The Men In The Suits

On a road in the midwest, The Man In The White Suit drove. For most, this would be a mundane task. But for The Man In The White Suit, it was anything but. This is because The Man In The White Suit has never before driven on a road in the midwest. In fact, he has never actually driven at all. It wasn’t because he was afraid to drive, or because he didn’t have a car, or because it just seemed wrong for one to trap themselves in a metal box and go careening down a road on which the only thing keeping them from crashing and exploding into nothingness were some imaginary painted barriers on the ground. No, it wasn’t that. While all those things were true, The Man In The White Suit hasn’t driven simply because he has never had a reason to.

It was a novel experience, driving. It didn’t take too long to get the hang of it really, he had spent a lot of time observing the process from other’s shoulders in the past. But being the one in control was different. When others drove they would always go above the speed limit, or veer outside of the lines, or scream at other drivers while “flipping them the bird” and creating new and unique combinations of curse words to yell through a closed window–all because of a minor inconvenience. But not when he drove. When he drove he was able to follow all of the traffic laws: he could drive precisely at the speed limit, not a mile faster, stay in the right lane except to pass, and allow others to merge in front of him, so long as they had their blinkers on of course. Yes, this was the way driving was meant to be. This was satisfying. And above all, this was what he had needed to get himself back to form. Something that he could control, and that was entirely good.

 His drive had been largely uneventful today. The landscape was an endless plane of various shades of brown, with the occasional dotting of grazing cows and stagnant windmills. The sky was a pale blue with just a hint of clouds that had not quite formed enough to turn white. It was several hours of uniformity and predictability. So when in the distance he saw The Man In The Red Suit walking hastily along the shoulder, unperturbed by the few cars speeding past, it’s safe to say he was surprised. Checking his mirrors and seeing no one behind him, he turned his hazard lights on and began to slow. The Man In The Red Suit, noticing the car slowing near him, glanced over, his eyebrows scrunched together in a look of confusion and mild surprise. 

“You look like you could use a lift,” The Man In The White Suit said through the open window. 

The man in red examined the car for a moment before his focus landed back on the driver. His eyes were cool and calculating as if he were imagining every possible scenario that could arise from that moment on. His face, however, was unconcerned and one corner of his mouth curved slightly upwards giving him a perpetual mischievous look–not uncommon for his type. 

“What’s someone like you doing with a car?” he finally said as he pulled the door open and dropped into the passenger seat.

“Just trying something new.” The Man in the White Suit said, “And I think doing more of the things that they do will help me be more convincing. Seat belt, please.”

The man in red gave an incredulous sneer. The man in white answered with a patient grin. With a huff and shake of his head The Man In The Red Suit conceded and after struggling with it for several moments, clicked the belt into place. “Happy?” he asked, “You know these things are pointless for us right?”

“True,” the man in white said as he put the car back into motion, “the safety they provide is somewhat of a moot point for our kind. But the law is the law.”

The man in red rolled his eyes. “Oh right, wouldn’t wanna go breaking any laws now would we?”

“Precisely!” The Man In The White Suit said cheerily, completely ignoring his companion’s sarcasm. “Now, where are you headed? Off to another job, I presume?”

“Mm,” the man grunted in response, “I’m headed to some big shot land developer over in Florida. Something about a multi-million dollar contract. Think I’m gonna convince him to take down some rainforest, maybe sprinkle in a little bit of embezzlement if I’m feeling frisky.” His grin widened at the thought.

The man in white looked over at his passenger, his eyebrows raised. “Oh!” he said, “Yes, the CEO in Miami. That’s where I’m going too! Looks like we’ll be in this car together for a while.” The man in red didn’t seem to share his enthusiasm at the prospect, but he pressed on. “This is exciting! I don’t normally get to meet my adversary beforehand.” He paused. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to put a stopper in those rainforest and embezzlement plans though. My apologies.”

The man in red stared at him for a long moment then burst into a fit of laughter. “Ahh, that’s rich,” he said. The man in white gave him a questioning frown prompting him to elaborate. “Oh c’mon. You know nobody listens to your side anymore. Especially when money’s involved. When it comes to cash, my job basically does itself. It’s pretty great, you know. You should try it some time.”

“Oh, no,” The Man In The White Suit said, “that will not be happening any time soon. And I’ll have you know that I’m quite adept at my job. You’ve yet to see me work, I think you will be rather surprised. In fact…”

In his impassioned self-defense speech, The Man In The White Suit’s inexperience in driving became quite evident. As he went on in detail about the merits of his work and the accomplishments he’s had, he forgot one of the fundamental rules–always keep your eyes on the road.

The Man In The Red Suit was first to notice this error.

“Whoa whoa whoa,” he said helpfully, pointing emphatically out the windshield. 

The man in white slammed both feet into the brake pedal. Tires wailed in protest and it suddenly felt like the car was skidding over a bed of ice covered in a blanket of gravel. He cranked the wheel to the right but by then they were too close. The crunch was louder than he would have imagined it would be. The abrupt stop whipped the two men’s heads forward as their seat belts locked their bodies into place. In a small bit of fortune, the braking appeared to have slowed them just enough, as the airbags didn’t deploy and there didn’t seem to be too much damage overall. Silence weighed heavy in the air, a stark contrast to the cacophony seconds ago. 

“Well,” The Man In The Red Suit said, breaking the shocked silence, “can’t say I didn’t see that coming.”

The Man In The White Suit stared unmoving, eyes wide and mouth agape. “Oh, this is not good,” he said.

“C’mon, might as well get going.” The man in red said. “Guess we’ll just have to get there the old fashioned way.” He began fumbling with his seat belt attempting to unbuckle it.

“What? No, we can’t just leave.” The man in white said, “We have to make sure the driver is okay.”

“Oh it wasn’t even that bad! I’m sure they’re fine. Besides, what are we gonna do if they’re not, it’s not like we can help.” 

“I– I don’t know.” the man in white said,  “But we still have to check.”

Their answer came then, as the door of the other car burst open. A tall, burly, middle-aged man stepped out wearing a jean jacket with the sleeves cut off. He had thick tree-trunk arms, and legs that were somehow even larger. His reflective sunglasses covered his eyes, but judging by the snarl within his goatee, the men could tell he was not overly pleased by the situation. 

“What the hell is your problem!” The man yelled, examining the large dent in his trunk.

“Well, see, there you go.” The Man In The Red Suit said, “Looks like he’s totally fine. Let’s get going now.”

The Man In The White Suit  groaned, a guilty expression written on his face. “Okay look, there’s no time to explain it all, but we can’t just leave, not now. You see, I’m not exactly on the best terms with the boss right at the moment. And now that this man appears to be a bit… enraged, I assume this is going to turn into an Unplanned Decision Point. Which means they’re going to send another team out to facilitate. But if they do that they’ll see that I caused this. It’ll be the end of me!” As he spoke, his voice grew more frantic. 

The man in red anticipated what the other man was going to propose. “You’re going to make me work aren’t you?” he said. 

“Just a bit,” the man in white said, “if we get in there before another team does, we can convince him to go.” His next words were said more to convince himself than anything, “Besides, it’s still the right thing to do. If we convince him to get in his car and go, then we’ll be preventing him from doing any harm to anyone.”

The man in red sighed, “You’re lucky I find this whole driving thing a nice break from walking. Fine, let’s get it over with.”

“Thank you.” the man in white said, relief washing over him, “We are going to need to work together though,”

The man in red grunted in reluctant acceptance, “Yeah, yeah, you don’t need to bring that part up.”

With that, the two men in suits got to work. With a quick snap they vanished from the car. A moment later they reappeared, albeit much smaller in size, arranged in their respective posts: The Man In The White Suit on the driver’s right shoulder, and The Man In The Red Suit on his left. Both of their appearances had also changed to mirror that of the man’s, except for their suits which of course remained the same. 

The suited men’s roles as Consciences affords them certain special abilities. One being the aforementioned shape shifting, and another being the ability to tap into certain knowledge of their current subject. This is why when one listens to their Conscience, they feel that they are making decisions of their own volition. It’s also how the men in suits knew the violent man’s name.

“Hey, Dillon, buddy,” The Man In The White Suit as Dillon’s good conscience said, “maybe we should take a breath for a moment. Think about this.” He could see that Dillon was not unfamiliar with getting into legal trouble. “You know, if we just get back in the car and let these guys go, we won’t have to deal with the cops and lawyers and all those suits again.” 

“Yeah that’s true,” The Man In The Red Suit as Dillon’s bad conscience said, “and if we do get back in the car we can sue those guys for our ‘injuries’ and we won’t have to go back to the plant ever again.” 

The man in white gave the man in red a scowl at that, but pressed on, committed to getting Dillon to leave before he saw that the other car was now empty. “If we leave now they won’t be able to get any of our information. Then we can tell insurance whatever we want. Let’s just get out of here before they make things more difficult.” He had never stooped to advising this way before, but he had no choice at this point. 

The Conciences sent ideas swirling in Dillon’s head of all the things he could get with the money from a settlement. He imagined himself walking out of his boss's office as the boss pleaded with him to stay, then getting into a brand new Charger as he left to go sit by his fancy new pool. Fortunately for the men in the suits, they could see that Dillon wasn’t quite bright enough to realize that leaving now without any proof of the accident or exchange of information would make all of those other thoughts impossible. So with the fantasies winning him over, Dillon grinned wide and started back to his car.

A moment later the men in suits popped back into their car, back to their original forms. “That was easier than expected.” The Man In The Red Suit said. He looked over to the man in white appraisingly “I’m impressed. I didn’t expect you to come so far over to my side. That was a nice touch with the insurance fraud.”

“I didn’t suggest fraud, not exactly.” The Man In The White Suit said sheepishly, “Anyway don’t get used to it. It was a dire situation in need of extreme action, it won’t be happening again.”

“Uh huh, right.” the man in red said smiling.

Dillon’s car had already sped away at this point. The man in white turned the key and breathed a sigh of relief as the car restarted. Miraculously, but also somewhat concerningly, no one had stopped to check on them all this time. He didn’t want to admit it, but deep down he knew the man in red was right, less people were listening to their good conscience these days. But he also realized something else. When the two sides came together, Dillon had listened. Maybe that’s what he’s been missing. It’s why he hasn’t been able to fully commit himself to his work lately. Because he had to blindly follow the “good” path. But if they instead could work together towards a mutually beneficial outcome, like they just did with Dillon, maybe they could actually make a difference. It was a very exciting thought. 

“You know,” he said, “maybe it won’t be so bad working together for a while.”

And so, on a road in the midwest, The Men In The Suits drove.