And in a weird leap of perspective, he seemed to be moving the image-lips on the screen directly, a brain-to-phosphor-dot electronic-flash reflex-arc circuit, as he said: “Tonight Jack Baron Bugs himself.”
He made the face on the screen an unreadable devil-mask (let Bennie sweat, don’t tip him off till he’s too far in, blow his mind naked on camera!), said: “Tonight we’re gonna find out a few things about cryogenic Freezing that nobody knows. Seems like we haven’t been able to do two shows in a row without mentioning the Foundation of Human Immortality lately, and those of you out there who think it’s just a coincidence got a few shocks coming. Lot of people got a few shocks coming. So stick around for the fun and games—you’re gonna see how the old fur flies when Jack Barron bugs himself.”
Lowering his head to shadow his eyes, he caught kinesthop flashes off the backdrop, turning the image on the screen sly and threatening as he said: “And we won’t wait to get down to the nitty-gritty either, friends. I’ve got Mr Benedict Howards right on the line.”
Signaling Vince to give him three-quarters screen, he made the connection on the number one vidphone and Benedict Howards’ face appeared in the lower lefthand corner of the monitor screen, a pale gray on gray vidphone phantom, enveloped by Barren’s living-color hyperreal image. You’re on my turf tonight, Bennie, he thought, and so am I, all the way this time, and you’re gonna get a flash of what paranoia can really be…
“This is Bug Jack Barron, Mr Howards, and tonight we’re going all the way for the straight poop on… (he purposefully paused, smirked a private, threatening smile, watched Howards freeze in terror, then threw him the change-up, fat, hanging curve)… the Freezer Utility Bill.”
And watched Howards’ face melt to jello, every tense muscle relaxing in flaccid momentary relief, leaving Bennie wide-open for the primrose path schtick, he’ll think I’m playing ball till I pull the reversal, and he’ll be stuck before he can hang up the phone.
“Good,” Howards said awkwardly. “It’s about time all this crap about the Foundation for Human Immortality was cleared up.”
Barron smiled, tapped his left foot-button twice, and Vince gave Howards half screen. “Don’t worry about that, Mr Howards,” he said. “By the end of the show it’ll all be… cleared up.” And again Howards tensed as he picked up on the emphasis of the last words. Sweat, you bastard, sweat, Barron thought. And it’s only beginning…
“So let’s talk about this Freezer Utility Bill,” Barron said, saw that once again he was putting Howards through changes—tension-release-tension-release, bounce him back and forth like a ping pong ball. “Now basically, this bill would grant the Foundation for Human Immortality a Freezing Monopoly, right? No other outfit could legally Freeze corpses, the Foundation would have the whole field to itself… a law unto itself…”
“Hardly,” Howards said, picking up on the cue they had arranged in Colorado. “Cryogenic Freezing would become a public utility like the phone system or electric power—a monopoly, sure, because some services just have to be monopolies to function, but a monopoly strictly regulated by the Federal Government in the public interest.” Beautiful, just like you think we arranged, Bennie—but now it’s time for another change of pace.
“Well now that sounds pretty reasonable to me, don’t you think so out there?” Barron said, and Howards’ image on the screen smiled an inside I-got-you-bought smile across at his image. Barron made the electronic puppet-mask smile an earnest-flunky smile back, and for a weird moment he felt his consciousness slur over to the screen, and it was almost as if he were facing Howards flesh-to-flesh.
“Don’t see how anyone could object to that,” Barron said. “But it seems to me you could say that real simple-like. So why’s your bill in so much trouble, Mr Howards, why all the static in Congress? Know what I think your trouble, is Mr Howards?”
“Suppose you tell me, Barren,” Howards said guardedly. Yeah, that seemed like a harmless lead-in, Bennie, but you know it wasn’t in your little script. And he foot-signaled Vince to give him a commercial in five minutes. Timing here had to be just right.
“Why, I think it’s just screwed-up semantics, is all,” Barron said, so sweetly innocent that Howards knew he was being sarcastic, and fear crept into his image-eyes, but it was all too subtle, inside stuff, for the audience to pick up on it yet, Barron knew. Which abruptly reminded him that there was a hundred-million Brackett Count audience digging the whole scene, out there on the other side of the screen.
“What do you mean by that?” Howards snapped, and Barron recognized it as a slipping of control.
He smiled blandly. “Your bill’s in trouble ’cause it’s badly written, is all. So long and complicated for something that’s supposed to be so straightforward and simple… all those funny little clauses, twisty and turny like a snake. Pretty hard to figure out what it all means.”
He pulled a blank sheaf of papers out of a pocket. (The old Joe McCarthy schtick.) “Tell you what,” he said, waving the papers across the monitor screen at Howards’ now-uptight image, “why don’t we clear it all up right now, straight from the horse’s mouth, you can explain the confusing parts to a hundred million Americans, right now, Mr Howards, and who knows, then maybe your simple little bill’ll go right through. Soon as we hack away all the confusing underbrush, dig?”
He put a razor in the last word, signaled to Vince to give him three-quarters screen, and zingo, Howards was a scared little twerp cowering below him in the hotseat. He suddenly realized that to the hundred million people on the other side of the screen, what they saw there was reality, reality that was realer than real because a whole country was sharing the direct sensory experience; it was history taking place right before their eyes, albeit non-event history that existed only on the screen. A strange chill went through him as for the first time he got a full gut-reality flash of the unprecedented power wielded by his image on the screen.
And like an internal neural time-sense circuit, the promptboard told him: “4 Minutes.”
He hardened that image to a mask of inquisitor-iron, yet spoke blandly, innocently, creating a gestalt of impending dread in the contrast. “Now lessee… this bill would set up a five-member regulating commission, appointed and holding office at ‘the pleasure of the President’. That’s a funny set-up, isn’t it? Seems like the commission would be totally controlled by the President if he could hire and fire commissioners whenever he pleased…”
“Freezing’s a very delicate problem,” Howards said defensively, like a boy caught with his hand in the old cookie jar. “If the commissioners had fixed terms, they might make mistakes that couldn’t be corrected for years. And in this case, time means human life.”
“And, of course, the Foundation for Human Immortality is very concerned with… human life,” Barron said as the promptboard flashed “3 Minutes.” “Now there’s another bit of funny language in here. The part that gives the Freezing Commission full power to ‘regulate, oversee, and pass on the appropriateness of all current operations of the Foundation for Human Immortality and any further operations in the area of life-extension as the Foundation may in the future undertake.’ If you translate that into English, it seems to mean that the commission would operate independent of Congress, in effect making its own law in the area of… life-extension.”