Winning Mars | Page 4

some unidentifiable fragrance that had probably passed from popular life three decades ago, before Jere was born. He hugged her back, hard.
"Behave yourself," she said, waving the spoon at him.
"I am."
"What?"
"Behaving myself."
Mom gave him a glare that was supposed to look menacing. It looked like a Chihuahua trying to be fierce. Jere tried not to laugh.
When she'd gone back to the kitchen, his sister Evi approached, bearing husband on her arm. She was a slim thing, thirty-one, six years older than Jere, still holding on the kid front. She looked up at him with glittering, playful eyes. "So the Tycoon of the Linears graces us with his presence," she said.
"I wouldn't be anywhere else."
"Where's your arm-ament?" she said. Her little made-up word for his girlfriend of the week, his arm-ornament.
"I didn't feel like bringing anyone."
Evi frowned and put the back of her hand on his forehead. "Are you feeling all right? Jere, what's the matter? Is business off?"
"No, no," Jere said, cursing himself for being so transparent. He should have brought someone, just for appearances.
"How is business?" her husband said. Samuel, Jere remembered. He was a bulky man with a square face, like he'd bought it out of a magazine at the Cosmetic Surgery Outlet. He did something in interactives. Not a big man, but you didn't need to be big to earn big in the 'active game.
"Good. How's yours?"
"Interactive space's always good," Samuel said. "Challenging, too. For the participants. They don't just sit around and watch."
Like blowing shit up and random fucking is educational, Jere thought. But he just nodded. You didn't screw up a dadparty. Never. Nope.
As if reading his mind, dad breezed in from the balcony, trailing the scent of cigar. Jere's nose wrinkled. He never got used to the smell of smoking, whether it was cigarettes or cigars. The one time he'd tried smoking a cigarette, he'd gotten light-headed and puked. That was the end of any fascination there. But dad--he genuinely seemed to enjoy the things.
"Jere," he said, putting a hand on his shoulder. Up close, Jere could see that his outfit was even worse than he thought. The reindeer were embroidered with some kind of ethread, which was running simple animations. One of the reindeer turned to look at him.
"Got a moment?" dad nodded outside to the deserted balcony.
"Uh. Yeah. Sure." That didn't make sense. Dad spent before-dinner doing the rounds, or smoking his cigars. He saved the theatrics and giveaways until after dinner. One-on-ones were always last, over glasses of port or bowls of ice cream.
Dad took him over to the stone railing, where the city glittered below. Jere heard a party horn, loud and long, coming from down in Hollywood, over the rush of traffic on Highland.
"I know what you've been doing," dad said, looking out over the city.
"What... what do you mean?"
"Interviewing," dad said. "Getting stupid ideas from stupid people."
"I don't know what you mean."
"Of course you do." Low, dangerous.
Jere paused, considered, nodded.
"I know why you're doing it, too. The banks. 411."
"Jesus, does everybody know?" Jere said, throwing up his arms. "Fuck, am I gonna put on my eyepod and see that I don't have a customer base?"
"No," dad said. And waited.
Jere shivered. Did this mean he was going to help? Like the year he decided that Jere should be educated, and the only way he would be able to do it was with a big trust fund? That was the big show after dinner one year. That was where he got the money to buy Neteno.
But this wasn't a show. This wasn't public. This was one on one. Jere felt his shiver work its way down his spine. He didn't know what that meant.
"What?" Jere said, finally.
"I have someone you should meet."
"A friend?"
Dad's mouth quirked into a quick, thin grin. "I don't know if I'd go that far. But he has an idea. A good one."
Great, Jere thought. I get to entertain another fossil from the golden age of television.
For the last month, he'd entertained every diapered octogenerian, smelling of piss and death, who could claim some connection to the age when television was the piper, and everyone followed the tune. Whether was the last great 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