"This is quite unprecedented but it is just as I expected, Karl," said the man with the vast toupee and the heavy eyebrows. "The people are fed up with the corruption."
"How so, Kent?" asked his partner. "We have had corrupt politicians before."
"That's an understatement, Karl."
Both men laughed politely, although the expressions on their faces were cast in stone.
"Yes, we've certainly had our share of unethical elected officials, Kent, but historically there has always been a sort of break in the public's awareness of unethical behavior. During this lull, the people tend to forget or downplay the scandals of the past."
Kent nodded somberly.
"This PLOC, or Perceived Level of Corruption, rises and falls with the media attention paid to political scandals," Karl continued, "but in the recent years these scandals have been unceasing. Therefore the PLOC level has remained high."
"In other words, there has been no PLOC lull," Kent said in an undertaker's voice.
"Exactly," Karl agreed expertly. "And without a significant PLOC lull, the public becomes overly sensitive to unethical behavior and more harsh in its judgment."
Kent and Karl, as wise and incisive as economics professors, considered the dire and meaningful implications of this. "This raises some interesting questions," Kent said leadingly.
"It certainly does," Karl responded. "If we had experienced a PLOC lull instead of a consistently high PLOC, would the people have been more forgiving of Governor Bryant's alleged corruption?"
"Absolutely not," Flicker responded to the screen. Kohd, on the phone with another call, nodded in agreement.
"If there had been any kind of a meaningful PLOC lull at any time in the recent past, would we see such broad-based support for the comments of the Senate candidate? After all, one of the unwritten laws for U.S. politicians has always been to never speak badly of dead opponents. It is seen as disrespectful."
"Not if their opponents are criminals," Flicker growled.
"What candidate Lamble has achieved," Karl concluded, "is change the perceptions of the public. The people won't mourn a dead criminal. Lamble has convinced the people—at least some of the people—that Governor Bryant was a criminal and he should not be mourned."
Flicker's face tightening into a smug grin. "Damn straight," he said.
Kohd gasped and disconnected his call without saying goodbye, then sat and looked at his boss with amazement. Flicker's confidence was in high gear. "Excuse my language, Mr. Kohd."
"I should say so, Mr. Flicker," Kohd responded.
Flicker tried not to roll his eyes. He wanted to tell his assistant to get the hell off his fucking high horse, but if he heard more than a single four-letter word in an hour Kohd would probably cover his ears and ran screaming into the hills. The man was just so damn straight. Flicker considered himself straight, in every sense of the word, but nothing and nobody was more clean-cut, more spit-and-polish, more sinless than Noah Kohd.
Which, believe it or not, could get on a guy's nerves after a while.
9
The White Hand Book had something to say about a grassroots political campaign: it had to look like it was grassroots. If it looked planned or organized or prefabricated, it would have no credibility.
If the White Hand Book had one golden rule it was this: perception is everything.
Orville Flicker understood that rule. He had been born understanding it. He had meditated on its meaning for more hours than a philosopher considered the meaning of existence.
After all, existence was less important than perception. Without perception, existence was meaningless. On the other hand, perceiving something existed was the same as that thing actually existing for as long as the perception continued.
Flicker understood this when he was a little boy and he believed all the lies told to him by grown-ups, which meant his mother. He was allowed contact with no other grown-ups, or children. He invented his friends, a dragon named Hobbs and a cow named Whom, and spent hours playing with them.
When Flicker started school it was a small, home- based private class with only five other children. Five other children were more than enough to permanently scar his psyche, and it happened the very first day. Not long after he enthusiastically introduced the children to Hobbs the dragon and Whom the cow, he was ridiculed until he cried. He cried until his mother came and took him away from those awful children.
That night, Hobbs the dragon unceremoniously tore the meat off Whom the cow and ate her alive, only to get worms from the uncooked meat. Hobbs was dead by morning.
In his mind, for months, Flicker still saw the rotting dragon carcass and the scattered, moldering bones of the cow, which amazed him, because he was smart enough to know now that he was seeing an illusion created by his own mind.
He began to wonder how he could make other people believe in what he wanted them to believe, whether it was true or not. This sort of thinking led inevitably to a career in politics.
Perception was the only thing in politics and advertising. Nothing else mattered. Flicker knew it. Every smart politician knew it. Flicker's uncanny understanding of what perception was, why it was important and how to create it got him far.
But all it took was one serious lapse in his good judgment to ruin his career in an instant.
That was in the past and best forgotten. If people didn't forget, then you made them forget. You washed the past out of their minds with illusions of the present and dreams of the future.
Lucky for him, some memories were too entrenched to be forgotten, such as the reputations of the reigning political parties. In the United States of America there were two choices: bad and worse. The political parties that monopolized elections had been around so long that nobody truly believed there was an alternative. Orville Flicker was about to conjure an alternative out of thin air.
But it couldn't look conjured. It couldn't look like the product of planning or strategy. It had to be perceived as spontaneous. The people had to believe this new party was their creation, like a mythical bull springing into existence full-grown from the brow of a deity. The new party would appear to come into being in just that way, and all the people who joined it would never know how carefully Orville Flicker had been planning to use them to take over the U.S. government.
10
The Master of Sinanju Emeritus sniffed as he approached the automatic doors. When they parted, the air from outside wafted in at full strength and he stopped.
"Keep moving through the automatic doors," said the young woman on the stool. She had a uniform, a security badge and even a billy club in her belt, but she wasn't really charged with handling airport security. Her responsibilities began and ended with keeping people from stopping between the automatic doors.
"Come on, Chiun, what're we waiting for?" Remo was balancing a lacquered chest on each shoulder. Each was a unique work of art, the wood hand-hewn, the exquisite designs startling in their beauty. Remo had no idea what was in the chests, but Chiun never went out of town without several of them.
"Remo, there has been a terrible mistake," Chiun declared. "The pilot of the wobbly winged aircraft has landed us in Mexico."
"Naw. It's just Denver."
"Sir, please move out of the way of the automatic doors. They may close unexpectedly," the young woman explained.
"Smell it if you dare," Chiun said. "It is the oppressive stench of Mexico City."
"It's just Denver," Remo insisted. "Sometimes the smog gets trapped by the mountains."