Going for Glitch

Chapter 1“Your dreams can now come true,” Chandler Ford said to the room filled with potential customers. He held up the bottle of pills that bore the logo for Centurion International or CI for short. “Just one of these magic bullets a day and you become bulletproof. Nothing can touch you. Not even time.” A woman raised her hand. Chandler normally did not take questions at this point in the pitch, but she leaned forward on her knees insistently, stretching her hand towards the ceiling. When Chandler tried to click forward on his presentation materials, she let out a huff. “Yes?” Chandler asked. “Hi. Thank you. How long do these pills take to work?” “Um. They…” That information was near the end of his presentation. After he showed the pills, next came the before-and-after photos which seemingly reversed the aging process, and then he went through the long list of side effects and possible timelines for the pills. “How long?” the woman repeated. “I need to know that now, young man. I don’t exactly have a lot of time.” Chandler surveyed the crowd as a titter of agreement rolled through the rest of the retirement home. His audience did not want razzle-dazzle, so Chandler hurried through the rest of the images, including a man who had gone from a hunched over figure to jumping over a fence. The logo for the company was on the last slide (a lightning bolt superimposed over a man rolling a rock up a hill), along with the long list of side effects. Chandler spoke those quite quickly, hoping that no one caught on that ‘death’ was a possible side effect of a long-life drug. “Finally,” he added. “Once you start your daily regiment, you can expect results in six to eight weeks.” “Weeks?” “Yes. Your daily dose will lead to decades of extended life.” Chandler made sure to emphasize the daily part. That was another thing listed in the fine print. You miss one dose, and you had to start the clock again on your six-to-eight weeks so you could, in theory, stop the clock. “But this is a small price to pay for decades of life. A small period of time to wait for perfection.” “Maybe.” The woman furrowed her brow. Wrinkles set in deep along her eyes and forehead. “My Harold is sick now, though. Do these pills reverse what he has? Or do they merely stop the clock as your tagline says?” “Um.” Chandler glanced at his device in front of him, next to the sample pills he used as a prop. He sighed. Why couldn’t they just accept his cure? He’d thought selling to a retirement home would be easier. The gyms were far better. That crowd was already invested; they were there, lifting weights, sipping protein shakes, and didn’t need to be convinced to add something else to their routine. They already wanted to extend their lives, as much as they could, though most of that clientele was only in their twenties and thirties—Chandler’s age—and many still didn’t have to worry about the things that the people in this room had to worry about. The clientele in gyms—they wanted to extend their life in their bodies. Because they already were perfect, adding more and more time to that meant that they could still be an Adonis years later. But these people? Chandler made a face at the rows and rows of seats before him. Many were hunched over their chairs. Many were not even awake, dozing through the presentation for yet another advertiser that came in to disrupt their regular world. If it wasn’t Chandler today with the snake oil bulletproof cure for aging, it would be the advertisers down the street, peddling some sort of food that had no calories, but tasted amazing. Or the latest tech entrepreneur trying to find people to fill up their friends list. Some didn’t even have a product or service to sell; just a fancy story, and they merely wanted names to add to a fake hologram of people who would watch their latest video lecture. Basically, the people in the room had seen it all before. Chandler and these pills weren’t new or interesting. It was just a way to pass an afternoon. “Perhaps this isn’t the best place to sell this product,” Chandler said. “We don’t have a cure for everything.” “But you have something,” the woman said. “I just wanted to know the facts of what I was getting into here.” “So you’ll buy something?” “Does it reverse the clock?” Chandler sighed. He was a salesman, and liked his job at the CI offices, but he often felt like a fraud most days whenever his pitch did work. He was also a terrible liar. “No, nothing is reversed. These only stop the clock if you follow the regime.” “Okay then.” The woman put down the sample bottle he’d passed around. He expected her to fall asleep like everyone else in front of him, but she reached into the front of her dress and pulled out a small money purse. It was real, too; not a slim chain made out of cards that had magic points which became currency with a quick scan. She had actual money, cash. “How much is a week’s worth?” He listed the price. That was a sample size, something that they sold to doctors to entice their patients who were near death and wanted a last hope. When the woman began to count out that much, Chandler baulked. “You need at least six weeks of pills before any effects will take hold.” “I know.” Chandler pointed to the slide as if to make his point clearer. When she still slid him the money, he sighed. “You won’t see any results. This won’t work.” “You think so,” she said with a smile. “But I have an idea.” Chandler didn’t bother to argue. A sale was a sale, right? He thought of what Elroy, his boss and long-time crush at CI would say when he told him he managed to sell one of the sample packages. If you can’t get ‘em large, get ‘em small. Maybe Elroy would run his hand through his silver hair—made that way artificially though dyes and tinctures, not through age—and then put a hand on Chandler’s back. Maybe his palm would linger for five seconds before he told him he’d done a good job. But then, Chandler reminded himself, he’d tell you to keep going, to meet your quota. And Chandler was sure he needed to meet that quota if he wanted anything to happen between himself and Elroy. After all, they were in the business of perfection, beauty, and everlasting youth. He had to keep hitting those targets if he ever wanted his own feeling of everlasting youth through his crush on Elroy to go anywhere anytime soon. Chandler took the money from the older woman at the front, gave her the sample package, and then turned back towards the crowd. Someone else put their hand up. He decided his presentation was a bust, and turned the rest of the session into a basic Q and A. Many asked the exact same question: was there a way the pills could reverse the clock? Chandler was baffled. Had they not heard? The room was elderly, so maybe they forgot and hadn’t heard. What if he could manage to bend the truth just this once to see if he could manage to sell more? He’d make that quota. And maybe even give people what they seemed to want. “Yes, if you follow the regime exactly, you might be able to offset some of the other ailments of time. The body is a magnificent machine, after all. Sometimes it only needs a moment’s rest to reset its own clock, something of which these pills can provide.” When the new client seemed skeptical, he added, “Perfection can happen to anyone at any age. Just step up and become bulletproof.” “I think I’ll pass,” she said. “But thank you.” Huh, Chandler wondered. How had that pitch not worked? He’d told them exactly what they wanted to hear. And yet, even as he went around the room offering more pamphlets about the product for free, no one seemed interested. When a nurse appeared at the door and shot him a glance, he realized he was out of time. And nowhere near where he had to be for the end of the month. He cursed under his breath as he packed up the rest of his equipment. These old folks were just bored and only wanted to have their pudding and go to bed. The only sale he’d made that day was to the woman at the front—and she had been the only person he’d told the truth to about the product, that it couldn’t undo anything at all. She smiled at him as he left. Something hit him in his gut. Guilt? No, he shook his head. He opened his trunk and saw just how many pill bottles he had yet to sell. Not guilt. Just plain old disappointment. As he pulled away from the retirement home, a message came in from Elroy. His work phone was connected to his car, so he pressed accept and watched as Elroy’s face appeared on his screen. “Chad,” he said. “Good to see you.” “It’s Chandler,” he corrected. He sighed. Elroy had made this error before. Yet Chandler’s disappointment could not linger when he saw the dark eyes and silver hair, along with the chiseled jaw, of the man he’d crushed on hard for nearly three years now. “What can I help you with, Elroy?” “We have a new shipment. Can you come down to headquarters to pick it up?” “I’m good,” Chandler said. “I mean, I have enough product to last me until the end of the month.” “Still? End of the month is in three days.” Elroy looked down at something on his desk. My numbers, Chandler realized. He let out a dismissive sigh. “We might have to have a meeting about that.” “I need a better route,” Chandler protested. “I can’t sell to the old crowd.” “They need bulletproof perfection the most.” “No, the gym crowd does. So do the beauty salons, the universities during freshmen week, those who are still young,” Chandler said, mounting his argument that he’d been perfecting for weeks now that he’d been stuck on the blue-hair trail. “I can’t sell to those who are staring death in the face.” “You can give them hope,” Elroy said. He seemed completely unfazed and uninterested in the argument. Because he barely knows your name. Yet, Chandler could not let go of the image he had of Elroy from their first week together. He’d seen him at a club outside of the office. Nothing too extreme—just a gay club, the kind that they’d had on earth for nearly a century with drinks and drag queens, though now the queens were bionic and the drinks all calorie-free. They’d both requested the same drink order, grabbed it at the same time, and their skin had touched. Chandler was convinced that Elroy had felt the same affinity in that moment that he’d felt. But he had still gotten his name wrong. Chandler corrected him, and Elroy had apologized many times before, always the same way: Make quota and I’ll never forget your name. That, combined with the frisson of touch, had been enough to keep Chandler going with his crush and hopeful dream of someday being with Elroy. Now he wasn’t so sure. “Come by the headquarters, anyway,” Elroy said now, making Chandler focus on his next orders. He was at the lights for the intersection he’d need to take if he went home. Now he switched his blinker so he was headed the other way. “Yeah?” Chandler asked, his voice hitched. “Yes. Even if you’re still not out of the pills, come by and try this new stuff. It’s in powder form. Maybe the people on your route will appreciate it more. I’ll leave a crate behind for you.” “Oh.” Chandler sighed. “So I’m not being moved to a better route?” “Let’s see how the end of the month goes. Then we can talk. When you hit quota.” Always, always, Chandler thought. Never, never. He tightened his fingers against the steering wheel. If he was picking up more product, and the previous installment, then was his quota now based on two crates or just one? He didn’t dare ask. He merely nodded, thanked Elroy, and hoped like hell for the best. “It’s time to make your dreams come true,” he said aloud, in his theatrical salesman voice. “Just make quota, and once again, you will become bulletproof.”