Several long moments passed in silence as they both gazed at the screen. "I understand what you're telling me," Manny said at last. "I'm just not sure how I should take it."
"You can take it any way you choose," Travis replied. "The world just became that much more subjective. Preparatory to socket implantation a detailed map of the brain is assembled and kept on file." Travis turned the screen off. "The files will be carefully guarded against unauthorized access, of course."
"Of course." Manny felt his energy level sink as the stimulants in his system began to wear off. He glanced at his watch. "Why don't you prepare me a complete report, zap it up to my mailbox. Mark it confidential. I'm due on the evening L.A. jumper. Things are piling up back there. Last night was a real monkey wrench."
Travis's gaze was steady and expressionless. "Would you like those in 3-D or hardcopy flat format?"
"Both. I like to have something I can make notes on in an informal setting. Without hardware."
"And is the Diversifications system secure enough?"
"Now, yes. We have a pet hacker who's already gone to work on it.
He followed Travis out with a thousand different ideas jockeying for position at the forefront of his mind.
7
"Hallelujah," said Melody Cruz with her usual exaggerated good cheer, "it's another day! Anybody here care which one?"
"Not me," Gabe muttered groggily as he shuffled into the living room and plumped down on the mile-long couch. Twenty minutes of shower-massage had been either too little or too much; he wanted nothing more than to sink into the sofa and become one with the cushions.
"I just knew you'd see it that way. Well, here's the ugly truth of it, big guy: deadline on the Gilding BodyShields spot looms big as life and twice as graphic, you should pardon the expression."
Gabe grunted. "Tell me something I don't know."
"I'm getting to that. But first, this reminder: lunch with Manny Rivera today. Another good reason to get the Body-Shields spot wrapped."
"Okay, okay," Gabe said. "Nag." He sat up a little straighter, but his eyes still refused to open all the way.
"And we've got a mailbox close to capacity here. Three more items, and they're gonna hit you with the surcharge. I don't wanna say they're gougers or anything, but if you don't do something soon, they're gonna name the node after you. The Gabriel Ludovic Electronic Postal Node, funded entirely by you. I wouldn't want that carved on my tombstone."
"Right. What's in it?"
"Only the most comprehensive collection of junk mail in the entire Los Angeles area. Offers so refusable it's amazing they don't implode."
"Anything from Cassandra? Cross-ref Sam?"
There wasn't even a pause. "Not today."
"Delete it all, then."
"You sure about that?"
Gabe yawned. "Real sure. I'm not in the mood. Do we have any grapefruit juice?"
"We should, unless you sneaked into the kitchen in the middle of the night and drank it all without telling anyone."
Gabe grunted again and pushed himself up off the couch. Melody's voice followed him, switching to the ceiling speaker in the kitchen.
"Took another chunk out of your account for your share of the mortgage on this dump, just thought you'd like to know. Wanna know the balance, or would you rather be surprised?"
"Surprise me." Gabe held a glass under the juice tap on the side of the refrigerator and pressed for six ounces, unsweetened. The juice was bitter and icy, hitting his sinuses a moment after it hit his palate. He leaned against the refrigerator, eyes squeezed shut, pinching the bridge of his nose. His sleepiness had dropped away in a rush, leaving him wide-eyed with a lingering undertone of fatigue.
"That's about it as directly concerns your miserable life," Melody went on conversationally. "In the general news Malaysia is still trashed, your tax dollars at work. Another day of food riots throughout the British Isles, while here in town the price of the Gatsby Restaurant's Gourmet Breadloaf goes to twenty dollars per as of this morning. Kinda makes you wonder, don't it?"
"Not really," Gabe said. "I work in advertising, remember?"
"Gilding BodyShields. Deadline: jump it or lump it."
"All right, all right, you said already." He refilled his glass and went back into the living room.
"Hey, you said a trigger-word. Watch the triggers, and you won't cue the nag subroutine when you don't want to."
"Actually, I did want to," Gabe said, settling down on the couch again. "I need to be kept after until I get it done."
The four-screen dataline in the wall across from him was running highlights from General News on the two left-hand screens, while a script more formal than Melody Cruz's headline summary ran on the upper right. The lower right screen displayed an abbreviated menu. Gabe picked up the remote and thumbed for the Popular Culture format.
"Pop-Cult comin' atcha," Melody said. "Anything in peculiar or the usual mix?"
"The usual, thanks."
"Don't mention it." Pause. "To anyone. Ever. If I'd known I was going to end up like this when I agreed to license myself for dataline modules, I'd have slit my wrists."
"Me, too," Gabe murmured, watching the parade of items that the summarizer had gleaned from FolkNet, the Public Eye, and the Human Behavior nets, with tidbits from BizNet thrown in. Popular Culture was a bottomless pit of raw material for commercials, and he badly needed some raw material this morning.
A shortened version of his old pharmaceutical spot ran between a segment on new trends in breakfast habits and an item on the sudden jump in popularity of video parlors among people with implants. He'd won a minor award for the pharmaceutical spot, nothing too flashy, just a commendation from the National Pharmaceutical Board for responsible presentation two years ago. Which was as good as a lifetime in the Age of Fast Information.
You know how it is, Gabe: What have you done for us lately, and when are you going to do it again?
Shut up, Manny, he thought. "Melody!"
"You barked?"
"Run down a short list of the contents captured from Pop-Cult for me, will you?" Maybe her voice would drown out the sound of Manny's in his head.
"Okay. Gotta hot report on those breakfast habits, which you saw, and a nonstory about implantees flocking to video parlors, you saw that, too. Also in the queue, we've got-hey, hey!-a big scoop on pet implants, is that something? Nobody wants to paper-train Rover anymore. Now you can get an AKC-registered springer spaniel who can walk himself. Hey, get yourself a poodle named Physician and say, 'Physician, heel thyself.' Come on, don't groan-whatcha wanna bet Physician comes up top of the trend for dogs' names inside of a month?"
"A million billion dollars," Gabe said, shaking his head.
"You do and I'll own you. Won't that be embarrassing, in hock to a dataline module. I'll reset all your defaults for food porn."