by Stephen Cote
expression, which Mitch took as her lacking creativity cycles, and Vickette shrugged.
“You both need an upgrade.” He searched his preconceived notions for hints on distracting Chaz and Zud. An idea jacked into his frontal lobes.
“Vickette, we need a contract between Hyperion, Zud, and Chaz. Something elaborate, long, and backdated two years.”
“What type of contract?” she asked.
“An asinine agreement about licensing Hyperion’s likeness.”
“Media?” sub-Bev asked.
Mitch tapped Vickette’s briefcase. “Mechanical two dimensional reproductions.”
“Existing contracts would include coverage, so this should be a rider stipulating higher fees. Direct it through a trans-dimensional galaxy with time displacements. They’ll assume it was lost.” The elevator doors parted, Vickette and sub-Bev communed, and he smiled.
“Chaz, Zud.” Mitch sauntered into the suite.
“Mitch,” Chaz snapped. “Hyperion, Zud, and I have a matter to discuss.”
Mitch feigned surprise. “Oh?” And offered pseudo-nervous chitchat. “I investigated the photograph and uncovered a concern. Zud should have the materials.”
“I don’t -” Zud fell silent and communed with a small chain on his wrist. “This is unfortunate.”
“Mitch, Hyperion, Zud and I think -”
“This can’t wait,” Zud told Chaz.
“What is the nonsense,” Chaz snarled, and communed with Zud’s bracelet. His face flushed.
“I think our little discussion may have to wait,” Mitch said.
“You stay here,” Chaz pointed at Mitch.
They vanished in a poof of vapor.
With Hyperion out of sight, Mitch huddled with Vickette and sub-Bev. “I’ll stay here, you get Hyperion to Psychopharmacosmetics -”
Mitch broke away when he saw Hyperion slink into the room.
“Where are Chaz and Zud?”
“Called away. They’ll return momentarily,” Mitch said.
“There is something we wanted to discuss.”
“I know. I’m waiting for Chaz and Zud to discuss it.”
Hyperion fell quiet and looked at sub-Bev.
“Replacement sub,” Vickette said. “One of her first contributions was to arrange a visit to a day spa. We think -”
Mitch nudged her. “We think an hour or two of downtime may help ease your worries over this morning’s incident and the picture.”
“But, Chaz and Zud -”
Mitch took a step closer to Hyperion and stopped when Hyperion backed away. “Vickette and I will wait here for Chaz and Zud.”
Hyperion appeared uncertain.
“It’s your favorite facility,” sub-Bev said. “They’ve made special preparations for your visit.”
Mitch held back a smile, watching sub-Bev pander to Hyperion’s celebrity status.
“I have been under a lot of stress,” Hyperion admitted. He turned away from sub-Bev and said to Vickette, “I suppose it would be good for me. But I want you to take me.”
“Of course,” Mitch said. ”I can understand your wanting a familiar face. She only needs to you to say the word.”
“Let’s do it. Thanks Mitch. I’m sorry -” but he fell silent.
“Don’t worry. I’ll work it out with Chaz and Zud.”
Hyperion and Vickette vanished into billowy swirls of transportation vapors.
Mitch made a gesture to sub-Bev for silence by darting his eyeballs to and fro around the ceiling. sub-Bev scrambled the labyrinth of security measures in the room.
“That seemed too easy,” she said.
“Celebrity breeds simplistic minds. The more basic the plan, the more likely it will succeed. But you knew that. The spa was your idea.”
“A calculation.”
“Now, we need a name, a document, or a rumor that ties Chaz and Zud with a new star, and with a Psychopharmacosmetics competitor.”
“The latter will turn up following the deep ego clean.”
Mitch shook his head. “That will be at least ten minutes from now. We have two minutes if our luck holds.”
“It isn’t hold, they’re on their way.” She offered to put the elevator speed control on the fritz. “Three minutes and counting”.
“We need another primary AI analysis, not paid for by Psychopharmacosmetics”. He took her hand, tugging her wrist until it expelled a communication device, and placed a priority call.
“Max,” Mitch said to the three-dimensional representation of his boss. "I need a copy of the primary AI analysis through a front company, for public consumption.”
“Two minutes.”
“Waiting for the new sub,” he said. “There it is. Approved. Sending the copy.”
“One more item. Advanced seeding was found in Hyperion, and we aren’t sure if it can be extracted. The handiwork of a little company named Dura-Id. We are currently engaged to acquire them – And, we’ll own Dura-Id within ten seconds.”
Mitch’s heart pounded.
“Thirty seconds.”
“Dura-Id is now owned by Psychopharmacosmetics,” Max announced. “I’m accessing their employee records; both Chaz Vermouth and Zud Duz are active vendors.”
“And the name?” Mitch asked.
“A Hyperion replacement is not part of Dura-Id’s plans.”
No! The plan requires a replacement. Without one, Hyperion’s failure means - Mitch glanced at sub-Bev. Her hive must know, Max would be sure to point it out. He swallowed a lump in his throat. “What is the status of their contracts?”
“Their contracts will expire in a half hour, under our flops redundancy rule.”
“Thanks.” He broke the connection, Max disappeared, and he returned the device to sub-Bev.
The elevator doors opened, and Chaz and Zud entered the room.
“That was ridiculous,” Chaz fumed.
Max held up his hands and for the first time that day, felt exposed.
Chaz stormed, “Don’t be coy. I smelled your hand in this the moment you brought it up, and I can smell your deference. Where’s Hyperion?”
“Spa,” sub-Bev replied.
“The rider was some chicanery,” Zud said.
An aura of entrapment befell Mitch when sub-Bev said to Chaz, “A second analysis mentions Zud and yourself.”
Mitch asked, because he had to know, “You wanted to find someone with artistic inclinations more similar to Hyperion’s?”
“Something like that,” Zud admitted.
sub-Bev held up a small device Mitch recognized as having come from his own pocket. He stepped back and asked, “What are you doing?”
“You have no idea what position you’re in, do you?” Chaz asked. “From that show you put on this morning, to this faux contract. Hyperion no longer wants you as his confidant, and he has the full support of his agent and label.”
sub-Bev waddled twice, standing between Mitch and Chaz. “Was that Hyperion’s idea, or yours?”
“Does it matter?” Chaz spat.
“I guess not.” She held up the device.
“Bev, wait -”
“Mitch,” sub-Bev said, “Vickette knew who Chaz and Zud would use to replace Hyperion. You can’t be a star again, Mitch.”
She activated the Id Scrambler, and Mitch blasted down memory lane, of decadent and carefree times.
Moments later, Chaz and Zud shook hands with Mitch, and they left the room. It would be days before they remembered their plans, but those ambitions were gone.
Nobody remained to notice sub-Bev’s eyes flutter as she communed with Vickette.
Mitch visited Hyperion at a complex housing former wave stars. Hyperion’s apartment was only a five-minute walk from his own.
The scandals were financially ruinous, and Hyperion’s proclivity for young AI hit harder than the bankruptcy. Hyperion’s ratings fell below one-thousandth of one percent. Without his expensive cosmetics, Mitch struggled to
look at Hyperion’s freakish face. Mitch couldn’t shake the sense that, somehow, he was culpable.
The cognitive seeding and therapy scars were barbaric. Technicians had entered Hyperion’s brain through the bridge of his nose; Mitch thought it resembled a flap of flesh ready to slide off his chalk-white face.
Hyperion hung his head. “Ignorant. They’re just ignorant. I’m Hyperion Dazzle. They’re all ignorant.”
A new wave star dominated ninety-eight percent of the market. Mitch didn’t recognize the new star or her entourage, and he found himself saying the name Vickette without knowing why.
Mitch’s memories were murky, but he didn’t care. He noticed too many mirrored surfaces and the scars crosshatching his brow and nose called out questions. He no longer knew the answers.
