A Reasonable World

20

Through his own attorney Stevens found a legal firm that specialized in the affairs of organizations like the one he had in mind. He made an appointment, talked to a senior partner, and was assigned to a somewhat more junior member of the firm, a sleek blond man named Rinaldo Edwards who spoke perfect English.

“The money in these things comes mainly from five sources,” Signor Edwards told him. “First the seminars, typically three days but sometimes as much as a week. Then initiation fees and dues. Then advanced training, where you teach people to conduct seminars and training sessions themselves. You can have as many levels as you want—people training the people who train other people, and so on, and of course each time they advance to another level, they pay a progressively higher fee. Then major contributions, grants and bequests. Then publications—holos, newsletters, books, pamphlets, all that sort of thing. As a rule of thumb, I would say that the seminars account for forty percent of the total, initiation fees twenty percent, contributions twenty, advanced training maybe ten, publications ten. Dues are negligible at first, but become important as the organization matures.”

“What about costs?”

“Usually quite small at first, although there isn’t any rule about that. The seminars pay for themselves,* and that includes all the clerical work, publicity, and so on. The people who have taken the advanced training are paid out of the earnings of the seminars they conduct. You have to pay some people salaries, of course, but that money comes out of the seminars too. I can show you some tables of seminar costs and expenses. The optimal fee for a three-day seminar would probably be in the neighborhood of twelve hundred new lire. Above that, attendance tends to drop off, but it also drops off below that figure—people won’t go to a seminar if it is too cheap, because they think it can’t be worth anything.”

“And legal costs?”

“Well, that depends on what you want to do, of course, but I would recommend setting up at least two corporations right away: one an educational corporation, which under Italian law can do pretty much whatever it wants to, and another for publications. Our time and costs for that will run you somewhere around two thousand lire. If we defend you in a lawsuit, there isn’t any way of predicting the cost, but I’d say it would be prudent to set aside, as soon as possible, a legal fund of at least a million lire.”

“What sort of lawsuits would you anticipate?”

“Oh, people claiming they haven’t benefited from the instruction or have been somehow damaged by it, or have been induced to turn over assets by fraud. You have to expect that sort of thing. It may never happen, but it’s best to be prepared.”

That summer in Paris, members of an organization called Le Comite d’Action Contre l’Abomination stormed the entrances of governmental and corporate buildings and tore down detect-and-destroy devices. As fast as new devices were installed, they were demolished too. A spokeswoman said, “Why do our masters hide behind these machines? Is it because they know that if they come out, they will be killed for their abominable crimes? Come out, you butchers, and let us see your faces before you die!”

During the next few weeks, a number of unexplained deaths took place among high officials and officers of large corporations; government, finance and industry were in turmoil. Similar actions spread to the rest of Europe, then the United States, South and Central America, Africa, and the Far East.

In July five members of an organization calling itself Citizens Revolting Against Politicians forced their way into a control room at UBS in New York while a talk-show host was interviewing Harold W. Geiger, the president of General Motors and a Republican candidate for nomination to the presidency of the United States. “Mr. Geiger,” the host was heard to say, “is it true that you are a well-known asshole?”

“Well, Jim, that’s an interesting question,” said Geiger comfortably. “I think I can truthfully say, that in my thirty years as a corporate executive ...”

“But answer the question,” the host was heard to say in a voice that was not quite his own. “Is it true that you fart in the bathtub and bite the bubbles as they come up?”

“Yes,” said Geiger judiciously, “I’d say that’s a fair statement, Jim.”

A wild-eyed young man scuttled onto the set and spoke in a whisper to the host, then to Geiger. The two stood up, removing their blouse mikes, and walked off the set, followed by raucous laughter and the sound of raspberries. The set remained vacant for the rest of the half-hour, while three voices sang in close harmony a song whose refrain went:

Network security was beefed up after that, but CRAP got into the NBC satellite feed in late September and made President Draffy appear to give a rousing speech in favor of cannibalism. Draffy was so furious that he had to be physically restrained before Dr. Grummond could give him an injection to calm him down, and for a week or two there was serious discussion among the staff, in the Cabinet and on Capitol Hill about declaring him incompetent under the Twenty-fifth Amendment.

Later in the year the dissenters went too far: they began to interfere with commercial messages on network holo. CACA was not involved, or said it wasn’t; a new organization called Les Pendules claimed responsibility. In one attack, a woman’s breasts were shown spilling out of her Virginform bra, elongating more and more until they swayed like snakes and hung to her knees. In another, the cheerful young man who was smoking a Marlboro appeared mildly surprised when his cigarette drooped down like toothpaste slowly emerging from a tube, wrapped itself around his neck and set fire to his beard. "Marlboro—formidable!” he cried, just before the flames engulfed his head.

In May the French government issued a decree making interference with a commercial broadcast a capital crime. It was a satisfying but empty gesture: the last execution in France had taken place in 2001, and the last executioner had died three years later.