so thick. His company, despite failing to catch Art in the act, had assembled a trove of information detailing Art’s years of casual indifference to company policies and obvious legal infractions, all leading neatly up to his headline-grabbing crime.
Jamus was stunned, but muttered something about how it’s always the quiet, nice ones to his new boss. Mike was still furious and did not seem bothered by Art’s decision to stand down from the fiery hellstorm that the company and government prosecutors were preparing to rain down (though the government prosecutors had been readying some hail of their own for his company for its incomprehensible lack of awareness).
Marra’s next headline story ran three days after Art’s funeral, at which she cried intense, angry tears among the small group of mourners.
Double Cover-up: Company Executives Conspire to Murder Whistleblower
Roman Ryan 