Winning Mars

뜌

Winning Mars by Jason Stoddard
Writer's Notes: this is the novelization of the story Winning Mars that originally appeared in Interzone 196, which made Rich Horton's Virtual Best of the Year 2005 and got an Honorable Mention from Gardner Dozois in the Years Best Science Fiction of the same year. It's about about 80,000 words of near-future science fiction, distributed for your reading pleasure under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 license. If you'd like to read the original story, it's available in a collection called Dangerous Games, edited by Gardner Dozois and Jack Dann. For more information on Jason Stoddard and why he's giving stuff away, visit www.xcentric.com.

ONE: MOTIVATION
Blip
"What you're saying is, I'm obsolete," Jere Gutierrez said.
Silence. The bank man and the dataspook both went rigid, eyes flickering sideways, once, to meet. Which made sense. They didn't know if he was a shouter or a screamer, or if the office had been soundproofed for some after-hours folly.
"We're not implying--" the dataspook said. Richard Perez, his name was. Of course. He would be a dick.
"Yeah. I know. You're not saying I'm dead yet, but everybody's started buying their black suits."
"We're not saying that, either," the bank man said. His name hovered at the corner of Jere's eye. Jerome Pullman. "There's no reason Neteno can't be a thriving business twenty years from now. But if you keep going down the same path, the chance of discovery and backlash becomes greater. Which is why we've had to raise your lending rates."
Jere sighed, looking at the parasites in their too-perfect suits, as if pinstripe double-breasted was their natural pelt and they cleaned it with their tongues, like cats.
Eighteen months, he thought. Eighteen months, and Neteno goes from nothing to the luminary of the linears. Now they're telling me it's back to the ghetto again.
Jere stood and turned to look out the window, where broad swathes of Hollywood stood, multicolored in the new fashion, under uncharacteristically blue November skies. He didn't need this now. They'd just bought the old Capitol building. They'd just sunk a hundred million inflationary dollars into gutting it and rebuilding it in sleek blondewoods and translucents and external neons and active wallpaper, turning it into a real vision of the future. They'd spent a million on the Neteno sign alone, rotating in perfect holographic space above the top of the building, some trick of lasers and smartfog that Jere didn't really understand. He cast his eyes upward in time to see the ENO scroll lazily past, and the NET to begin again. In the evening, the letters cast a flickering orange glow in his penthouse office, reminding him of Christmas lights from his childhood.
"Timeline, sales and profit," he said, softly, into his throatmike. His projectacle streamed rectified visuals into the corner of his eye. His whisperpod started chanting the numbers, with commentary on profits.
"Stop commentary," Jere said. He knew the trend. A spike in revenues initially, when he'd taken over the ailing network and did his first stunt. Then, smoothly rising results. Even accelerating in the last few months.
Jere turned back to the parasites. "I don't see a downtrend."
"There isn't one," the dataspook said. "That's why we felt an in-person meeting--"
"That's why we brought along a risk-analysis expert from 411, Inc.," Jerome said, breaking into a wide, thin-lipped, and completely false smile. "I can understand your confusion. In the past -- even the very recent past -- numbers like yours would have CMB dancing in the street. Carte blanche, lowest rates, pick your number. But times have changed."
Jerome shook his head sadly and sighed, as if he'd just discovered the entire world was a cheat, and both he and Jere were set up for the worst rogering. Jere just looked at him. Jerome wouldn't get a job acting in zero-budget student linears for in-dorm streaming.
Jerome waited another three beats for commiseration, then gulped and went on. "411, Inc. does extensive monitoring and analysis of the buzz universe, using artificially intelligent algorithms and human brainpower to determine trends that are not obvious to the unaided observer--"
"Can the script," Jere said. "What you're saying is, these spooks say we're heading for a fall."
"Your audiences are becoming aware of your manipulation," Richard said.
"Rich, I --"
Jere held up a hand. "No. Let him talk."
Richard looked nervously around, like a study-skipper called to deliver rotes in class. He licked his lips. "Well, you see, Neteno's big innovation was bringing back the writers, making up stories to impress on major world events--"
Jere's stomach clenched hard. He leaned over his desk, placing greasy handprints on the perfect obsidian surface. "What did you say?"
"I said, you use writers to make stories that would otherwise--"
"Who told you that?"
"Nobody. Our inference algorithms--"
"Bullshit!" Jere slammed a hand down on the desk, then turned and paced. He didn't know he was doing it. He