by Jenn Thorson
T’murp paused the film and scanned the faces around the oval table. They blinked with a cozy grogginess, as if just waking up from a Zlorgon Sub-Atomic Headbanger coma. “Now, understand, this Real Reality RealTime DocuDrama™ is just one way we’re proposing to leverage Tryfe and its people. Tryflings are very susceptible to advertising and consumerism, so mainly we plan to use the planet’s populace for more subtle product testing and beta launches. But we feel the DocuDrama offshoot was the big grabber for this bid. I see this as the first installment in a series, involving a different hand-picked Tryfling star per season.”
Someone from Putting Things Out There spoke up: “Research predicts a huge Uninet market for this type of programming. There’s nothing viewers like better than watching shows about life-forms who are even more confused than they are. Storylines in that genre get a 98.7% Approval Rating in independent testing. It lets them feel superior without actually teaching them anything.”
They all admitted, the concept was a tantalizing one and likely to be very popular with viewers.
“Won’t the audience want to learn more about Tryfe, though?” queried another expert from Putting Things Out There. “I’m seeing Tryfe-related merchandising like scenic Tryfe pictorial e-books, pre-packaged Tryfe cuisine, and Tryfling-inspired couture.”
“Brilliant! Taste Tryfe! Smell Tryfe! Wrap yourself in Tryfe!” exclaimed a breathless Making Things Up team member.
The leader of Developing Stuff and Actually Knowing How It Works sniffed. “I don’t suppose anybody knows what Tryfe people eat, drink and wear?”
At this, the Making Things Up execs burst into team levity. It was some moments before they could compose themselves enough to explain they’d just brainstorm marketable options and work up a creative brief.
“Stellar,” T’murp told them approvingly. “Jot down those ideas and we’ll discuss in a post-meeting meeting.” This was the warm reception he had been hoping for. He couldn’t have asked for better if he’d scripted it out himself and paid them to say it. Which he did sometimes for fun when he got bored. Just not today.
“Questions.” An employee from the Putting Things Out There department flagged him for attention. “Have you started any filming of this Real Reality RealTime DocuDrama™ or is that upcoming? Will the lead Tryfling be compensated for his work? What are the legal ramifications of having a backspace life-form appear in GCU media?”
T’murp smiled. “I’m glad you asked that. The whole process is quite cutting-edge. Let’s move on, and I think the next segment will help address most of your questions.”
He pressed the play button once more. The credits faded, and now a phosphorescent white-blue glow flooded into the screen’s center. As the camera panned back … back … this glow transformed into a frail glowing figure. Then the camera swiveled 180, piercing the blackness to light a brown-irised eyeball. It was a face very close-up. The face was curious, pale, nervous, and altogether Tryfe-human.
The face was Bertram Ludlow’s.
“… Soap on a rope?” queried the young man’s voice, a hesitant, too-close mouth working the question. The camera 180ed again, focusing on three luminescent figures seated before the Tryflng in the darkness.
“You will know what it issss when you neeeeed to knowwwww,” responded one ethereal figure, voice echoing off the cavern walls.
The executives in the conference room chuckled appreciatively.
“It is elegantly vague,” agreed T’murp to the group. “Great job, Seers of Rhobux, for getting that hand-held camera into the Tryfling’s possession without a lot of fuss. It’s worked extremely well so far, guys.”
From the back of the room came a voice, insubstantial as the wind. “We thaaaaaannkk you, Missssster T’muuurp, for thissssss fiiiiiiinnne opportuuuuunnittyyyy,” lilted the eerie tones of Kravsmin, or was in Glyddon? Maybe it was Kaenmoor. Eudicot T’murp never could tell them apart.
Naturally, the acoustics of the conference room were nothing like the dark chamber in the Seers Tower on Rhobux-7. Yet somehow the speaker still managed to make the words sound like they were spoken from the bottom of a cold, deep well. Eudicot T’murp imagined they could do the same in a shopping mall dressing room or on a crowded dance floor.
That was talent.
“We doooooo hoooope that we have served faaaaithfullyyy, and that as promisssed, we will therebyy beeeeee entiiiitled to the DiiiverrrsssiDiiine sssstoooock optionnnnnsssss and retiiiiiremenntttt benefiiitsss we hadddddddd dissss—”
“Of course, of course,” T’murp interjected, waving them to silence. A new clip on the screen had caught his attention. The scene was in a shabby confinement center, where a tall, sinewy male figure with yellow hair brandished a weapon that looked more like the product of a child’s building set than a tool of violence. At the flip of a switch, the toy had turned several Podunk Peace Guards to puddles.
It was a masterful shot of demolecularization.
It was followed by a torrent of Tryfling shrieking and curses, which rattled the audio, while the camera captured the yellow-haired man beaming at his work. His smile was a lot like a well-fed Marglenian fighting fish picking its teeth after a particularly tasty tourist group.
One of the Making Things Up execs observed, “It’s a shame we lost the Hyphiz Deltan so soon into the piece. We’ve done some preliminary viewer-testing and he got approval ratings from 76% of the audience.”
“We assumed incorrectly that he would be attracted to this sort of cause,” a second Making Things Up exec said. “It was completely in-line with previous initiatives he’d championed. A 94% compatibility. We’re still analyzing where the accuracy slippage occurred.” She shook her head solemnly.
Now the footage jarred forward to the pilot’s cabin on Rolliam Tsmorlood’s Interplanetary Cruise Vessel. The lens swept to the empty space where Rhobux-7 had been, and the camera bounded in on a small levitating sign stating Rhobux-7 was currently unavailable.
“Another nice touch there,” praised Eudicot T’murp, as the group chuckled to themselves at the sight. He called to the Seers down the table. “By the way, where is Rhobux-7 now?”
The Seer on the left waved a hand. Kaenmoor. Or possibly Kravsmin. “Fear not, good man. It has simply been reloooocated …”
“To a nice quiet sooooooolar systemmm …” supplied Kravsmin. Or possibly Glyddon.
“In the countrrrrry …” finished Glyddon, or possibly Kaenmoor.
“But how?” asked someone from the Developing Stuff and Actually Knowing How It Works group. “To pull a planet completely out of orbit you’d need a black hole or an even bigger planet—a sun with more mass and a stronger gravitational pull than the sun it was already orbiting.”
“Orrrr,” interrupted the central Seer with a giggle, “a very, very, very, very, very large shipppp.”
“Shippppp,” agreed the other two Seers.
“A ship?” pressed the Developing Stuff executive. “Impossible! It would have to be the biggest, heaviest ship in existence and then it wouldn’t just pull Rhobux-7. It would inevitably take other planets along with it. And—”
The Seer just gave another wheezy laugh. “Imposssssibilityyyy is only imposing abillllityyyy on the not thoroughlyyyy mucked-abouuuuut-with,” the Seer responded with a smug, sightless wink.
“Mootaab pucky!” snapped the Developing Stuff executive. Guys from Developing Stuff didn’t have much patience for inter-departmental hedging. They certainly weren’t going to embrace it from outside consultants. “What does that even mean?”
Eudicot T’murp could see one of his more valuable engineering minds was experiencing serious turbulence against his smooth rationale. T’murp decided to change direction, or they’d end up in a three hour lecture on astrophysics, and he had a packed schedule planned. “We’ll talk about this in a post-meeting-meeting conference, if you don’t mind.”
Grumbling, the executive turned back to the monstrous holovision screen. The current scene was focused on a close-u
p of a Galactic Monetary Exchange machine. A light rolling sound tinkled across the room from one audio speaker to the other. In a moment, there was a thud, and the Tryfling on the screen let out an affronted yowl of pain. The picture wavered and bobbed as Bertram Ludlow crouched. His hand reached and came up with a small, sixteen-sided coin.
The metallic surface of the GME machine reflected the face of a very perplexed Tryfeman, and the room filled with another round of laughter. “Look how confused he is! Do you see his face?” observed someone from Putting Things Out There.
“I knew we were backing the right Tryfling,” said the lead manager from Making Things Up.
“How was he selected?” the head of Putting Things Out There queried, poised to take notes for a future media release.
“Well,” the exec began, “it was part of a highly-scientific process. First we tapped into a Tryfan university database and created a list using bell curve calculations. We basically drew on the most average, unexceptional, Tryfe-representative researchers. From them, we eliminated any who were life-merged, had progeny or any other dependents. We also eliminated those with relatives within a certain square distance on Tryfe. This left us with whole list of Tryfe humans of such few ties to Tryfe’s social and economic structure they were unlikely to be missed. From there, we weeded out the elderly and infirm. And then …”
“Yes?”
The executive blushed and hooked a thumb to his colleague. “Gobo closed his eyes and pointed.”
Gobo held up the famous pointing finger and gave a demonstration.
Spontaneous applause broke out.
“And where’d the coin come from?” someone from Getting Big Yoonies and Figuring Out Where It Goes asked. The exec pointed to the screen. He was likely making a mental note to deduct the cost from the production budget.
“Digger Dugblud,” input T’murp. “I have him tailing our Tryfling friend, just in case he gets stuck somewhere and can’t extract himself. We’ve got to keep the DocuDrama moving for our viewers. This seemed the most expedient way to ensure it.”
The camera perspective rose once more and the viewers saw the Tryfeman’s hand slip the coin into the GME machine with trembling fingers.
“Do you think he’ll ever figure out what the ‘Yellow Thing’ is?” asked someone from Making Things Up.
An exec from the Developing Stuff and Actually Knowing How It Works department gave a laugh. “Hardly. That audio-video recording system’s a prototype from the Zegamemalon exploration program. It uses living tissue that adapts itself to virtually any conditions. It can handle intensely high temperatures, submergence in almost any liquid, endure crushing pressure, high force impact, and a lack of oxygen-based atmosphere. No one’s ever seen anything like thi—”
There was a rap at the conference room door, and T’murp saw the slim, rigid silhouette of his personal assistant, Ms. Codewell, through the glass. “Excuse me just a moment,” he said and motioned her in.
The door shooshed open. “Mr. T’murp,” said Ms. Codewell, listening carefully to the receiver built into her ear. “I have a Mr. Dugblud on the vis-u for you. He said it’s urgent.”
“Can you patch him into us here?”
She nodded and, speaking into the chip implanted next to her mouth, said, “Mr. Dugblud, Mr. T’murp is patching you into the conference room now.”
Her eyes flicked to the screen, triggering the switch. Eudicot T’murp was so glad she wasn’t one of the Simulants currently picketing outside. He couldn’t imagine what he’d do without her.
In a moment, the presentation video was supplanted by the image of a jowly, furred, trench-coated life-form, blown up to five times actual size. Ms. Codewell discreetly shot away on whisper-quiet hover-heels, and the door shooshed closed behind her.
“Digger,” began T’murp, “what’s the scoop?”
“It’s the Tryfling,” rumbled Dugblud. “He’s coming your way.”
T’murp felt a couple petals drop onto the conference table. “You’re joking.”
“He was headed nowhere,” Dugblud explained. “You’d said to give him a push.”
“A push, yes, but why is he here?”
“I told him you were one of the bidders on Tryfe,” the gravel voice said. “He should be banging down DiversiDine doors in just a few minutes.” Digger Dugblud waited for his employer’s reaction just as patiently as he’d wait in line at the DiversiDine cafeteria on Free Smorg Day.
After a moment, T’murp nodded. The more he thought about it, the more he felt a strange pleasure at the idea of the Tryfling’s Real Reality RealTime DocuDrama™ leading Bertram Ludlow to DiversiDine. It had a beautiful sort of synchronicity to it. And talk about cross-pollination advertising! “Nice work.”
Dugblud acknowledged it with a bow of his head and slapped his hat back on.
“Keep on him, but don’t let him see you,” warned T’murp.
“Affirmative,” said Dugblud, and the image cut from the screen.
T’murp sat on the edge of the conference room table. He smiled, crossing his fronds confidently across his chest. “The Tryfling’s coming here. This might just prove to be interesting.”
And in under a second, everyone seated around the elliptical table, including Eudicot T’murp, leapt up and raced to the window, jockeying for a good view
Bertram peered up at the headquarters of DiversiDine Entertainment Systems and Aeroponics, graceful spires surrounding its central, sky-scraper-like robotic hand. The hand brandished a snack cake so big even King Kong would have had to bag half for later. Outside the building, a group of men and women in yellow, black-trimmed uniforms marched in a circle, shouting and holding digital signs with slogans reading things like:
Non-Organic and Proud!
and:
Artificial People Have Real Needs!
and:
These Simmis Say Gimmie!
On-the-Job Perfection MUST
= Higher Pay + Better Benefits
On closer inspection, Bertram noticed at least three of the women appeared to be Neo-Natelle models. Two men looked like the lost brothers of the Farthest Reaches security guards. And all of them had a pretty good rhythm going, alternating shouts and pro-Simulant cheers. There was a crowd of about thirty, and they showed no signs of letting-up.
That was the thing about Non-Organic Simulants, Bertram supposed. They had the endurance to make these initiatives really work. At least until their power supplies ran out.
He wondered how they fared in rain.
It was a clear day above, though, the skies taking on a bright optimistic hue. He turned his attention back to the corporate megaplex before him, and the challenge at hand. Eudicot T’murp was bidding on Bertram Ludlow’s planet. So how could Bertram make the most of that information?
Clearly, no one was going to just let someone waltz right in off the street to grill the most powerful man in the company about his real estate ventures. And even if they did—which was to say, they wouldn’t—what would it accomplish? The man wasn’t going to respond, “Oh, gee, I didn’t realize anybody was living on the planet. Let me talk to the owner and dissuade him from selling.”
Or: “I can’t help you with that myself. But would you like to know when and where the secret presentations will be made, so you can sweep in and interrupt the proceedings with perfect timing and swashbuckling heroics?”
Or: “Since you seem like such a cool guy, if I win the planet, I’ll just abandon all of my confidential plans for mass anal probing, baby-making and crop circles, and give you Tryfe people the planet for keepsies. Copacetic?”
Nope, Bertram was a realist. If alien babies, branded corn fields and a Tryfe-wide probe-fest were on the guy’s agenda—or anything else for that matter—there wasn’t much a half-hour chat over a cup of Jarendi Java was going to do to change it, no matter how impassioned and persuasive Bertram was.
So what the hell was there to do?
Screams from the Non-Organic picketers interrupted his
thoughts once more. “Show us the yoonies!” called one.
“We’re Non-organics and We’re Organized!” shouted another.
“Regular fluids changes should be a part of our corporate benefits!” projected a third. “And vacation time! We need to give our mechanisms a rest just like anybody else! Tell T’murp you believe in equality for all life-forms, born and manufactured!”
A couple of organic DiversiDine execs entered the corporate campus, the unlucky folks. On sight of them, the Simulants turned up their shouting volume and began to close in. The organics quickly powered up their rocket boots, their suits yellow-and-black blurs that streaked into the safety of the building. The Simulants taunted and jeered long after they’d vanished through the doorway.
By that time, Bertram had his idea.
“He’s going? Why is he going?” asked Eudicot T’murp from his window view. Bertram Ludlow, future Tryfling Uninet sensation, had swept down the Ottoframan street in his Popeelie robes and vanished from view. It had been looking like DiversiDine would get an exciting cameo scene in the Real Reality RealTime DocuDrama™, and now all those branding opportunities were being sucked into a great black hole of Not Happening.
He called for Ms. Codewell and had her get Dugblud on the vis-u again. In seconds, the Alpuckite’s eager face appeared.
“I can’t see the Tryfling. Where’s he headed?” T’murp queried of Dugblud. The surprise and strain he felt was emerging into his voice. This was all so unlike him.
But Dugblud said he was on top of it and would report back when he had something. The man’s drooping jowls might have even raised in a slight smile, before his furred face disappeared from the monitor.
Dugblud loved his job.
T’murp turned to the Developing Stuff team. “Can we tap into the hand-held directly?” he asked. “Watch it live as it records?”