The Clown's Graveyard
Chapter Eighteen: The Story of Your Life

I was awakened by the sun rising through my office window. I blinked a few times to clear my eyes and realized that I felt great. It was like coming to in a Swiss hospital bed far from the trenches. I tenderly probed the scar tissue and found that I'd healed well without a trace of shell shock. A pleasant grogginess burned off as I thought about the work to be done. I fixed my hair in the feng sui mirror and ran my tongue over my teeth. I was pleased to find that yesterday's shave had held. A spare outfit hung in my coat closet, a casual three-button suit with a lambswool pullover. I could hear the first chirps of office chatter as I reached for the doorknob.

Sungyun, Ed Blanston's admin, was sitting at Angela's old desk. "Andy!" she said. "It's great to see you."

"I'm just happy to be here, Sungyun," I said. The stiffness left my joints and the old spring returned to my step as I strode among the cubes shining benevolence on my workers. I greeted each by name, appending a personal comment for every second or third. They were glad to see me. It seemed like days and days, they said. What a busy, exciting time. What wonderful things I must be working on. Wonderful things to prepare for the Release. That is, assuming the Release was still relevant after the ... the big event. The Fabulous Ontarians thing. They glanced nervously at once another.

I scowled mock-sternly. "Look, folks," I said to a cluster outside the break room door, "I don't know what the comic books have been telling you but you can take my word on this: the Release of Integrated Consciousness 2.0 is the greatest event in the history of the American people. No B-grade special effects show is going to change that." I left them reassured and happy, keeping my concerns to myself.

As I stood at the window and watched the sun climb over the roving mobs, the smoldering barricades, the plumes of smoke rising through flurries of confetti, my blood raced and my fists clenched. Regaining my sanity was only half the battle. Now I would repair the madness I had wrought, restore order to the cosmos. Integrated Consciousness would usher in a golden age for my fellow Americans, the final triumph of reason and rationality over mythology and ignorance. The recapitulation on a grand scale of my own personal victory.

The Consortium members were gathered in the conference room. Such a fun-loving group, scheduling a meeting for seven-thirty in the morning. I watched through a gap in the venetian blinds. Ben Croenauer of American Microchip was stabbing at a page of tiny numbers, his mouth moving furiously, oblivious that no one was listening. Carl Angstrom of Infonomica was counting off points on his fingers, only to keep changing their number mid-stream. Sally Anderson from the Preen Foundation was waving her hands as if trying to free them of clingy cellophane. Blanston just sat there in the corner with his arms crossed, face red, an oxbow vein in his temple pulsing irregularly. They were a poor excuse for grown-ups. It was no wonder they'd let Integrated Consciousness fall into such disarray.

Savoring the moment, I turned the knob and flung wide the door. The room froze, hands suspended mid-gesture, mouths open, eyes wide, Blanston's the widest of all. I walked slowly around the scarred ebony table, pausing slightly behind each chair as if playing duck-duck-goose. When I'd completed the circuit, I stood at the empty spot at the head of the table and shook my head as I made one last round of eye contact. "Well I don't suppose there's any use in telling you how disappointed I am in your performance," I said to them. "Somehow you've managed to unravel in one week what took me years to build."

"It's not our fault, Andy," simpered Croenauer, breaking an uncomfortable silence. "There's been hell to pay with this flying saucer business."

"And he," said Sally Anderson, pointing at Blanston, "has been completely useless! He refuses to listen to anyone else's suggestions and he's destroyed morale with his total lack of leadership skills and his yelling and all those stupid sports analogies!"

"I hardly see what—"

I cut Blanston off. "I'm sure old Ed gave it his best shot," I said, "but that was yesterday and this is today, the last time I checked. I don't want to hear any more excuses, I don't want any whining. We've got four days until the release. It's go time. Andy Hunter is back in charge."

The Consortium broke into spontaneous applause. Even Blanston joined in, clapping so hard that his breasts shook. "Status report," I said.

"We've ... we've lost a lot of momentum, Andy," Blanston said tentatively. "And we're losing traction by the hour. The whitebread clothes for black people thing was a total bust—more than half of the Hello, Brother stores have closed and Saturn Capital is burning mad—they say IC can't deliver the goods anymore, and maybe they should strike a deal with the Fabulous Ontarians. Online wagering on weekend movie grosses is down ninety percent and nobody's buying the tip sheets anymore. There's an entire cast of The Retro Squad walking around unrecognized on the street."

"The Wonder Boys album has fallen flat on its face," added Alan Mu. "People are refusing to accept them as the next Beatles—they're not going for the haircuts, the hats, the slang, any of it. Damn it, doesn't anyone care about music any more?"

"It's no good," said Blanston. "All anyone wants to do is speculate about these space monkeys, and they don't care where they do it or who with. The suggestion," Blanston cleared his throat, "the suggestion has been made that we delay the Release."

"Are you insane?" I shouted.

"It was Carter's idea," he blurted. "His thinking was—I mean the kid's such an idiot, but ... he thought that maybe if we, you know, let it run its course—this Fabulous Ontarians business—then we might be able to get more mind share, say, for example, four weeks from now. Because when the big day comes and nothing happens, there's going to be such a backlash, people will be furious. They'll feel stupid for ever falling for it. They'll want to drown their humiliation in shopping and sportutainment and media product. That's when we start beating the drum for IC 2.0. Hell, this whole thing could end up working to our advantage. That—that was Carter's thinking anyway," he hastened to add.

It was an outside-the-box solution, I mused noncommittally.

"Can you imagine," Ben Croenauer said, "all those people glued to their sets, not to mention the suckers out there at the landing site, all expecting these aliens to come swooping down in a spaceship? With the meaning of life? Can you just imagine it?"

"Ridiculous," said Alan Mu. "Although I must admit I'm looking forward to it. I'm always one for a train wreck." A few of the others nodded their agreement.

"I wonder what's going to happen," Sally Preen said offhandedly. "When nothing happens, that is."

"Spaceship," scoffed Carl Angstrom. "Incredible."

"Just think of what it would be like if something actually did happen, though," Sally went on. "Wouldn't that be amazing? It would be pretty amazing. The event of a lifetime."

As I pondered the situation my gaze rested on the ebony conference table. The scuffs and coffee rings across its surface looked almost like clouds.

"Can you imagine the media systems these Ontarians would have to have to be able to monitor the whole Earth at once?" said Alan Mu. "It boggles the mind. If any of it were true, that is."

"They'd probably be just as impressed with our technology," said Jim Feathers. "Just because they've focused on interstellar travel and telepathy doesn't mean they're all that advanced in pharmaceuticals or macroeconomics."

The patterns on the tabletop had coalesced into rings, and now began to rotate slowly.

"Except that it's all so silly, really," said Sally Anderson. "As if we could possibly be of interest to some advanced civilization from space. Why us? I mean really." She laughed nervously.

The milky whirlpool swirled faster and began to form a funnel. Caught in its outer reaches, Sally Anderson's takeout coffee began to move slowly along the table.

"No!" I shouted, thumping the table back into ebony. "Absolutely not. The Release will be released at eight in the morning on October 10 and not a moment later. And we won't wait for the Fabulous Ontarians to fail on their own. We'll go after them, take them down, step on their necks. There will be no prisoners taken."

I shooed the others out of the conference room to put them to work. As I left, I grabbed the styrofoam cup and flung cold coffee across the tabletop to drip on the floor on the other side.

IC Central thrummed like a turbine. My minions of meliorism buzzed through the hive with choreographed efficiency. Laggards stirred with a new sense of purpose. Personal calls went unanswered, jokes unforwarded. Torrents of hot coffee wheezed from the percolators and infusion machines in the galleys. We were fighting for the fatherland now.

Ed Blanston and Frank Carter hunched over the low table in front of my desk, sleeves rolled up, their eyes intent on mine as I pondered the situation and strategized solutions. I thought of calling Angela to witness me in my finest hour, maybe even film it for posterity—but then recalled with regret her defection, an ironic instance of misplaced loyalty. No matter. She would see soon enough.

The monitor bank showed a nation in turmoil. The Fabulous Ontarians had sparked myriad outbreaks of social disruption from spontaneous nudism and unauthorized barn-raising to dry-land piracy and mass self-castration. The economy had frozen in its tracks, trading suspended on the major exchanges. Some religious leaders called for their followers to turn a blind eye to the heathens from above, others amending their liturgy to accommodate the divine manifestation. Conflicting statements by the Pentagon described the Fabulous Ontarians as partners in democracy, long-standing members of a secret alliance, and a deadly threat to mankind. Rumors and unconfirmed reports spread like a daycare flu: that the Fabulous Ontarians had already resuscitated everyone from Elvis to Jimmy Hoffa, that sufferers of arthritis, AIDS, and myopia had experienced miraculous cures, that the existing class structure would be overturned to favor those with the most cats. Fistfights broke out on street corners as competing theories were debated, while elsewhere longstanding foes joined in celebration of a newfound faith.

Media channels were choked with Fabulous Ontarians news, expert analysis, man-on-the-street reaction. Roaming bands of pundits commented on the news, the media's handling of the news, and the credibility of their rivals in addressing the issue. The few consumer-oriented stories on the air dealt with rampant stockpiling of food, weapons, and condoms. An army of flacks couldn't have bought an ounce of ink on the Release.

The Fabulous Ontarians were scheduled to arrive in four days, at eight o'clock Friday evening—a mere twelve hours before the Release. Between now and then I had to divert people's attention back to Integrated Consciousness, to a way of thinking in which flying saucers and space monkeys played no part. If I succeeded, Friday evening would pass with nothing more absurd than the usual prime-time network fare, and Saturday would bring the Release, and that would be that. If I failed ... I shuddered. Failure was not an option.

Blanston and Carter watched me pace, their heads rotating side to side as I crossed the floor. "Integrated Consciousness creates a perfect closed system where everybody knows their place and what to do there," I said, thinking aloud. "Everything's accounted for—fashion, religion, recreation, whether to get a dog or a cat, for Christ's sake. Easy answers for any question so you'll never lie awake wondering." I shook off a momentary chill, the edge of a memory of a dream.

"The trouble with the Fabulous Ontarians," I went on, "is that they lie outside the system. They raise questions that don't have easy answers, or any answers at all. None that we can provide, anyway. Our customers are getting distracted, and when that happens they don't participate in the system. Without them acting in reasonably predictable ways, supply and demand get all out of whack, markets collapse, clichés lose their meaning, blockbuster movies tank, ideologies falter—you can't assume anything anymore. And then anything's possible. It changes everything."

I felt my voice rising and paused to collect myself. Turning to Blanston and Carter, I saw that their eyes were wide. "That's why," I said in more measured tones, "the system must be preserved."

"Well put, A.H.," said Blanston.

"The way I see it," said Carter, with a pained glance at Blanston, "if we debunk the Fab O's directly it'll only add to their prestige. We don't want to give them that much visibility."

"Agreed," I said. "And we want people's attention to be on us, not them. What we've got to do is remind people that they have a vested interest in maintaining the integrity of the system. Throw them a bone so they remember how nice it can be when they play by the rules."

"We'll send them T-shirts," Blanston said.

"No, idiot ..." I turned to Carter. "What have the Fabulous Ontarians got? A story, a monkey, and a few parlor tricks. What have we got? The most robust database ever developed and the raw processing power to put it to work. We know what each of our customers wants more than they know it themselves, and we're in an excellent position to give it to them."

I thought about my experience the previous evening. "Carter, if people could choose the one thing they'd most like to see, what do you suppose it would be?"

Carter pursed his lips while he thought it over, then turned up his palms. Blanston began to open his mouth, then reconsidered.

"Themselves," I said. "Everything in the media plays so much larger and clearer than life. The stories are bigger, the characters are more compelling, the issues are clearly defined and resolved to satisfaction. Everything is just so. Now, imagine seeing your own life in that way. How cool would that be? You'd never be the same again."

Carter nodded slowly. "I get it," he said. Blanston nodded, more uncertainly.

I pulled over the phone and conferenced in Scott McGuigan, the chief technical officer. "Scott, you remember the Andy Hunter avatar you made for Omnicast stand-ins?"

"Of course," he said proudly. "Good work, that."

"Okay, here's what I want you to do. I want you to strip out my matrix, make a blank copy of the software architecture for every name on the Big List, and then merge each customer's matrix onto its own avatar."

"Are you nuts? That'll take months," he protested.

"That doesn't sound like the Scott McGuigan I know," I chided. "Write a couple of macros. You'll be fine." I dropped the line. "Carter, would you please explain to poor Ed what's happening?"

"We plot each person's Integrated Consciousness script onto an avatar," Carter said quickly. "This creates an idealized on-screen version of each customer, a walking, talking double that lives the life they aspire to, in living color."

"Exactly," I said. I made a mental note to give Carter a promotion and a raise when this was all over. We worked well together. "We won't even need to write anything. We'll just bounce them off each other out there in the digital world and they'll form one big, never-ending story. Point of view personalized for each person who logs on. We'll call it The Story of Your Life, the Show About You. And it premieres Friday night at eight—by a happy coincidence, at the same moment the Fabulous Ontarians are scheduled to arrive. The American public will have a choice to make."

Blanston and Carter rose to their feet and heaved manly cheers. "It's brilliant, Andy," Blanston said. I knew he was right. I wiped away a tear at my good fortune to have stumbled across such a powerful marketing vehicle for Integrated Consciousness, and laughed to think of the tortuous path by which I'd come to it.

I agonized as the seconds ticked slowly by. I paced furiously as if my anxiety could somehow power the computer to higher performance. Carter was holed up in the conference room with a dozen marcom hands and an armada of telephones executing the biggest media push in history, TV, radio, Web, telemarketers, handbills on streetcorners, sandwich boards. Blanston was negotiating with the networks for the last-minute Omnicast buy. They'd be thrilled to replace whatever dreck they'd scheduled for a historic event like "The Story of Your Life." Provided we could deliver the audience.

Sungyun watched me pace from the couch. "It's out of my hands, anyway," I said to her with false cheer. "It's up to the customers now." She smiled understandingly and offered a tray of shortbread cookies. I took one and bit it fiercely in half.

I knew it wouldn't be easy. The Fabulous Ontarians held a firm grip on the public imagination. Our only hope was that a few days of grappling with the existential, theological, and sociopolitical ramifications of an alien visitation had left people ready for a break—just long enough for "The Story of Your Life" to gain a foothold in their minds. Individually customized, precisely calibrated wish fulfillment—you can't do much better than that. The Fabulous Ontarians were an unknown quantity, their message just as likely something you'd rather not hear. Until recently, millions of people had relied on Integrated Consciousness to alleviate uncertainty and fear. Now, when it mattered more than ever, perhaps they'd do it once again.

"You should try to relax," Sungyun said gently. "Why don't you take a walk or something?"

A walk. I looked at my watch. Thirty minutes until the first ads would hit the air. I'd go nuts. "That's a good idea, honey, I could use some fresh air." I gave her a little pat on the way past. She smiled gratefully. I dispensed a few motivational nostrums on the way to the elevator bay. It was important to keep morale up. I needed everyone to give a hundred and ten percent.

This was my first time out of doors without makeup since the bogus kidnapping and I braced myself for a wave of adulation when I hit the sidewalk. Not a single head turned. It wasn't a good sign. On the other hand, the absurdity did seem to have waned. I didn't notice anything that didn't exist and the laws of nature appeared to be in force.

Not to say that everything was normal. The city's celebrated devil-may-care spirit had been supplanted by apprehension tinged with dread as Friday drew nearer. Optimists feared disappointment and pessimists feared that they were right. It just wasn't healthy. Looking into the faces I passed I wanted to grab people by the shoulders and shake them and say, "Don't trouble yourselves with the Fabulous Ontarians! Turn your mind away! Let us tell you that everything is just fine!" I was filled with compassion for the poor, confused people around me. I had been there once myself. I knew all too well the futility of trying to figure things out by yourself instead of having the answers prepared by those who know better. Everyone had been getting along just fine without the Fabulous Ontarians, soon to get even better with the Release. Why rock the boat? Just pretend that it had never come up.

My stomach churned with anticipation. I thought a little food might settle it so I stopped at a hot dog cart and told the vendor to give me the wurst. "Been a crazy few days, huh?" I said as she slathered it with relish, onions, and jalapeños.

"Tellin' me," she said, wiping her hands on a green apron. She looked up and down the block, scrutinizing the faces hurrying by. "It's this waiting that kills a person. What do you think it's going to be? Me, I can't imagine, and I've thought about it plenty. I mean I don't even know whether to make the next payment on my cart, because who knows if this is even what I'm going to be doing next week, you know? And it's due this afternoon. Otherwise I gotta drop it off at the place." She joggled the handle of the cart as she spoke, giving it little shoves without moving it much.

"Oh, I'd hold on to it if I were you," I said. "This is a beaut! Plenty of room for condiments and drinks, nice bun warmer. And the dogs—how do you get the outsides charred so perfectly and the inside so moist? It's like it pops in my mouth."

"They ought to be good for as long as I've been doing it," she snorted.

"You should keep doing it. Everyone who eats here all day long, this is a nice moment in their day, one of the good things. That's wonderful."

"You'd be surprised how rude most people are," said the vendor. "And did anybody ever hear of tipping?"

"You always bite the hand that feeds you, it's true," I philosophized. "But it only ennobles you further. I envy you."

"You should envy my feet. The treatment my bunions get, there are children that need less care."

"I have a feeling everything will be back to normal soon enough," I assured her and tipped her a hundred to get her mind off her fears.

Carter, Blanston, and Sungyun were waiting at my office door. I invited them in to watch the first salvo of the "Story of Your Life" campaign with me. I tuned half the monitors to the stations and sites that would run the ad and the rest to charts of real-time Integrated Consciousness network activity—what our customers were doing, saying, buying, thinking about. Whether or not they were sticking to the program. As we counted down to air time the lifestyle metrics were all over the map, wild static with no discernible pattern or meaning. I knew Blanston was steamed about the disruption of planned consumption patterns but it wasn't about money for me. It was about taking a stand for what I believed in.

The monitors came to a synchronized pause and the Integrated Consciousness logo appeared on every screen.

"You've seen the world you live in," a woman purred over drum and bass in a voice as silky as black nylons. "Now discover the world in which you belong. 'The Story of Your Life.' The show about you. From Integrated Consciousness. Friday night. Eight p.m." Then ten seconds of highly persuasive music and visuals.

It took a few moments for the ad's impact to register on the charts. Then ever so slowly a graph twitched to life, then another, ticking off digital replays and downloads of the ad, phone calls to IC counselors, visits to IC and affiliated Web sites, personal appeals to Andy Hunter himself. People wanted to find out more about the show. When they had, they hurried to call their friends and sought out the opinions of trusted media sources and went to their watering holes to talk about it, and the metrics began to assume more familiar patterns. There had been no news about the Fabulous Ontarians in nearly thirty-six hours—since I left the house on Vermont Street, as a matter of fact—long enough to tax anyone's attention span. "The Story of Your Life" made Integrated Consciousness seem fresh and exciting again, and even sparked a rush of last-minute subscriptions by latecomers eager to get into the act.

We had a hit on our hands. The Fabulous Ontarians wouldn't stand a chance.

Chapter Nineteen: Showdown at the Commonwealth Club