Black Buck(51)

“Sure, but any reasonable person understands that it comes down to intention. The end result of pulling a trigger is always harm, even at the cost of protecting yourself and others. In all cases, except for this outlier, the end result of using Sumwun is happiness and well--being.”

“But your platform enabled the murder of an innocent, depressed young woman,” Sandra replied. “If Sumwun never existed, Donesha Clark would still be alive today. What you’re saying is completely irresponsible.”

“How do you get to work, Sandra?”

She shifted in her high seat, confused. “Excuse me?”

“How do you get to work in the morning? Like today, how did you get to the studio?”

“I took a taxi, but sometimes I take the subway.”

“Why did you take a taxi, and why do you sometimes take the subway?”

She laughed, sipped from her Rise and Shine, America mug, then said, “Because it beats walking! You try treading through Manhattan in Manolos.” The audience laughed.

“Exactly, Sandra. This year alone, more than one thousand people have died in car crashes and subway-related accidents. So, by your logic, we should take cars off the road and stop the subways because those one thousand people wouldn’t have died if cars and subways had never existed, right?”

She opened up her mouth, then closed it. “It’s different, Darren. You may be too young to know the difference, but things that are more helpful than harmful are good for society.”

She’s done. This was nothing compared to Hell Week.

“One person died, Sandra, which, I agree, is a tragedy. But we have hundreds of thousands of users who log into Sumwun daily and decide to live another day because of the help we provide. And if that counts for nothing, then I truly feel sorry for a society that would rather focus more on some random, senseless act of violence than on the lives we save.”

The audience nodded, and I knew if I’d convinced a bunch of middle-aged white women that we’d done no wrong, the rest of America watching us from the comfort of their couches would also agree.

After that, Sandra lost her spark. The other questions she threw at us—“Where does Sumwun go from here?” “How are you going to prevent this moving forward?” “Anything you want to say to the family?”—were the softballs we’d expected.

By the end, she clenched her jaw and looked into the camera, putting on her million-dollar smile. “There you have it, ladies and gentlemen. Two representatives of Sumwun. You have the facts, so it’s up to you to decide what you make of them. Thank you for your time, gentlemen.”

The stinker came over and unmic’d us. Sandra stood up, impressed. “Fair play,” she said, shaking Rhett’s hand, then mine. “Especially you, young man. If you ever get tired of sales, give me a call.”

“Thanks.”

Rhett and I headed for the elevators. Once inside, he wiped thick beads of sweat from his forehead then took my face between his hands. “You crushed it, Buck!” he shouted, and kissed my forehead. No man had ever done that to me before. “Just like we knew you would. It was exactly the type of offense we needed. Time to go back to the office and see if things are settling down.”

We hopped in an Uber. Stopping at a red light, the driver looked in the rearview mirror and smiled. He was a pale kid, maybe my age, with cheap sunglasses, and some flag I couldn’t place stuck to his dashboard. “I saw you two coming out of that big building where I sometimes see celebrities. You guys somebody?” he asked, his voice heavy with excitement.

Rhett laughed and elbowed me in the rib. “I don’t know about myself, but this guy sitting next to me? He certainly is.”





14





Two days later, things were finally returning to normal. Prospects weren’t hanging up after hearing, “Hi! This is so-and-so from Sumwun, how are you?” Clients weren’t frantically canceling. And the tension we all felt, while still being very real, slowly dissipated. Even Lucien, our main investor, relaxed, and the media latched on to some story about a Justin Bieber–worshipping cult in Oklahoma kidnapping “non-Beliebers” and eating them. It felt like we were in the clear.

“I still can’t believe how hard you destroyed Sandra Stork,” Eddie said, sitting across from me in the event space.

“Yeah, Buck,” Frodo added, as he inserted a piece of raw steak into his mouth. “It was like, I don’t know, like she didn’t know what to do.”

“Can you not eat that in front of Clifford?” Marissa asked, patting her pig with one hand and offering him a palm full of potato chips with the other.

“What? What’s wrong with this?”

Eddie pinched his nose. “It’s fucking raw meat, Frodo. Why on earth are you eating a raw steak for lunch?”

“Oh, uh, I’m on the Paleo Diet. So, if a caveman wouldn’t eat a certain type of food that exists today, like those potato chips Marissa’s feeding Clifford, I won’t eat it. It’s supposed to be healthy.”

“But why raw meat?”

Frodo smiled, gripping Eddie’s bony shoulder with his beefy paw. “Because cavemen didn’t have stoves, Eddie. Come on.”

“Buck, is that you?” Marissa asked, pointing to the flat-screen TV across the room. “Hey!” she shouted. “Turn up the TV; it’s Buck!”