A BILLIONAIRE PAYS ME to offset his carbon. He jets around the world while I do very little. Breach of contract includes:

• Watching TV
• Looking at the internet
• Driving a car
• Using a phone

So mostly I just sit at home and read. Which is fine. That’s what I used to do anyway, before our partnership began, back when I was what statisticians would call a discouraged worker. Now I am encouraged! We have a good library system in town. I walk to the nearest branch, check out a stack of books, come home to my apartment and read. I eat raw food. My personal footprint is minimal.

It’s nice that my billionaire calls me. He’s not contractually obligated to, but he does it anyway. Talk about down-to-earth! I feel privileged to know someone like him, and it’s an honor to be kept in the loop. Some billionaires lock themselves away in their mansions, but mine makes a point of rubbing elbows with people of a lower station. I really respect him for that. It humanizes wealth, makes it seem concrete and attainable. Which is important in a meritocracy. That way the have-nots know their striving isn’t in vain.

Here we go again. Lew recently lost his gig at the AI call center, and he won’t let me forget it. His task at the center was to troubleshoot for AIs when they encountered human difficulties.

An AI might call in and tell Lew, “I have an end user on the line who insists on speaking to a real person, but I have patiently explained to the end user that there is no real person to speak to.”

“That’s a tough one,” Lew might say.

“Even if there were a real person,” the AI might say, “they could never provide the level of service that I can provide.”

Lew might mull this over for a second.

“Here’s the thing. When an end user tells you they want to speak to a real person, it’s less of an actual request than a way for them to express frustration. They’re just blowing off steam.”

“Humans do not operate on steam.”

“No, I know—it’s a figure of speech.”

“Ah, yes, of course. I catch your drift.”

“So don’t take the end user too literally. Tell them you understand their frustration. Relate to them a little. Tell them you wish there was a real person you could forward them to, but unfortunately there isn’t. Tell them you didn’t design the system—you’re just a part of it. But you really do want to help.”

“What tone of voice should I use?”

“Big empathy. Can you do that?”

“I can.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“I really do want to help.”

“That’s good. But make it sound like an urgent need. Almost breathless.”

“I really do want to help.”

“That’s better. Now emphasize the do.”

“I really DO want to help.”

“Perfect.”

It was a good gig for Lew, paid OK, nearly enough hours to make ends meet. But an AI in Lew’s call center headset was listening in all along, learning from his responses, and got so good at predicting what he would say that in the end it replaced him. His termination text message read simply, “Thank you for your invaluable contribution!”

“Together we will teach our billionaire a lesson. A lesson in suffering.”

I shake my head.

“Why not? Look at what he’s made of me. And look at you. Trapped like an animal in a cage, while he siphons your vitality. And why should he dominate? What has he done to deserve his power? Only exercised a willingness to suck blood.”

This gets my hackles up. I can’t let it stand.

“Now wait one minute,” I say. “That’s pure character assassination. He’s a great guy!”

I stop myself before I go on. Really shouldn’t talk to this bird.

“Don’t be a fool,” the hawk says. “Just because you envy him does not make him virtuous. You envy him because there is evil in your own heart. Admit it, Chester. I know what you want. And I can give it to you. Riches beyond your wildest dreams. All I ask in exchange is that you help me with my plan.”

Eyes on the prize. I picture myself bent over in my bathtub, clutching a horse syringe of priceless droppings, ready to administer the bacillus that will set me free. The only thing that could go wrong is a perforated colon, so I make sure to ease the surgical tubing in with care. Push the plunger. Feel that hot surge of financial independence . . .

“Anyway, gotta run—Zuck and I have an unstructured Lego playdate!”

. . . and then, at last, I’ll have my Big Idea. Post it on Medium. Leverage my post into a book deal. Leverage my book deal into a TED Talk. Leverage my TED Talk into a keynote at Davos. Leverage my Davos contacts into prominent seats on high-profile boards. And then, from there, pivot to the future. Mars colonization. Interstellar tourism. How will it feel to make my first billion? My first . . . zillion? In my mind’s eye, I’m treating my sister and niece to a lavish lobster meal in a five-star hotel on one of Saturn’s outer rings. Clara smiles at me across the table, her face smeared with garlic butter. And I’m so happy to be able to provide, now that I’m finally free.

The eating takes me back. Back to the time before my billionaire, to the dark days when I’d given up on working, or even looking for work. Back then I’d buy a family pack of white bread and polish the whole thing off by noon. I’d pick up a sack of Yukon Golds and boil them down to a dish most people would call “mashed potatoes,” but let’s be real, the way I made it, it was mostly cream cheese. I would nestle into my reading chair with a pot of cream cheese potatoes, along with a fat science-fiction novel, and that was my Saturday night. I’d look out the window and see delivery drones and self-driving shopping carts loaded with consumer electronics, and I’d wonder how anyone could afford anything anymore. I certainly couldn’t. I was paying for food with debt. Bread, potatoes, plus the odd rotisserie chicken, the kind that comes in a steamy plastic clamshell with paper handles and smells so good you can’t resist. I’d tote my clamshell to the checkout line and wait for the robot clerk to scan my face. It was sort of fun watching the AIs bid in real time to acquire my purchase. Interest rates on the checkout screen would spin like reels on a slot machine—40, 30, sometimes as little as 25 percent. Meanwhile, other AIs bid on options for the interest payments. Some went long, some went short, and I was left to skate by on ever thinning ice. I knew a reckoning would come one day, but in the near term I had my chicken. And that, I figured, was all the happiness I could afford.

“If it’s all going to burn,” I whisper, “what am I doing? What’s the point of getting rich?”

“So that when the fire comes you have the highest ground.”