Paycheck (2003) by Philip K. Dick Read Free Book Online Page B

mine.’
    Jennings laughed. ‘And what happens when you die? Or is the revolution going to come in your own lifetime?’
    Rethrick’s head jerked up.
    ‘You’ll die, and there won’t be anyone to go on. You know I’m a good mechanic. You said so yourself. You’re a fool, Rethrick. You want to manage it all yourself. Do everything, decide everything. But you’ll die, someday. And then what will happen?’
    There was silence.
    ‘You better let me in - for the Company’s good, as well as my own. I can do a lot for you. When you’re gone the Company will survive in my hands. And maybe the revolution will work.’
    ‘You should be glad you’re alive at all! If we hadn’t allowed you to take your trinkets out with you—’
    ‘What else could you do? How could you let men service your mirror, see their own futures, and not let them lift a finger to help themselves. It’s easy to see why you were forced to insert the alternate-payment clause. You had no choice.’
    ‘You don’t even know what we are doing. Why we exist.’
    ‘I have a good idea. After all, I worked for you two years.’
    Time passed. Rethrick moistened his lips again and again, rubbing his cheek. Perspiration stood out on his forehead. At last he looked up.
    ‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s no deal. No one will ever run the Company but me. If I die, it dies with me. It’s my property.’
    Jennings became instantly alert. ‘Then the papers go to the Police.’
    Rethrick said nothing, but a peculiar expression moved across his face, an expression that gave Jennings a sudden chill.
    ‘Kelly,’ Jennings said. ‘Do you have the papers with you?’
    Kelly stirred, standing up. She put out her cigarette, her face pale. ‘No.’
    ‘Where are they? Where did you put them?’
    ‘Sorry,’ Kelly said softly. ‘I’m not going to tell you.’
    He stared at her. ‘What?’
    ‘I’m sorry,’ Kelly said again. Her voice was small and faint. ‘They’re safe. The SP won’t ever get them. But neither will you. When it’s convenient, I’ll turn them back to my father.’
    ‘Your father!’
    ‘Kelly is my daughter,’ Rethrick said. ‘That was one thing you didn’t count on, Jennings.
He
didn’t count on it, either. No one knew that but the two of us. I wanted to keep all positions of trust in the family. I see now that it was a good idea. But it had to be kept secret. If the SP had guessed they would have picked her up at once. Her life wouldn’t have been safe.’
    Jennings let his breath out slowly. ‘I see.’
    ‘It seemed like a good idea to go along with you,’ Kelly said. ‘Otherwise you’d have done it alone, anyhow. And you would have had the papers on you. As you said, if the SP caught you with the papers it would be the end of us. So I went along with you. As soon as you gave me the papers I put them in a good safe place.’ She smiled a little. ‘No one will find them but me. I’m sorry.’
    ‘Jennings, you can come in with us,’ Rethrick said. ‘You can work for us forever, if you want. You can have anything you want. Anything except—’
    ‘Except that no one runs the Company but you.’
    ‘That’s right. Jennings, the Company is old. Older than I am. I didn’t bring it into existence. It was - you might say,
willed
to me. I took the burden on. The job of managing it, making it grow, moving it toward the day. The day of revolution, as you put it.
    ‘My grandfather founded the Company, back in the twentieth century. The Company has always been in the family. And it will always be. Someday, when Kelly marries, there’ll be an heir to carry it on after me. So that’s taken care of. The Company was founded up in Maine, in a small New England town. My grandfather was a little old New Englander, frugal, honest, passionately independent. He had a little repair business of some sort, a little tool and fix-it place. And plenty of knack.
    ‘When he saw government and big business closing in on everyone, he went underground.