by Mick Farren
The meeting started as casually as it was supposed to look. Hayes ordered a martini and Vallenti a Scotch on the rocks. There was some small talk about how Rostov in Marketing seemed to be teetering on the brink of making a damn fool of himself over his secretary and how Madison Renfield had made a damn fool of himself on "The Bones Bolt Show." When Vallenti brought up the subject of Renfield, Hayes sadly shook his head.
"Sooner or later somebody's got to stop him. I mean, what makes that pompous jackass believe that he can be an adequate spokesperson for the corporation on something as wild and woolly as 'Bones Bolt'?"
Vallenti swirled the ice in his drink. "That's the trouble with PR. They can cover most of their screwups by claiming that they were working according to some devious, deep-psych program. According to them, they can never be wrong. It's just that the rest of us don't appreciate the subtlety of what they're doing. We can't see the big picture."
"It doesn't hurt any that Renfield knows where a hell of a lot of bodies are buried. He's hushed up a lot of people's indiscretions in his time, and he's not going to go quietly when the crunch comes. He'll call in all of his markers, and in public if need be, before he allows himself to be deposed."
"I hear that he practically brainwashes his new arrivals these days. Weekly indocrinations in the viewing pods downstairs with the chemical softeners going full blast."
Hayes looked at Vallenti in real amazement. "Sure he does. I thought everyone did. It's hardly the time for loose cannons rolling around or for underlings to be plotting revolution. You mean you don't do that over in Development? ''
Vallenti covered his loss of face by signaling for a waiter. They had arrived at the point in the conversation when the two of them should cut out the third-party gossip and get down to business, and he was furious at himself for having reached it at a distinct disadvantage. Why in hell didn't his department brainwash the newly hired? Anything that kept the help loyal and docile had to be in everyone's best interests. When the waiter brought him another Scotch, he turned the subject around to the reason that he had asked Hayes there in the first place.
"So how are you getting along with Project Superstar?"
It was Hayes's turn to look surprised. "You heard about Superstar."
"Just a whisper."
"I think I'm going to have to make some inquiries as to who's been whispering in the ranks. This thing's supposed to be fully under wraps."
Vallenti smiled. They were back on even pegging. Apparently Hayes's brainwashing was not yielding the results for which he had been hoping. Interdepartmental spying was conducted on all levels, but Special Projects took great pride in being among the least pregnable. Vallenti was delighted to have punctured their smug assurance. He gave Hayes a few moments to recover his composure before continuing.
"Those of us in Development who know about this are, to put it mildly, a little worried."
Hayes raised an eyebrow. He still looked a little worried himself. "How many of you know about Superstar?"
Vallenti held up a reassuring hand. "Don't worry, Hayes, it's really just a handful of us. We've totally respected your need for privacy. It's just that we wonder if what you're doing may be, to put it very bluntly, a trifle misdirected."
Hayes's eyes hardened. "I'd like to hear exactly what you think Superstar actually is."
"The way we heard it, you're planning to wire up a major teen hearthrob during a special live show, and that it will be marketed to the fans as a chance actually to be their idol in a special two-hour package deal. It's going to be the spearhead of a number of short-term forays into the youth market."
"You seem to have heard a great deal."
Vallenti grinned. "We don't know who you intend to use as the first subject."
"That's a relief."
"Why don't you lift the corner of the dustsheet and let me in on the secret?"
Hayes shook his head. "I can't do that. The deal isn't finalized yet and we really can't afford anyone else knowing. Why don't you just tell me what's bothering you all over at Development? What is it about this project that you think is so misdirected?"
Vallenti sipped his Scotch. "To be frank, we have never done particularly well with live recordings of any kind. God knows we tried for long enough. The clients just won't accept reality. It's too damned flat. The computer composites are quite literally a hundred times better."
"I think you're rather missing the point."
"You're telling me that I'm not seeing the big picture?"
"If you like."
Vallenti scowled. "Now you're sounding like Renfield."
"We're not going to market just the live recording. We'll make a tape of this entertainer, but then it will be subjected to all the same processing as any simulated fantasy. Even in those, you do have to use recorded experiences as base material." Hayes grinned. "I mean, where else would you get your orgasms except from a tape of the real thing?''
"So the live experience angle is really just a marketing ploy. You're really paying a fortune to have this guy's name on the advertising. Basically it's very much the same as the Elvis Presley or Michael Jackson experiences that we already have on catalog."
"Except that this guy is alive and current and topping the Billboard chart."
Vallenti laughed. "So the subject is male?"
Hayes grimaced at his slip. "I guess that narrows the field for you by half.''
Vallenti suddenly leaned forward. He wasn't laughing anymore. It was time to drop the bomb on Hayes-the bomb that was the real point of the meeting. "You want to know what else is bothering us about Project Superstar?"
Hayes looked at Vallenti suspiciously. "I somehow thought that your major concern wasn't that our efforts might fail."
"Are you sure that this whole thing isn't a cover for clandestine work on a death-experience program?"
Hayes's eyes widened. "A death-experience program? Are you joking?"
Either Hayes was genuinely shocked, or he was a consummate actor. Vallenti shook his head.
"I'm not joking. The information is that death-experience research has been resumed. You have to admit that your project would be an ideal cover.''
"But work on the death experience is strictly forbidden after what Jonas did. You know that as well as I do. His attempts to tape through a human death nearly ruined us."
"Someone's messing around with it again."
"It's no one in Special Projects. I can assure you of that."
"Can you be certain?"
"It's my department, damn it. And how can you be so sure anyway?"
"We have evidence."
"What evidence?"
"Supply requisitions."
"How can they prove anything on their own? We've booked out truckloads of live recording gear for the research on Superstar."
"That's what made us think it might be you guys."
"I already told you. It wasn't us."
"There is one other piece of evidence."
"I think I need another martini."
"Three weeks ago there was a execution down in Mississippi. A character by the name of Jamal Vance. He killed five people when a supermarket heist turned sour.''
"What about him?"
"We have a tape and polygraph record of a prison guard who claims to have, along with three others, substituted a gimmicked execution gurney that was capable of recording Vance's feelings from the moment that he was strapped down to it, through the lethal injection, and for twenty minutes afterward."
"Someone made a death tape."
"More to the point, someone has a death tape. Can you imagine what they would fetch on the black market?"
Hayes looked thoughtful, and Vallenti was convinced that if it was someone in Special Projects who had made the tape, the man sitting across the table from him didn't know anything about it.
Finally, Hayes looked up. "What makes you so sure that someone in the corporation did this?"
"Who else would have the technology?"
/> "In theory, it could be done on the outside."
"But in practice, it'd be just about impossible."
Hayes slowly put down his martini glass. "We are going to have to look into this."
Vallenti sipped his Scotch. He could see that Hayes was thoroughly rattled. That was how he wanted him. "My people already are."
' 'We need to talk to security.''
Vallenti shook his head. "We don't talk to anybody. Not until we know who we can trust."
Hayes sighed and nodded. "Will you call me?"
"As soon as I hear anything more."
Hayes absently picked up the check. "This is a potentially very bad business."
Vallenti nodded. "Don't I know it."
THE SUPERSTAR WAS FAR FROM HAPPY. He slumped petulantly in the deep leather armchair and dug the pointed toe of his handmade Spanish boot into the thick, white pile of the wall-to-wall carpet. The double glazing of the hotel's penthouse suite presented an uninterrupted panorama of the city. Above the brown air layer the sun was warm and bright, and the sky was a perfect blue. A needle-thin rocket liner floated in the clear part of the sky. It was almost at eye level from where the superstar sat. Its wheels were down, its wings were out, and it was drifting in for a landing at Metro-4 airport, the one that handled the big sub-orbitals.
The superstar wasn't interested in the view, the sky, or the passing planes. He was being hassled by his manager in a one-on-one conference. He had already told his manager no way, four times. His manager wasn't inclined, though, to take no way for an answer.
"Listen, no way, Tom. I'm not going to do it."
"That's fucking dumb."
"Dumb or not, I don't like it."
"You're turning down ten million."
"It doesn't feel right."
"Don't you feel you're being a tiny bit irrational?"
"Sure I'm irrational. I'm a genius. If I was an accountant, I'd be logical, but I'm not and I ain't. Okay?"
"Jesus Christ, do you seriously expect me to go back to Combined Media and tell them that the deal's off?"
"You can tell them what you like. That's your problem."
The superstar hooked his leg over the arm of the chair and swiveled around so he was facing away from the manager. He stared out across the city. The rocket plane had gone, but otherwise it was exactly the same. While the superstar sulked, the manager marshaled himself for another attempt at persuasion. He loosened the collar of his fashionably casual lounging suit and ran his fingers through his long gray hair.
"Shall we try again?"
The superstar continued to pout. He was dressed in what amounted to a costly, spangled parody of the uniform worn by the gang kids from the welfare sections. They were, after all, the main solvent honking nucleus of his fans-the ones who consumed his tension tapes and fought their way into his live shows.
The manager's voice was comfortingly soft, more like that of an analyst than a businessman. "You want to discuss it?"
Still the superstar refused to acknowledge him. The manager's voice hardened. "Can you hear me?"
"No."
"You don't want to discuss it?"
"I can't hear you."
"Aren't we being a bit childish?"
The superstar jabbed a heavily ringed finger at the manager. "You might be being childish. I'm not."
' 'What I'm primarily trying to do is to make you very rich."
The superstar didn't say anything, although this time he didn't look away. The manager pressed home his slight advantage.
"You want to be very rich, don't you?"
"I am very rich."
"You could be a lot richer."
"Not this way."
"How long is it going to take to convince you?"
"It's going to fucking take forever. My mind's made up. I won't do it."
"Have I ever pushed you into a wrong direction?"
"Sure you have. What about the Multisong deal? What about that terrible fuckup in Tokyo? You want me to go on?"
"That's hardly fair."
"You railroaded me into both of them."
Even the manager's seemingly boundless patience was starting to fray. "Will you do something for me, as a favor?''
"What?"
"Could you just take the time to explain in a little detail what exactly you have against this offer? It is, after all, the biggest thing you've ever been offered. From where I sit, it looks like the dream of a lifetime."
"From where I sit, it looks like a nightmare."
"Why, for Christ's sake?"
"I don't like the whole idea."
"You'll be the first living entertainer ever to be recorded on a feelie program. People will actually be able to feel what it's like to be you while you're performing. I would have thought your ego would have jumped at the chance."
"Don't knock my ego. It pays for your plastic surgery."
"You're still avoiding the question."
The superstar's rings flashed as he again stabbed an angry index finger toward his manager. "Who the hell do you think you are? Where do you get off cross-examining me like this?"
The manager also began to lose his temper. "I'm your fucking manager who's just set up a deal worth ten million plus and is sitting here while his client throws it back in his face without even offering a half logical explanation. Will that do?"
The superstar sneered. "Worried about your piece of the ten mil?"
"If you like, sure. I don't handle your affairs because I like it."
"You could always quit."
"I might as well do that if you keep on turning down money the way you are at the moment."
For the first time the superstar looked worried. His expression became placating. "Okay, okay, it doesn't have to go this far. There's no need for us to fall out."
"So, do I get an answer? I have to tell Combined Media something."
The superstar looked uncomfortable. He ran his fingers through his cropped hair. "Hell, I don't know. I can't put it into words. I ain't sure that I want people to know how I feel when I'm doing a show. It could destroy the mystery. Jesus, Tom, for all I know it could finish me. I don't think it's worth the risk."
"There's millions in it."
"It's too much like selling a piece of my soul."
"That's what primitive tribes used to think about being photographed."
"Maybe they were right."
"I've never noticed you avoiding being photographed."
"A feelie's something different."
The manager stood up and walked over to the window. Another rocket was coming in to Metro-4. At the other side of the sky a regular jet was on approach to LAX.
"You know what you're paying for your superstition?"
The superstar fiddled with one of his earrings. He tried to be placating. "Listen, forget superstition and all that stuff. Let's look at it another way."
The manager turned away from the window. "Okay." He went back to his chair, sat down, and looked receptive. "So tell me."
The superstar sat up straight in his chair. He avoided looking directly at the manager.
"We've always agreed that when I'm doing a live show, nothing should get in the way. It's me and the audience and nothing that'll sidetrack it, right?"
"That's right. I've always kept TV crews in check, turned down advertising tie-ins. It's been done exactly as you wanted it."
The superstar smiled triumphantly. "Okay then. How the hell can I do a live show if I'm hooked up to a bank of feelie recorders? If that ain't getting between me and the audience, I don't know what is."
"They have given me assurances…"
"Assurances? Tom, will you tell me what the hell assurances is supposed to mean?"
"The recording and monitoring equipment wouldn't impede your doing the show."
The superstar looked sideways at the manager. "You want to know something, Tom?"
"What?"
"I don't trust you when you use long words. I get the idea you're trying to
con a poor boy from the welfare sections."
"You've come a long way from there."
"Don't bullshit me. What kind of setup is Combined Media offering?"
"I thought you weren't interested."
"Just tell me, will you?"
The manager was back on the defensive. "Okay, okay. You may not believe it, but I spent a solid three days making sure this deal would be acceptable. They tell me that all the hardware they need could be built into your stage suit. It would be miniaturized and, where necessary, disguised as zips, studs, jewelry and what have you. Also any bits you don't want made available will be erased. You have full control of the finished product."
"I'd still be trailing wires all over the stage. How the hell am I supposed to work like that?''
"There won't be any wires. It'll be a radio link between you and the recording banks."
"I thought that they had to stick things into your skull."
"There'd be one micro implant in the back, of your neck. Fitting it is quite painless and could be disguised by a necklace or a high-collared shirt."
The superstar smiled wryly. "You've taken care of just about everything, haven't you?"