Dangerous Games
Page 28
He pushed his header to hers. “I’m okay,” he said.
“I can hear you now.”
“Yeah, old trick.”
She helped him up. The Return pod gaped open like a mouth.
“Let’s go,” she said.
“Wait a minute.” Glenn looked from the Return pods-all four of them-to the sky, and then toward the east, where the Ruiz team was stranded.
Could they? Would it be possible to fly over to the Ruiz team and pick them up? Would they have enough fuel? Could they refuel?
“Alena,” he said. “Do you want to be a real winner?”
She got it. Her eyes got big, and she nodded. She stayed helmet-to-helmet with him as she called the Can.
“Frank,” she said. “Let’s talk about the Ruiz team.”
SHOW
Evan, again with his presentations. In the darkness of Jere’s office, animated charts showed realtime Viewing Audience, feedback Ratings, inferred Attentiveness, inferred Buyer Motivation, plotted against Neteno’s historicals and an average of other Linear, Free-Access networks.
“We broke the ’Near downtrend,” Jere said. “Broke it hard.”
“We should have charged more for the advertising,” Evan said. “VA times BM is a record for ’Near networks, maybe even interactives.”
“We’re swimming in money.”
“Or we could up the ad rates midcourse. They won’t desert now.”
“Or we could just do another show.”
“Not with the average sequel return at fifty-eight percent,” Evan said.
Jere frowned. That was a big hole. Unless they could keep costs down. And maybe they could. All the development was done, after all…
“Don’t even think it,” Evan said.
“What?”
“Doing another show.”
“I’m not.”
Evan shook his head. “I know that look. That starry-eyed shit that gave us the second Star Wars threequel. The one with that irritating droopy bastard, whatever his name was…”
Jere shuddered. “I know who you’re talking about.”
“Point is, this show ain’t golden. And we aren’t perfect. Leave it now and let them clamor for more.”
“Like Star Trek.”
“Damn right. Don’t come back till they’re jonesing for it.”
Jere nodded. We’re on top, he thought. We’re the magnet. Let the ideas come to us for a while.
And let that be enough.
WINNER
“I won, right?” Keith Paul said.
“Yeah,” Frank said.
“I’ll get the money?”
“Yeah.”
“So where are the cameras?”
Frank ripped off his earplug and pushed away from the comm board. He grabbed Keith’s shirt with both hands and pulled him close. The momentum took them off the floor, spinning through Mars Enterprise’s command center.
“There are no cameras!” Frank yelled. His eyes were wide and bright, quivering with that adrenaline-fueled, amped-up look that guys got when they were ready to take you apart with their bare hands. Keith had seen that look a few times in his life, and he knew one thing: he wanted absolutely no part of it.
“Nobody fucking cares about you!” Frank screamed, shaking Keith like he was made out of tissue. “Everyone’s watching the real fucking heroes now! You’ll get your god-damned money, just like you wanted, but don’t expect anyone to care! Now fuck off! I’ve got important things to do!”
Frank gave him one last shove, pushing Keith into the bulkhead above. His head clanged on metal and he saw stars.
“Okay, man, okay,” Keith said, as Frank drifted slowly back down and took his seat.
“Get out of here,” Frank said.
HEROES
“Look at these showboating dickweeds,” Evan said.
In the hushed velvet darkness of the live feed room, Evan’s words were incredibly loud. Technicians swiveled to look at him, then turned quickly away when they saw Jere and Ron.
They were all looking at the competitive feeds. The slice-and-dice screen showed the story. Fox, Helmers, and the SciFi Channel were all tuned on a crappy little town down in Mexico, where a slim needle was being assembled in a shabby old warehouse. Outside, a makeshift derrick grew from a field of concrete. And some hairy guy wearing a dirty coverall was talking about building a colony ship to send to Mars. He called it Mayflower II.
“They timed it,” Evan said. “Perfect. They wait till we have the Ruiz team back safe and sound, then they spring this shit.”
But it was nothing, Jere thought. Just an incomplete ship. A bunch of nuts talking about open-source technology and crap like that. Who cared?
“They knew the ratings would die the instant everyone was back in the Can,” Evan said. “They knew it, and they are fucking taking it!”
“What are the ratings like?” Jere said.
Evan shook his head and clicked on the realtime feed. The downward spike was still small, but he could see it accelerating. As he watched, it clicked down a few pixels more.
“Do we have anyone down in Mexico?” Evan said. “Can we get a line on this colony crap, too?”
“No,” Jere said.
“Shit. Shit-shit.”
It’s just a news story, Jere thought. One they’ll forget as soon as they log off.
But Ron was watching the competitive feeds, his jaw set hard, his eyes bright and glassy. Intent. Hungry. Excited. Jere knew that look. He shivered.
“Get on camera,” Ron said, not looking away from the feeds.
“What?” Evan said.
“Get your butts down to the newsroom and get on camera now!” Ron said, finally looking at them. “Before they all tune out.”
“Why?” Jere said.
“Tell them this is what you wanted. Winning Mars wasn’t just a show. This is what you intended all along.”
“But we didn’t…”
“Yes,” Ron said. “You did.”
In the blue light of the monitors, Evan’s expression of confusion suddenly bloomed into an excited smile.
“Will it work?” Jere said, looking at Ron.
Evan made a disgusted noise. “You probably believed the one about Washington never telling any lies, didn’t you?”
In the monitors, another talking head, saying they wanted to launch sometime in the next twenty-four months. Looking scared.
They’ll never make it, Jere thought.
They’ll fucking die up there.
But if they do…
Ron, looking at the slice-and-dice, openly smiling now.
“Come on,” Evan said. “Let’s go make our legacy.”
Jack Dann
*
Gardner Dozois
***
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