When the door closes, I walk numbly through the apartment. Missiles arc overhead. Tanks roll.
“What are you going to do?” I say to the sobbing television.
Great works of culture are burning in the hall. “Caspar,” I say to the bloody bedroom, “what are you going to do?”
Outside my window, ad-bugs mill in the night, patterned and phosphorescent, preprogrammed and minute, tiny pixies of light forming pictures of men and women with perfect chins and ears. I stare at these ideal people hovering in the dark, the angels of adspace, so familiar from a thousand daily visions, and realize that what makes them beautiful is not their shapely skulls, their tight skin, their healthy flesh, but their heroic unconcern—untroubled by conscience, unburdened by expectations, they smile for an instant before flickering away into the night.
I sink to my knees.
“Caspar D. Luckinbill,” I say to the bedroom floor, “what are you going to do?”
In the floor I see a body, curled like a twist of wire. The face is obscure, but I would know this man anywhere. I would know him by his NVC alone—hunched with self-pity, shivering with guilt. And I know exactly what I’m going to do.
Mediaterrorism is not a concept. Mediaterrorism is an experience. Every day a new victim is targeted. Make no mistake: it could happen to you.
I wrote that for the voice-over of the teleplay of the documentary I helped to prepare for the British division of a Persian television network. I believe every word, but that’s not what’s important. What’s important is that everyone else believes it.
It’s a sunny summer day, and I’m walking to the downtown office of the nonprofit organization of which I am founder, spokesman, and president. I don’t worry about jaywalking these days. The light on the corner recognizes me, arranges for me to cross. Money will do that for you. Money has its ways. And money, thank God, is now on my side.
The doors of the building greet me by name. No bombs, no blood, no assaultive sounds. The fake plant in the lobby waves a welcoming leaf. “Caspar D. Luckinbill,” says the elevator, “welcome! What can I do for you today?”
Inside the elevator, an ad-droid is painting a picture on the doors. It’s a picture of my face, from the cover of Zeit-Life Magazine. In this picture, my eyes have been artificially narrowed, my skin artificially loosened. Everything about me has been made to look harrowed and gaunt. Special Report, the caption reads. The Human Face of Mediaterrorism.
I ride the elevator to the fourteenth floor. In my office, Betty lies on her back, screening the new television special. Thanks to the office Ubervision, the image beams from the ceiling. The walls are a forest of virtual, tranquil trees.
“Is he here?” I say.
Betty sits up. “He’s waiting for you.”
Betty is my public awareness manager. She’s also my girlfriend. She is young, smart, media-savvy, and takes care of herself. No loose joint skin on this young lady. She has the firmest, most beautiful knees I’ve ever seen.
“I think it’s finally happened,” Betty says. “I think we’ve finally reached critical mass.”
I put my arms around her and rewind the TV special. The opener begins with doomful music. “Lurking in the shadows of cyberspace,” a man’s voice says, “lies a mysterious new hi-tech predator, on the hunt for human prey. It strikes from your TV, your phone, from the walls of your home, and no one knows who it will target next. Will you be the next victim of… mediaterrorism?”
“Good stuff,” I say. “The deadly part’s a little heavy.”
“We’re covered,” Betty says. “We’ve established links to suicide.”
“In this special two-hour report,” the announcer continues, “you’ll learn about a person—a person just like you—a man named Caspar Luckinbill, who saw his life destroyed when the media he had trusted suddenly and unexpectedly turned against him. And you’ll find out how to protect yourself and those you love from what may be the modern world’s fastest-growing psychological scourge.”
I pause the show. “How wide is the advertising?”
“Wide,” says Betty. “Like, vast. Like, omnipresent. We’re going after seniors first. Then moms. Then kids. By airtime we’ll have total saturation.”
“What about buzz?”
“Are you kidding? People can’t get enough. They’re intrigued. They’re outraged. They’re absolutely terrified.”
The TV special is my baby. I was the one who reached out to the producers. I was the one who made the pitch. I’m chief consultant, assistant producer. And of course I’m the star.
It’s a strange feeling. I’m not just in the charity game. I’m a one-man movement, the soul of a cause, the president of an ever-growing organization. I’ve become, as the magazines of the globe proclaim, the human face of mediaterrorism.
Betty and I run through other promotional channels—ads, radio, tie-ins, public appearances, even print. It’s important to be comprehensive in this game. You’ve got to blanket the airwaves. You’ve got to speak up. People forget about the big issues, and reminding them is a full-time job. You’ve got to be ubi, omni, toto, round-the-clock. You can have too much of a lot of things in this world, but you can never have too much public awareness.
I give Betty a kiss on her perfect neck. “Keep pushing it. Don’t let up. Let me know if you get overwhelmed.”
“I never get overwhelmed,” Betty says. “I do the whelming.”
I give her another kiss. Then I go into my private office, where Armando sits waiting.
“Caspar D. Luckinbill,” Armando says, rising, “you lucky s.o.b.” He slaps my shoulder. “You’re the talk of the town.”
“I’d better be,” I say. “We’re paying through the nose for it.”
“So that’s your secret? Money talks?”
“Is it a secret?”
“Not many things are, these days,” Armando says.
I shrug. I smile. I feel weirdly ashamed. The truth is, I never expected to be the talk of the town. I guess it’s like a lot of things. I guess you have to hit bottom before you can climb to the top.
When I started my campaign to raise awareness of mediaterrorism, I didn’t honestly hope to be heard. I’d lost my job, my wife, my home, my health. I needed to get busy. I needed to speak out. Speaking out was about the last thing I still had the wherewithal to do.
What I didn’t know was that the reporters would run with it. What makes reporters decide to run with things? “It’s a ripeness issue,” one of the reporters told me. “This is a moment whose time has come.”
What I didn’t know was that there were fellow sufferers. So many, many fellow sufferers.
What I didn’t know was that there were researchers of mediaterrorism—researchers who also wanted to be heard.
What I didn’t know was that the donations I received would be numerous, large, almost reflexive. What I didn’t know was that people would buy my book. I didn’t even know people still read books.
What I didn’t know was that corporations would get involved. Especially the media corporations. Ubervision alone gave $80 million.
What I didn’t know was that the government would take interest, and that consulting with the government can be both lucrative and pleasant.
What I didn’t know, in short, is that something on the order of a mini media and monetary empire can grow up around one man through a process of near-ecological inevitability. Why me? I often wonder.
“Why me?” I say to Armando as we sit in my office sipping South Islay single-malt twenty-three-year-old Scotch over cubes of naturally refrozen Swiss glacier melt. “That’s what I still don’t understand.”
“It’s obvious,” Armando says. “You’re a nobody, a nonentity. You’re trivial, dull, not even very bright. Another TV-watching office drone who stayed in his mesh-chair and never made a fuss. You’re all of us. You’re an innocent victim.” He crunches glacier. “For what it’s worth, I’ve always supported you.”