The superstar's rings flashed as he again stabbed an angry index finger toward his manager. "Who the hell do you think you are? Where do you get off cross-examining me like this?"
The manager also began to lose his temper. "I'm your fucking manager who's just set up a deal worth ten million plus and is sitting here while his client throws it back in his face without even offering a half logical explanation. Will that do?"
The superstar sneered. "Worried about your piece of the ten mil?"
"If you like, sure. I don't handle your affairs because I like it."
"You could always quit."
"I might as well do that if you keep on turning down money the way you are at the moment."
For the first time the superstar looked worried. His expression became placating. "Okay, okay, it doesn't have to go this far. There's no need for us to fall out."
"So, do I get an answer? I have to tell Combined Media something."
The superstar looked uncomfortable. He ran his fingers through his cropped hair. "Hell, I don't know. I can't put it into words. I ain't sure that I want people to know how I feel when I'm doing a show. It could destroy the mystery. Jesus, Tom, for all I know it could finish me. I don't think it's worth the risk."
"There's millions in it."
"It's too much like selling a piece of my soul."
"That's what primitive tribes used to think about being photographed."
"Maybe they were right."
"I've never noticed you avoiding being photographed."
"A feelie's something different."
The manager stood up and walked over to the window. Another rocket was coming in to Metro-4. At the other side of the sky a regular jet was on approach to LAX.
"You know what you're paying for your superstition?"
The superstar fiddled with one of his earrings. He tried to be placating. "Listen, forget superstition and all that stuff. Let's look at it another way."
The manager turned away from the window. "Okay." He went back to his chair, sat down, and looked receptive. "So tell me."
The superstar sat up straight in his chair. He avoided looking directly at the manager.
"We've always agreed that when I'm doing a live show, nothing should get in the way. It's me and the audience and nothing that'll sidetrack it, right?"
"That's right. I've always kept TV crews in check, turned down advertising tie-ins. It's been done exactly as you wanted it."
The superstar smiled triumphantly. "Okay then. How the hell can I do a live show if I'm hooked up to a bank of feelie recorders? If that ain't getting between me and the audience, I don't know what is."
"They have given me assurances…"
"Assurances? Tom, will you tell me what the hell assurances is supposed to mean?"
"The recording and monitoring equipment wouldn't impede your doing the show."
The superstar looked sideways at the manager. "You want to know something, Tom?"
"What?"
"I don't trust you when you use long words. I get the idea you're trying to con a poor boy from the welfare sections."
"You've come a long way from there."
"Don't bullshit me. What kind of setup is Combined Media offering?"
"I thought you weren't interested."
"Just tell me, will you?"
The manager was back on the defensive. "Okay, okay. You may not believe it, but I spent a solid three days making sure this deal would be acceptable. They tell me that all the hardware they need could be built into your stage suit. It would be miniaturized and, where necessary, disguised as zips, studs, jewelry and what have you. Also any bits you don't want made available will be erased. You have full control of the finished product."
"I'd still be trailing wires all over the stage. How the hell am I supposed to work like that?''
"There won't be any wires. It'll be a radio link between you and the recording banks."
"I thought that they had to stick things into your skull."
"There'd be one micro implant in the back, of your neck. Fitting it is quite painless and could be disguised by a necklace or a high-collared shirt."
The superstar smiled wryly. "You've taken care of just about everything, haven't you?"
The manager shrugged. "That's what I'm paid for."
"I suppose you're going to ask me to reconsider now?"
The manager looked intently at the superstar. "There is one thing I ought to tell you."
The superstar raised an eyebrow. "What?"
"If you were to blow this off, Combined Media could get very mean about it."
"So?"
"They have a lot of influence among the networks."
"They couldn't hurt me."
"You're not that big."
"This is blackmail."
"They're like that."
The superstar swung his chair around and stared out of the window again. This time it wasn't a petulant gesture. He looked thoughtful. Finally he swiveled back to look at his manager.
"Listen, Tom, I got to think about this. I'll call you tomorrow.''
WANDA-JEAN'S EYES WERE GLUED TO the monitor screen that was built into the game booth. The dazzling smile of Bobby Priest was filling the screen.
"Okay, we're back and it's time for Personality Fall Down."
The face of Priest dissolved into dozens of tiny repeating images. "Wildest Dreams" was heavily graphicized. It never let the viewer alone for a single moment, teasing, titillating, never really allowing the picture to come to rest, bouncing its audience around in a continual state of contrived excitement.
"Just to remind everyone how this part of the show works. You'll see four contestants in the booths in front of us."
Cut to the four contestants standing in transparent cylindrical pods. They were bathed in the beams of a dozen or more revolving searchlights, and CO2 fog, sliced by slashing blue and gold lasers, drifted around them.
"I will start to read the personality profile of either a figure from history or a current celebrity. Contestants can jump in at any time when they think they know the identity of the personality being profiled."
Bobby Priest was filling the screen again. His teeth flashed like a neon sign and the sequins of his body tux dazzlingly reflected the lights and the lasers. He glowed like Mr. Electric.
"Sounds easy, right? Well, home folks, it would be easy if the contestants weren't standing over the vat!"
Bass electronics surged in a deep bowels-of-hell version of a Bach fugue. The close-up of Priest became a neon leer.
"The longer the contestant delays answering, the wider the floor on which they're standing slides open. Too long a delay or a wrong answer, and the floor vanishes altogether and the contestant goes down into the vat!''
The mists parted and the vat was revealed. It was a circular chromium-plated tank maybe five feet deep and twenty feet across. It was filled with a heavy viscous goop, about the consistency of molasses, primarily Day-Glo pink but streaked with lazy swirls of poisonous yellow and green that made it look like something from a toxic-horror show.
Bobby Priest dominated the screen again.
"Okay, contestants, are you ready for the next personality profile?"
Back to the four contestants. In unison, they all nodded brightly. The bass electronics picked up tempo, an urgent, anxious, rock 'n' roll pulse.
Bobby Priest's eyes had a twinkle that was scarcely pleasant.
"Don't forget, scenes from the life of each contestant are available on the current IE catalog."
The contestants nodded again, less brightly this time.
"Okay, players. Here we go."
On the waist-high panels in front of the contestants, four red lights came on. The audience noise that was pumped into the booths faded out. Each of them was alone in soundproof silence. Their four tense faces came on the monitor in a four-way split screen.