Chapter 1: The Simulacrum

From /Signified ---- Book Two of 2084 Quartet

/Signified

by

Kirk Combe

Book Two of 2084 Quartet

Copyright @ 2023 Kirk Combe

“If the step were not being taken, if the stumbling-forward ache were not alive, the bombs would not fall, the throats would not be cut.

Fear the time when the bombs stop falling while the bombers live—for every bomb is proof that the spirit has not died.”

                          —John Steinbeck, 1939

“When Europe and America are divided, history tends to tragedy.”

                          —George W. Bush, 2001

CONTENTS

You Can Trust Your Car to the Man Who Wears the Star

Chapter 1: The Simulacrum

Chapter 2: It’s the Water

Chapter 3: Oak, Pharaoh

Chapter 4: Lord of Misrule

Chapter 5: Great Salt Lake Desert Storm

Chapter 6: Optimism of the Will

Chapter 7: Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mine

Chapter 8: This is the End

PLEASE NOTE: The following material is intended for mature readers only.

A Note on Language

It is inevitable, in a work of speculative fiction, that futuristic technologies, technical terms, and even everyday slang appear in the course of the narrative. For the convenience of the reader, the first time each of these neologisms appears in the story, it will be marked in boldface and hyperlinked to the Glossary of Terms and Slang, where you will be able to find a definition. Additionally, on occasion a non-English language will be used in the dialogue among characters. While no direct translations have been provided, never fear. The reader will be able, quite readily, to discern the meaning of these utterances within the context of the story.

illustration by Clayton Combe

You Can Trust Your Car to the Man Who Wears the Star

Quick Plot Recap

In the tit-for-tat of Book 1, Bleached Wheat, the leader of TexArc, staged terror attacks against TexArcan assets and blamed EVe for the attacks, looking to start a war.  EVe countered by having Mall and Sinalco, specialists in Signification and Digital Tech respectively, hack into the TexArc internet system, ArcNet, to stir up trouble inside the corporate state.  TexArc retaliated by sending into EVe a “kill squad” to assassinate Mall.  In that skirmish, Enron, a TexArc corptrooper and assassin, was captured by EVe forces.  Book 1 ends with EVe now sending a small infiltration force, led by Mall and Sinalco and guided by Enron, into TexArc itself to create more trouble...

Chapter 1

The Simulacrum

            Bleached Wheat stands alone in the Eye of the Waco Great Pyramid. The Top80 tune playing is agreeable. Not too loud, not too soft. Faintly militaristic. Making everyone’s workday go a little bit faster, a little more efficiently. The floor he stands on is an enormous square of deep blue. At its center is the big white star. Around the star is the thin red circle. Bleached Wheat’s ritual is that every time he comes up into the Eye through the platform lift he plants a kiss on his fingertips and bends to slap it down smack in the middle of that star. Every time. No one ever has seen him do this. No one ever is in the Eye unless invited up to join him. The Eye is exclusively his. Bleached Wheat’s. The big bossman’s.

            The space is starkly empty. Not a stick of furniture in it. Why bother? Necessarily, the Eye is pentahedron in shape, its four walls rising high to the single point far overhead. Unity of purpose. Loftiness of goal. Simplicity of design. Mystery of power. Bleached Wheat is well aware of the symbol value of these structures. He conceived the meg pyramids himself, decades ago now, making sure his Waco Pyramid was built to be the biggest and the best. Massive. Unsurpassable. Its apex, where he stands on the two-hundredth story, is above 3,000 feet. Its base far below occupies more than three hectares. The walls of his Eye are made of thick and highly reflective nanoglass, making it shine for miles around as a beacon of superior attainment. On the practical side, its walls are absolutely impact-proof as well. Bleached Wheat made sure that all of the meg pyramids, along with being bureaucratic hubs and grand emblems of corp, are by design also impenetrable bomb shelters. Even a tacnuke will slide down their sides into containment areas constructed around their base, forcing the blast outward and away. Function and symbolism are critical, yes—but survivability. Now, that’s the real name of the game.

            Bleached Wheat has situated himself into the northwest corner of the Eye. From there, he can peer down a long ridge and two golden faces of the Pyramid, obtaining that high-wire tingle he so enjoys. Below him, CorpHQ spreads out as an expansive complex. Beyond it, all around, are low brown texas hills stretching to the horizon. No Parks have been allowed to sprawl up around CorpHQ. No need to have that shit around. A fat sun has just risen blood-red in the morning haze, even through the deep tint of the nanoglass. Bleached Wheat narrows his ice-blue eyes. He nods to himself. He thinksays: <Okay. Bring him up, Wells.> A moment later the floor panel slides aside for the platform lift. Wells and Busch appear heads first on the rise. Wells wears his usual breezy exec outfit, all pleats and relaxfit. By contrast, Busch has on a Netsman unisuit, the natty oldnavy blues topped with a tilted beret. Quite ice. Very choice. Too bad. It’s almost as though Busch has come dressed for the occasion.

            “The slice?” Bleached Wheat says to Wells.

            “Still making zero sense. Since its reappearance, we can trail it forward but...”

            “But what?” His tone is sardonic indulgence, as though urging a toddler to put together a complete sentence.

            “...but not backward anymore.”

            “But it’s the same slice as before, right?”

            “Yes, almost certainly.”

            “No. Quite certainly. Only now you’re trailing it forward. To BoiCity, right?”

            “Yes,” Wells has to admit. He hates these gotcha conversations with Bleached Wheat. They seem to be the only kind he has with the big bossman anymore. It didn’t used to be like this. For a long time, Wells was the corp Golden Boy. A Water-Walker. He and Fargo both. He doesn’t know when exactly that started to go south—or why. “Somehow it’s embedded itself in the local Serv autoloops there. It would be impossible to purge without screwing the whole system.”

            “Have you tried?”

            “No, not yet.”

            “Why not?”

            Wells glances sidelong at Busch standing at attention beside him. He thinksays to Bleached Wheat: <Because you ordered me not to purge the slice. But I can’t say that in front of the help.>

            <Then lie, you idiot.>

            “The mayor’s too jumpy, sir. He says he can’t have the servcircuit going void right now, especially not the cocks and balls. Ever since they had that weird meg election, he says the natives have been restless.”

            “That jackass. The cocks and balls is exactly what’s being used against him.”

            Wells is pleased, at least, to see Bleached Wheat’s wrath directed elsewhere for a change. He’s not lying about this mayor being jumpy, either. The guy’s brainslow on top of being a dipshit.

            “Quite honestly, sir, the mayor seems less than netsavvy to me.”

            “Quite honestly, Wells, the mayor is an IMS clodhopper.”

            “Yes sir.”

            Bleached Wheat turns back around to contemplate the panorama outside his windows. The hills are heating up fast for another scorcher. Waves of heat distort the already smaller sun as it gets higher off the horizon. “Is the slice still localized?” he asks, still watching the sun. “Have you managed to keep it confined, as I requested?”

            Wells hesitates. The news is not good here, so he knows he’s headed right back for the hotseat. “No, sir,” he reports. “As a matter of fact...it’s starting to circulate.”

            “Oh shit,” Bleached Wheat says in a way emphasizing his utter lack of surprise. “Where to?”

            By now, Wells would rather be punched in the ballsack than berated with Bleached Wheat irony. He can only grind his molars and endure. “So far, to SaltCity, Denver, and a bit down in Foenix. We’ve also had isolated reports of it as far north as Edmonton and as far south as Hermosillo.”

            “In other words, nearly the length of the Intra-Mountain Spine.” Bleached Wheat clasps his hands behind his back. He begins to rock back-and-forth on his heels. He loves to rub it in. “Oh,” he laments, as if speaking to himself, “if only the slice were isolated, and not the reports.”

            The Eye becomes dead silent for a while—crypt dead silent. When Bleached Wheat turns around again he drops the sarcastic tone.

            “Fuck the mex down south,” he tells Wells, “but I don’t want it getting farther north. Do you hear me? And I really don’t want it disseminating to the coast. That’s imperative. It can’t get into the Pacific Coast.”

            “So far we’ve confined it to the IMS.”

            “So far, Wells, you haven’t done jack. This slice does what it likes, when it likes. It always has. If it wants to get to the PC, I have no doubt it will get itself to the PC.”

            “ArcNet is doing its very best, sir.”

            “I know you are, Wells. That’s what alarms me. You have no real idea what you’re dealing with, do you?”

            “Sir?”

            Bleached Wheat grins while brushing aside his blond forelock. “My dear Wells, you’re still trailing this slice backward to source, not forward to destination. Just like before.”

            In his confusion, Wells looks to Busch as if expecting consultation and support. Busch remains rigidly at attention. He knows not only is this none of his biz, but that he wants no part of this biz.

            “But that would mean...” struggles Wells.

            “Yes?”

            “...that would mean...the source of the slice is inside TexArc. That EVe has put boots-on-the-ground inside the corp.”

            “Remarkable, isn’t it?”

            “But that’s impossible, sir! Unprecedented!”

            “Well,” Bleached Wheat shrugs and makes an equivocal face, “impossible and unprecedented as far as ArcNet seems to know. Yes.” The big bossman meets Busch’s eyes now and comments, “But who knows better than us the difference between belief and circumstance, eh?”

            Busch almost shits his natty oldnavy blues. Wells is too flustered to catch this exchange.

            “Sir, you can’t seriously be suggesting that EVe has infiltrators on the ground, right now, in BoiCity! Can you? Is that what you’re saying? That’s crazy!”

            Bleached Wheat ushers his subceo across the Eye toward the lift.

            “So long for now, Wells. You wait around downlift while I have a little chat with our brave Netsman friend, here. I’ll let you know very soon what I need from you.”

            Bleached Wheat waves bye-bye. He waits for Wells’ scowling face to disappear beneath the blue floor and for the blue panel to slide back over the lift aperture before turning around to deal with Busch. In the meantime, Busch has repositioned himself. He now stands in the middle of the big white star—at attention and assertively deadpan. Interesting choice, thinks Bleached Wheat. He tells Busch to stand at ease.

            “I won’t bullshit you, Busch.”

            “I appreciate that, sir.”

            “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, shall we?” Bleached Wheat starts to pace the Eye. “No doubt that was an amazing job you pulled off for me in Fribourg. What you accomplished there was very important.”

            “Thank you, sir. We aim to please. Glad to do my job.”

            “Now, you see? There we’ve gotten ahead of ourselves again. Why don’t we do that thing where you just answer questions if they’re put to you.” Bleached Wheat pauses to test their new arrangement. After several moments of gratifying silence, he adds, “Okay?”

            “Roger that, sir. Sorry, sir.”

            “As I was saying, our people here—such as that clown I just sent down the lift—believe that the Groundsman I selected to run kill-man for your squad blew the holy hell out of that Maneuvers installation, killing EVe’s crack slicer and ending that particular threat. Meanwhile, their Countermeasures people over there believe that we don’t know they captured our Groundsman alive and staged a fake explosion to trick us. They also believe that we don’t know how he’s guided an EVe foray team into TexArc, and that their team is in BoiCity looking to make trouble. It has been for some time.” Bleached Wheat smiles and nods at his many machinations. “That’s some neat trick. Fooling everybody.” He waits another few moments, just to be sure. “Don’t you think so, Busch?”

            “Hell yeah, sir.”

            “Nice enthusiasm. I like that. Tell me something. I’m intrigued. How the hell did you manage to escape their fighters and make lift? They had your ass pinned up on those cliffs.”

            “We’re Net, sir. We just do shit like that.”

            “Wow,” Bleached Wheat chuckles, “you guys just do shit like that. That’s good. That’s really good.” But affable is always short-lived in the Eye. “I supposed it didn’t hurt, either, that you had a mister. Right? Unlike the two dumbfucks on your squad?”

            “All due respect, sir, you can’t be handing misters to shitubers. You never know what they might do.”

            Good answer. Straight-up Terd patriactor fare. This will be a shame.

            “Indeed not, Busch. And here you’ve hit the nail on the head. I have a big problem on my hands. A big, big problem. At its heart, for certain, are the shitubers you mention. Indeed, you never know what those huddled masses will get up to left to their own devices. But my problem extends beyond the Parks, Busch. And here’s where I’m not going to bullshit you. I owe you that at least.”

            Busch snaps back to attention, if possible, standing even a bit more rigidly than before.

            “Servs are easy, Busch. Stupid. Gullible. You know what I mean?”

            “Of course, sir.”

            “They’ll buy anything. Including shit if it’s packaged right. No problema. Piece of cake. Am I correct?”

            “Yes, sir.”

            “And, as you might expect, they’ve bought into this recent wave of EVe terrorattacks easily enough. The Elevator. BigRig19. Servs swallow such atrocities hook, line, and sinker. Biz as usual.” Bleached Wheat stops his pacing a few feet directly in front of the Netsman. He inspects Busch’s face before saying what he says next. “Those were staged, you know.” Busch shifts nervously. “Those were really us.”

            Busch blinks a few times. The tilt of his beret suddenly looks no longer cocky. He risks a stammered question.

            “S-Sir?”

            “Yes. Us.” Bleached Wheat nods at him. “Or, rather, me.”

            The Netsman looks the big bossman in the ice-blue eyes.

            “That’s right, Busch. Now there are two people in corp who know that. And both of them are standing right here in this Eye.”

            There’s an old saying in TexArc. The truth hurts. It’s meant literally. Busch knows he’s deadcount because he knows this topsecret. He just hopes he’ll get listed kia instead of selfterm. That way the deadprofits will be more generous for his family.

            “So here’s our big problem, Busch.” Before beginning his pacing again, Bleached Wheat claps the Netsman once on the shoulder. Busch’s knees almost buckle. “Really, we have two big problems. You might as well hear them both. Problem one is you Terds, believe it or not. While Parkers are always ready to fall for a good roguestate feedhoax and get behind the usual preemptive strike, this time around the Gaters have been slow on the uptake. Polls indicate misgivings—fuck, even actual reluctance—over attacking EVe.” Bleached Wheat mocks in a sniveling voice: “What have they ever done to us? This is no push-over, third-rate power, you know. This time there’s going to be a serious nuclear deterrent to deal with.” He stops to turn toward the window, staring out at the brown surroundings for some moments. “I shit you not, Busch, this time around there are even some mewling Crats giving me pushback.” The crypt-like silence seeps back into the Eye to linger a while. Bleached Wheat finally shakes his head in disgust. “Libbies,” he snorts. “Always the same story. Even after all this fucking time.” He turns to expand on these ideas to Busch. “You expect it on the coasts, you know. That’s norm. But this shit is polling through the wheatland, Busch. Through the yanking wheatland.” He takes to strolling around the Eye once more. “Oh, well. It doesn’t matter. Not on my fucking watch, you know, Busch? No fucking way. These doubtoms will get their proof all right. Irrefutable fucking evidence of EVe treachery. That’s why I sent you to Fribourg. To make sure EVe’s little foray team had a tonto to lead them into TexArc. EVe doesn’t know it yet, but their merry band is going to commit a horrendous act of terror on TexArc soil. Something so spectacularly awful that our corp will have the clarion call we need to go to justwar with EVe. Then those crusty goat-fuckers over there can kiss their ancient asses goodbye.” The bossman waxes metaphysical for a moment, stroking the sandy fringe running along his razor jawline. “It’s the oldest trick in our playbook, Busch. The noble lie. The self-wounding. Been working like a charm for just over eighty years now. Backward and upward, eh? Corpfeud marches in place.”

            By now Bleached Wheat has half-circumnavigated Busch and is somewhere behind the Netsman. A large drop of sweat is poised to plummet off the tip of Busch’s nose. This waiting to be killed is killing him.

            “Problem number two,” Bleached Wheat starts in again, “is something unforeseen. Something outside of my control.” The very concept seems to irk him. “Everything was going doublego to plan until this monkey wrench came flying in. It’s that fucking slice of theirs, Busch. It’s really fucking good.” That idea is vexing to him, too. “Their first slice was high quality. It certainly got our attention and caused a few juicy farts around my boardroom table. But that was a good thing. It made their threat seem real and helped me sell the idea of sending those two kill-squads into EVe.” His pace quickens just a touch. “But then this new slice of theirs appeared. Jesus H. I knew another one would be coming and that they’d learn a few things from their first failure. But fuck. I had no idea they could adjust their stream and signification in such radical ways. I know that’s all these EVe pixies ever do—study and learn and figure fucking things out. But I had no idea that this new slice would be so fucking maxevasive. And I sure as hell had no clue that the revised feed it carried would be so fucking revoevo.” Bleached Wheat stops suddenly in his tracks. He’s just come into Busch’s peripheral vision. Busch’s head goes light. “I tell you what, Busch. The big bitch they got slicing for them is good. Scary fucking good. No doubt about that. But that sinewy bitch they got signing for them—Jesus Joseph Mary mother of God—she’s one Dmega smackdown steely-eyed revoevo whiz, she is. That’s for very fucking sure.”

            Busch has never heard the word “revoevo” before. That’s because it’s strictly a Crat term, used only in Crat circles when discussing Crat affairs. Such as on the turbolinks. Or in the nanosteam baths. Or over cocktails in the realtime geisha houses. Or relentlessly in boardrooms across TexArc. It’s short for “revolution-evolution.” What Crats work tirelessly to suppress—by any means necessary.

            “EVe’s playing our Servs better than we do, Busch. How yank is that? Just when I get the shitubers stoked for crusade so I can concentrate on convincing you Terds, this EVe slit comes along and riles up my Parkers. Gets them all pumped up for collective fucking bargaining. Of all fucking things. Fuck me. Who’d have guessed that shit was even possible anymore?”

            Bleached Wheat begins tracing his wide circle around the Netsman again, coming more and more into Busch’s field of direct vision. The more the big bossman comes distinctly into view, the more Busch feels as though it’s the last thing he’s ever going to see.

            “So as you can see, Busch, we’ve fallen into a classic case of crisis management here. Which is exactly what I was hoping to avoid. I wanted EVe’s incursion into BoiCity to cause a little stir so I can concoct my terrorstrike so I can manufacture my consent. Simple enough plan. But no. Their fucking slice has caused quite a big stir in BoiCity—and now that big stir is starting to get out of hand. It’s starting to spread up and down the very spine of TexArc, Busch. Our very fucking backbone. Spreading social fucking upheaval.”

            Bleached Wheat has come back full circle to be standing directly in front of Busch, some meters off. He turns now and walks closer and closer to the Netsman. He speaks as he approaches.

            “That means this shit has started blipping on ArcNet’s radar. And that subceo Wells has started to shit his britches over it. So now I have to pretend that I don’t know anything about it. That I’m as surprised and outraged as he is about fucking EVe putting their fucking boots on our sacred corpground. That means I have to pretend to be as jingofrenzy as he is—as all my subceos better goddamn be—about quashing this heinous violation of our corpsovereignty.”

            Bleached Wheat stands now nose-to-nose with Busch, shaking his head sadly.

            “See what I mean? This is all quite regrettable bullshit, I’m afraid. I had to spoil my own plan by telling that moron Wells about the EVe foray team. The yankwad was going to find out about it soon anyway. But now, this way, I get to look guru and keep him off balance by chewing his ass out over something I arranged in the first place. Ice, huh? I get time to regroup. I stay one step ahead of the shitstorm that swallows him up. And isn’t that really the name of our game here, Busch? Staying that one step ahead of the shitstorm?”

            Busch tastes the vomit rising to his mouth. He can’t stop it. He quickly about-faces and splatters the big white star. Bleached Wheat takes no notice whatever.

            “So, as I’m sure you’ve figured out, I also have to pretend to be quite upset with you and your evident poochscrew in Fribourg. After all, if you’d done what Net sent you there to do—to blow those pansy bastards all to molecules—well, we wouldn’t be in this little predicament we find ourselves in right now. Now would we?” Busch struggles to come back at attention. To take it like a man. His legs aren’t cooperating. “So, officially, you yanked up over there, Busch. You yanked up big time, as it turns out. Of course, unofficially—that is, just between you and me—you did exactly what I told you to do. And you did a damn fine job it. And I thank you for your service.” Busch can’t find the motor coordination to acknowledge this earnest gratitude. “But, as we both know, official trumps unofficial every time around here. So, officially, I need to exercise my famous intolerance for yank-ups. That means I need you to be a deadcount of one.”

            Bleached Wheat reaches up to pinch Busch by the chin, holding his wobbly head in place long enough to be able to look him square in the eye.

            “My sincere regrets. Things like this are never personal. I’ll see to it that you’re listed kia, not selfterm.”

            Busch finds his body shivering. He tries to brace himself.

            “I’m going to have to finesse the hell out of this fuckmother,” Bleached Wheat muses, his eyes going out of focus. “Allow a little rabble rousing. While looking like I’m trying to prevent any rabble rousing. While really trying to stop too much rabble rousing.” He focuses back on Busch’s blenched face. “Well, at least this will be vaguely interesting for a change.”

            “S-Sir,” Busch mutters. “It’s been my honor to—”

            “Oh, please. You’re at the eye of the shitstorm, Busch. Just twirl around and die.”

            Busch’s eyes go wide, then wider. The smell of oiled gears and burnt rubber penetrates his sinuses. A throb fills his ears. Then he drops dead.

            “But thanks for hearing me out. I never get to share anymore.”

            Bleached Wheat thinksays: <Wells, locate that jackass Dockers for me doublego. The mayor of BoiCity and I need to engage in some major facetime. And Fargo, get a couple of your removal dudes up here pronto. And tell them to bring a mop. This Netsman just shit himself while going selfterm.>

**********

            How dare they pull him—him—away from the MegMayor’s Conference. He was in the middle of his personal growth seminar this morning, “Turbonegotiations on the Turbolinks,” when some snot-nose hovers up in a linkscart and insists he comes with him. Insists. Right there and then, in front of three of his fellow mayors. Him. Dockers—Mayor of BoiCity. The numerouno hydromeg of the IMS. And just when he’s about to tee off on the fabled 57^th hole. Damn. He only gets to play the mind-blowing CorpHQ domed course once a year at the convention. He was so looking forward to the afterdrinks session at the 72^nd Hole Lounge. At that legendary arbitration watering hole, baby, power oozes out the ass. Well, he’ll show them. Dockers is somebody not to fuck with. He’ll chew out some flunky. He’ll kick the ass of some subsubceo or other. By God, he’ll make some little shit-bucket cry. But—hey—maybe this is part of the seminar. Yeah, a test maybe? He hadn’t thought of that. Or maybe he’s up for promo and this is part of his being vetted. Yeah. That makes sense. He’s been kicking ass and taking names for a few years now as mayor. BoiCity Servs and Terds sure as hell know who the bossman is in their meg. Fucking Dockers, that’s who. Damn straight. It wouldn’t surprise him at all if they were looking to take him regional—hell, or even bump him up to full corporate. Sure. Why the fuck not? Maybe that’s what the hell this is all about. He better look good and company, then. Get off his duff and take a goddamn look around.

            Dockers shoots up from the cushioned museum bench he’s been moping on for the past half hour and strides with a sudden display of interest toward the nearest exhibit wall. He’s never visited the TexArc CorpMuseum before, never bothered to go on one of the frequently scheduled mayor’s tours they set up during the four days of the conference. (Every year he packs the wife and kids off on one, though—that and any other time-consuming activity they have on offer.) He’s always too busy gladhanding and networking, the real work of a megmayor, to make time in his itinerary for any soft shit like this. It occurs to him now, though, that might be a strategic mistake. This place could be very useful for kowtow and oneup. Just look at all this old stuff on the walls. Printads, vidads, holoads, old trademarks, historic corporate memorandums re-pieced together from shreddings, old profit readouts and Nasdaq numbers—the early Dow, now those must have been the wild and wooly days—yellowed share certificates, figures on shareholder dividends, even a corporate prospectus from...what does that say? 2024. Wow. Can you believe it? Not bad shit. Riding the air on a loop is some old jingle: You can trust your car to the man who wears the star! Pretty catchy tune. Dockers starts to hum along. Then it hits him: how true! How prophetic the song is! You can trust your car to the man who wears the star! Jesus, these lyrics are spooky. Maybe there’s something to this history stuff after all. Maybe the right kind of history isn’t bunk. Dockers starts wandering the exhibits with some genuine interest. He particularly likes the detailed reconstruction of a turn-of-the-century “gas station,” an old SuperPower from its signage. He also likes the spacious, silent, wood-floor gallery filled with antique office art, especially all those soft-focus photographs with inspirational sayings superimposed on them. There’s a misty, early-morning tropical waterfall with the ornate words printed in its lagoon: Today is the first day of the rest of your business life. Or the close-up of a darling, teardrop-eyed Doberman puppy reminding us: There is no team in I. He’ll freebie a bunch of reproductions from the gift shop later. Hang them up in his Eye back home. Dockers never knew there was such a lot to learn from art.

            In the room with all the gigantic old lapbooks on screenfreeze, Dockers starts to appreciate the majesty of corporate history. TexArcana, Inc. Based out of old Waco, Texas. The mother of all—what did they call them back then? Oil companies. Back when petroextortion matured as both a natural and a political science. The company had been at the fore, behind the scenes, in the struggle to liberate capital from all unnatural, regulatory fetters. Two scratchy “news” articles, each from July of 2029, reveal the definitive tale. Dockers finds them breathtaking. One, from The New York Times, is entitled, “When Lobbyists and Conspiracy Theorists Get Elected to Congress.” The other, from The Washington Post, is called, “The Ultimate Hostile Take-Over.” New York? Washington? Congress? Where the hell are they? Dockers has never heard of those megs before. And “newspapers”? Hell, they’re “new” to him, too. He knows it’s sappy as hell, but the more he reads, the more he can feel his breast swelling with the pride of power—TexArc style. “Wealth, Exploitation, Domination.” He begins to understand just what those words mean. Freeing capital from the “liberal aberration” of the previous century—he’s reading the infoplacards by the lapbooks—had required conviction and guile. Legislative and judicial manipulation. Runaway military expenditure. Deficit spending. Voter constraint. Censorship of erudition. Intolerance of outsiders. Paramilitary violence. Public undereducation. Widespread misinformation. Lax privacy laws. Faith-based initiatives. State-sponsored religion. And, most important of all, the unregulated internet. Such traditional values and ideals had not been reinstated without a fight. Dismantling the pussy-whipped institutions of checks and balances that had marked the old, perverted US welfare state took neocorp guts and God. And that’s exactly what the Founding Board of TexArcana, Inc. had provided in abundance for the corporate cause. That and shitloads of cash. Nothing defeats liberal mobgov—what used to be called “Democracy”—like good old-fashioned shitloads of cash. In fact, after educating himself thoroughly about the early corp struggle against the evils of biggov—and biggov’s final, God-sent overthrow—Dockers resolves earnestly never to take those corpconcepts for granted again. Wealth, Exploitation, Domination. From here on out he will be an even better company man. After all, like he’d read back in the office art gallery, underneath one old black-and-white photo of some dictator named FDR, “If you don’t heed the warnings of history, you’ll be doomed to repeat its mistakes.” Holy hell, it strikes the megmayor, he’s been in the CorpMuseum maybe twenty minutes and already he’s getting cultured.

            “Dockers?”

            The megmayor turns around quickly, startled at hearing his name spoken in the museum quiet. Standing close behind him is Yupcap, subceo boss of Market Enterprise. Dockers nearly shits a brick. Every year Yupcap presides over the MegMayor’s Conference. Every year Dockers might pump his hand heartily in two or three reception lines, maybe exchange a glib banality or two if he can squeeze them in, but that’s always the extent of their contact. Nothing to text home about. Now here Yupcap is—come looking for him. Holy shit. What’s this all about? Promo? Could it be, for real? Dockers’ mind races so hard he forgets to say anything. Yupcap tires of waiting for a reply.

            “I didn’t imagine to find you here. I’ve been looking for you for a good ten minutes.”

            Dockers can’t read Yupcap’s voice. Is he pissed, or not? The megmayor chuckles nervously.

            “Oh...yes. Here.” He looks around them. “Sorry. I just love to explore the exhibits. I get lost in them.”

            “Really?” Yupcap’s voice is obviously dubious now. “I wouldn’t have guessed that.”

            “Oh, yeah,” Dockers insists, turning on the schmooze. “I visit every year. I could spend hours in here at a time.”

            “Is that so?” Yupcap’s eyes seem always cold. “And just which display room do you enjoy most?”

            “Um...” Dockers fights to remember any title. Any display title at all. “‘The Birth of Downsizing,’” he finally manages. “That one’s just choice inspirational. Doublechoice.”

            “That is a good one,” Yupcap concedes. “Don’t you love how we reorganized the stupid fucks into those touchy-feely, euroloser work teams, then brokeback their damn unions? Democratizing the workplace, living-wage pay, and guaranteed lifetime employment. Dude, how dumb do you have to be to swallow those bigmacs?”

            “Fuck, yeah,” Dockers enthuses right along, “that’s culture change right up the old ass for ya, huh?”

            “Where did we get those work team models from? Hm? I can’t quite seem to recall.”

            Shit. Dockers has never been any good at remembering names. Or places. Or dates. Or anything that’s in the past. He’s always been a consumer of the present.

            “Finway?” he guesses. Then immediately, “No. Norland. Or maybe...is it... what...Scandihoovia? Maybe there?”

            “I see.”

            “1984!” Dockers blurts out. “I do know it started bigtime in 1984. Hey, a century of rightsizing. Now that’s a date to remember.”

            He’s quoting the display infoplacard again.

            “A word to the bizwise, Mr. Mayor.” Yupcap leans forward and lowers his voice. “For Dmega suckup these days, you can’t go wrong with the old favorites. We needed ‘secure access to global natural resources,’ so what we couldn’t negotiate we ‘took into protection.’ In the process, we just so happened to ‘void the radical Islamist threat.’ Bombed those fuckers back to the prenano age. ‘Collateral benefit’ is the choice term to use for that. See what I mean? Or nowadays, if you prefer, play up the ‘ingrate sons of bitches in EVe’ angle. You can’t go wrong with that. You know: we pulled their asses out of the fire, mil-spent out the wazoo for decades defending those gayboys, and how did they repay us? First with biz competition, then with policy betrayal. Bam. You’re done. Suckup accomplished. To finish it off, just throw in a ‘they’re weasel-ass sons of bitches who deserve to be reamed hard,’ and you should be golden. Got that, Mr. Mayor?”

            Dockers really has no clue what the subceo is talking about.

            “Oh. Okay,” he nods. “Thanks. I’ll...I’ll try to remember all that.”

            The subceo has to shake his head. Megmayors. Jesus H.

            “Follow me then.”

            Yupcap turns and walks away fast. Dockers has a difficult time keeping up with this subceo dressed in a pastel Hawaiian shirt, loose-fit denims, and rock-climber sandals. Shit, these guys really are in ice shape. Dockers figures he better start working out, to fit in better at the corptop. He could stand to drop a few pounds—well, more than a few—around the middle. After a long walk they stop in front of a conference room door. Dockers is puffing. Yupcap steps to one side.

            “After you,” he invites.

            The courtesy gesture doesn’t seem promising to Dockers. With no choice, he steps through the autoslide doubledoors. Inside he finds a variety of men already seated around an oblong table, all of them turning to stare at him. Experience tells him to meet the gaze, in deference, of whoever sits at the head of a conference table. Dockers finds himself looking directly into the fox and frosty eyes of Bleached Wheat. Holy fucking hell. This can only be about Sawtooth Fluid and that doubleyank primitive area. Dockers almost pees himself.

            “Nice of you to join us, Mr. Mayor,” Bleached Wheat smiles at him, bored. “I hope we’re not interrupting your busy and productive convention calendar.”

            “Yes, sir,” says Dockers, then stammers again right away, “uh...I mean, no sir, no sir. I’m glad to...um...drop by to...uh...”

            “Shut up and sit fucking down.”

            Dockers does both instantly. Bleached Wheat yawns and turns to his subceo boss of ArcNet.

            “Wells, why don’t you go ahead and start us off.”

            The room dims. A green and blue holomap appears hovering over the table. In the lower left corner is BoiCity, labeled and represented by its large, yellow patch. Spreading north and east of the meg is the wilderness area, represented by a huge, empty green. Lacing that space are myriad blue threads and blobs—the rivers and the reservoirs. Dockers knows for sure now he’s shitcreek. How the hell did word get out? He’d been keeping it under tight wraps. Promo? Fuck. He’ll be lucky to live out the morning.

            “To get us right to the point,” Wells begins, “the IMS hydrobiz Sawtooth Fluid has suddenly turned co-op over the past few weeks. We believe it’s due to—”

            “We know it’s due to,” corrects Bleached Wheat.

            Not bothering to hesitate, Wells soldiers on, “We know it’s due to EVe insert and slice indoctrination. Let me repeat that. EVe insert,” Wells pauses to glare into each face, save for the ceo’s, around the table, “and slice indoctrination.” He delays again to let these two key words take hold. He seems satisfied with the commotion they cause. “The situation now,” he breaks back in over the fevered murmurings, “to the best of Net knowledge, is this.” Red dots with place-names pop up all over the holomap, mainly forming a distant crescent stretching due north to due east away from BoiCity. “The co-op firmly controls dams and hydrostations from Cascade, here to the north, to Mackay, here to the east.” Those locations flash momentarily in the air. “But, as you can see, it’s making inroads west. They’ve established a makeshift HQ at Redfish Lake, here, and recently captured Deadwood Reservoir, here, and even Magic and Mormon Reservoirs, out on the Cheney River Plain.” These locations all flash. “Not only are they getting bolder, but they’re getting dangerously closer to BoiCity and, more importantly, to Mountain Home ArcAir Base, here to the southeast.” A companion yellow patch now appears along T-84. “I don’t need to stress how necessary it is to keep that base launch-ready.”

            Dockers, who so far has just been staring slack-jawed up at the holomap along with everybody else, begins to feel the accusing eyes on him. He fidgets, but keeps watching the floating image. Wells concludes his short briefing, “If the co-op should take Arrowrock Dam, here, and Anderson Ranch Dam, here, as we believe is their plan, both the meg and the base could conceivably be at risk.”

            “How,” Bleached Wheat reminds Wells.

            “Water withhold,” Wells says dutifully, lowering his head as if in failure.

            Everyone in the conference room nods with extreme sobriety. When Wells sits down, the discussion conelights pop on, haloing each chair around the table so the holomap can still be read. Dockers knows it’s open season on megmayors starting now. His new pal, Yupcap, takes the first shot.

            “Why the hell haven’t you shock-and-awed these piss ants, Dockers?”

            “That’s wilderness area out there,” Dockers counters legitimately. He squints in this harsher light and puts on his gameface. He’s not about to bend over and grab his ankles. “We chase them away, but they just disappear and regroup in the mountains. North of that red band there is nothing but nothing. Watershed area. The Lost River Range, the Salmon River Mountains, the Clearwater Mountains. That’s all high pine forest and scrubland, deep river canyons and box ravines. Vehics can’t operate in there. And aviation can’t pin anything down with any kind of accuracy for very long.” The country is unbelievably remote. Dockers himself had gone out, at first, for several fly-overs in his helihover—that is, until the co-opers started taking potshots at him. “You go out there and try to track the fuckmothers down. Be my guest. It can’t be done with the mil-force I have.”

            “Why not just yanking guard your dams and hydrostations better?” Fargo asks snidely, the Security boss taking the obvious killshot.

            Dockers is ready for it.

            “You don’t understand,” he explains. “Hydrowork is Serv intensive. Even most of our safeguard force is goddamn Parker, and those barneys mainly just take random shots with minimisters at the bears and cougars that get too close to our installations. We have no effective guard out there. The few Terds we need are pure tech dudes, and they’ve all been killed or turned.”

            “What?” demands Fargo. “You’ve had Terds who’ve turned?”

            “Well, we don’t know for sure.” Dockers knew that overstatement might land him in even deeper shit. “But I don’t know how else these shitubers are managing to run the pumps and control-gates by themselves. Hell, maybe they can. But I tell you what, if they ever figure out how to manipulate the whole hydrogrid, they could get up to some serious mischief.”

            “Oh, come on,” Yupcap jeers, “these are fucking shitubers, for christsake.”

            Both Wells and Fargo stiffen to hear the Lord’s name taken in vain—precisely Yupcap’s intent.

            “These aren’t just your run-of-the-factory shitubers,” warns Dockers. “These are high-mountain shitubers, rugged individualist IMS types. They’re blood-in-the-face. You know, from that old survivalist stock. Believe me, they’ll rip out your heart and piss on it while you watch. These are some steeldicked fuckmothers.”

            “Is that why you’re doing biz with them,” asks Bleached Wheat, almost politely, “because you’re pooping-your-panties afraid of them?”

            Now Dockers might actually shit a goddamn brick. He’s been wondering if this bit of newsbig leaked, too. From the looks of things, only Bleached Wheat knows about it. All the others around the conference table—the four subceos and their various flunkies—break out in another delirious muttering and tongue-tisking frenzy. If there’s one thing Dockers has learned from his years at the top of the Pyramid, though, it’s that offense is defense.

            “No, sir,” he returns calmly, considering who he’s dealing with now, “as a matter of fact, I’ve been doing biz with the co-opers both strategically and out of sheer practicality. Not out of fear.”

            “Oh. Have you now?”

            “Yes, sir. I figure that if we’re negotiating with them, we’re keeping contact open and infoflow going. That can’t be a bad thing for eventually tracking them down. And on the pragmatic side, if I don’t biz with them, I’ve got a potential hydroshortage on my hands. That’s never good for anything. You just hint at shortage and a panic tear-asses its way through both the inner and the outer meg.” Dockers sees that he’s got them thinking. Characteristically, he gets cocky and pushes things too far. “Servs causing a shortage would also send the wrong message, don’t you think, sir? That they have some real power. I don’t know about you, but that’s a message I’m not willing to let get around.”

            “Why you potbellied megjockey,” Wells threatens. “Don’t you go thinking bigpic on us. You’re way out of your league here. The only thing you’re good for is riding herd on your miserable Parks. And by the looks of things, you can’t even keep your dick straight doing that.”

            Dockers doesn’t get to jockey a meg because he fails to recognize when he’s touched a nerve.

            “All I’m saying,” he returns affably, “is that if you boys really wanted to nip this thing in the bud, either Net should have freaked that slice a long time ago, or Ground should have busted a fall into the wilderness area by now and termed these pricks bigtime. That’s all I’m saying. Of course,” Dockers pulls the staged-reluctant-pause move before really hitting that raw nerve (he pays some attention at those Biz Improvement seminars), “I’m not the one who let a team of EVe technerds into corp to mess with the feeble minds of our Servs. Now, am I?”

            Wells leaps to his feet. “Why you fucking—”

            “As it is,” Dockers won’t be interrupted, raising his voice and flirting with an angry tone of his own, “I’ve been left to deal with this shitstorm on my own. So that’s what the fuck I’ve been doing.”

            Fargo intervenes dogmatically, “Then why don’t you use your infoflow and get your fat-ass security forces out into your stinking Parks to locate these EVe terrorists? How the fuck hard can that be?”

            Dockers smiles and shakes his head in pity. “Subceo,” he asks, “you ever been out in any Parks?”

            Fargo is not even sure about the relevance of such a question. “No,” he says dismissively, “of course not.”

            “Neither have I,” says Dockers, “and neither has any Crat with half a gram of brains in his head. The Parks are like big cesspools, subceo, and because there’s only shit in them, you can’t find shit in them, if you get what I mean.” Reluctantly, Fargo does. Everyone around the conference table gets what Dockers means. Parks are like domains unto themselves, volatile territories you handle, not truly control. It’s one of the inevitable drawbacks of the system. “I’ve applied as much security pressure in my Parks as I dare. ParkPol is out muscling around as best it can, but I’m not about to send any of my GaterPol out there and thin my defenses. Especially not now. At best I may be able to make these EVe bastards flush and run, but I’d have to get awful damn lucky to catch them cold.”

            “Interesting,” Bleach Wheat observes. “Quite interesting indeed.”

            His tone lets everyone know that it’s time to shut up and move ahead to the next item on the big bossman’s agenda—whatever that agenda might be. The big bossman never shares before meetings. Wells plops back down in his chair. Fargo drops the debate. Dockers takes still being alive as a sign of small victory up to this point. The elegant conference room, with its black-marble tabletop and sleek retro-nineties furnishings, becomes quite still while the ceo ponders matters for a moment. Bleached Wheat has begun to regard Dockers in something of a different light. The megmayor is a boorish dimwit, to be sure. He represents the very heart and soul of a TexArc Crat—that is to say, he’s an asshole. But he’s got a pair, especially when cornered. And he certainly comes out swinging. Bleached Wheat nods to himself. He hadn’t known this about Dockers before. It could be very useful. He calls for the breakfast service to be brought in. Refusing anything for himself, he tells everyone else to selfoblige. Dig in. It’s the small things of power that bring the most pleasure. Wheeled in is an immoderate spread of latte, cappuccino, espresso, raspberry tarts, apple turnovers, cinnamon rolls, bearclaws, almond freedom-crescents—whatever you can imagine. Corp’s plenty. Figuring this still might be his last supper, Dockers mounds a plate with pastries and brings one of the carafes of latte back with him to the conference table. He sits by himself and eats, not bothering to ingratiate himself into one of the many side-conversations going on around the room.

            Then the big bossman clears his throat. He’s made his second executive decision of the morning. Everyone freezes—mid-sip, mid-munch, mid-sentence.

            “Oddly enough,” Bleached Wheat announces, “the good mayor here has put his finger on it.”

            Wells almost sprays the conference table with spit espresso.

            “What?”

            “Let’s face facts, gentlemen. Net should have disposed of that nasty slice by now.” Wells bangs down his tiny bone-china cup on the black-marble table. “Instead,” Bleached Wheat ignores his subceo’s display, “it’s begun to distribute itself up and down the IMS.”

            Until this moment, no one else knew about the hyper-aggressive nature of the slice. Now the conference room buzzes over Wells’ poochscrew. Dockers beams as he chews.

            Bleached Wheat adds over the commotion, “And Ground really can’t drop in to clean house quite yet.”

            “Why the hell not?” Fargo protests, too vehemently.

            “Because,” Bleached Wheat feigns patience, “as the mayor has so aptly pointed out, a clampdown at this point might encourage and spread the co-op movement. Give it a credibility we don’t want it to have.”

            To a man—except for Dockers who is happily gulping latte—brows furrow around the table. Furrow deeply in stunned disbelief.

            “Pardon me for asking, sir,” ventures Yupcap after a long wait, “but, um, how exactly is that going to happen? Ground crushes domestic disturbances frequently, and Vieworld attentively filters those events.” Yupcap nods around the room to encourage others to join in his nodding. His subsubceos do, of course, as does Java and his subsubceos. Wells and Fargo and, of course, their subsubceo crews pointedly do not. Dockers meantime is preoccupied with choosing his next bakery item. With half the room supporting him, anyway, Yupcap concludes, “There, um, wouldn’t be any credibility to be had. Would there, sir? They’d all be wiped out and nobody would ever know it happened. That’s norm.”

            Bleached Wheat suppresses a smile as he looks Yupcap up and down. At last, his number three subceo has lifted a leg to take a pee. This pup is looking to hunt with the big dogs—finally. What a very encouraging sign that couldn’t come at a better time.

            “Under normal circumstances, Yupcap, you’re quite right, of course.” Bleached Wheat’s almost fatherly tone chills the backbones of the Wells and Fargo camp. “But we’re not working under normal circumstances at the moment, now, are we?” Yupcap shakes his head no. So do all others in the Yupcap and Java camps—even though none of them really know why yet. Bleached Wheat explains, “We have EVe infiltrators on the ground who’ve shown themselves to be elusive and sophisticated. Frankly, Yupcap, that’s got me worried. So Mayor Dockers’ notion of maintaining infoflow is, I think, a sound one.” Mouth stuffed with cinnamon roll, Dockers flashes the table his ear-to-ear shit-eating grin. “It’s best if we capture and interrogate these insurgents rather than just misting them to atoms. Don’t you agree?” That’s not, of course, a question. “We need to know how they got into TexArc and how they’re streaming this troublesome feed.” Bleached Wheat pauses, perfectly, then tenders his big-finish speculation, understated just enough to skirt theatricality. “Who knows?” He curves an eyebrow. “Their activities might be the start of some kind of drastic EVe offensive. Even a full-scale invasion.”

            Wells and Fargo openly exchange an incautious glance, noticed by everyone around the table. No offensive can touch TexArc, not in any drastic way. And invasion? Ridiculous. For three or four decades at least TexArc has been the only invading force on the planet. And as for infoflow, TexArc requires very little. Just a bit of intelligence here and there to determine how better to obliterate resistance. Nothing more. Counter-intelligence has long-since stopped being a corp concern altogether.

            “I’m sorry, sir,” speaks up Wells, aware of the risk he’s taking, “but I just don’t see what you’re zooming at.” He shifts in his chair and swallows, waiting for ire to crash down upon him. When none does, he’s forced to clear his throat and elaborate. “Nothing of what you’ve just said to us, sir, is...well...plan. It just isn’t plan at all, sir.” The conference room takes a surreal tilt out of normal time and space. No one has ever said anything remotely like this to the big bossman before. Ever. Many of the sub- and subsubceos around the table begin to calculate the one-notch upward bump they’re all about to get once Wells becomes another grisly selfterm. Yet Wells isn’t quite finished digging his own grave. He adds, “EVens are beyond the flock, sir. Outside Christ’s fold. Dominion demands their slaughter, sir. Nothing short of that is gospel. I’m sure you, of all people, are well aware of that obligation.”

            “Amen,” says Fargo—in essence, signing his own death warrant now, too.

            “Amen,” repeats every subsubceo on Fargo’s and Wells’ staffs—in essence, signaling an open insurrection in the boardroom.

             Bleached Wheat suppresses a smile as he looks Wells and then Fargo up and down. At last, his number one and two subceos have slid into open defiance. So, they believe they can be the top dog, finally. What a very encouraging sign that couldn’t come at a better time.

            Bleached Wheat had needed the frenzychristers during the pacifying of China and the building of the Space Elevator. Very handy fanatics to have in your corner at that point in TexArcan expansion. The TDers—Total Dominionists—love to erect monuments to God almost as much as they love to slaughter all heathens and deviants who are deemed to be “beyond the flock”—which means just about everybody. His elevating two of their ilk to his top subceo spots had helped make the TD movement huge in TexArc. Huge. Nearly out of control. But Bleached Wheat knows that to deal effectively with EVe he’ll need a different tack. One that’s not so zealous. So holyroller. That’s why he’s in the midst of an organizational reboot.

            Wells, Fargo, and the rest of the zealots have assumed their usual prayer gesture. TDers wear small medallions around their necks, solid gold disks at the end of solid gold chains, stamped with a fist clutching a cross held at a right angle, like a weapon. All of them now hold these medallions between their thumbs and forefingers, reverently rubbing. Waiting for Bleached Wheat’s reaction to their display of unified faith. Like Bleached Wheat, Yupcap sees these Soldiers of Christ for what they are: yanking lunatics who have outlived their purpose. The big bossman gives his number-three a crafty wink before speaking.

            “You’re quite correct to question me on this, Wells.” Bleached Wheat already has everyone in his boardroom off pitch. Might as well tweak their yaw, too. “And I commend your sense of loyal opposition for saying so. Oh, if only all my subceos were so committed to the teachings of our Lord and Savior. Amen!”

            “Amen!” the TDers ring out in response to his call. At the same moment, Bleached Wheat sees the appreciative smirk cross Yupcap’s lips. Good. All messages are being received.

            “But unusual circumstances call for unusual measures. We’ve never had a foreign threat so deep within our borders. I believe a bit of finesse is in order. We’ve got to permit this insert and slice indoctrination to run its course a little longer so we can draw out and hammer EVe’s foray team. Otherwise, we may never get them.”

            “Finesse is quick to backfire, sir,” pipes up Fargo. “Muscle is the prime guide for corpland safekeeping. As boss of Security, it’s my duty to advise you so.”

            “Oh, for christsake, Fargo. Don’t push this loyal opposition shit too far.” Bleached Wheat’s tolerance for touchy-feely display, even when feigned, is extremely low. “Java,” he calls toward the end of the table, “are you ready?”

            Subceo Java nods and stands. “Of course, sir.”

            The holomap and conelights vanish while the ceiling border illuminations return. Java touches a pad and the double doors open. In walks a scrawny ameroriental no one recognizes. Not a Crat, that’s obvious. Too crass. Too garish. Obviously a Terd—and a dykebitch at that. She’s tall for an oriental, but looks to weigh in at about twenty kilos. In fact, her piercings look to be heavier than she is. About nine studs crest each ear. Two bolts pass through the outer walls of her nostrils and a bullring, the latest fashion, dangles from her septum. She’s got a shock of powder-blue hair spiked up all around her skull, as if she’s perpetually being electro-stimulated. She clogs in on amazingly tall high-heeled boots that extend to mid-thigh—skin-tight and vermilion on her twin twigs for legs. Hip bones protrude through her ivory thong. Shoulder blades jut out above her ebony microhalter. She has no hooters to speak of, but her nipples are enormous and ring-pierced as well, poking through the cut-holes in her halter.

            “Now that’s one skinny-ass puss-and-boots,” Dockers leans over and whispers to the subsubceo sitting next to him. They snicker, but both men are sprouting hardnobs.

            The woman says nothing, nor is anything said to her. Once she’s taken a seat next to Java, he pads again and a blank holozone appears over the middle of the table.

            “Watch this,” Java tells the room.

            Mall’s “How do you like it?” spot runs, except one thing has been added. After Uncle Wobbly asks his pointed question, we cut back to get a look at the unidentified viewer-rapist. He turns out to be the cute little Monopoly Man. Just like in the game, he’s dressed for the opera with his tails, cane, spats, and top hat. However now, in this new dimension of his being the one reaming the ass of the screaming Serv, he wears as well an insanely toothy grin beneath his handlebar mustache. Moreover, as we watch the Monopoly Man feverishly pumping rump, he suddenly leers right at us—with particularly defiant, wild-animal, and lust-crazed eyes. He seems to be saying: Yeah, I’m fucking you over. What the fuck you going to do about it? Just before the spot cuts to black, a string of drool begins its slow dangle out one corner of his mouth.

            Afterwards, the conference room is dead silent for some time, until someone finally mutters, “Jesus. Fuck me dry.”

            “You can say that again,” remarks Java in a bizlike tone.

            Java is subceo boss of Culture. Of the four subceo positions, that’s considered the pussy one. All fruity, hand-holding shit. Not true biz. So that’s one strike against him that Java always has to contend with. Strike two is his skin color. He’s a shade or two duskier than your average boy from the wheatland. A half-and-half afromix, to be exact. Whispers are he’s Bleached Wheat’s concession to the coasts, but particularly to the fruitcake PC. That’s become a mongrel moshpit. But even the southern rim of the BHC is ready to tip black and brown, and that’s got the upper echelons of corp quite concerned. Quite concerned indeed. What’s a whiteboy going to do? So Java is well aware he’s token being so high up in corp. Chosen because he cuts a fine upleft image-op, all doublego and rangy the way he is. He styles a close-cropped goatee that wings out in points along his jawline and a fade-cut with different product logos razor-cut in around the sides and back. Pretty smack. He speaks standard corp american, too, with a standard corp accent. No homey shit. Nor is Java the least bit brainslow. Quite the opposite. Java is obviously much smarter than most Crats in CorpHQ. He went to all the best schools. On the hoops court, he can shoot the damn 5, too.

            “This is from the slice?” asks Fargo, noticeable alarm in his voice.

            “Yes,” says Wells, cutting off Java and looking to start spinning the situation his way.

            “My goodness,” says Fargo, shaking his head.

            “Oh, wait,” says Java, just a touch wryly. “There’s more. There’s lots more.”

            Bleached Wheat notes with interest how Java is enjoying this.

            The subceo boss of Culture shows them a whole series of ads, all of them featuring the Monopoly Man and most of them involving Uncle Wobbly. Each is targeted at the downright, at undercutting the notion of Brand You. Pure anti-plan. Here’s the bare-bummed Monopoly Man perched above a Serv who’s hunched busily at a cubicle in a Downright DayTrade, obviously working markstrat on his parkport. The Monopoly Man is obviously working his own cratport and laughing gleefully while taking a dump down onto the Serv’s head. The Monopoly Man’s screen reads, “Sell!” while the Serv’s screen reads, “Buy!” Another ad depicts a long row of hopeful Servs lined up at a jobs window handing over their immaculate pictograph résumés to a smiling Terd behind the counter. The Terd, in turn, is passing them over her shoulder to the Monopoly Man who, without even giving them a glance, uses one after another either to blow his nose or wipe his ass before tossing them aside. Standing close by, Uncle Wobbly, shaking his head, asks, “Free agent in a dynamic, job-rich environment? Or fuck-all wage slave?” A brief, static, and powerful spot simply recreates the GET OUT OF JAIL FREE card. In this version, however, the smirking Monopoly Man is getting booted out of the Parks and sailing over the walls into the Gater District, his trajectory clearly lifting him toward the Pyramid. Ad after ad like these pop onto the holozone. Each time, nothing TexArcan is sacred. The culture change of workplace teams is turned on its head as surveillance and degradation. Perky efficiency suggestions from management become speedups and layoffs for labor. Job opportunity transforms into caste captivity. The marketplace as purveyor of freedom and democracy mutates into bonanza cratprofit for bigtime shareholders, flattening then lowering wages for those who do the work, causing sourceout, sizedown, coercion, cartel, guns and muscle, bustunion, disenfranchisement, enforced consensus, fiscal-physical-psychological exploitation. After fifteen minutes, the Crats around the conference table begin to fidget and growl that they’ve seen enough of this heresy, of this unadulterated libby mindfuck. Bleached Wheat waves an impatient hand, signaling for them to shut the fuck up and watch every goddamn second. So they do. They must.

            The very last spot is longer than the rest, more involved, more intellectually complex. It ends with Uncle Wobbly, wearing a coonskin hat, sitting on top of the Monopoly Man who he’s just shot through the forehead with an old-timey flintlock. The Monopoly Man has x’s where his eyes used to be. With the gun barrel still smoking, Uncle Wobbly pushes back his furry cap with one finger, spits a long stream of brown tobacco juice off to one side, then delivers a small homily. Nothing tedious, but deliberately not simple, either. In it he points out that economic freedom and democracy means a reasonable standard of living for everybody, not just for the bigwig few. That biz, by its very nature, doesn’t get us anywhere near there. Biz feeds off of poverty and helplessness. Biz can’t rid us of those things. That what we really need is job security and a safety net, not this tear-you-a-new-asshole stock market always tilted towards the moneybags. That what will get us to where we need to go are co-ops and govregs and farewel—everything we ain’t got now. No union means no democracy, says Uncle Wobbly in a slightly worn-out voice. Only with a union can the wage-maker ever have a say in the industry, so’s it doesn’t get out of hand, out of the real people’s control, and end up doing no damn good—like biz has it rigged now. Uncle Wobbly then chuckles to himself and pats the Monopoly Man on his dead ass. He looks square at us. “Now who the hell else is going to do this for you? No one else. That’s who. There’s just certain things in this world we got to do for ourselves.”

            Java pads off the holozone. The conference room is even more solemn than before. No one squirms, lets out a long whistle, attempts a wise-crack. Java finally informs the room, “I’ve shown you these in the order the splice streamed them onto ArcNet. There are others since these. New ones appear almost every day. And there’s an older set as well, the original ones that came out as part of a local recall campaign some time ago in BoiCity. They certainly started all the trouble, but they’re not as Dmega revoevo as these. These I’ve shown you are the real ball-busters out there feeding at the moment.”

            There’s a long and perfect still in the room.

            “And who the fuck’s getting fed these?” Fargo demands at last in a low and angry tone.

            “All the Servs in BoiCity and its immediate vicinity,” answers Java, “and now more Servs up and down the IMS.”

            “Only Servs?” inquires Yupcap, to show he’s savvy and into the Culture game.

            “Exactly,” acknowledges Java, happy to team with his fellow junior subceo. “There’s no telling how Terds might react to messages like these.”

            “Still, that slice is reaching lots of damn Parks,” Yupcap points out the obvious, rubbing salt in Wells’ wound. “Shit like this has the potential to make a big Culture splash.”

            “You’ve got that right, brother-man,” Java plays along.

            Fargo’s heard enough yapping at his heels from these two puppies. “What are these co-ops calling themselves, anyway?” he snaps.

            “Wobblies,” Java replies evenly, almost casually.

            “Yeah?” says Fargo, then turns pointedly to speak to Wells, “and who exactly is this ‘Uncle Wobbly’ guy? Where’d he come from? What has Culture been able to tell you about him?”

            “Not a damn thing, so far,” Wells answers, shooting first Java then Yupcap nasty glares. “ArcNet has been entirely in the dark on this one. So we’re not sure who this guy is. Culture has been unable to locate any previous vid or aud or even printext record of him. Flat zero.”

            “He’s versatile, though,” Java offers, ignoring Wells’ sniping at Culture. “Depending on the feedsite, he’ll show up as afro, mex, or oriental speaking ebon, hispan, chink or viet—whatever the hell he needs to be speaking to reach his audience. These are no amateur productions we’re dealing with.”

            “Aw, what the fuck does that matter?” Dockers breaks in, unable to stand it any longer. “So what if the whole rainbow of yanking shitubers are downrighting this shit?”

            “Often now,” Java corrects him, “they’re all4ing it.”

            Around the conference table there is a collective shiver down spines.

            “How the fuck,” sputters Fargo, throat then ears then cheeks flushing pink, “did they figure out how to slice a fucking all4s message? Only corp messages all4s!”

            “I can’t say,” says Java, then smiles. “Culture has been entirely in the dark on this one. ArcNet has been unable to figure out how they’re working their slice. Flat zero, so far.” Across the hard black shiny conference table, Java and Yupcap grin slightly at Wells and Fargo. Java adds, “My concern is that their next step will be to feed these Wobbly messages as a taste.”

            “Why you fucking mongrel,” Wells snarls, “how fucking dare you—”

            “All right! All right!” shouts Dockers. “A fucking all4s! A fucking taste! Who gives a fuck how they’re slicing their shit? These are Servs we’re talking about, fellas. Fucking Servs. And Servs are fucking morons. Poor crusty sludgesuckers with the brains of sheep and the family values of goats. I say, fuck’em. They can’t do anything to us. They can’t touch us in our Gater Districts. And even if they do get over the walls, they’re never going to lay a finger on you or me in our damn Pyramids.”

            At the head of his conference table, Bleached Wheat sits pleased with what he’s seeing. Very pleased indeed. His subceos are openly at odds at last. This megmayor turns out to be a yankwad of epic proportion. What a bonus. To find the perfect boob already in place. Behind his long fingers, folded as if in prayer in front of his sharp nose, Bleached Wheat nods to himself and smiles.

            “Stay out of what you can’t understand, you megsitting son of a bitch,” Wells snaps at Dockers. “Besides, you were singing a different tune a minute ago, whining about how these Wobblies are too clever for you to get your hands on.”

            “Out in the fucking boondocks, yeah, you can’t pin them down.” Dockers is not about to back off. “But so what? Let them run around the goddamn primitive area all they want. These glassy clowns aren’t going to organize themselves into anything that makes a damn. This Uncle Wobbly dude is just farting smoke. What kind of revoevo strategy is that, to tell a bunch of stinking apes they’ve got to take things into their own hands?”

            “It’s a classic strategy, actually.”

            No one noticed the subtle nod from Bleached Wheat to the woman sitting next to Java, a nod granting the Terd permission to take part in the Crat exchange.

            “Only the oppressed can free themselves,” she explains.

            By definition, a dykebitch is any ho trying to butt her way up the mancrat corpladder. So, as far as the Crats sitting around the conference table are concerned, the only classic strategy going on here is a dykebitch talking out her ass. Dockers rolls his eyes and scoffs loudly at her comments. Fargo, Wells, and Yupcap smirk as well, as do then all their subsub staffers. These reactions don’t faze the woman in the least.

            “If these Wobblies can establish solidarity with members of the educated class,” she continues, “in this case, I’m assuming that would be most immediately with the EVe insert team, well, their movement could obtain and grow. Such cultural and technical knowhow, combined with mass unrest, makes for a powerful conjunction—potentially a dangerous one. Labor plus education equals social change. It always has. The fact is, this group very well might organize themselves into a formidable popular insurgence. They already seem to be well on their way. I’d especially hate to see them, down the road, trying to reach out to Terds in any significant way.”

            Dockers decides he’ll speak for the table. He does so patronizingly.

            “Honey, I don’t know where you come from or what you’re used to, but here in the Big House it’s best for puss to keep its yap shut and look gorgeous. So why don’t you go get your skinny ass four or five doughnuts over there and just do what I’m sure you’re best at—which is being a nice piece of dickwear.”

            These remarks set the table on a roar. Only Java refrains. Although Bleached Wheat cracks a smile, it’s not out of the amused derision being aimed at the woman. Apparently quite used to this sort of thing, she resumes her explanation as if Dockers had never spoken a word.

            “The name Wobblies refers back to a popular labor movement during the first half of the twentieth century, the ‘IWW’ or ‘International Workers of the World.’”

            “Ooo, unions,” mocks Dockers, still playing to the table. “I’m crapping my pants.”

            “As our ceo pointed out,” she finally acknowledges the megmayor’s existence, “I believe you have been when trying to deal with this co-op.” The taunt of you’ve been bitchslapped rises at Dockers’ expense. “And for good reason,” the woman adds loudly to shut up every Crat in the room. “Like all labor movements, the Wobblies advocated and actively agitated for collective bargaining and governmental supervision of production—two concepts that are anathema to Corpfeud. Their efforts were by no means inconsiderable. The Wobblies had to be crushed by brute force and the good fortune of a world war coming along, but labor unionism as a viable entity endured into the seventh decade of that century. And only then neoliberalism shrewdly marketed as bootstrapping did it in. The concept of hirelings being compensated suitably for their time spent in travail, as primitive as that idea might sound to us now, always can be packaged as an appealing one to the demotic mind.”

            “To the what?” In an attempt to recover his dignity, Dockers tries to poke fun at the woman’s inflated vocabulary. “The demented mind?” Few bite at the joke.

            “Presented well, the notion of a living wage has the potential to stir up trouble, and this series of pitches,” she gestures to where the holozone had appeared at the center of the table, “I must concede, is absolutely brilliant. Vintage Freire with Foucaultian underpinnings advocating for Reichian economic formation. Remarkable. I didn’t think anyone was working retro any more. There are even strong trace elements of Polanyi in these public service announcements, all delivered with the acidity of Harvey. This Uncle Wobbly figure we’re seeing is a deft invention of the EVe fabricateur.” She turns to Java sitting beside her. “That’s why Culture couldn’t locate him. He’s innovation. He incarnates an entire range of ideo-economic contentions from the past three or four centuries. Surplus wealth, pareto optimality, dialogical intersubjectivity, disciplinarity mechanics refutatio, power tectonics. It’s quite a mix.” She turns back to the table to find many pairs of mancrat eyes fixed quite warily upon her. “Left unchecked to spread,” she tells them, “I believe this slice and a resultant worker crusade will cause TexArc tangible inconvenience, perhaps even actual peril to municipal stability.” It suddenly occurs to her that she needs to downgrade her bottomline for the bizdumb. “That is to say, you could get your nuts caught in a wringer. Sitting on your hands is not an option.”

            Silent bizdumb follows this allocution.

            “All the more reason for Ground to fall and mop,” Fargo, in due course, declares.

            “Or send in Net directly,” Wells does him one better. “If this thing is really that dangerous, why fuck around?”

            “Gentlemen,” Bleached Wheat stops more debate, “meet my finesse.” With a sweeping gesture, he motions down the long table to the dykebitch at its opposite end who has just delivered the bad news. “This is Doctor Brand. She is the Chairman of Cultural Construct at the Yale School of Reconstruction.” Murmurs and curses now from around the table. “For all you yokels who’ve never set foot outside the wheatland, that’s one of TexArc’s finest TerdTechs, located in the extreme southern reaches of the Boston supermeg.”

            “Sir,” objects Fargo, “why the hell bring in a pedanterd, and from the northeast of all places? They have their heads shoved up their butts even worse than the paralibbies from the westcoast.”

            “That’s exactly why she’s here, Fargo. To fight fire with fire. There’s no one better trained in the Neoliberal Arts than Doctor Brand. Who better to take on this EVe signer?”

            “Sir,” it’s Wells’ turn to object, “TexArc doesn’t fight fire with fire. We don’t have to. We just kill whatever is in our way. That’s plan. That’s Pax TerArcana. For the love of God, just exterminate all the brutes.”

            These two have served him so, so well, thinks Bleached Wheat. What a pity that time marches on—for them. Ah, well.

            “I appreciate your loyalty to plan. Both of you. I really do.” Of course, Bleached Wheat does not. He hardly cares one way or another. “But this time, things are different. This time, I think it’s important to deviate from plan. To improvise. To show EVe that if they want to insert us and yank with our heads, we can yank with theirs right back.”

            Fargo takes the big plunge. The one Bleached Wheat has been hoping he would take.

            “Sir,” Fargo says, “that makes zero fucking sense, and you know it.”

            “What are you trying to say, Fargo?”

            Bleached Wheat wants Fargo to articulate his position to the group with crystal clarity.

            “You know damn well what I’m trying to say, sir. What you’re suggesting we should do in response to this threat is not only yanked...” it takes Fargo a moment to gather the nerve, “...it’s countercorp high treason.”

            The boardroom goes stone-cold stunned numb.

            Bleached Wheat pushes back casually from the conference table. With all eyes following him, he saunters to the breakfast buffet, plates a bearclaw and pours a large mug of latte, carries these items carefully with him back to his seat, settles in, samples both, and smacks his lips with intense satisfaction. Then he looks his number two subceo in the face. With genuine interest, he says, “That’s a very interesting point of view, Fargo. Tell me more about that.”

            Fargo is under no illusions. He’s well aware he’s tempting death. But he pushes on, a noticeable shake in his voice.

            “This Wobbly shit is corpheresy pure and simple, sir. To let it feed one second longer than it has to is insanity. We should have eradicated this threat the moment we became aware of it. And that’s exactly what we would have done—before now.”

            “I see.”

            With a loud crunch, Bleached Wheat takes a second bite of his bearclaw. He follows that with another loud slurp of his latte. He smacks his lips again, as though attempting to taste the very molecules of both treats, then asks, “Are there any other views on this matter from around the table?”

            No one would be so crazy—except of course Wells.

            “Fargo is absolutely right, sir. This Wobbly shit is worse than obamanation. And you know it.”

            Everyone at CorpHQ knows never to use the o-word in the vicinity of Bleached Wheat. Never. It drives the big bossman wild. As he raises the wide-mouthed latte mug up to his thin, bluish lips, those sitting close enough to Bleached Wheat witness the slight tremor of rage unsteadying his hands.  He’s back under control by the time he sets the mug gently back down on the table.

            “Well,” Bleached Wheat says with an unnatural calm to his voice, “this is interesting and valuable input from you both. I thank you for your honesty, Fargo and Wells. Most courageous. That couldn’t have been easy to say. I know I’m not the most, well, laidback boss of the world.” He chuckles in a way chilling to attentive listeners. “But for now, suffice it to say that I’m working on a slightly broader canvas than you two are—than anyone else really can be, at the moment. So I need a bit of latitude from you both as my—at the moment—top two subceos. Do you see what I’m saying?” Not asking. And the big bossman doesn’t care if they see what he’s saying or not. “So we’re going to run with my idea of counterpitching this EVe slice for a while. Just to see where that gets us. I’m confident that soon we’ll put a stop to this little Wobbly uprising and, in the process, get our hands on this EVe foray team.” Bleached Wheat leans back in his chair. “Doctor Brand will be the account planner for the project,” he tells the room as he leans even further back, locking his fingers behind his head and crossing his feet on top of the conference table. “In fact, I’ve asked her to prepare a brief presentation for all of you. So listen up.”

            Brand stands up immediately and decisively. She has the capacity to move with a strength and confidence belied by her gaunt frame. She begins to walk a slow circle around the conference table, forcing her audience continually to turn in order to track her.

            “Gentlemen,” she begins in the clear tone of a seasoned TerdTech conference presenter, “at Yale we specialize in the Simulacrum. That’s what Terds go there to learn. That’s what we teach them to master.”

            “To masturbate, more like it,” Dockers quips.

            “Mayor Dockers,” Brand stops and addresses him aggressively, as she might a student, “I’m well aware of the Crat disdain for hire education, but I can assure you, without TerdTechs, our corporation could not function.” By his offended gestures, Dockers makes sure to show his surprise and disdain at being addressed directly by this underling. “Crats may devise the bigpic,” she goes on undeterred, “but Terds turn that bigpic into go. We execute, as well as make plausible, the reality you invent. I suggest you listen carefully to what I have to say. After all, Mayor, it’s your meg and, if I may say so, your fat Crat ass that’s on the line in this particular situation.”

            No Crat in the room is prepared to hear a Terd talk like this to one of their own, even if the Crat is a jackass like Dockers. But Bleached Wheat doesn’t so much as twitch during Brand’s dressing down of the megmayor. In fact, once she’s through, the big bossman takes a long sip of his latte and lets out a most contented sigh. As though on cue, Brand resumes her circling. No one else interrupts her presentation.

            “The totality of the all4s—the ipatch, the ihear, and the iband combined—is what we refer to as the Simulacrum. Not the devices themselves, mind you, but rather the cultural experience we, through them, produce in persons embedded with these appliances. The Simulacrum, in other words, is that little vid-aud-sensory multiplex built directly into every Serv head that can play, twentyfourseven, whatever cinematic experience TexArc thinks is best for the sake of corp productivity. We construct a view of the world, gentlemen, and that’s a huge undertaking and responsibility.”

            Java sits nodding robustly at these words. Culture is considered soft, puss, the very bottom of the status ladder when it comes to subceo duties. He can see how Wells and Fargo already are tuning out the presentation. Then even Yupcap takes a shot at Culture.

            “Wait a minute. I don’t see the big woof here. Market Enterprise supplies the bread. Culture just supplies the games. Big deal.”

            “It’s one hell of a lot more than that, Yupcap,” Java shoots back, rethinking any alliance he imagined possible with his fellow junior subceo. “Culture is doublego tricky shit and all the time pure finesse. It’s like driving that par-23 out there on 57 when they have the crosswind turbines blasting. You smack the ball too hard, you never see it again. You smack it too soft, it blowbacks in your face.”

            “Finesse is what makes Culture shit,” opines Fargo dismissively. “All you need to do with yanking Serv brains is blow them out when they get out of line.”

            “With respect, subceo Fargo and subceo Yupcap,” Brand addresses them, “we’re talking much more than virsport, virporn, and Shopdrop here. We’re talking about exercising the overall effect of TexArc’s strategic positions, an effect made on our population not simply as an obligation or as a prohibition. The muscle of prohibition certainly is your mission in Security, subceo Fargo, and you do it extraordinarily well. Likewise, creating the obligation of economic necessity is your objective in Market Enterprise, subceo Yupcap, and you, too, carry out that job expertly. But in Culture, we have the subtle assignment of not forcibly imposing the tenets of Corpfeud on TexArcans, but, instead, of making them voluntarily embrace them, embody them, and then pass them along to their children as naturalized behaviors—even when the tenets of Corpfeud are not always in their best interests. We have to make bullshit taste like ice cream, gentlemen. The job of Culture, then, is nothing less than the formation of the individual subject. That’s never as simple or as straightforward a matter of control as you might like to think. So, you see, Culture is as fundamentally necessary to the security of TexArc as any other department of corp. Perhaps slightly more.”

            Fargo finishes off his cup of espresso. He remarks “Uppity dykebitch” to no one in particular. He roughly pushes back his chair to go pour himself another cup. The uppity dykebitch continues.

            “Whoever’s designing that EVe slice certainly grasps these concepts,” Brand points out. “I can assure you all of that. In fact, if you stop to think about it, having a boot on someone’s throat is actually a sign of a weak state, of one verging on collapse. Otherwise, why would such overt means of domination be necessary?” Brand implements the pointed academic pause, to let gravitas seep into inferior intellects. “In contrast, what subceo Java and I enact is the nuanced, shifting, ever-contended, ever-in-flux network of control that produces citizens who police themselves without their knowledge. That’s because all they have is our knowledge, the knowledge produced and sanctioned by CorpHQ and delivered by the technology of the Simulacrum.”

            A testy silence follows. This is precisely why mancrats find dykebitches so yanking annoying—their tendency to argue valid points. And then have the nerve to supply fucking convincing evidence to back them up. Shit.

            “The fancier the chancier,” Wells recites commonsense joe. “No one is liable to mistake the purpose of having a good old-fashioned boot on his throat.”

            “I grant your point, subceo Wells,” replies Brand, “but consider this. Mere physical dominance leaves both the mind and the spirit free to resist. The Simulacrum, on the other hand, captures those things first, so that the body readily follows. We should all realize that the only really productive body is the subjected body. The body we create.”

            “And a mister burst to the temple or a tacnuke to the downtown produces only dead bodies,” growls Fargo, sitting back down roughly with his refill. “And those never resist a damn thing.”

            “I grant that point as well, subceo Fargo,” nods Brand, “if the objective is only to eliminate. If the objective, however, is productivity, then the Simulacrum obtains a far better result than deadly force. Within the world of the all4s, plan and control are veiled as pleasure and profit. Corpfeud is experienced as a positive force in life, not as subjugation and tyranny that only threatens death. People, no matter how undereducated we keep them, are always liable to chafe at those things.”

            Brand scans the table for more objections. Hearing none, she moves to the main point of her presentation. The very reason that she’s been summoned to the Waco Great Pyramid.

            “After all, gentlemen, as I understand it, the goal here is to render EVe friendly to freemarket. Not to wipe it off the face of the planet. Is that not the case?”

            “Absolutely,” asserts Java.

            The rest in the conference room are all hesitation. With Bleached Wheat at the helm, sub- and subsubceos never quite have a firm grasp on the exact bigpic. At a moment’s notice, plan can take a 180 turn. Plan at CorpHQ is like quicksand. One wrong step and you’re a goner—sucked under forever and forgotten.

            “Um, yeah,” Yupcap decides to commit after some soul-searching moments. “I guess that’s true enough. Sure.”

            “That’s yanking news to me,” says Fargo gruffly.

            “Me yanking too,” agrees Wells.

            All eyes turn to Bleached Wheat at the head of the table. He just smiles absently and appreciates another frothy sip of latte.

            “Well, if so,” says Brand, “then we’ll need the Simulacrum to insinuate and to inculcate consumerism into EVe. Successfully counterpitching their slice could be the first step in that process. Who knows? Maybe we can find a way to inverse and ride their own slice back into EVeWave. That way, we could initiate a clandestine corpitch into their network, just as they’ve secretly pitched revoevo into ours. Cultural Construct works both ways, gentlemen.”

            Brand stops her circling. She anticipates such a monumental job of account planning—how she’d love to get her hands on that virgin audience of EVe ultralibbies. What a challenge it would be to break through a stream of Marksoc clutter! Now that would be a real job of Cultural Construct. That would earn her the recognition she deserves. She’s sick of fabricating an insipid stream of Corpfeud pabulum to babysit industrial zombies. She’s sick of doing the scut work for bizdumb Crats—shiftless morons who don’t know the difference between a signifier and a shotgun. She needs challenge. Contest. Significance.

            Brand comes out of her thoughts to find all mancrat eyes fixed on her—fixed on her standing abstracted, biting her thumbnail. Suddenly self-conscious, she shifts her slight weight from one elevated bootheel to the other. As she does, she notices how all those mancrat eyes, save for Java’s, are not on her, but watching instead the shifting of her narrow hips. No. To be more exact, all those piggy mancrat eyes, blank as small black buttons, are fixated on the shifting pout of her slender thong crotch. And that’s precisely why she dresses and accessorizes so extravagantly. For distraction—that and to rub their Crat noses in what their Crat cocks can’t have. Even for a dykebitch, Brand’s apparel and body art are aggressive, outrageous, incendiary. A wide Egyptian eye is tattooed on the inner curve of each upper thigh. A diamondback rattlesnake coils down her spinal column, ending with its spade-shaped head darting out a forked tongue to lick at the top of her ass cleavage. Two full-color ink-graph hands, one male and one female, grasp her neck in a chokehold. Along with these indelible markings, today she wears the newest craze in Terd mood makeup: Moment by Moment. It’s a bodychem foundation cream that renders a vivid color glow—a kind of sheen or aura—to the skin depending on the wearer’s humor. At the moment, Brand’s face is glistening a happy solar yellow. As a finishing touch, every morning she selects a different Skin Graffiti to disseminate a special message-for-the-day, inscribed between her navel and pubic region. Today’s thought: fuck you instead.

            “Doctor Brand,” invites Java, “would you please delineate, in a few words, the crux principles of the Simulacrum for us? Just so we’re all on the same page as we move forward with this project.”

            “Of course, subceo Java. I’d be happy to.”

            Brand returns to her seat. She runs through them quickly. Believing is seeing. Matter over mind. It does not watch you; you watch it. Visibility, thus, is no longer the trap. Visioning is. The mind’s eye. You panopt. You are not panopted. Gone is the need, therefore, for crude highmodern benthamian architectonics. No longer required are factories, schools, barracks, hospitals, prisons constructed in a certain all-seeing way. Instead, inculcatory functions now take place from the inside out. In the more sure-minded way of ensnaring subjects inside the glassy. This is how Corpfeud achieves its optimum illusion—its inevitable and providential certainty.

            “So tell us something, then, bony buns,” Dockers challenges Brand. He’s been waiting patiently for his opening. “If this Simu-whatchamacallit is so goddamn good at what it does, why in the hell is this yanking slice fucking with my Servs’ heads so bad? If this Culture doohickey of yours is so surefire, how is it that these stink-ass Parkers are managing to think for themselves all of a sudden?”

            Brand disappoints Dockers by not hesitating for one instant with her answer.

            “Because your local feed has been more than interrupted, Mr. Mayor. More than occasionally sliced with a random fanatical message or two. The fact is, your sports and porn feeds have been overrun entirely by this slice. Taken over.”

            “Wait a fucking minute. You’re telling me that their slice is now managing my cocks and balls? The whole thing?”

            “That’s right. It’s been gaining more and more of a foothold there for some time, streaming more and more of its own materials to your Servs. Then, as of this morning around 5 a.m. local BoiCity time, their slice annexed those two strands of your feed completely. So far, ArcNet Terds have been unable to make the reconnect. They can’t figure out how to break back in.”

            Dockers stares down the table open-mouthed at Brand. Then he clenches his jaw and glares accusingly across the table at Wells.

            “Is this fucking true?” he demands.

            “Yes,” confirms Wells, “I’m afraid she’s right.” Even Fargo applies a palm to his face at this newsbig. “But this is no ordinary yanking slice,” Wells defends his department. “It has principles and features that just can’t be explained. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

            “Nor have I,” adds Brand quickly, hoping to stake Wells as an ally. She doesn’t want to spend the entire project hassling with ArcNet as an adversary.

            “Well Jesus H. Yankmother Christ, fellas,” Dockers sputters. “This is a whole damn different ballgame then! Servs have never been off any part of the feed!”

            “It’s even worse than that, I’m afraid,” says Brand, happy to cause Dockers more trouble but not Wells more embarrassment. “As subceo Java reported to you just a while ago, we have good evidence showing that in the past week or so they’ve been able to feed some of their messages as all4s. That’s why they’ve been taking so effectively. They’re being received as an official corpcast. As plan.” She meets eyes around the table. “As subceo Java also noted, warned you, really, should their slice start feeding as a taste, well, that could be disastrous. As you’re well aware, gentlemen, a taste triggers a level of attentiveness and solemnity in Servs that’s been carefully cultivated into them. They can’t not pay attention to a taste. Without question, then, the trend is clear. The Wobbly message is feeding with increasing technological sophistication and, as a result, greater cultural power. This explains why we’re seeing such a marked change to Serv behavior in and around BoiCity recently.”

            All Dockers can muster is a quiet “Jesus...” while shaking his head. That sentiment overtakes the conference room for a moment. Fargo quickly gets the Crats back on track.

            “They can’t take over the entire Serv feed, can they?” he asks Wells.

            “No, of course not,” says Wells. “That’s way too complex even for this slicer. The cocks and balls are just two particularly exposed filaments they picked off. They won’t be able to slice any deeper into the system. Especially not now that we know what they’re up to.”

            “But remember,” cautions Brand, “that they’re already slicing into the cocks and balls of other meg networks throughout the IMS. They may yet be able to overrun those feeds entirely. They may even manage to stream all4s messages at those distant sites. Their slicer is that good.”

            Fargo pays no attention to her input. He speaks again to Wells. “And there’s no way for them to get into the Terd or Crat networks, either. Correct?”

            “Absolutely not,” confirms Wells. “There’s not many people in all of TexArc who know how to do that.”

            “Good,” says Fargo, leaning back and crossing his arms, “then all we have to do is wait the bastards out. If we’re going to be too squeamish to go in and kill these fuckers, then just let them wither and die where they are. It’s not like they’re going anywhere. We’ve got them bottled up virtually and geographically. So just let the yanks rot. That’s what Servs are designed to do in the first place.”

            Around the table, many heads nod in relief. Brand breaks in again.

            “While that sounds a comforting thought, subceo Fargo, I very much think you’re underestimating the potential of this Wobbly movement.” Brand pauses to clear her throat. A practiced academic device signaling that a polemical coup de grâce is on the way. “They have already proven themselves to be quite dangerous geographically. Just look at all the territory they’ve captured. Equally, they are proving themselves now to be increasingly dangerous virtually. Just look at how quickly their slice has embedded into ArcNet. If they manage to bring those two strengths together, well, we could be in for a rough ride.”

            At last, Fargo deigns to look down the table at this woman. He looks her up and down with repugnance.

            “I thought I made it perfectly clear, slit, that I don’t give a good shit what you think.”

            All eyes track to the head of the conference table. There, the big bossman is reaching calmly for his bearclaw. He seems not even to be listening. Dockers decides something’s up, something more than what seems apparent. He likes running his meg that way, too. Keep the fuckers guessing. It never hurts. So hell, why not play along here a bit?

            “Okay then, Doc. I’ll bite,” says the megmayor in a jovial manner. “So what the hell are we going to do about this shitstorm? You’ve been appointed the brains of the outfit. I don’t want these fuckers to be dicking around with my cocks and balls anymore. What can you do different that ArcNet can’t do?”

            “I’m going to slice the slice, Mr. Mayor,” Brand smiles. In fact, she smiles around the table at all of these managerial thugs. “Hit back in kind. Make their slice unhappen. Then I’m going to slice backward. Embed our messages into EVe. Carry this culture war to them.”

            Dockers can’t hide a scowl. He’s not the only one around the table.

            “Sounds like big talk. Just how the yank are you going to do all that?”

            “Don’t worry, Mr. Mayor. My staff and I will figure that out. At Yale, we work hands-on with the feed every day. Constructing the Simulacrum. Even deeper in than ArcNet. We’ll find a way. Believe me.”

            Dockers glances again at Bleached Wheat. The big bossman is humming to himself.

            “Okay, sweetpuss,” Dockers grins at the pedanterd, “so you figure out a clever-as-hell way to slice their slice and do all that other fancy-as-hell Terd stuff you just said. So yanking what? What the hell you going to slice into their slice that will make a bit of damn difference?”

            “I’m so very glad you’ve asked me that question, Mr. Mayor. Questions are perhaps the most important form of classroom participation.”

            Brand pads in four or five strokes on the console by her right hand. Her face has turned a deep conifer green, signaling her intense gratification. The ceiling lights dim. The holozone reappears. An ad plays.

            Sunrise over a prairie. Voiceover [deep, male, inspired]: “One DollArc, one vote.” Solemn solo horn music begins. Cut-scene to a small boy’s face, freckled, wonder-eyed, gazing upward. The boy speaks: “Golly, what’s that, Pa?” Expand scene to an adult hand resting on the boy’s shoulder, then to father and son standing together gazing upward. The father wears dirty overalls and scuffed workboots. A blue and red bandanna is knotted around his neck. He’s sweating and a bit breathless. He pushes back his cowboy hat and replies: “Why, Son, that there’s success, just waiting for you to grab hold and start pulling yourself up it.” Cut-scene to low-angle shot now behind the father and son. They’re standing on the prairie. The father’s other hand is resting on the handle of a plow. To their right, the red ball of sun is just above the low dark hills on the distant horizon. Directly in front of them, stretching up into the sky, mysteriously luminous, is a golden ladder. Boy speaks: “Who put it there, Pa?” Father replies: “The Invisible Hand, Son.” Boy speaks: “Whose hand is that, Pa?” Father replies: “Don’t rightly know, Son. Some folks say God’s. Some folks say Freemarket’s.” Boy speaks: “What do you say, Pa?” Father thinks it over a moment, then replies: “For my money, Son,” he looks down at the boy, who returns upward his gaze, “I say both.” Solo horn soars. Cut-scene to wide-angle shot pulling rapidly back and up from the father and son. As the two figures grow smaller and smaller in the expanding landscape, and as we see the mule hitched to the plow and the squat homestead nearby with a lone spiral of smoke curling out its crooked stone chimney, the miraculous ladder just keeps rising and rising, higher and higher, into the early morning sky. The reverent voiceover returns: “Backward and Upward. Climbing right where you are.”

            The holozone goes black. There are long moments of stillness. Then staccato applause begins to vibrate the room. Java and his subsubceos. Yupcap and his crew join in. Brand’s face turns an even deeper, more gratified midnight blue.

            “Now that’s what I’m talking about!” Java fist-pounds his chest.

            “Dude!” raves Yupcap. “It’s doublechoice to see Market get real facetime for a change! Yeah!” His Market boys are high-fiving all around. “All we ever see these days is the same old terrorstrike shit 24/7/365! This freemarket truthiness is going to kick those EVe libbies square in their gayboy nuggets!”

            Fargo and Wells and their staffers just sit. As one, they turn their heads toward the big bossman, waiting to know what will be what. Bleached Wheat sits motionless, holding the huge mug up to his lips, peering over its lip, inspecting them all. Fargo finally just says:

            “Well?”

            “Gentlemen,” Bleached Wheat orders, “we’re doublego with Culture’s plan. We’ll counterpitch this slice. Java will oversee the operation from here in CorpHQ. There’s no call for massive deadcount.”

            “We’ll see about that,” grouses Fargo, muttering quite loudly enough to be heard around the table.

            Bleached Wheat’s reaction is swift and excessive. Unnerving. In a blur he’s on his feet and has hurled the latte mug with such drive that its thick ceramic shards into powder against the opposite wall. After delivering that tremendous jolt to the room, he speaks in a perfectly unruffled tone.

            “By God, we will see, Fargo.”

            The big bossman points to Java, who depresses a single pad on his control panel. The TexArc corpanthem, “Privatization, Deregulation, Globalization,” begins to play agreeably in the background. Above it, Bleached Wheat orates.

            “Gentlemen, never forget that the genius of Corpfeud—its sheer, fucking, transcendental magic—is the ability to make people grateful for shit shoved down their throats. If we lose sight of this simple fact, gentlemen, we lose sight of everything.” He leans forward—far forward—to plant two iron fists on top of the rock-hard table. “Selfoblige, gentlemen!” he raises his voice for this one special word. “Desperate selfoblige! The delusion of being a free agent making rational decisions within the freemarket. If that belief goes, gentlemen, we go. TexArc goes.”

            The anthem seems timed to swell at this moment. Bleached Wheat directs a reproachful finger at Dockers and curls his upper lip into a sneer.

            “You. Megmayor of that shithole you call BoiCity. If you’re even capable of hearing anything besides your own imbecilic voice, you better fucking listen up now.” Dockers certainly knows when to snap the fuck to attention. “Doctor Brand and her account planners will conduct their vital corpwork out of your Pyramid, Mr. Mayor. Got that, you insufferable dick-for-brains? Anything they want. Anything they need. Is that fucking clear enough for you?” Dockers opens his mouth. He’s cut off instantly. “Shut the fuck up! All I want to hear about you, Mr. Mayor, is that you haven’t screwed the pooch—again. You got me?”

            Crew selection for his ship of fools. It’s among the few activities Bleached Wheat still enjoys.

End of Chapter 1

Coming in two weeks: Chapter 2 of /Signified

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