Timeshares

by Jean Rabe

  Timeshares.

  Evan Pogue rolled his eyes glumly as he headed for the company’s reception area. He’d been informed that the prospective clients were clearing security in the main lobby of the building and would soon reach the fifty-sixth floor by express elevator.

  He couldn’t imagine why a timeshare huckster would need the services of Williams, Reavis & Buddenbrook, the agency Ad Age had named Chicago’s premier advertising establishment for the discriminating and daring marketer. Didn’t these vacation condo flimflam men usually just make do with a tacky bamboo stand on the street corner near middle class hotels in popular tropical tourist destinations? High pressure direct sales were their stale bread and rancid butter.

  Still, as the chime announced the arrival of the elevator, Evan plastered on a smile and moved toward the opening doors, his arm outstretched to greet the next contributor to the agency’s bottom line. Meeting a prospective client cold was always stressful, but advertising is a high-stress field. He could handle it, no matter what Buck Buddenbrook had intimated during Evan’s last performance review, after Evan had been removed at the client’s request from the Pee- Pee-Peekaboo-Baby doll account.

  “Welcome to Williams, Reavis & Buddenbrook,” Evan oozed with all the faux sincerity he could muster, and for an ad man, that’s quite a bit. “I’ve been looking forward all morning to hearing about your company and what we here at WR&B can do to help you lure the weary traveler to the vacation location of a lifetime.” Evan knew, of course, that it was more like trapping the unsuspecting traveler in the high interest monthly assessment of a lifetime, but principles were the first thing left on the cutting room floor when most commercials were made.

  The taller of the two men strode forward and met Evan’s hand with his own. “Warner Eckerton, vice president of marketing.” The man nodded toward his companion. “This is Flynn Colby, our director of customer satisfaction.”

  Flynn Colby had a scientific look, like he spent more time with customer surveys and spreadsheets than he did out in the real world. Both men were also surprisingly pale for executives of a vacation destination vendor. Evan would have figured that all those guys got to stay in the company’s unsold beachfront inventory on a regular basis as a perk.

  Evan guided the group to a cherrywood-paneled conference room with a great view of Lake Michigan as everyone spouted the usual banalities about the view and the office and how good it was to meet each other. Evan could do a meet and greet in his sleep; it was all part of what he called the Big Schmooze.

  His fetching assistant, Nancy, showed up magically with chilled glasses and sparkling bottled water. The stuff was shipped in from Tahiti, for God’s sake, and was accordingly much more expensive than domestic water, but that was the magic of advertising, wasn’t it? Evan always served it, just to send a subconscious message about the power advertising has over consumers. He opened his bottle and took a refreshing sip, giving an enthusiastic “Ahhh” as he finished and put the bottle back onto the veined granite tabletop, the label of the recycled plastic bottle facing outward toward his guests. The water importer was a client, too, after all.

  Nancy exited the room after serving his guests, her hips sashaying. She shut the conference room door as she left.

  Time for the pitch.

  “Everyone here at WR&B is excited that you called us for a meeting today,” Evan lied. No one at the agency had ever heard of Timeshares, but he was sure their money was as green as anyone else’s. “We have a full range of services, from traditional television commercials to sport and concert events sponsorship, magazine slicks, free-standing newspaper inserts, radio spots and promos, sweepstakes, contests, Internet pop-ups, viral marketing, whisper campaigns, and, of course, direct mail.”

  He smiled broadly, but neither of the men from Timeshares spoke up, so he continued on after only a beat. No reason to make the client uncomfortable in his own meeting.

  “As you I’m sure know, vacation marketing generally falls into two broad categories, volume drivers and competitive comparisons.” Guys in the biz knew this kind of thing, but when neither client spoke or even nodded in understanding, Evan decided to explain.

  “Volume drivers advertise the allure of the trip destination in order to increase the number of visitors to the destination. You know, pictures of palm trees, sunset beaches, laughing couples, bikini-clad models, that kind of thing. They drive more customers to the market, increasing the size of the customer pie. It helps your competitors, too, but if you operate only in limited markets, it helps drive volume to your markets rather than some other island or beach or country.” Evan didn’t want to blather on without knowing more, so he simply asked, “Do you operate only in a few locations or is your business worldwide?”

  Eckerton spoke up. “We go everywhere.”

  Evan was pleased but surprised. Since no one in the office had heard of these guys and a quick Internet search of their surprisingly bland name had turned up nothing but a plethora of generic timeshare comeons and some weird science fiction references on a time travel Webring, he had assumed they were small- timers, maybe new in the business. He probed further. “Tropical? Or do you include all- weather terrains? Skiing, hiking, urban landmarks, that kind of thing?”

  Eckerton spoke again. “We go everywhere.”

  “Excellent,” Evan responded with enthusiasm. “Well, then, since you have your fingers in all the pies, competitive comparisons are the way to go. These can go in three basic directions. Price competition—you know, the old ‘we get you there for less’ kind of thing; ease of experience—all inclusive, no hassles, package deals; and quality—high end pampering, fancy lobbies, dolphins in the pool, thread count of the sheets—all that jazz.”

  Eckerton leaned forward. “I don’t think you understand what our company does, Mr. Pogue. We don’t run hotels or condos in tourist meccas, we offer time travel to historic destinations. You can go to any place and time you want.”

  Evan shook his head to clear his mind. That fantastic crap on the time travel Webring was real? He’d thought that the hubbub in the press a few years back about the invention of time travel had just been PR hype for the movie ChronoScooters. “So I can go to any historical event ever and see anything that ever happened?” This was a blockbuster concept. The only problem was it would freaking sell itself. What could they possibly need him for? “So, what’s the catch?”

  “Catch?” replied Eckerton, a bit of umbrage in his voice.

  “Er, ‘catching point,’ ” Evan extemporized. “Office lingo. What is the impediment to customers trampling each other in a frenzied desire to purchase your services? Price?”

  “High,” replied Eckerton, “but affordable, especially given the unique service we offer.” He tilted his head to one side and pursed his lips. “Overall, I think we are satisfied with our total volume of interested customers.”

  Evan’s brow furrowed involuntarily, but he quickly unfurrowed it. Not only was it bad form to show confusion or consternation to the customer, he didn’t want to accelerate the time when he would need a Botox treatment. He looked at his clients with a calm, friendly smile. “If you have all the customers you want at a price you are happy with, then I don’t understand what you are looking for from us here at WR&B,” he said, then increased the wattage of his smile. “Not that we’re not always happy to help. A few subsidized trips for movers and shakers will make your vacations in history the ‘in’ thing to do. We can have people standing in line at your offices as if they were at the latest nightclub, if that’s what you want. Adds a cachet of exclusivity to a volume business.”

  “That’s not it at all,” replied Eckerton. “We have a product mix problem.”

  “Product mix?” queried Evan. “You only have the one product, right?”

  “Yes and no.” Eckerton relaxed back into his chair. “We only offer time travel vacations, but we have multiple destinations. That’s where the product mix issue comes in.”

  Evan thought hard.
The furrow on his brow returned, but he let it slide. “But you said you can go anywhere anytime. Right?”

  Colby spoke up. “Subject to certain technical limitations.”

  Aha! “Such as?”

  Colby shrugged. “The time portal is fixed in location and needs to be somewhere inconspicuous. So we can’t, for example, take anyone to the doomed voyage of the Titanic. The ship moves, so when they wanted to return, the portal would be miles away, hovering over the water. Same with airplanes, space shuttles, and submarines.”

  Evan frowned. “But everything moves. The Earth rotates on its axis. It revolves around the sun.”

  Colby smiled. “Orbital mechanics are fixed and predictable. Everything else is a bit problematic, although we have had some success with trains. Of course, the timing is a bit tricky.”

  The furrow disappeared on its own. “That makes sense. And the portal needs to be inconspicuous because you don’t want people just popping into existence where there are witnesses, right?”

  “Quite right, Mr. Pogue,” replied Eckerton. “This isn’t like a movie or a virtual world. It’s not remote viewing. This is reality. The vacationers are actually at that time and place they visit. They can be seen and heard and can interact, although there are stringent rules about the interactions. You know, the obvious things: no out of time objects, No anachronistic references or incongruent references to technology, Leave nothing behind. The rules are strict, but everyone understands the need.

  “The inconspicuous imperative does limit destinational choices, however, even if the rules are followed. You can’t just walk into the Oval Office during the Cuban Missile Crisis—the Secret Service would be all over you. Although I am pleased to report that we have filled in all of the empty seats in Ford’s Theatre the night of Lincoln’s assassination.”

  “Even with those limitations, there’s still a lot of world and a lot of time available,” Evan said with a nod. “What’s the problem exactly? I can’t help you until I understand it completely.”

  “Precisely why we are here,” Eckerton responded. He motioned toward his companion. “Let me have Flynn here explain. He’s on the front lines of customer satisfaction from the intake and destination selection phase to the post-return customer comment cards.”

  Flynn Colby opened a folder, scanned some notes, and then looked back up at Evan. “Despite the relatively few technical limitations on Timeshare’s time travel encounter adventures, there are a number of practical impediments that limit the menu of desirable sites. In some cases, the inconspicuousness factor comes tangentially into play. Since the Timeshare visitors are actually there at that time, since in fact all Timeshare visitors that shall ever visit that time and place are actually there at that time, certain visits have inherent caps on the number of slots available. Warner’s reference earlier to Ford’s Theatre is a simple example. We can’t put people in the Presidential box or in the aisles or on the stage, but we can put them in otherwise empty seats. Open areas with large crowds are the easiest for our kind of travel. The reason more and more aging baby-boomers claim to have been at Woodstock as time goes on isn’t because they are all lying, it is because Timeshare injects vacationers into the mix on a regular basis.”

  Evan laughed. One of the great mysteries of the modern age explained. Could they possibly solve another? “You mean, if I wanted to be in Dallas . . .”

  “Yes,” sighed Colby, “we could put you into an available spot on the grassy knoll.”

  “And . . .” prompted Evan. “What would I see?”

  Colby shook his head. “Sorry, our lips are sealed on that score. You’ll just have to go see for yourself if you want to know.”

  “Don’t put it off, though. Numbers are limited there,” Eckerton interjected. “So we’ve jacked up the price on that one to what the market will bear.”

  “Like many of our customers,” said Colby, “you’ve focused right in on near history in your home country. And there’s good reason for that. Reality imposes its own limits, language chief among them. Going back to a place where people speak a foreign language you don’t understand can be a big disappointment according to the customer comments I’ve reviewed. Even middle English is incomprehensible to most modern Americans. The discomfort of the required period costume, the smells, the air quality, and the lack of decent sanitation facilities are also often cited by customers as detracting from the quality of the vacation experience.”

  Eckerton leaned forward again. “That’s why we want to run a campaign to get out of our battles and brothels rut.”

  “Battles and brothels?”

  Colby winced. “We don’t use that term in the customer satisfaction department. But what Warner is saying is that given the language barriers and the limits on how conspicuous we can be, a lot of our business has gravitated to two types of activities—both of which are somewhat distasteful to the powers that be in our company. The first is—to put it bluntly—sex tours. Certain customers wish to go to a time before AIDS, before current mores and laws, and simply cat about.”

  Evan grimaced. “There were diseases back then, too, weren’t there?”

  “Most can be handled with a simple prescription these days,” explained Colby.

  “But wouldn’t those visitors be breaking the rules of Timeshares not to, er, leave anything behind?”

  Eckerton gave a broad smile. “The time travel process has a radioactive component. By arranging the shielding appropriately, we are able to induce temporary sterility in our travelers with no long-term effects. Our waiver warns travelers that those attempting to start a family should not travel.”

  Yikes! Evan found himself crossing his legs without having consciously thought about it.

  Eckerton gave a knowing laugh at the movement. “It’s just like irradiating fruit at the supermarket to kill pathogens.”

  Colby laughed, too. “Except here we’re irradiating nuts.”

  Uh-huh. “Let’s move along,” said Evan. “You said something about battles?”

  “Sure,” said Colby, his eyes flicking down to his notes. “Seven of our top ten destinations are violence-oriented. Civil War reenactors, history buffs, and fans of slasher films are among the hobbies of that market demographic.”

  No surprise there. “What’s your top travel site? Gettysburg? Little Big Horn?”

  Eckerton gave the answer. “Those are popular, but both relatively limited by conspicuousness and danger factors. Our top destination by far is the pass at Thermopylae in 480 B.C.

  It took Evan a few seconds to figure it out.

  “The Three Hundred.”

  Eckerton nodded. “Where three hundred Spartan soldiers held off an army of a million Persians.”

  “That sounds a bit conspicuous and dangerous itself.”

  “Not really,” sniffed Colby. “Though some historical accounts put the count into the millions, there were actually only seventy-four thousand three hundred and twenty-eight Persians in the fight, so we can fill the hills behind the brutally violent skirmish lines with thousands and thousands of spectators, all while still fitting well within the parameters of the available historical record. We’ve actually set the site capacity limit at close to two hundred fifty thousand, not counting the actual Persians who get slaughtered or the Spartans who defend to the last man. Crowd-size estimation techniques sucked in ancient times.”

  Evan was appalled. “Wouldn’t somebody notice the difference between the size of the crowd and the number of bodies eventually?”

  Eckerton reddened. “We’ve contracted for body disposal activities with . . . a number of organizations. We take the bodies in when we pull the vacationers out. All in period costume, with injuries appropriate to the situation. We weed out anyone with metal plates, pins, and prosthetics. We pull any crowns or teeth with fillings.” He cast his eyes down at the table. “We don’t talk about it much. Strictly confidential, you understand.”

  Evan understood the distaste the creators of Timeshare must have
felt about how their device was being used. “History buffs. Let me guess. Watching snuff films is not among the categories of hobbies listed on the customer comment card.”

  Colby bristled at the reference to snuff films. “History is all about dead people. If you go far enough back, everyone you encounter is dead by now. We don’t kill anyone.”

  “You just let people watch.”

  Eckerton jumped into the exchange. “This is precisely the product mix issue we have. Our current mix is . . . embarrassing. Our founders didn’t invent time travel so that we could pimp out history to man’s baser instincts. Instead, we would like to emphasize other aspects of our travel opportunities. That’s why we came up with our Sects and Violins tours.”

  Evan ground his teeth together at the sound of the punny product name. This guy was vice president of marketing? But Evan kept his mouth shut and let the client blather on.

  “You see, given the language barriers, we thought that we might get increased travel to Europe and to premodern centuries by packaging a set of tours around great musical performances—a Woodstock thing for the more discriminating musical palate. You can hear Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, each performing or conducting his own works. You can listen to the first performance ever of the 1812 Overture and marvel at the coordination required to make the sound of the cannons arrive at the precise moment needed, though they were situated miles away. You can listen to the glory of every church bell in Moscow joining in for the closing crescendo.”