Soon, the crew signaled they were ready. Whales climbed in the seat behind the host’s desk. His desk.
“Jim!” he called out. “I want this out there. Live. Right now. Paul! You know how these things work. Would you go with Mr. Cornwell and help him?”
One of the two gunmen came forward and motioned for Mr. Cornwell to lead the way. He was in his early thirties, well-built, blond, but not really attractive. He looked wounded. His right arm hung in a sling.
“Long time no see, Jimmy,” he said, grinning. Mr. Cornwell hurried to the booth, gasping for air.
A voice came over the speakers. “We’re ready.”
“Thirty seconds.”
The seconds blinked away slowly. When the clock wound down to zero, the theme from the show began to play. Whales looked started for a moment, then laughed and began to speak. Christie turned to watch on one of the screens.
“Thanks for that, buddy. “ Whales said, chuckling. “I’m sorry, folks. I thought it was funny that after a morning I had something as simple as a lame musical theme from a lame old show could still startle me. Then I realized how you must feel, when the most interesting news program in years is suddenly cut off, and the same guy who suicide-bombed a lab not two hours ago is having a good laugh right on your TV screen.
“But yes, it’s me, Luke Whales. Before those of you who are especially sharp-minded have an ‘A-ha!’ moment: No, this is not a pre-recorded suicide note. We are broadcasting live, and I mean right now live, from our Chicago studios. Some people got together to help me, but we didn’t have time for a script.
“This show will be short and without commercials, so let’s get down to business. I am not going to tell you the whole story. Just a couple of self-evident truths for you to ponder.
“Truth number one: I did not drive a car full of dynamite into a building. I didn’t blow myself up; didn’t blow anyone up. Never handled explosives in my life. What you saw on the news, what experts said, that footage, that was all fabricated. Fake. First Luke Whales is a murderer, then he’s a suicide bomber. Where it all came from, and how it got out so fast, I’ll leave for the networks to explain. But what you have to understand right now is that all of it would be true, if I didn’t manage to show up at the studio this morning, and there were people out there putting a whole lot of effort to make sure I didn’t.
“Which brings me to the second point. Yes, I did stop taking the pills, but no, I did not go crazy immediately after. Sure, I might look strange to you right now in someone else’s uniform and no make-up, but that is too long of a story for this show. I assure you, though; I never had a clearer head. Recently I learned some things (from an expert, by the way, whom I… who was no able to make this show) about the antidepressants manufactured by Freedom Corp., the pills I have been, and you are taking. Yes, I did say ‘You are.’ Those of you who thought it was just good old Luke Whales in ads and you, once I thought so too. But there are more of us than you can imagine. According to the expert I’ve just mentioned, the number is about three times what you hear on TV. You understand? One in four. You really are not alone. Remember that.
“Anyway, back to the pill. There’s this new chemical that they add now. I don’t know what it’s called, nor do I care. But that new additive is what makes the medicine so effective. What it does is make you react to the world in a different way. Doc’s words for it were: ‘It makes the world a better place.’ But I think that was one thing he was wrong about. Probably because he never tried the pill himself.
“Now, by ‘the world,’ I don’t mean the sky and sunshine and the trees and your backyard and your pet and your children and everything you love and live for. That’s not the world. That’s you. ‘The world’ is what’s being fed to your from the screen. That’s what the new chemical in the pill makes you accept. It helps suppress the moodiness, the nausea, the outbursts, the general feeling of something just being wrong, your head feeling wrong, the desire to spit or to laugh or to cry, in short, all of those things you felt when you watched your TV before the pill came. It allows you to function in a society where three quarters of the population don’t need the pill, but it doesn’t make the world a better place. It doesn’t eliminate the cause, only the symptoms. There’s no happiness. It fills you with the indifference of a machine, but under it you are still pissed, and you’re scared, and you’re lonely. You still know deep down inside that something is wrong. But those who feed you the pill and those who feed you the world make you believe that something is wrong with you. They make you believe the pill is the only reason you are not making things worse.”
“It worked well for a while, but now it looks like either the pill or the TV is failing. It looks like some people are beginning to reject both. My case is famous, but it’s probably happening a lot. That’s why the prescription police was created. To add a little bit of fear to the equation. To give the pillmakers the time they need to improve the medicine. To give the mass therapy people time to fix up the signal. I’ll let you decide if you want to give them that time. You know enough, even though you don’t feel like you do. Just be sure you understand: stopping the pill will definitely not make the world a better place. But maybe it will be a truer place.”
He paused.
“Now, my third and last point. Don’t support the troops. Ooh, I can feel that shudder running right down your spine. So I’ll say it again. Do not support the troops. Don’t enlist. Dodge the draft if you have to. Stop the war. Stop pretending that killing people while following orders of a man you elected is noble. You want to protect your country? Protect it here. At home. Don’t help them make it worse. Even if you’re told those people hate you and want to attack you. Give them the benefit of a doubt. Remember the footage from earlier? Take a hint. Don’t believe everything the analysts say on TV. Question what you’re told, and if the answer doesn’t make sense or they call you un-American or your question is treated as though it doesn’t exist, ask it again, louder.”
“On that cheerful note I, Luke Whales, am done. Thank you for your time. Perhaps you’ll see me again, although it’s unlikely. My show is now officially over. Good day.”
He bowed and got up from the chair. No music followed. The cameras simply turned off.
Chapter Forty-Four
No one clapped. I took it as a good sign, because they always used to clap when the shows ended. At the same time, the feeling of a couple dozen stares, averted as soon as you turned to look, was unsettling. It was as though questions “What just happened?” and “What now?” hung in the middle of the set like twin piñatas, and none of those present at the party wanted to take a bat to them. Even I, the host, the birthday boy, wasn’t overly eager to raise that bat.
Sure, I’d jumped in the seat eagerly enough, caught up in the excitement of successful rescue and forthcoming revenge, but the question of what to say had never truly entered my mind. I would make sure everybody understood I was alive, I’d known that. The rest of it, though, simply poured and kept pouring until it was done. And although I believed all I’d said to be true, I could not recall a time or place when those ideas could have been coherently formed. In short, I didn’t blame the crowd for feeling weird.
The atmosphere reminded me of my awakening in the helicopter. I couldn’t dwell on it, though, just like I couldn’t dwell on the soreness in my shoulder. There remained a matter of eluding the cops, who would have by then already surrounded the building.
Of course, escaping from the studio wasn’t the only problem left. There was also a small quandary of what to do after that for the rest of my life, but at least I still had a life. Thinking about what to do with it could wait.