Karma Hartman's Questionnaire

Well, that depends. I have lots of houses, and spend any year split between a dozen or more countries, but I don't really have anything I'd call a home. I go where life takes me. I was born in the United States, and it's the only nation where I currently maintain citizenship, but I've considered buying citizenship elsewhere.

I mostly spend my time in the Americas and the Caribbean, from one villa to the next, but mostly because the languages are easiest for me. Things work out even when I don't speak the native language, and I'm sure I could learn more if I tried, but at this point in my life it's what's easiest.

And as for what the villas look like? Impeccable, a blend of modern and classical local styles. I'm sure I could describe one to you if I took the time to pay attention.

Oh, my money comes from a lot of places. The trust fund, of course, but also from my investments. Every now and then I sit down with a financial advisor and pick out a few new stocks, or other investment opportunities. Banks overseas, tech companies, airlines, grocers. Some times I just win the lottery, the kind you get signed up for when you make a purchase. Just two years ago, a few investment firms got into a bidding war, and started offering to pay me to do business with them.

As for my expenses? My favorite expenses are people. Quality service, once in a lifetime experiences, special exemptions, and sometimes even loyalty. One time I actually bought a farm in France when the bank tried to foreclose on it, and I get thank you letters from the farmers every year. I can't read them, but my staff tells me they're very sweet.

I wouldn't exactly call myself ambitious. I have more than most people could ever dream of. I live a life of luxury and on-demand comfort. I don't have to work, and by conventional standards, I've won at life... But it would be nice to meet my mom. I have lots to be thankful for, and it's not like she's been entirely absent from my life. I know I'm lucky, and I know I have her to thank for that. But I've never even seen what she looks like.

She's a god, and I know it wouldn't be easy, hell I don't know if it's possible, but if a little risk is all it takes why wouldn't I try to see her? I've risked my life for less.

My birth was the most defining event of my life. When your mom is a god, when your conception is a miracle and when the act of your birth is literally divine, how do you go up from there? I've won underground street races, partied with celebrities, sampled most drugs, and even uncovered a criminal conspiracy or two. Those things were all fun, and even getting arrested can be fun sometimes, if only to see the looks I get when people get orders to let me go; but none of them will or could ever compare to the one act of my life I had no say in.

Jasmine is a genius, by her own account and by mine. Companies hire her when their bank accounts are full but their ideas are running dry, and when they can see the writing on the wall. Her inventions aren't always complex, but they're almost always profitable. Smart fridges, miniature home care robots, small bombs that can clear minefields in minutes. She helps maintain some of my vehicles from time to time, but sometimes I miss how much closer we were as children.

Eugene is one of my assistants. He helps plan events, fill my calendar, empty my calendar, and makes all the necessary excuses and apologies when the calendar gets cleared. I picked him up after some company or other sacked him, and after a decade of service. A stroke of good fortune.

My dad, Ed- or Edmund if someone with authority comes around asking questions, lives as comfortably as I can keep him. He refuses most of my more grandiose gestures, but I make sure he gets what he needs. He took care of me all on his own, which could be hard considering my personal good fortune, and ability to inexplicably get what I want. He's getting older, and he worries, but he's the one constant in my life.

It wasn’t always easy for my dad, Ed, to raise me. Other people helped, neighbors were happy to babysit and the other kids’ parents always said yes to sleepovers, but he was by himself. He said one day when I was three, Mom came to see him, and after that vans followed us around for a while. I think something else happened too, but he won’t say, and I think he took a long time to get over it. He was always careful about leaving me with other people, and since they tended to let me do whatever I wanted, it made things harder on him.

I attended school, and I was pretty popular, but I didn’t study much. Everyone wanted to sit at my table, or be in my group or team, or hang out after school. Even my teachers liked me, but no one ever called me a teachers pet. I graduated with a C average.

Of course I’ve been in love! Lots of people have fallen in love with me, even if they don’t always say it. I’ve gotten tons of confessions and gifts and dinners over the years from people trying to get close to me. I’ve never had a bad experience really, and some of them were from people I liked back. As a sophomore, I thought Ricky Thompson was coolest boy in school, and that year we both won a place in a student exchange program. We spent two months in France, and we couldn’t get a hold on the language, so we spent most of our time together. I was supposed to stay until the end of the year, but one of the teachers overheard us having a fight, since he’d forgotten our one-month anniversary, and caught us drinking with some of the other students. Ricky was old enough, but I wasn’t so I got sent home. When I got back though, everyone wanted to hear about what happened and-

What are my worst fears? Well, I guess I was really scared if the cold for a while. I almost died out in the Russian wilderness, and I’m pretty sure my escort did die. It… it really hurt.

Sometimes I have nightmares. Bad dreams where my life takes a turn. Things stop just… working out for me, and instead my luck turns sour. I trip and get hurt, my money gets lost on the market, my dad has to try and find somewhere to live and gets sick on the street. Stuff like that. But in the worst ones, my luck doesn’t go bad, it just stops. I have to rely on myself. And I fail. And have no one and nothing to blame.

Someday, I worry I might get lucky while the world suffers, and that I might have to watch everything go bad around me. That I’ll be one of the “lucky” ones, that I’ll get to watch the planet die. Not lucky enough to make a difference, just to save myself.
I know my luck is limited. I know better than anyone, I can feel when it’s thick and thin, when the wind is blowing my way. I don’t want to run out on the last lap.

I- I’m not really sure. My most prized possession? I own lots of things, I own lots of cool things, and I do like a lot of them. I own lots of houses and villas, cars and motorcycles, helicopters and private jets. I have lots of nice clothes, comfortable furniture, beautiful paintings and pictures of fun memories. But are any of them prized?

I like making sure my dad has a place to stay, flying in chefs to cook and cater, going fast and feeling the wind in my hair. But would I rank any one of my possessions above the others? I like partying too, drinking and sometimes a little something extra, and I think most things I own are kinda the same. They’re an experience, or a tool for creating one.

I’ve got lots of gifts in my life, so many that I can’t remember most of them, but nothing’s really ever struck me as being… really valuable like that.

…

I’m going to stay with my dad.