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TELEVISION CLOWN KILLS SELF, WOUNDS TRANSIENT
(Mare Vaporum) Julian Marsh, until recently known as Gideon Peppy, arrived at his former office in the Sentry/Sensational Studios at 3:00 P.M., covered in blood, brandishing a .55-caliber automatic pistol. He fired a few rounds seemingly at random, harming no one but sending office workers and security guards running for cover.
He went directly to Studio 5, where the current episode of Sparky and His Gang was being filmed. Screaming incoherently, waving the weapon at anyone who approached him, he demanded to see young Sparky Valentine, star of the show. When informed Sparky was not due on the set for another three hours, he threatened a cameraman, telling him to roll tape. Facing the camera, he made a brief statement, the content of which has not yet been released, then put the muzzle of the gun into his mouth and fired. He was killed instantly.
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Earlier in the day Marsh had gone berserk in the Twelve-Step Inn, North King City. He attacked Mr. Buford Keeler with a kitchen knife, inflicting serious wounds on the man's abdomen and chest. Patrons said Marsh was shouting something about finding a microphone. When other customers and the bartender pulled Marsh away, he produced a handgun, fired three rounds, and fled. Mr. Keeler was healed and released.
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Gideon Peppy shouted, "Roll 'em, roll 'em, you cocksucker, or I'll blow your fuckin' head off. Is it on now?"
Peppy's hands and the front of his clothes were dark with dried blood. He stared into the camera, and smiled broadly.
"Maybe this'll satisfy the little fuck," he said, then sucked on the barrel of the gun. When he fired his whole face seemed to stretch out like a face painted on a balloon. A red mess of brains, hair, skull, and blood erupted from the crown of his head, and he fell to the floor like a puppet with cut strings. The camera moved in. There were spatters of blood on his yellow shoes.
Sparky ejected the chipcard and tapped one edge of it idly on his desk.
"Maybe that'll teach him to mess with my father," Sparky said.
He pressed the button on his desk that connected to his secretary. "Send this Peppy death tape to Curly," he said. "Tell her we need a thirty-minute documentary, freeze-frame, slow motion, whatever else you can think of. I want it on my desk by this time tomorrow, ready to outload by tomorrow evening. Also, get to work on a promo tying the death tape to the reloads of the Peppy Show, same time frame. We have to move quickly on this, it'll be old news fast. It ought to provide a good publicity lead-in to the New Peppy Show. If you need me, I'll be in the casting session across the hall."
He rose from his desk and walked across the deep carpet of his office. He went through the door and out into the public corridor. The people who passed him all smiled and waved respectfully. He had a smile for each one.
All conversation died as he entered Studio 88, where the casting session was being held. He remembered the first time he'd been there, not even knowing he was trying out for the part of Sparky. Long time ago, he mused.
He stepped up to his big chair at the end of the table. No one was sitting at the far end, where Julian Marsh used to sit, but that was okay. Everyone was clustered down at Sparky's end.
He opened a crystal candy jar and took out one of the lollipops custom-made for him by Dixie Chocolateers of Tharsis, Mars. The gold-leaf-coated paper rustled expensively as he unwrapped the sweet. He popped it into his cheek and looked around the table. He hitched himself a little higher on the padded box that enabled him to rest his elbows at table level.
"All right, ladies and gentlemen. It's magic time. Send in the first of the Peppy prospects."
Sparky was eleven.
ACT 3
"Dovetonsils," I said. "That's D as in Dogberry, O as in Ophelia, V as in Verona, E as in Exeter, T as in Adenoids. Percy Dovetonsils."
There was a short pause.
"T as in what, sir?"
"T as in Titania, O as in Oberon, N as in Nym, S as in Shylock, I as in Iago L as in Elsinore, S as in Shallow. First name Percy."
There was a longer pause.
"Sir, is this some sort of joke?"
A horrible suspicion overcame me and I sat up straighter in my chair, almost spilling my drink.
"Good god," I said. "Am I talking to a human being?"
She was on firmer ground there, though I might have debated the point.
"Yes, sir!" she piped. "It's part of our Service with a Smile policy here at Capitalists and Immigrants Trust. If you only had elected to receive picture as well as sound you would have seen that I've been smiling throughout this transaction... or at least until you started to spell your name."
Good fortune and a dislike of being seen myself during a phone call had spared me the no-doubt-hideous rictus that would pass for a business policy smile at C IT. Imagine sitting at a phone bank and being paid to smile all day as you answer customers' dumb questions. I'd sooner host a perpetual game show. However, the lack of a picture had lulled me into thinking I was speaking to the usual robotic screening program, the first of a normal three or four steps before you contacted an actual human being.
"Please connect me with a machine, at once!" I ordered. There was no response, but I fancied I heard a slight sniff, and wondered if I had caused just the hint of a frown to obscure a few dozen pearly whites at the edges of her corporate-mandated grin.
The problem with humans—if you've ever tried to talk to one over the phone—is they sometimes show imagination at a time when you would least expect it. They make illogical connections, fly off on fanciful tangents. Usually this simply leads to confusion, but now and then it can sow seeds of suspicion that might, if not nipped in the bud, lead to an unexpected truth. If you are engaged in something the least bit dodgy it is better not to take that chance, since truth is the last thing you want to come out.
What I was doing was probably not illegal. I say that because laws seem always to get broader and more restrictive every year. Hardly anyone ever retires a law. You don't hear about laws being unwritten, recalled, allowed to expire. You begin with civil liberties, and after a few hundred years you have a legal system that can't even find liberty, much less protect it. I couldn't afford a lawyer to vet my proposed actions against fifty years of legal encrustation, would not hire one if I could afford it.
But in uncertain times it is usually best to deal with a machine. Machines always play by defined rules. They may be asked to look for odd behavior, but that means somebody must define "odd," and if it can be defined then it's not truly odd. Just as the dealer always hits on sixteen and stays on seventeen, machines in a certain situation behave the same way every time. If you know this, and know at least some of the parameters, you can put the knowledge to good use.
"How may I help you?" The voice was no more mechanical than the real woman's voice had been. I personally think there ought to be a law about that, and I'm not one to support many new laws. I like to know where I stand. "Percy Dovetonsils," I said. "I am an attorney working for the estate of the late Mr. Dovetonsils. We are trying to locate bank accounts hinted at in his will, but not specified."