Winning Mars | Page 5

years of Reality, or the almost-mythical
Hegemony of the 70's and 80's, when the world was run by television,
when that was all there was, when audiences sat rapt on their cheap
cloth sofas and scarfed microwave dinners in front of the tube, long
before the coming of the internet and the rise of Interactives, long
before television had been cast into the "Linear, Free-Access" ghetto,
they all claimed to know that one compelling idea that would trounce
all and vault Neteno to even greater glory. But, so far, they were all
doddering pisspots who drooled in their coffee and sat, watching, while
Jere dissected their ideas like frogs in biology class, fat with data from
his eyepod and earbuds. They might wear new fashions, they might
even wear eyepods, but they didn't feel it, they didn't get the world had
moved on, and they weren't on the train.
"No," dad said. "Really."
"How'd you find out?"
Dad just turned to look at him. The full-spectrum houselights glittered
in his eyes, making them seem to sparkle with glee. "I worry."
"Don't."

"No," Ron said. "You don't. Don't get used to this lifestyle. It's not good
for you."
"It's been good to you," Jere said, spreading his arms to encompass the
house, the view, the muted laughter of the guests inside the house, the
glow of his fucking Merry Christmas sign, so much like Neteno.
"That's different," dad said.
And how so? Jere wondered. Because he made your fortune in the
eighties? Because he had it for so long? Because he planned your life,
so perfect, so he'd have a pile before he had kids, a pile so big he could
never outgrow it? Because, at the carefully calculated age of forty-three,
he finally decided to have kids? Look at him, almighty, sitting on a wad
of assets so big it would take a bulldozer to move it, a wad that
wouldn't be returned to circulation until he died. His two only kids,
held hostage by the thought of the money, the money, OMG the money,
probably never getting any of it, except for dribs and drabs dispensed at
his whim.
"Want to make a difference, lend me some money at lower rates than
the sharks at ChinkBank."
A frown. "Don't call it that."
"Why not? They're twisting my nuts. And don't change the subject. Be
a lender. Make some points. That would make some real difference,
dad."
"Ron."
"What?"
"You're a big businessman now. Call me Ron. Because you aren't my
son, raising your voice to me at a family get-together, at a party, when
I'm trying to help." Ron's voice got low, rough and deadly towards the
end.

"I'm sorry. Dad."
Ron just looked at him.
"Ron."
Ron nodded. "I've considered your pitch to borrow money at market
rates, and I regretfully decline. In light of your current position in the
market, I can't jeopardize the well-being of the rest of my family."
"Great." Jere said.
There was silence for a time. Jere waited for his dad to tell him to leave,
before he embarrassed him further. But the old man let the silence draw
out.
"My other offer stands," Ron said, finally."
"I'll take it," Jere said.
"You don't have to."
"No, I want to."
"You don't need to do this for me." Ron said, through a thin and deadly
smile.
"Send him," Jere said. He turned away and began walking back to the
house.
At the big glass doors, his father's voice found him. "There might be
hope," he said.
Not without affection.

Pitch
He took the meeting with dad's friend in his office, because dad always

said you meet friends in restaurants, you meet business in your office.
Plus, he told himself, it probably wouldn't be too hard to impress the
old bastard, who surely hadn't seen an overtop-Hollywood view, unless
it was from some sales job, calling on midlevel interactive pukes who'd
torture him with promises they had no real power to keep.
But the fucker just walked in, sat down, and looked at him. Never even
glanced at the view. As if he had always lived there, as if he was still
living there, as if television still ruled the world, and God was right in
his heaven, or whatever they said.
The old bastard's CV scrolled on his eyepod. Evan McMaster, producer
of Endurance, one of the last of the reality shows. Ten years dead and
good riddance at that, the netbuzz said, 'cause it was a timewaster of the
worst sort, putting people with zero physical stamina and skills into
situations where they were sure to kick it, except for some heroics of
the group at the end. Surely scripted. Jere grinned at the irony.
"I'm amusing to you?" Evan said. Rich, gravelly voice,