Or at least Bogdan thought so. Laughter in the auditorium was sparse, and the story line took an odd turn. It began to focus on the canopy covering Chicago that was scheduled for retirement later that night. In a few minutes, the whole goofy surgical triad thread that had opened the vid vanished without a trace, and the three characters, much more sensible now, were frantically packing to leave Chicago in favor of a city still protected by a canopy.
Every once in a while, E-Pluribus introduced new threads into the story in an attempt to tease the audience’s interest into new areas. One member of the triad won the lottery and didn’t want to share the prize with the other two. The other two advertised for a new third without her finding out. The triad couldn’t agree on where to go on vacation. And other equally silly complications. But within a few minutes, each new thread was captured by the audience’s anxiety over the canopy. No matter where E-Pluribus tried to nudge the story, it wound up canopy, canopy, canopy.
BOGDAN’S NEXT ASSIGNMENT was to a much larger auditorium where he watched an hour-long E-Pluribus probable news program. The handsome talking heads began by reminding their E-Pluribus viewers that the probable news was just that—probable. It may or may not have actually happened and was not to be confused with corporate news.
The first half-dozen stories visited the sites of natural disasters outside the sphere of the United Democracies. Bogdan sat in a pan boat in the brackish floodwaters of the sub-Saharan. He walked among swollen-bellied babies in Azerbaijan and the victims of tailored cholera in Iraq. He swatted patch flies in Pakistan that covered people and livestock like a second skin.
The last story before lunch was about a space yacht disaster involving an important industrialist and her Hollywood producer daughter. Their graceful Aria Craft yacht cartwheeled out of control, burning like a shooting star. Bogdan blinked on the yacht to look inside. He was shaken vigorously, along with two beautiful, scantily dressed young women who cried out to him for help.
THE E-PLURIBUS BUFFET tables were laden with a wide variety of rich foods: steaks and chops, sausages, cold cuts, pastas, soups and chowders, curries, stews, goulash, rolls and breads, and desserts of every description. There was no visit limit, and the daily holes were not shy, returning time and again. The bulging pockets of their suits blossomed with grease stains from whole meals squirreled away for later.
Though the food was complimentary, it wasn’t exactly free. It was all test food. Bogdan and his fellow preffers were still plugged in, after all, and were transmitting in most intimate detail the food’s passage from eye to mouth to stomach and beyond. Their digestive tracts were singing for their supper. Not a burp escaped unnoticed.
Bogdan quickly grazed the buffet table, eating on his feet, and stuffing his own pockets with cookies, before leaving the lunchroom with fifty minutes to spare to go out and buy a phone. In the elevator going down, Bogdan put on his mirrorshades and made fists of his hands. Outside the Bachner Building, the sky was thick with noontime bees. His anonymity was apparently still intact because the first bee to drop down said, “Hey, kid, glyph this. Free Always Everywhere!”
“Desist,” he said, not even slowing down, and the bee rose and flew away.
Another bee replaced it. This one said, “Hi, little fellow. Guess what! We’ll pay you one ten-thousandth of a yoodie—right now!—if you answer six fun questions about your fave emollient.”
Bogdan snorted. “I happen to be a professional E-Pluribus demographic control specialist. You’d have to pay me way more than that to answer your dumb survey. So, desist the feck outta here.”
A third bee arrived, flashed the Longyear logo, and said, “We are currently running a special bonus offer.” This bee, at least, had pegged him for a retroboy and not a real kid. He was about to dismiss it, when he remembered his meeting with the Allowance Committee that evening. Longyear was a rejuvenation clinic that Charter Kodiak sometimes used, and he was overdue for a session.
When Bogdan didn’t immediately dismiss the bee, it went on to say, “Yes, myr, for each month you shed at one of our deluxe clinics, Longyear will throw in an additional two and three-quarter days at no additional charge. Think about it, you can retro-age a full year for the price of eleven months. And for your own special retroboy needs, this offer includes a complete endocrinological workup and regimen design. Would you like us to flash you the details?”
Bogdan almost uncurled his fingers to swipe the bee, but he didn’t want the whole street to ID him, so he asked how long the offer was good for.
“You need to book treatment within forty-eight hours of right now!”
Bogdan dismissed the bee and continued his stroll along the arcade yelling “Desist, desist” every few meters. The bees weren’t the only annoyance. There were more hollyholo sims here than real people, and they cleverly tried to lure him into their public melodramas by asking him for directions to this or that building. As if he knew. He purposely stepped right through them to let them know what he thought of them.
Bogdan strolled the arcade, evading bees and sims while he window-shopped. None of the windows addressed him by name. For about three minutes, a live payper pointcast of a WSA soccer match played right above his eye level, but he carefully avoided looking at it, and it eventually moved on.
Suddenly a woman literally fell to the sidewalk at his feet. Unthinkingly, he reached down to help her, but his hand went through her arm. She was another damn sim, and he was angry until she turned her head to look up at him. It was Annette Beijing! Not the Annette Beijing in her Common Claiborne role, but a darker, more angular woman, gaunt even, with sunken cheeks and spiky hair. An edgier, sexier Annette Beijing (if that was even possible).
“Oh, thank you, Myr Kodiak,” she said, scrambling to her feet.
Damn! Bogdan thought when he realized she’d ID’d him. He had opened his hand for a split second when he tried to assist her. But one look into her oceanic eyes made it worthwhile.
She stood close to him and looked nervously up and down the arcade. Her expression was taut with fear. “What’s wrong?” Bogdan said.
“You must help me,” she replied.
“How can I help you?” He felt foolish saying this, but he couldn’t help himself.
“Stay with me until Rollo shows up. Or they will surely come back.”
“They who?” Bogdan said and found himself glancing up and down the arcade too. He told himself he’d play along for just a few minutes. It would only cost a few thousandths. It was worth it, and he deserved it.
“Feraro’s men. They hurt me.”
Bogdan noticed for the first time that her jumpsuit was torn and that she was holding the pieces together, trying to cover large, purple, finger-length bruises around her throat. “But why?” he said, truly alarmed for her.
“It’s a long story. I have something they think belongs to them.”
“Shouldn’t you call the police?”
“They are the police!” She laughed bitterly. “And Feraro swore he’d kill me.”
“For real?” said Bogdan. “I mean really kill you?” Hollyholo or not, there was a chance she might be in real danger, for sims were deleted when they were “killed.” An individual copy of a character could be eliminated in whatever gruesome fashion the writers chose for the good of the story mat. If enough copies were killed, a whole issue could go extinct. Not that the Annette Beijing lines were in any danger of that.
There was the sound of wings, and when Bogdan looked up, he saw tier upon tier of bees recording this scene for paying viewers all over the world. Apparently this was a big scene for a very popular story thread, which meant this Annette might actually be slated for harm. (It occurred to Bogdan that her pay-per rates must be astronomical.) It also meant that he, Bogdan Kodiak, was being watched by thousands, maybe millions of viewers. He stood up a little taller and said, “Then we should get you out of here.”