Flexible Parameters

Summary: As the great sage Murray once said, "You can't fake a tape! Pictures don't lie! At least not until you've assembled them creatively." Edison Carter has a brush with video scandal. Max is determined to annoy. Bryce is self-programmed to help.
Disclaimer: Max Headroom (1987, ABC), produced by Chrysalis/Lakeside and Lorimar Productions. Written for swtalmnd in the Yuletide 2007 Challenge. (Thank you, Mauvecloud and Queasy, for the moral support and betaing.)

20 minutes into the future.

(1) 00110001

Hey, kids! McGruff, here, the Metrocops McCrime Goat! Let's butt crime, once and for all! If your parents or neighbors have an off-switch on the TV and you report it right now, you'll get a free McGruff McShirt and coupons for soy burgers and crunch fries good at any ZikZak for a limited time only -- Know Future, Know Chow! Call now, kids, Metrocops operators are standing by! This public service announcement was sponsored by your caring network community of Network 23, Network 66, World 1, BBC, Cream Wave, BPS, Bimboviz, Pulsart TV, Gidividi, Breakthru TV, Compu Viz, ZGVNHY, Riotus Rerun, Pornoviz, Tap Zoom TV, Q Station 7, J. Smith TV, Network 144, Yertz Telly . . .

How long would thousands of networks take? After the scrolling list of networks and the droning recitation had continued for several minutes on the boardroom's massive wall terminal, Ben Cheviot, the chief executive officer of Network 23, felt like its chief sufferer as well. He toggled the switch set into the gleaming wood table. "Sound off, please," he said, acutely aware of the irony. He impartially distributed his glare over the board members sitting down the table. "We paid for this?" he asked, incredulous.

"Most of the global networks did contribute to the off-switch campaign," Edwards said apologetically. "If we leave any of them out --"

"Yes, yes, I understand," Cheviot said with a weary wave. "I suppose we could air it after midnight local."

"But Ben, er, there are no children up at that hour," Ashwell said.

"You're not suggesting we put it on during primetime? Our ratings will plummet," Cheviot said.

"During the children's programming block would be more ideal. Why not right before Missle Mike?" Lauren suggested.

"At this length, we'd have to preempt Anne of Three-Mile Island entirely to make room for it. No child would sit through it all anyway. No, it's terrible -- send the whole thing back to marketing, and tell them to try again," Cheviot said. "And get that thing off the screen. What's next on the agenda?"

As the screen silently switched to current Network 23 programming, Edwards shuffled his printouts. "Advance planning for the next Global Telelection."

"Ah, yes." Cheviot nodded and sorted out his pipe from his pocket. "So Network 85 blocked two of our newest Netsat launches. Environmental concerns, wasn't it?"

Edwards grimaced and fumed, "So they say. They still only have a relatively minor marketshare, but ever since their candidate won, they've become insufferable. They've used every trick in the system to check the expansion of the major globals. To be honest, it's an embarrassment for 23. Our candidate must win next year."

"Yes, I agree," Ben Cheviot said, tapping the pipe thoughtfully on the table. Network 85's candidate had won the votes fair and square after viewers had channel-switched en masse from the frontrunning candidates on the major networks. Edison Carter, the investigative journalist who was one of 23's most popular on-air personalities, was their most visible public symbol of social responsibility, but that came with a heavy price -- in this case, he'd single-handedly cost 23's candidate the Global Telelection.

The only upside had been that Network 66 had lost as well.

However, Cheviot considered it worth it. A prudent, judicious display of corporate conscience -- or at least the appearance of one -- was good for ratings in the long term. Because Ned Grossberg had never grasped that simple tenet, he'd lost his seat as CEO with 23. That also-ran, Network 66, was welcome to him.

"Are we going to be running Simon Peller for office again?" Ashwell was saying.

"He's a has-been," Edwards said, "what we need is a fresher candidate, one with a more attractive facial profile, or at the very least better hair --"

"Mmmirror mirror on the wall, whoooo has the most at,at,attractive profile of all?" The network feed went blank, flicked, and an instant later was filled with the craggy features of none other than Network 23's literal ghost in the machine. "Can there be any d,d,d,doubt? Our Man Max! Tippicanoe and Headroom, too!" He muttered, "This pub,public service advertisement and c,c,c,candidate was sponsored by Zik,ZikZak."

"Say," Edwards said suddenly, "there's an idea. I wonder if Carter would run for office?"

"He'd be a shoo-in for the votes," Lauren agreed.

"Hey! Hey hey!" Max protested. "Nonono. Not Edison! Me! Max! Me me me! I'd make a t,terrific head of state -- look, I'm aaaalready a head!"

"Max," Cheviot said indulgently, "if I might remind you, you are Edison Carter. Now, if you don't mind, we were in the midst of a --"

"Allllllways the b,bridesmaid, never yanking the bridle." Max sulked dramatically, then winked off the screen.

"He has a point. Who we run doesn't matter, does it?" Ellerby said. "Everyone knows the politicians are interchangable. The only thing that matters is that the viewers vote for Network 23."

"Very true," Cheviot said. "Max's ratings would indicate that the world may well be ready for an artifically constructed candidate -- but I'm not. And I am still the CEO of Network 23." He leaned back in his chair, far larger and more ornate than any of the others, and surveyed his domain: The darkened boardroom, gleaming wood and heavy crystal ashtrays that no one would dare mar by actual use, and the focal point of the room, the huge monitor.

"Of course," the board murmured.

"More to the point, we can't afford a repeat of that last fiasco," Cheviot continued. "Grossberg at Network 66 isn't taking this lying down either; we can assume that he's already scheming. I've had Research and Development looking into the problem." He flicked the toggle set into the table again. "Get Bryce Lynch on the link, please," he said.

The screen faded into a huge view of the back of a head with a small green parrot sitting on top, its claws buried in the brown hair. "Whatever it is, I'm busy!" the figure muttered.

"Bryce. This is Ben Cheviot."

The figure, parrot and all, swiveled and leaned into the screen, which ballooned with a young face nearly hidden by huge glasses. "Mr. Cheviot? I was expecting this link a half-hour ago," he grumbled. "The plans are on the system."

"Bryce," Cheviot said patiently, "I was hoping you could walk us through it."

He frowned, adjusting his glasses. "Is that necessary?"

"Indulge me."

"Oh. Very well," Bryce said, shrugging. "As you already know, during the last Telelection cycle, Network 66's so-called View Doze system maintained its ratings and eliminated ordinary channel-switching activity during the night by telling viewers they could," he made little quotes with his fingers, "'watch TV in their sleep.' Anyone who believed that would be, frankly, stupid."

"Er, yes, we remember," Cheviot said. "Continue."

"I believe the essential idea is valid, and I propose a similar tactic, without the scam component," Bryce said. "The basis for it is a ratings trend that I've been tracking at Big-Time TV." The screen now dissolved into a chart, labeled for different periods.

"The pirate station operating in the Fringes," Cheviot said.

"Exactly. Although Big-Time experienced abnormal, massive ratings increases while they were airing Whacketts with its video narcotic additive --" everyone shuddered, remembering -- "Big-Time normally has a stable core audience, making for a ratings flatline. I like to call them the 'brain dead'." He paused, snorting at his own joke. "Here and here we see what appear to be random bumps in their ratings." Small lights blinked on, pinpointing the ratings increases at irregular intervals.

"You're saying those aren't random?"

"Further investigation revealed that these ratings bumps coincide with one particular 'video jock' going on-air at Big-Time. The depressions back to normal coincide with that presenter going off-air."

"And this presenter is?"

"Fang," Bryce said, "he --"

"Well," Edwards interrupted, "if this Fang has that capacity to draw an audience, maybe we should hire him away to Network 23."

Bryce stared down at him disdainfully. "Fang," he said, "is a dog."

The boardroom erupted in a buzz of conversation. "You're serious. They're using a dog as a presenter?" Cheviot asked.

"I guess you can call it presenting," Bryce shrugged dismissively. "Mostly he drools."

Cheviot coughed. "Be that as it may, Bryce, about the Telelection . . . ?"

"Right, the proposal," Bryce said. "Two-way view demographics have shown that the majority of Network 23's voting audience is urban -- and that most of them throw a blanket over their screens or turn them to the wall at night." He ignored the board's gasps of outrage and continued, "I believe some apartment dwellers regard Big-Time's Fang as an opportunity to have a pet vicariously. I propose giving Network 23 viewers free, full-time pets that require no care. Here. Watch this." A clatter of keys, and the wall terminal switched to a fullscreen view of an aquarium; as Bryce continued, the small fish flitted, floated across the screen. "Fish. Cheap for Network 23 as well -- the camera never moves, so no operator, editing, or production personnel are necessary."

Cheviot said, consideringly, "So you're suggesting that this is the equivalent of View Doze?"

"Awake Doze, if you like," Bryce said. "I mean, if you watch them long enough, they're sort of . . . hypnotic."

Cheviot glanced down the table and saw that the board members were indeed beginning to look mildly dazed.

"An attendant to feed the fish, change the water, monitor the temperature, you'd need that. You could program feeding times as a special event." Bryce gave another short, braying laugh.

Lauren shook herself, and leaned over. "Ben," she said in an urgent undertone, "we can't run nothing but fish on Network 23."

The fish disappeared to reveal Bryce rolling his eyes. "Of course not," he said witheringly. "You'd set up another 23 subsidiary network like Shoppin' Spree TV. That way, its ratings would count toward 23's in the Telelection."

"But what about advertising?" Ashwell insisted. "ZikZak is seventy percent of our present budget, and they'll never stand for --"

The aquarium had already reappeared, and the fish were scattering before a giant hand descending to drop a small model of a ZikZak pagoda into the corner at the base of one of the waving fronds. "There," said Bryce's voice over the speakers. "Happy?"

Cheviot cleared his throat. "About the sound, Bryce --"

"No, no sound at all, just fish. This addresses not only the blanket issue but the incipient off-switch epidemic as well. Viewers who want silence can have it on Tranquili-TV." Bryce's face reappeared, looking smug. "That's the name I'm suggesting."

"Simple but brilliant," Lauren murmured.

"Naturally. It is my idea," Bryce said. "Mr. Cheviot, are we finished now? I have work --"

"Yes, Bryce, just about," Cheviot said. "I only have one more question. That graph of Big-Time ratings. In the last several weeks, it showed some unusual ratings activity in the early morning hours. Surely that wasn't also, er, Fang?"

"Oh, that." Bryce frowned. "No, that's strictly a limited, recent phenomenon. When Big-Time's still on the air during an overnight, they show viewer-generated garbage. Sermons and basement bands, that sort of thing. I suppose they must have gotten hold of something that's drawn some attention. If I had to guess, I'd say it's probably clipvids."

"But, but clipvids are illegal!" Edwards sputtered. "Stealing our content --"

"Of course they are," Bryce spared him a scathing glance. "It's a pirate station."

Cheviot considered the matter briefly. Big-Time TV was actually a mobile unit rolling the streets of the Fringes; eccentric as Big-Time was known to be, occasionally it seemed to have a better grasp of developing youth trends than even 23's marketing department. "If you don't mind, Bryce," Cheviot said, "I'd like you to try to capture a sample of one of those overnights. I want to take a look." From Bryce's sour expression, Cheviot could see that he minded very much -- but he knew who approved his budget. "Unique as always, Bryce," he told him, "and thank you. That will be all."

(2) 00110010

At the Academy of Computer Sciences, no student could escape the compulsory pregraduation pods, which was why Bryce found himself fidgeting through "Your Network and You: Interfacing with Coworkers." Fortunately, there was no rule that they couldn't work on their private projects at the same time; Bryce linked his improved code for their tsetse-fly spy to the terminal of Bill Stewart across the room and watched smugly as the other boy's face lapsed into astonishment.

"To briefly reiterate yesterday's pod," the Sysop boomed from his podium, "of course we at ACS encourage you to minimize such real-time interfaces with the less . . . shall we say intellectually endowed employees of your networks and corporations? However, on occasion you will need to collate the information they possess, and for that reason, we practiced 'smalltalk.' Exchanges such as 'Hello,' 'How are you?' 'I am fine, thank you,' 'Please,' and 'I'm sorry' are essentially meaningless in themselves; however, they ensure the stability of an interhuman connection before commencing to share the data that we hereby refer to as 'largetalk'."

It didn't escape the Sysop's notice that Bryce and others were rolling their eyes behind their terminals, and he chided them, "Now, now, there is nothing worse than good data gone to waste."

That was essentially true, so Bryce allocated slightly more attention to the lecture as he pulled up the file for the program he'd been debugging in his spare time.

"I remind you that all of these data in this pod are necessary for advancement to the next pod, Contract Negotiations," the Sysop continued. "In due course, you will discover that a superior intellect cannot insulate you from the more tedious aspects of employment. Which brings us to this afternoon's preliminary upgrade; please consult your pod floppies for the technical specifications related to biological functions, keyword 'sexual relations'. I know that the majority of you have already assimilated this material; nevertheless, I'll allow ten minutes for review."

Bryce, who hadn't bothered to scan this assignment, inserted his floppy and rapidly paged through the text. He shot to his feet. "Sir."

The Sysop looked up. "Ah, Lynch. Yes, what is it?"

Bryce stomped to the microphone in the main aisle. "Sir, I'm eleven," he pointed out with asperity. The others around him sat up straight, nodding.

The Sysop beamed down at him. "Yes, excellent as usual, Lynch. My point precisely! Among your coworkers will be those who are overly enamored of youth." The Sysop coughed deprecatingly. "These interfaces too are data that you all may use to your advantage during Contract Negotiations. As you'll see, the basic employment contract ACS makes available to all students can be upgraded with additional funding, laboratory facilities, and equipment. Handled properly, these interactions need not have any other impact on your work and research. Now, if everyone has finished their review, I need several volunteers for real-time demonstrations."

In the end, Bryce didn't consider the pod time entirely wasted. Watching Adrian awkwardly squeeze Devon's breast while she looked surpassingly bored gave Bryce an idea for a novel data compression algorithm.

(3) 00110011

"Edison Carter, report to Control," the Network 23 tower's pager suggested gently to the corridors for the twentieth time.

"Where the hell is he?" Murray fumed. "We're supposed to be having a story conference!"

"Murray, I've been trying to raise him," Theora told him patiently. In time, she'd become accustomed to Edison's flakier aspects. "He has the netlink on his vidicam turned off."

"Is he even in the building?"

"Lay-dees and g,g,gentlemen, Edison has not left the building," Max said, popping suddenly onto the secondary feed terminal on Theora's right.

"Max," Theora said, relieved, "you've seen Edison."

"Try ring-ring-ringing up the P,p,playpen Mansion," Max said.

"Playpen -- oh," Theora said. "How silly of me. I should have guessed."

"What's that supposed to --" Murray started, but Theora was already keying the View-Phone pad. "Bryce!" she said sternly. "This is Theora. Answer the vidiphone."

But the face that appeared in view was none other than their missing Edison Carter. "Theora!" he said gleefully. "Good timing! Check this out! We can move this, right?" The picture shimmied and swung as the screen took in a new portion of Bryce's lab with another terminal in view. Edison continued, "See here on this screen? They're fish, and this is a laser gun," he held up what appeared to be a plastic replica of a security stungun.

"Actually," Bryce said, his face looming partially in view, "it's a weak-energy laser, only suitable for pointing."

"Right, right, so these fish --"

"Video constructs of fish, actually," Bryce corrected.

"You try to shoot them on the screen --"

"They do try to avoid the laser. They're programed for evasive maneuvers --"

"And it gets even harder, the more of 'em you bag!"

"I call it 'Shooting Fish in a Barrel'," Bryce finished smugly.

"You guys gotta try this," Edison said.

"Yes, that's fascinating, Edison," Murray leaned in. "Maybe after this week's story conference you'd like to share more of this wonder with the class. I mean, assuming that you still work here?"

"Story -- damn! Is it that late?" They watched him scrambling around on the screen, then Bryce leaned in and said simply, "He's on his way," and the screen went blank.

"Boys and their toys," Murray said, exasperated.

"Incidentally, Murray," Theora said, "what is that you've been holding?"

"This? It's, ah, a breakerball. You can squeeze a breakerball like this. For stress. You squeeze it, and --" he shoved it in his pocket. "Never mind."

"Theroooora," Max said, "how about my reward,d for turning stool p,p,pigeon and sqeeeeeling on Edison?"

"How about a shiny sticker?" she said, pulling a sheet of them from her drawer. She peeled off a gold star and stuck it on the top of the screen. "There. You're now official hall monitor."

"Me? Me me me?" He jerked his chin proudly. "On your toes, Ed,edison. Th,there's a new sheriff in town town."

"I'll live in fear, Max," Edison said, shouldering his way to Theora's station, hefting his vidicam under his arm. He peered at the sticker on the monitor. "Are there any adults in this room?"

"Only me, I'm afraid," Theora said.

"People! Can we get to work here?" Murray shouted, and the group gathered once again around Theora's control station. "All right!" Murray said. "Our feature for next week on Edison's show. Let's hear it."

"Those kickbacks in the sector 38 housing authority --" Edison said.

"Next!" Murray said.

"The trucks I saw from the air in my chopper over in sector 82," Angela Barry said. "We still haven't looked into those."

"Next!" Murray said. Silence fell. "Oh c'mon. This is a news organization?"

"Slow week," someone muttered.

"What's wrong with my idea?" Edison said.

"What's our mantra for the main features?" Murray retorted.

"Sex, d,d,drugs, and rock rock rock and roll!" Max recited.

Murray coughed. "Sex, violence, money. We want to make upstairs happy this week because it's that time of the year again. The fiscal year, to be exact."

"But Murray," Edison began, "low-credit housing . . ."

"No, Edison, no poor-people money. And unless you can actually get a video of a housing manager in bed with a credbanker, that's off the slate until later."

"Maybe we could," Angie said.

"No," Murray said, "no more bedroom scandals. That last one was a disaster."

Edison sighed. "Murray, why don't you just tell us what it is that they want us to do this time?"

Murray cleared his throat. "Well, actually . . ." Everyone groaned, and he waved a hand. "People, they're the ones paying the bills here, so we should at least consider it. Theora, do you have that tape I gave you?"

"It's loaded, Murray."

"Tape of what?"

"Clipvids," Murray said, and everyone groaned again.

"Oh, c'mon, Murray, not this again," Edison said.

"This is a request from the top -- Mr. Cheviot himself has asked that we consider it," Murray said. "Note that it wasn't an order, it was a request. So we'll . . . consider it." He waved. "Theora, run that tape."

"Max," she said. "I'll need this terminal. Could you shift elsewhere for a while?"

"But I've never seen one!" Max protested.

Murray looked at Edison. "All that complaining, and you've never even seen one?"

"Gee, Max, thanks for that," Edison scowled at Max. "OK, no. I haven't. But that doesn't mean --"

"Have any of you ever seen a clipvid?" Murray cutting him off. The shuffling from the group spoke for itself. "Well then, I guess this should be an educational experience for us all."

"Actually," Theora said cautiously, "I've seen a few, but it was a long time ago . . ."

"Then you're now our official expert, and you can talk us through it," Murray said. "I haven't watched this tape myself yet."

"I, I want to watch, too, too, three, as many as you've got," Max said.

"Go see Bryce Lynch," Murray said. "He's the one who grabbed this transmission. He likely kept a copy."

"Waaaait a minute," Edison said, amused, "Bryce is taping clipvids now?"

"These were recorded from a Big-Time TV overnight at Mr. Cheviot's request," Murray said. At the looks he got, he agreed, "I know, I know. We don't want anyone taping our network's broadcasts, but we're taping other networks. I don't want to hear about it." He cleared his throat. "As you all know, altering the components of TVs is illegal, owning private transmission-recording devices is illegal, recording broadcast transmissions is illegal, and sharing or distributing such recordings is illegal." He finished, "So it stands to reason that using these tools to recut broadcast recordings into clipvids is also --

"Illegal," everyone chorused in a drone.

"We know all this Murray," Edison said. "The clippers don't sell them, so I fail to see the harm to society here."

"Or the sex sex sex, violence, and money!" Max agreed. "How d,d,dreadfully dull."

"Max," Theora said, flicking her fingers, "shoo."

"Oh, all right. Going, going, going, going, gone . . ." he muttered, dwindling away to a pinpoint of light, leaving a black, empty screen, small gold star still stuck in the upper corner.

"My understanding is that ordinarily these don't show up being broadcast to the greater Metro area," Murray said. "Big-Time has been playing these things during its overnights, and apparently Realtime Vieweratings has even tracked interest in them."

"Then talk to Big-Time," Edison said. "Ask Reg to stop running them."

"Which is what you'll be doing, if we go with this story," Murray said. "If Big-Time is buying clipper programming, that's a problem. Obviously they're not going through the Ad Market, so we should find out who's making these clipvids and selling them under the table."

"I don't know if I'd feel comfortable putting Reg on the spot like that," Edison said. "He's helped us out --"

"Think of this as helping him out, then," Murray said. "The public relations backlash 23 got after arresting Blank Reg and prosecuting him by mistake in our network court for transmission zipping only had a limited shelf life. Network 23 doesn't want to be seen as targeting Fringers for harassment -- their TVs count in the Telelections, too. But if Reg keeps doing it . . . if they're bringing this up with us again, Network 23's board is probably considering going after him legally."

"Well, if you put it that way," Edison said, shoving his hands in his pockets, "I'll think about it."

"That's all I'm asking," Murray said. "Theora, get us started here."

The first clipvid popped onto the screen, with loud, pounding music. "Sorry," Theora said, keying down the sound hurriedly.

"Say, isn't that Lumpy's Proletariat?" Murray said, as everyone leaned forward to peer at her monitor.

"Yes, it does seem to be," Theora said, eyeing the screen, then, "Oh, I see. What they've done is to take clips of these two characters and reedit them to posit a romantic relationship --"

"Those two guys?" Murray said, looking shocked. "But they don't . . . they don't have one on the show."

"You watch Lumpy's?" Edison said, eyeing him with a faint smile.

"Unusual relationships of this type are often featured in clipvids," Theora said, ignoring Edison's jab. "It's all in how you arrange the clips, in the music that's used."

"Huh. Lumpy's is sexier than I thought," Edison murmured after a few moments. "Maybe I should watch it."

"You're bound to be disappointed," Theora said, "the whole idea is that these are specially cut to elaborate on something that's barely there -- or to create something from nothing."

Angie Barry began clapping. "That was pretty good!" she said happily. Everyone turned to stare at her. "What? I liked it."

The next clipvid wasn't from a network drama. "Oh, that's Margo from that cooking program. Network 144's Munching with Margo, she's -- oh dear," Theora said. As the clips puttered along merrily, they showed a slim Margo from what were apparently older clips eating and eating and eating, and progressively putting on more weight with each clip from later shows -- then abruptly losing it, with the gain beginning again, and all of them were unflattering clips.

"Ow," mumured Edison, shaking his head. "Someone really doesn't like her."

Theora looked away. "No, this one's not nice. Clipvids can also be used to make a statement, in this case to illustrate that Margo Lanning is, er."

"Is a pretty drastic dieter," Murray said faintly.

"But most often they're done by fans," Theora said.

The next one, everyone agreed, was funnier, an overview of 23's Life with Polly. Then another romance clipvid followed, and another.

"Huh," Edison said, stretching. "I think we get the idea. How many are on that tape?"

"No idea," Theora said. "At least eight, I think. These were originally mixed in with other types of user-contributed videos, but he's cut --"

Max popped up on the screen. "And whoooo are you?" he crooned.

"Max," Theora said, startled, but the screen flicked to Edison looking serious, "I'm Edison Carter, and that's what I want to know."

"Uh," Murray said, stunned, "this one's Max and Edison?"

"Fan video," Theora said quickly. "Well, I suppose it's hardly a surprise."

"To you, maybe," Edison said. "I wasn't expecting -- geez, some of these are years old. How long have they been recording our show?" The clips were progressing through a curiously suggestive sequence, Edison pursuing and badgering and interviewing, most of the clips showing him moving in ever closer to some of his more attractive past male interviewees. "What the hell are they implying here?"

"Um, Edison, I'm not sure that's the real question here," Murray said. Everyone else had fallen silent. On the screen, a very naked Edison and an also naked someone else -- a male someone else -- were rolling around on a bed.

"What the--?" Edison said, astonished.

"Edison," Theora said, "I'm going to turn this off . . ."

"You do that." Edison was already leaning over her, jabbing numbers into the keypad on her main terminal. Bryce Lynch flicked into view. "Busy here," he said, not looking up, "link back la--"

"Bryce!" Edison snarled at him. "You think this is funny? What the fuck?" Everyone in the group began to back away.

Bryce blinked. "What are--?"

"This clipvid," Edison said, drawing it out, "your little prank here with data rescan."

"What prank?" Bryce said, drawing himself up.

"Who else did you give that software to?" Edison snapped.

"What? No one," Bryce said. He frowned. "Well, besides you. It hasn't been perfected --"

"That's what I thought, which means you," Edison said. "So stop screwing with me, kid. I'm going over to Big-Time to get that tape pulled, then you and me are going to have a nice, long talk, Bryce, about your utter lack of --"

"Not interested," Bryce said abruptly and slapped his keypad. The screen winked out.

"Bryce, dammit," Edison said, stabbing his finger at the reconnect. "Theora, link him again."

"Edison, no," Theora said, "this isn't helping --"

"Fine, don't. I'll deal with him when I get back," Edison said, lifting his vidicam. "Whose chopper is ready right now? Martinez?"

"Edison," Murray said, "wait a minute. What do you think you're doing? Let's just stop and --"

"You and Cheviot set this up, Murray?" Edison snapped. "Hell of a sales job. I'm going after your damn clippers."

"Edison, you're out of line --"

"Edison, look," Theora cut in, "I understand that you're angry, but you can't go to Big-Time right now. They've gone to ground. They've been off link and off the air for two days now. It's probably just transmitter repairs, but --"

"Then find them," Edison said. "Netsat can pick them up. You're my controller, right? That's supposed to be your job."

"-- and their practice is to park in locations where Netsats can't pinpoint them," she continued. "So just calm down and --"

"I'm perfectly calm," Edison said. "I'm going out to the Fringes, I'll find Big-Time TV, and you'll help me do it. I'll call in when we're on the ground."

"Fine," Murray said, exasperated. He waved his arms and shouted, "Conference over! Find something to do, people." To Edison he said, "So go on. Take off. Go work your temper tantrum off outside of town. Just try not to embarrass our network while you're at it, please."

As Edison stomped off with his vidicam under his arm, Murray muttered, "God, the things I put up with around here."

"Hmm," Theora said, tapping on her keyboard.

"What are you doing?" Murray said.

"Looking for Max on the mainframe . . . ah, here he is."

"Edison's not suf,suf,sufficiently sexy?" Max said, pleased. "Now you want me? Can't, can't say I'm surprised."

"You already know about that clipvid?" Theora said.

"Oh, I've been l,l,lurking around the area," he said, wiggling an eyebrow.

"Could you trail Edison when he gets on the ground? He said that he'd call in, but . . ."

"Ye-es, with Edison, there's always a but," Max said, "ooor in this case, a butt. Not, not, not bad, was it? I wouldn't miiind having that p,p,part myself."

"Max, I did not need to hear that," Murray groaned.

"Well, well, well, trailing Edison d,d,d,depends on Network 23's ratings today. Oh, what am I saying? Everyone'll be watching 23 b,b,b,b,because they're waiting for me!" With that, Max turned and glided off the screen.

"All right," Theora said, "now the cooler heads may prevail."

"Theora, you want to tell me what Edison was ranting about?"

"Ranting is right," she said, punching numbers into the terminal keypad. "Just a moment, Murray. I'm trying to get Bryce back on the --" The console beeped rapidly, and "Bryce Lynch, Egressed" appeared on the screen. "Damn. He's refusing links."

"He's left the building, too?" Murray said.

"No, of course not," Theora replied impatiently. "Bryce needs to be physically dragged out of doors. He's simply blocking any attempt to link to his level. I'll have to go up there myself. I'm going to need his help." She pushed back her chair.

"Wait, Theora," Murray said. "Explain this data rescan first."

"You don't remember? It's the video manipulation software that Bryce created. We used it to alter Simon Peller's speech when he was arresting Blanks in the Fringes."

"Oh, that," Murray said. "So Edison thinks that Lynch --"

"He thinks he's the source of the clipvid or that he gave the software to someone else who used it to make the clipvid, yes."

"And did he?"

"Murray," Theora said, sighing. "Bryce wouldn't do that. In fact, I'm fairly certain this isn't a case of video manipulation."

"What? You think that's really Edison in that clipvid? What, securicam footage? College frolics on film? Secret porn career?"

"None of the above," she said. "You know most domestic securicam footage isn't color, and I do recognize what erased time codes look like. Murray, would you take a look at the clipvid again?"

He scrunched up his face. "Do I have to?"

"Murray," she chided, rattling the sequence out on her keyboard. She turned down the music, skimmed forward, and pointed to the screen. "Here, nothing about these images seems familiar to you?"

"Uh," Murray said faintly, "well, if you're asking me whether I've ever, uh . . ."

"Men," Theora rolled her eyes, "I meant the quality of the video image itself."

He shuddered and leaned forward to look. "Oh. Sure, I see what you mean. It's blurry in parts, isn't it? Edges seem poorly defined. Actually, their movements aren't even --"

"Yes yes, exactly," she said. "Now . . . just let me access the storage archive. I'll only be a moment, I know where to find this."

"The archive? Of what? What are you looking for?"

"Unused footage from Edison's old reports," she said, keying through a directory. "Ah. Here it is. I've got it. We'll need to fastskim through here until --"

Murray heard his own voice booming from the terminal speaker, saying, "That was us, celebrating my promotion five years ago --" Theora keyed pause. "This is the Mind's Eye investigation, isn't it?" Murray said faintly.

"Yes, it is. Reg had accidentally started up a cine machine, and this commercial was on its reel. Here, Edison was taping it for us off the theater's screen." She skimmed through the scene slowly. "Do you notice how the image is distorted?"

"You're right," Murray said. "It does look similar. You've got a good memory."

"Part of my job. And, well, that was a difficult time, wasn't it?" she said. "Edison lost a friend."

"Paddy Ashton," Murray said, reluctantly recalling his own role in that report, "he died at Mind's Eye while they were taping his dreams. So are you saying this footage in the clipvid is a dream recording? How is that possible?"

"Well," Theora mused aloud, "we watched some of Edison's old dreams when Max uploaded them to the vidicam during Edison's investigation. They were, ah, interesting." She shook her head. "But they were also incoherent -- a jumble, really. I imagine most people's dreams are like that."

"I never remember mine, actually," Murray admitted.

"In this commercial, notice how much longer the clip of your promotion party is, how stable compared with the others. I'm assuming that's why they used it -- it's not exciting at all, really." Murray winced. "Sorry. My point is that this clip was obviously recorded from one of Paddy Ashton's dreams," Theora said, and Murray looked away. She continued more gently, "Paddy knew you. He also knew Edison."

"I had no idea they were --"

"They may not have been," Theora cut him off impatiently. "It wouldn't matter if they had. Dreams and reality are two entirely different things. We have precious little control over our dreams -- which was exactly why Mind's Eye and Dream Vu Micro Link had been hiding the nature of their business venture from the research subjects."

"Right, right," Murray said, "so it's possible that this is old Mind's Eye footage."

"I'd say it's more than possible -- it's probable. The distortions are too similar, and it has those same qualities of length and stability that characterized this clip we know was Paddy Ashton's. Plus . . . Edison did meet with Paddy right before his death. He would have been on his mind."

"So how on earth would the clipper have gotten hold of it?"

"Well," Theora said, considering. "Mind's Eye and Dream Vu Micro Cable were both charged by Metropolice with fraud, with several counts of involuntary manslaughter . . . they've already been processed through the network court system."

"Their equipment and any other property would have been seized," Murray said. "Would the network court that tried this still have control of that?"

"No," Theora said, "surely not after this long. The assets would have gone up in a Metropolice seized property auction, wouldn't they? Who handles those?"

"Currently, it's Q System 7," Murray said. "It's a revolving five-year contract for public service programming, and they won it two years ago."

"Murray," Theora said, smiling at him, "we make an excellent team. Who needs Edison?"

He grinned back at her. "Unfortunately, we need Edison -- I have to produce somebody. But considering his state of mind at the moment, I think we'd be better off taking care of this on our own. Do you have any contacts at that network?"

"No," she said. "You?"

"Me neither. They're not going to just hand over private bidder information."

"All right," she said flexing her fingers, "I can try to retrieve it myself."

"Theora, I can't stand by and watch you hacking a rival network's system," he said.

"Then please turn around, thanks very much," she said, applying herself to her keyboard.

(Cont. in 02 [of 05)