“No,” she said, gently, “of course not.”
“I’m going to see her!” I whispered. Joelene looked confused, if curious, so I told her about the visual purple invitation to the SunEcho in my suit.
Taking a small, powered magnifying glass from a pocket, she stood and checked the jacket. “Interesting,” she said. Since she did not have a grey eye, I didn’t know what she was seeing. Once she had snapped the glass into its case, she said, “I applaud your courage and initiative.” Her smile slowly faded, and she asked, “But how were you planning to get to the SunEcho?”
I asked, fearing it wasn’t the right answer.
“Our new driver is surely not going anywhere but straight to the promo-date wrap-party in Kobehaba where we are to meet with your father.” An alarm sounded on one of her screens, she glanced toward it, said, “I’m afraid getting to your meeting will not be easy, nor without substantial risks.”
“Please?” I asked. “I have to see her and tell her that this thing with Ribo-Kool is nothing… that it doesn’t mean anything to me. I have to tell her.”
After nodding, as if she’d had an idea, she said, “I’ll look into our options.”
“Thank you!” I said. “I have to see her.”
As she sat before her screens, she said, “Your father is on channel five thousand.” She pushed a button and the monitor before me came on.
I recognized the garish nautical set of the interview show Celebrity Research Yacht. Across from the red-haired host, Milo Holly, who was dressed in his whites and captain’s hat, sat Father in a green paisley jacket with large holes cut so that his black-painted nipples showed through like cartoon eyes. On his head he wore what looked like a rubber tire tread of a hat, and from both ears hung miniature crystal chandeliers. Usually his costumes were copies of his latest favorite Ültra band.
“It’s all about love,” said Father, the chandeliers jingled like wind chimes when he moved. “We make a product we love for clients we love. We do it to help all the families we love. It’s in everything RiverGroup does. Love is our basic thing.”
“It’s all hate,” I complained, with a roll of my eyes.
“But with the RiverGroup security stuff in everything, shouldn’t we be worried about freeboots jumping out all over the place?” Milo Holly laughed as though it was supposed to be a joke, but he looked anxious.
“No!” said Father, smiling as though it were absurd. Everything’s right back to our normal super-secure and super-protected… you know… normal.” He smiled again. Everything’s perfect.”
“Maybe not perfect,” said Milo. “I mean Michael was shot. The merger-marriage between you guys and MKG was cancelled. And your stock is sinking fast.”
“RiverGroup has had a rough couple of days, but we’re stronger than ever.”
Milo eyed the camera, coyly. “And I saw a report that you got an implausibly big pimple on your ass!”
“Oh yeah,” said Father playing along, as the audience howled. As the laugher died away, Father said, “Back to shit for a second… remember kids, bad shits come along. But the lesson is even if RiverGroup—the code bastards of system security—can be hit, just think how much worse it would have been if you’d been using the flimsy crap MKG sells!”
Milo smiled stiffly. “It was implausibly tragic,” he said, as if afraid to insult a potential sponsor.
“It was much worse that that! It was Fifty Layers of Bitch.” Father leaned forward and popped Milo’s shoulder with a friendly punch. “That’s my new favorite song.”
“We could tell,” said Milo, rubbing his arm. “But you’re right, that band, Sister Revölver’s Tongüe, is completely implausible!” To the camera, he said, “Hey everybody, let’s see a clip of their newest Ültra epic.”
Three men, dressed like Father and wielding chrome guitars, tore down a city street, smashing car windshields, storefronts, with strollers. One began singing and screeching as though he were being cut in half. A chrome guitar hit him in the face. Then the three men were bashing each other until they were covered with blood.
“That’s so Ültra you have to puke over the poop deck!” gushed Milo. “Or poop over the puke deck! But, wow! I love the Tongüe!” After he had caught his breath, he shrugged and added, “Too bad they’re all busted up and in comas now.”
Father’s head was still bouncing to the rhythm. “When I was a kid,” he said, apropos of nothing, “I used to whack off and keep my semen in a jar in the fridge.”
I let my head fall back. Did he have to say bizarre and disgusting things like that to the world? Didn’t he care what they thought?
“Wait, Mom!” shouted Milo as he whipped off his captain’s hat. “Don’t drink that! That’s not the coconut milk!”
The audience roared.
Father, who seemed taken aback, as if he’d had other plans for his story, said, “Yeah… coconut milk… funny! Anyway,” he flicked a hand at one of his chandeliers, “I’m here to plug our new promotion date. Tonight, eight o’clock, my son will be going out with Elle of Ribo-Kool. She’s the hot granddaughter of Konrad Kez, that dead quadrillionaire. And she’s blazing.”
“I’ll be watching,” said Milo. “She’s the one who sat on that camera yesterday at a press conference. Talk about a debutante ball!”
“And,” continued Father, as the audience whooped and hollered, “ big, new product show will be the day after tomorrow. By then, I expect Michael and Elle will be fucking like a couple of dirty, rabid skunks, if you know what I mean!”
“Oh, yeah!” said Milo, as he stood and did a few hip thrusts, “I think I know what you mean!” Next he shook hands with Father, and read a list of some of the top channels covering the date.
“That’s enough of that!” I said.
“I agree,” said Joelene. “But let’s see what the buzz is like.”
“Do we have to?”
“ background,” she said, as she switched the channel to a show called Intellectuals and Soup. Two women and two men dressed as if they were at a mad tea party sat around a gold-leaf rococo table before steaming bowls.
A chubby woman, with warm brown eyes, covered in a mass of pink soap bubbles and a wide, crimson-feathered hat, said, “I feel for Nora. Her story is the modern tragedy. But I can’t believe Michael is so fickle and shallow to be interested in Elle Kez.”
“Indeed,” said a man wearing an azure bowtie with the wingspan of a goose and a matching striped morning jacket, “I’d not heard of Elle Kez before, but she is simply dreadful. She can’t act, sing, or keep on her God-awful clothes for more than three minutes.” Grainy, obviously stolen pictures of her nude body flashed on screen. “She has none of the blood or breeding of Michael Rivers or any real members of the families. Granddaughter of the wealthy and admired, if dead, Konrad Kez or not, I say she’s a degenerate prostitute with a dripping nose. And as for the firm she represents, Ribo-Kool is an absolute nothing from somewhere in the dregs of America-3. I can’t find any references to them before a week ago. How RiverGroup could be planning to merge with them is completely beyond understanding.”