Machine Of Death Part 21

She looked at him. He knows now, doesn't he? He knows. He knows that I know. He knows now, doesn't he? He knows. He knows that I know. "Grandpa, how old are you?" "Grandpa, how old are you?"

He seemed to come back into focus. His voice was stronger, less an old man's: "Older than I care to remember. I don't count the years anymore. No one does, after a while. You're just grateful you saw another one."

"I always knew you were older than Grandpa James. I always thought you were my great-grandpa. I thought everyone had just got into the habit of calling you Grandpa, that you became everyone's Grandpa. But he said that he'd been calling you Grandpa even when he grew up."

"The years pa.s.s by, Christine. One by one. One day at a time. You get up in the morning, you stay awake, the sun sets. I don't count them."

She rose, abruptly. "I still do." She turned, opened the door into the cottage. He sat still on the bench as she went in.

The smell was the same, after all those years. A hint of coal, a hint of food cooked slowly and lovingly, a hint of damp that wouldn't go away even in a heatwave in summer. And a lot of old paper. Old books, old letters in a desk, old newspapers in a pile by the fireplace. She had lain awake at night, when they had come visiting, and felt the smell. It felt like they did it all summer, every summer, but when she looked it up and did the sums, it couldn't have been more than five or six summers, and probably only two weeks, possibly three. But that is the way childhoods are constructed, long afterward: you remember scattered parts, some chosen at random, some that affected you deeply, and you string them together and say "this was me growing up." Your parents say something else, your grandparents something different still, but you stay by the story you've told yourself.

She looked around, in a way she never had before. There had to be some clue in here. He had been born across the sea, only returning to Ireland and what he called "the land of my ancestors" as he was becoming an old widower. Surely, there was some sort of paper, some record of it.

It didn't take long. There was only one desk, only a few drawers, and she ignored those holding mementoes and the various odds and ends. But at the back of one drawer, with some plastic cards-probably long defunct-and various receipts, she found what she was looking for. A pa.s.sport, an old-fas.h.i.+oned pa.s.sport, possibly undisturbed since he had first settled in this house. With a birth date.

He was puffing on his pipe, peering through the smoke at her when she came out again. It floated near his face for a moment, protected from the constant wind by the walls of the house, until it gently drifted into the wind and was torn apart, dispersed faster than the eye could follow.

She sat down again, and picked up the small lump that had been weighing down her right jacket pocket on her way up the hill.

He nodded knowingly. "That's one of the latest models, isn't it? A Predictor."

She put her head to one side, looked at him thoughtfully. "You've seen them? This is the new pocket-size."

"No. Well, in the papers. The man from the village usually brings me an old newspaper or two with the groceries. But you didn't have to bring it, you know. You're family. I'd tell you if you asked."

A moment of silence stretched out. Finally, she said the words that were so rarely said, even among family: "What does yours say?"

He puffed on his pipe again, took it out of his mouth, picked up a burnt-out match from the bench beside him, and poked carefully at the glow. "You know, I had it figured out as soon as I saw the slip. Both what it really meant, and that I had to go."

"Why? Grandpa, what does your slip say?"

"Why, nothing. It was empty. I never showed it to anyone, of course. There would be no end of trouble, wouldn't there? But I figured that if I went here, back to what my parents always called the Old Country, and settled somewhere I wouldn't be noticed, everyone would just think it said 'Car Accident' or some similar. No cars here, see?" He gestured with the pipe, indicating the entire hillside. "This place had stayed the same for many years. It has stayed the same since I came. Nothing much changes."

"What sort of trouble?" She knew it well enough-she had had all the time the trip took to work it out-but she really wanted to hear the full story.

"The manufacturers and operators would go mad about it, of course. They'd drag me to court, or something. Then there would be all sorts of religions wanting to have a look at me. Some of them would probably try to burn me at a stake, or say I was an abomination or a heresy. Others might make me their Saviour. Some would try to lay their hands on me, lock me up, and pretend I was never here. Of course, I reckon the Jehovah's Witnesses would be the worst. They'd say I was the first of their one hundred and forty-four thousand, and I'd never see the back of them." He chuckled slowly. "I think I actually moved too far away even for them. I certainly haven't seen one since I came here." A puff at his pipe. "But I had it all worked out. You know, the slips are accurate, they're just not always truthful."

She nodded. Sometimes it was in the news, but more often it wasn't. Some of the stories she had heard were urban legends, naturally, but a sizeable proportion of them were true, as far as anyone could check them.

"So, what does a blank slip mean? Nothing, of course. I'll die of nothing. And there's one kind of nothing that's all over the place. Literally." He looked at her, with a twinkle in the eye as if to see whether she was with him. "Vacuum." Again the waving with the pipe, but this time toward the sky. "Most of the universe is nothing. So they tell me, not that I'm an educated man, but I've read it enough times to believe that they know what they're talking about. So if I ever went out in a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p, I'd be darned if it didn't spring a leak, and the vacuum would kill me. And that's where the real trouble comes in, of course."

"How?" She suspected she knew where this was going, but she wasn't going to trust herself to guess his next leap.

"The scientists. They'd be next in line after the priests and prophets. And they'd run all their tests on me, and one day the brightest of them would come up with the idea that if they put me in a test tube and removed the air, that'd be the 'nothing' that'd kill me. And when it did, they'd just say, "QED," clean out the test tube, and go to collect their n.o.bel Prize. So I just figured I'd stay here, at the back of everything. It'll come after me one day, not that I'm in a particular hurry, but I've lived for a long time now and even if I don't want to go, I did better than I'd hoped for." He smiled, puffed again at his pipe.

She sighed. "Grandpa, I found your pa.s.sport. You're a hundred and seventy years old."

He seemed to shrink, as if he felt the weight of all those years. He chewed the pipe, took it out of his mouth, and looked at it thoughtfully. "That many, is it. Well, that's a lot." He paused for a moment. "I've buried my children and my grandchildren. And your Grandpa James was the last of their children. All gone now. All gone."

"But you kept in touch with us. Why, Grandpa? You knew someone would figure it out one day. The world would come back. There are still prophets and scientists."

He looked up at her. His eyes were watery, as if they were about to burst with tears. "You get lonely, Christine. You get so very lonely. All your friends are gone. And then your wife and sisters and cousins and uncles. And then, one day, everyone in your generation. One day, you're the only one alive to remember the days when you were a child. All the things you used to say and do, and all the places you used to go. And then the only one to remember the days when you had become an adult. What the politicians were like, what the news was about, the foods and smells and worries and music and all the small things that tell you that this is now now, the time you moved with when you were young, the jargon and idols and the excitement of what has become ancient history. You're a refugee in time, living on after your world has turned to dust. And the family, Christine, your own descendants, are the only link you have with everything you've lost. They are the only way you have of still being attached to the world."

She found her eyes starting to water, as in response to his. Her hand moved toward the Predictor, as it lay on the bench.

"I don't think we have to do that," he said slowly. "If you say it's a hundred and seventy, I say you're right. I might have missed a dozen, but that would really make no difference. And I'd really not like the world to come stampeding here to look at me, if it's all the same to you. Not at my time of life."

Christine shook her head. A strand of hair was caught by the wind, and settled across her face. "I believe you, Grandpa. I figured it out, more or less." She kept her eyes fixed on him, while her index finger found the hole in the Predictor. "I brought this here to show you." A click, a quick sting in her finger, and a whirr as the Predictor ejected the small slip of paper. "I thought you wouldn't believe me if you didn't see this." Still without letting her eyes leave his, she picked up the slip and gave it to him. The slip that-just like last time, just like always-had no text on it.

He looked at it. He looked at her. After a moment, the tears started to roll down his face. And slowly, and still silent, he turned and looked out over the landscape.

She sighed, and relaxed. And as he had done, she turned and looked out over the landscape, illuminated and painted in red and gold by the setting sun.

Story by Pelotard Ill.u.s.tration by John Allison

COCAINE AND PAINKILLERS.

AT NINE O'CLOCK ON A TUESDAY MORNING, THE PARKING LOT IN FRONT OF JACK BOGG ENTERPRISES WAS SOMEHOW ALREADY FULL. Kelly didn't know quite what to do. It had never happened before, not once in the year she'd been working for JBE. Especially troubling was that her favorite spot-right by the planter, the only spot in the office park guaranteed to be in the shade at six P.M.-was taken by some cruddy old Volvo. But three circuits of the lot only served to make her late, so she sighed, pulled around to the other side of the long metal building, and reluctantly parked by the O-ring wholesaler. She doubted she'd be leaving work before sunset anyway, if the last six weeks were any indication.

A wave of heat rolled over her as she pushed open the driver's door. Today was a summer scorcher, and knowing Big-Spender Jack, he'd have an oscillating fan going in his office while everyone else broiled like breakfast sausage. She checked her makeup in the mirror, grabbed her computer bag, gathered her courage, and went for it.

After three minutes crossing asphalt that threatened to melt her from the shoes up, Kelly pushed through the door with the white vinyl letters and gasped. It was cold cold in here-against all odds, Jack was actually running the air conditioning. A breeze from the vent ruffled her hair, and she blew a loose strand away from her face. She didn't even know the office in here-against all odds, Jack was actually running the air conditioning. A breeze from the vent ruffled her hair, and she blew a loose strand away from her face. She didn't even know the office had had air conditioning. air conditioning.

The next thing that struck her was the noise noise. Ringing phones, voices chattering-she glanced over at the phone bank as she walked to her cubicle, and was surprised to find two extra folding tables crammed into the corner of the room, manned by a dozen unfamiliar faces haltingly reading from scripts and tapping into computers that hadn't been there when she'd left at two o'clock Sat.u.r.day morning. Something was going on-something big.

"Great news!" Jack grabbed her from behind, sweeping her up in a powerful hug. His sweaty bulk pressed into her, his round face over her shoulder glowing red with the exertion of walking around the corner. Kelly gently extricated herself and slipped into her best professional good-morning face, turning to face him-but he was five feet away now, pacing in a tight circle, his eyes darting like b.u.mblebees, flitting around and then landing on Kelly for long, uncomfortable seconds. "Fat-It-Out is huge. Huge, Huge, so huge I can't even so huge I can't even tell tell you! You did great, babe, you! You did great, babe, great. great. Look at this place!" Look at this place!"

His sweeping gesture included the new bank of computers, the chattering kids, the cold wind blasting musty odors through long-dormant ductwork, even the too-bright fluorescent lights that were making Kelly's head hurt already. She'd slept through most of the weekend plus Monday trying to recover recover from this place. It was clear her body didn't want to be back. from this place. It was clear her body didn't want to be back.

Jack grabbed her wrist and headed off down the hallway, Kelly stumbling to keep her balance. "Whole new phone-response staff," he explained. "Orders are through the roof. We made back our airtime costs in 80% of markets within six hours six hours of broadcast. It's a whole new era for JBE, and it's all thanks to Fat-It-Out."Her computer bag slipped from her shoulder as Jack pulled her into his office. She snagged the strap with an inch to spare. of broadcast. It's a whole new era for JBE, and it's all thanks to Fat-It-Out."Her computer bag slipped from her shoulder as Jack pulled her into his office. She snagged the strap with an inch to spare.

Fat-It-Out was Jack Bogg Enterprises' latest premium offering to the direct-response television market. The product (essentially a skillet with a spit-valve) was fighting fiercely for attention in a crowded field of similar junky c.r.a.p that seemed to exist solely so that third-tier cable channels wouldn't go completely off air when everyone stopped watching at one in the morning. And apparently, it was winning that fight-for the moment at least.

Jack sifted through papers on his desk, pulling one from a pile and shoving it at Kelly. "Look at these numbers!" She couldn't make heads or tails of it, but got the gist when he grabbed her shoulders and shook her like she was in an earthquake. "This is record-setting, Kel. Record-setting! Record-setting! Ron Popeil never saw numbers like this. George Foreman would s.h.i.+t a Ron Popeil never saw numbers like this. George Foreman would s.h.i.+t a brick brick if he saw numbers like this!" if he saw numbers like this!"

"Sounds pretty good," she managed through the quaking, turning away from Jack to grab his file cabinet for balance. She held fast to the squarish metal, wary of aftershocks.

"Pretty good?" He grabbed his chest and sank into his creaky leather chair, sweating through his s.h.i.+rt. He looked like he was going to have a heart attack right there on the spot. "Kel, you're killing me with 'pretty good.'This is the sort of response that you normally have to He grabbed his chest and sank into his creaky leather chair, sweating through his s.h.i.+rt. He looked like he was going to have a heart attack right there on the spot. "Kel, you're killing me with 'pretty good.'This is the sort of response that you normally have to hone hone over time. You have to run focus groups and market research. You have to ma.s.sage price points and premiums and giveaways in market after market, trying to find that perfect balance-you remember Ab-Mazing?We couldn't over time. You have to run focus groups and market research. You have to ma.s.sage price points and premiums and giveaways in market after market, trying to find that perfect balance-you remember Ab-Mazing?We couldn't give give that piece of c.r.a.p away." He shook his head with a rueful sigh. "I can't explain it, Kel. To do this right, it's like landing a jumbo jet. It doesn't just that piece of c.r.a.p away." He shook his head with a rueful sigh. "I can't explain it, Kel. To do this right, it's like landing a jumbo jet. It doesn't just happen happen. But somehow you did did it. it. People People want want this thing-it's selling this thing-it's selling everywhere everywhere now. Sunday morning I had to call China in a panic. Lucked out-those guys work seven days. Not like now. Sunday morning I had to call China in a panic. Lucked out-those guys work seven days. Not like this this country. Those guys don't go to church. country. Those guys don't go to church. I'm I'm their church. The American businessman." their church. The American businessman."

She stood there, not quite sure how to react, afraid that maybe he'd jump out of his chair and grab her again-it was the sort of thing he did all the time. Jack Bogg was a tactile individual, always placing a hand on her shoulder, or tapping her on the head when he walked by her cubicle, or doling out high-fives at random times, then claiming she'd been "way too off-center" and insisting on doing it over and over until they'd achieved the perfect synergistic clap.

But he was her boss, and he paid her well, and he'd apparently done a great job mentoring her for her first campaign to be such a super slam-dunk. The least she could do was be professional.

She used to wonder if Jack misrepresented her polite friendliness as flirtation. She had long ago stopped wondering. He was hard-core in love with her, she was pretty sure.

"So what happens now?" she asked.

"What happens? We rake in the dough dough, is what happens," he said, kicking a stack of papers off his desk to make room for his feet. Kelly stared at the worn soles of his shoes and wondered if perhaps she should have taken today off, as well.

"But seriously," Jack said, suddenly swinging his feet back down to the floor and a.s.suming a Serious Tone, "you did a really great job on the Fat-It-Out campaign. I know I gave you a bit of a hard time along the way, your first big DRTV campaign and all. But in the end, I bit my tongue and trusted you, and you broke out of the box with some great new ideas. You deserve every bit of this success."

"Th-thank you," Kelly said, feeling momentarily bad for cursing his name every waking moment for the last six weeks straight.

"With that settled," he said, breaking into a huge, sweaty grin-"now we put that patented Kelly Craig brain to work on the next big JBE blockbuster!"

From beneath his desk he produced a cardboard box plastered with customs forms and s.h.i.+pping labels. Flicking Styrofoam dust from his fingers, he handed Kelly a red plastic device about the size of a shoe box, covered with smudgy fingerprints and basking in a distinctive Tupperware smell. "I got this on a hot tip from one of my sources overseas," he said. "He's thinking big, big, talking about a pan-Asia launch next month, and he talking about a pan-Asia launch next month, and he was was gonna pa.s.s up North America completely, got no distributors out here. Then he heard about Fat-It-Out, and gonna pa.s.s up North America completely, got no distributors out here. Then he heard about Fat-It-Out, and I I get an email asking if we could match that day-and-date domestically. I said 'of course,' had him send me a demo unit right away."He shrugged. "It's a tall order-but it's a big opportunity. We're going to the next level. And I know you can knock it dead." get an email asking if we could match that day-and-date domestically. I said 'of course,' had him send me a demo unit right away."He shrugged. "It's a tall order-but it's a big opportunity. We're going to the next level. And I know you can knock it dead."

The red device had no name, no branding, no cheap, colorful decal. An unplugged cord trailed out of the rear; a power switch was the only b.u.t.ton. She turned it over in her hands. On the front, a darkened LED was inset next to a hole about the size and apparent depth of a lipstick. Beneath them both was a thin slit edged with tiny plastic teeth.

She frowned. "What is is it?" it?"

"I'll admit, the details are sketchy," Jack said. "English is not my guy's main language, maybe not even in his top five. But here's what I've got so far."He gestured for her to come around to his side of the desk. He could have turned his computer monitor around, but she knew that he wanted her near him, hovering at his side, maybe brus.h.i.+ng his shoulder. She held her collar closed as she leaned over.

From his email he opened a photo of a big metal machine-wheeled base, dials, and gauges galore. It looked like a drill press, or something from a metalworking shop. "This "This is basically is basically that," that," Jack said, pointing to the red device in Kelly's hands. "Some brainiacs made this big monster for the medical market, tried to sell it at trade shows for a hundred grand a unit. It's some kinda blood a.n.a.lysis thing, checks your sugar, your cholesterol, all these diseases, all this battery of tests. It's got a computer chip, it gives you instant results for everything. No more waiting for lab results." He shrugged, flicking a sideways glance to Kelly's s.h.i.+rt, then up to her face. "They built the prototype, but couldn't find the cash to go to market." Jack said, pointing to the red device in Kelly's hands. "Some brainiacs made this big monster for the medical market, tried to sell it at trade shows for a hundred grand a unit. It's some kinda blood a.n.a.lysis thing, checks your sugar, your cholesterol, all these diseases, all this battery of tests. It's got a computer chip, it gives you instant results for everything. No more waiting for lab results." He shrugged, flicking a sideways glance to Kelly's s.h.i.+rt, then up to her face. "They built the prototype, but couldn't find the cash to go to market."

Kelly walked back around the desk. "No kidding, it's huge. That would take a ton of capital."

"Then the guy died," Jack said. "Lead guy, scientist guy up and died-plane crash, boom. So our client, this investor friend of mine, bought out one of the patents."

"This plastic piece of junk can't be the same as that whole big thing," Kelly said. "n.o.body'll believe that, no matter how fancy your graphics."

"No, no, let me finish. Now as I understand it, the big thing is mostly one-stop-shopping for tests already available separately-you can get a blood sugar thing at the drugstore, you can get cholesterol at the, whatever, at the doctor's office I guess. But the patent my guy bought was specifically for something called a 'C-18 algorithm,' some little circuit board in the middle-some new discovery. So he says, anyway. Who knows. My guy puts that piece in a red box, and voila." voila."He p.r.o.nounced it voyla voyla. "He thinks it's gonna go big-he's got half a million units on the a.s.sembly line already. Chinese versions, English versions, j.a.panese, Spanish, all of 'em."

Kelly put the red device back on Jack's desk. "So what's the pitch? What does it do do?Sing, dance, change the baby?" She fished in her computer bag for her notebook, and jotted down proprietary C-18 algorithm. proprietary C-18 algorithm.

Jack shrugged. "That's just the thing, I'm not totally sure-like I said, my guy's got trouble with the language. As far as I can figure out, it's a drug tester, prints out a little slip of paper says 'pot' or whatever. It really is a good business-to-business angle, there's a lot you can do with it."

She made rapid notes. "It's literally a blood test?Or do you pee in that little hole-'cause I don't have to tell you, unless it comes with a funnel, to half the audience that's a real tough sell."

A second later she regretted putting the image in his mind. He seemed to take a full five seconds to collect himself, before heaving a deep breath, blinking a few times, and picking up the device. "You stick your finger in here, there's a little needle inside takes a blood sample, and it prints in like ten seconds."His hands were quaking, and the device rattled. "With the previous version, the big clunky one, they tried to go the whole health-care route-I'll forward this email to you. They had some Chicago ad agency involved, whole direct-to-trade promo campaign with a bunch of cheeseball doctors in lab coats yapping away about this and that, blah blah blah. Soft-sell c.r.a.pola." Jack was fond of pointing out the differences between traditional, more restrained methods of marketing and intensive half-hour blocks of full-volume paid programming. His method sold more products over the phone, for one.

"Doctors see right through a staged testimonial," Kelly said. "Point of pride when they do."

Jack nodded. "Screw 'em. Our folks are the working folks, just givin' 'em a break from all that Hollywood, Madison Avenue B.S. No one with a medical degree is buying Fat-It-Out, you know? You know?" He laughed. "Oh, speaking of Fat-It-Out, I got some choice letters from doctors. It's starting already. Here, let me read you this-"

"That's okay," she said quickly. If people were complaining about Fat-It-Out, she didn't want to hear about it. It would make killing herself for months on that campaign even harder to justify.

"You sure? It's hilarious! They take it so seriously!But hey..." He knocked on the drug-tester's red plastic sh.e.l.l. "At least this is pretty straightforward: finger in, paper out. Idiot-proof!You can use that if you want. What do you think-is 'idiot' too harsh? They got those Dummies Dummies books." books."

"I'll come up with a few concepts," she said. "I'll have scripts for you this week."

He waved the offer away with a thick hand. "Run with it," he said. "I trust you. You can take this, yeah?'Cause I got skillets to s.h.i.+p."

Kelly shrugged. "Whatever you need."

"You're the star of the show now, babe."

She named it the p.r.o.ntoTester, and within a few days she'd filled an outline with glowing ad-copy hyperbole. The infomercial would have to be pretty elaborate if they wanted to hit Jack's sales expectations. In addition to the usual staged presentation, they'd have to shoot some testimonials-meaning they'd have to get some people to actually use use the product. That meant orchestrating trial events, recruiting partic.i.p.ants, working through the whole process of weeding out non-photogenic faces and people who couldn't string a sentence together on camera. They'd have to get trial units s.h.i.+pped in from China, plus because of the needles they'd have to get a whole health-and-safety inspection-Kelly felt her fingertips begin to shake. This was going to be a big job. And Jack wanted it to air the product. That meant orchestrating trial events, recruiting partic.i.p.ants, working through the whole process of weeding out non-photogenic faces and people who couldn't string a sentence together on camera. They'd have to get trial units s.h.i.+pped in from China, plus because of the needles they'd have to get a whole health-and-safety inspection-Kelly felt her fingertips begin to shake. This was going to be a big job. And Jack wanted it to air when? when? Within a Within a month? month?

"C'mon, superstar," she muttered to herself. "That's non-superstar thinking. Get to work!"

She tapped at her laptop, writing snippets of dialogue for the presenters and then erasing them, letting her fingers bounce on the keys, whittling key selling words out of phrases and concepts. "Patented detection-control mechanism.""The proprietary C-18 algorithm delivers instant results." "One poke finds one toke."She deleted the last one immediately. It wasn't all all gold. gold.

The next thing to do, she decided, was to test it out. She called in Julio, the company's A/V guy-editor, cameraman, and all-around technical whiz. They probably wouldn't use any footage of the initial test in the infomercial, but she'd learned to shoot everything, just in case. Besides, she'd spent hours upon hours in the editing bay with Julio working on Fat-It-Out, and enjoyed his companions.h.i.+p-he was the anti-Jack, low-key and calm, and didn't take the job too seriously. After all, it wasn't just in case. Besides, she'd spent hours upon hours in the editing bay with Julio working on Fat-It-Out, and enjoyed his companions.h.i.+p-he was the anti-Jack, low-key and calm, and didn't take the job too seriously. After all, it wasn't his his money on the line. money on the line.

She had the college kids take short breaks from manning the phones to sign waivers and get their fingers p.r.i.c.ked on JBE's standing set. She was expecting the test to unearth a few potheads, maybe one kid on something harder-she'd had to repeatedly promise that the test results wouldn't affect their jobs. Besides, they'd reshoot everything later, with auditioned partic.i.p.ants and makeup and applause and everything-for now she just wanted to make sure the thing worked. worked.

It didn't.

It p.r.i.c.ked fingers, and spat out pieces of paper, but none of it made any sense. Most of the test results weren't drug-related at all, and the few that were-ALCOHOL and MORPHINE-were lacking the level of detail she expected a drug-tester to provide. In the rest of the cases, the thing spat out arbitrary dictionary words like IMPALE and XYLOPHONE and LAOS and HEMATOMA, and she knew for a fact that the XYLOPHONE kid had been high as a kite the whole time.Was it a translation issue? Bugs in the software? Some function she didn't understand? Or was this unit just broken?

The p.r.o.ntoTester's failure wasn't a huge deterrent to Kelly-after all, Fat-It-Out didn't work that well either-but it was an inconvenience. It meant they would have to fabricate test results for the sake of the infomercial, thus walking that fine line between "dramatization" and "false advertising."Kelly knew that walking the line was part of their business, but she still couldn't totally silence the voice that told her she spent every day suckering innocent idiots out of their hard-earned disability money. Most days, though, her work ethic drowned out that voice with shouts of "DO YOUR JOB."

Julio had no such moral qualms. He'd clocked a lot of overtime hours by simply doing his own job well, disconnecting his higher brain and working the editing computer like a maestro at a piano. "Sure, I have questions about my job," he'd once told Kelly. "Like what should I spend my paycheck on this week? New TV or new stereo?"

If the thing even worked poorly, poorly, she'd have had no problem. An instant drug-tester would be an immediate and huge seller-every business in the country would want one, if it really were cheap, easy, and even half as accurate as her infomercial might suggest it was. But the p.r.o.ntoTester didn't seem to work at she'd have had no problem. An instant drug-tester would be an immediate and huge seller-every business in the country would want one, if it really were cheap, easy, and even half as accurate as her infomercial might suggest it was. But the p.r.o.ntoTester didn't seem to work at all. all.

She'd even, with some reluctance, administered the test to herself and to Julio-but the results, STROKE and OVERTIME respectively, only confirmed her belief that the stupid thing was nothing but a random-word generator.

"But that can't can't be it," she complained to Julio. So they racked up four hours of time-and-a-half, getting tipsy and giggling on Jack's dime, coming up with increasingly-silly explanations for what the device actually be it," she complained to Julio. So they racked up four hours of time-and-a-half, getting tipsy and giggling on Jack's dime, coming up with increasingly-silly explanations for what the device actually did. did. She started with "psychic label-maker," to which Julio suggested "m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.tic Scrabble dictionary," which didn't make a ton of sense but by then it was eleven o'clock and they were buzzed. Kelly came back with "circ.u.mstances of one's conception," and Julio countered with the equally-ridiculous "circ.u.mstances of one's demise," with a rueful glance at both the clock and his eerie result slip. She started with "psychic label-maker," to which Julio suggested "m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.tic Scrabble dictionary," which didn't make a ton of sense but by then it was eleven o'clock and they were buzzed. Kelly came back with "circ.u.mstances of one's conception," and Julio countered with the equally-ridiculous "circ.u.mstances of one's demise," with a rueful glance at both the clock and his eerie result slip.

Kelly laughed (slowly, given the hour), closed her laptop, gathered her coat, and went home. Even by the awful standards of the late-night-consumer-products industry, the very same folks that had gleefully sold the public on Hair-B-Gone and Gyno-Paste and the m.u.f.finMagic X-Treme, she had to admit that the p.r.o.ntoTester was a big red plastic stinky t.u.r.d of a product.

As a function of the type of neighborhood that Jack Bogg Enterprises was located in, there was a Wal-Mart right across the street. Kelly felt guilty in principle for shopping at Wal-Mart, for some vague liberal reason-but there was literally nothing else but office parks for miles, and it just so happened that the megastore stocked a brand of yogurt she'd been unable to find anywhere else.So when the college kids' sales chatter down the hall became too much to ignore, she closed her laptop, grabbed her sungla.s.ses, and headed across the street.

She tried not to look around the store as she marched toward the dairy case, conveniently located on the back wall past just about everything else imaginable. She averted her eyes from $4.99 DVDs and 3-for-$8 T-s.h.i.+rts. She was mostly successful at avoiding glances into the overflowing carts of people with poor impulse control, and felt guilty for the smug sense of superiority that crept in to reward the effort.

Halfway between Home Electronics and Furniture, she rounded a corner and was blindsided by Housewares. Brightly-colored boxes of the Fat-It-Out Advanced Nutritional System crowded an entire endcap. She'd only just just pushed that ridiculous-looking skillet-with-a-spit-valve image out of her mind but pushed that ridiculous-looking skillet-with-a-spit-valve image out of her mind but here it was again, here it was again, the packaging blasting Healthful Advantages at her in 100-point yellow type. She whirled away and hid by the food-storage bins to catch her breath. She felt chased by a monster. the packaging blasting Healthful Advantages at her in 100-point yellow type. She whirled away and hid by the food-storage bins to catch her breath. She felt chased by a monster.

She'd tried hard, really really hard, to do a good job producing her first big campaign for JBE. And Fat-It-Out had repaid her by taking over every waking hour of her life. hard, to do a good job producing her first big campaign for JBE. And Fat-It-Out had repaid her by taking over every waking hour of her life.

Six months ago, when she was burning out working for Jack as an a.s.sociate producer, she'd tried taking her portfolio to Rockefeller+King, the big ad agency-the one with the athletic shoe account and the soda account and the three competing insurance accounts. But they'd laughed her out of the office, and told her to take her weight-loss cream and her hair-removal spray and her leather-repair paste with her. (Well, they hadn't said that exactly, exactly, but she'd gotten a distinct vibe of contempt from their trendy gla.s.ses and carefully tousled haircuts-and they hadn't called back, so what did it matter what they'd actually said?) but she'd gotten a distinct vibe of contempt from their trendy gla.s.ses and carefully tousled haircuts-and they hadn't called back, so what did it matter what they'd actually said?) And then Fat-It-Out had come along, and Jack had handed her the reins, and she'd buckled down and tried her best to do a good job-the only thing she knew how how to do-and she'd knocked the ball out of the park. to do-and she'd knocked the ball out of the park.

So this was it, now. She was an infomercial producer.

She gathered herself. She straightened, and took a breath. She tried to picture the p.r.o.ntoTester on the shelf here in six months, but stalled trying to imagine what the box copy could legally say: "Inaccurate drug test!" maybe, or perhaps "Random word generator!"

"Ooh, Dolores, have you seen this one?" The voice filtered from around the corner, back by the Fat-It-Out boxes- Kelly heard the squeak of shopping-cart wheels, the wheeze of labored breath, the rustle of hands on a cardboard box; the clank of pans s.h.i.+fting inside.

Then, another woman's voice: "Look, it's got a valve for draining the oil out!Isn't that clever?I'll bet Lacey would love this for her new apartment. She needs to start eating healthier."

"What a great idea!" came the chirping response.

Kelly wanted to round the corner and scream, No!It's just cheap pans that one Chinese company couldn't sell on their own married with cheap valves that another Chinese company couldn't sell on their own. No!It's just cheap pans that one Chinese company couldn't sell on their own married with cheap valves that another Chinese company couldn't sell on their own. As the unseen women read each other the hyperbolic statements from the back of the box-statements that Kelly herself had written and revised and erased and re-written and ultimately approved for the packaging-Kelly felt her cheeks begin to burn. She wanted to shout: As the unseen women read each other the hyperbolic statements from the back of the box-statements that Kelly herself had written and revised and erased and re-written and ultimately approved for the packaging-Kelly felt her cheeks begin to burn. She wanted to shout: I wasn't being I wasn't being serious serious when I implied it would change your life; it's just something you when I implied it would change your life; it's just something you say say in marketing! in marketing!