Interface

26

"This is our office," Schram said, "and we're paying you our money. But this time is all yours. You haven't heard of us. But we are a public opinion research company with a lot of big clients in politics and corporate America. A lot of people are listening to what we say about American opinion. And the way we learn about that is by talking to people like you. And that's why I say that this time is all yours - because the whole idea is for you to unload on us. To tell us exactly what you're thinking. I want you to be brutally frank and honest about it. You can say anything you want in this room, because I'm from New York City and you can't hurt my feelings. And if you don't bare your true opinions to me, then I can't tell my clients what is going on in the minds of America."

Aaron wasn't in the room. He was in the next room, watching all of this on television. Or hearing it, rather. None of the cameras was pointed at Schram. They had half a dozen cameras in that room, each pointed at one of the subjects. Their faces appeared on half a dozen television monitors, lined up in a nice neat row, and underneath each TV monitor was a computer monitor providing a direct readout from the PIPER prototype attached to their chair.

The PIPER readout consisted of several windows arranged on a computer screen, each window containing an animated graph or diagram. Right now, all of these were dead and inactive. On the monitor speaker, Schram could be heard explaining to the subjects how to put on the cuffs: roll up your sleeve, remove jewelry, et cetera.

One of the ropers, a young woman named Theresa, came into the monitor room. She was carrying a stack of cards, one for each of the subjects. She took a seat behind a table, where she could watch the monitors, and began to arrange the cards in front of her.

"Got a pretty wide spread today, considering," she mumbled. She shuffled through the deck, pulled out a card, and laid it out on the left side of the desk, looking up at the TV monitor on the far left. The monitor was showing a woman in her fifties, frosted blond hair in a complicated set, big jewelry, shiny lipstick, harshly penciled eyebrows. "Classic MHCC, which we get too many of in this mall."

"MHCC?"

"Mall-hopping corporate concubine," Theresa mumbled. "Though to really find them in their pure form you need to go somewhere like Stamford, Connecticut. Here they aren't really corporate, they're more government. Generals' wives."

"Oh."

Theresa put another card on the desk. This one apparently belonged to the person on the second TV monitor, a slightly portly man in his mid-thirties, with a receding hairline and a somewhat nervous affect. "This guy is a debt-hounded wage slave. In its purest form," she said.

"Is that a pretty common one?"

"Oh, yeah. There's millions of debt-hounded wage slaves." Theresa put down a third card. The third TV monitor depicted an older black woman, gray hair in a bun, thick-rimmed glasses, with a wary look on her face. "Bible-slinging porch monkey."

Number four, another black woman, this one in her late thirties, wearing the uniform of a major in the Air Force: "First-generation beltway black."

Number five, a pleasingly plump middle-aged white woman with a big hairdo, who seemed excited by the whole thing, eager to please: "This dame is a frosty-haired coupon snipper right now. Later in life, depending on the economy, she'll probably develop into either a depression-haunted can stacker or a mid-American knickknack queen."

Number six, an older white gentleman with a gaunt face, very alert and skeptical: "Activist tube feeder. These guys are really important. There's millions of these and they vote like crazy."

"How many of these categories do you have?" Aaron said.

"Lots of 'em. Hundreds. But we don't use all of them at once," Theresa said. "We tailor the list to the job. Like, if we're trying to sell athletic shoes, we don't pay attention to the tube feeders, porch monkeys, Winnebago jockeys, or can stackers. On the other hand, if it's an election thing, we can ignore groups who don't vote very much, like trade school metal heads and stone-faced urban homeboys."

"I see."

"Also there's a lot of overlap between groups, which makes the stats a little gloppy sometimes."

"Gloppy stats?"

"Yeah, it's hard to interpret the statistics because things get confused. Like, you've got your 400-pound Tab drinkers. That's an adjective, pertaining to their lifestyle. You could treat 400-pound Tab drinkers as a group unto themselves. Or you could narrow things down by looking at the ones who have no worthwhile job skills. In that case, you'd have a new group called 400-pound Tab-drinking economic roadkill."

"What good would that do you?"

"Say you wanted to market a new diet system that was really el cheapo. You decide to market this thing by aiming for fat jobless individuals. You come up with a marketing strategy where you say that losing weight improves your chances of getting a job. Then you zero in on the 400-pound Tab-Drinking economic roadkill and market it to them as directly as possible."

As the members of the focus group snapped the cuffs into place around their wrists, the computer screens came alive with data. The windows on the monitor screens, which had been blank and inert, sprang to life with colorful, rapidly fluctuating graphics. The cuffs contained sensors that tracked various bodily responses and sent them down the cable to the prototypes; here, the information coming in from the cuff was converted to digital form and transmitted to a receiving station in this room.

Aaron had spent much of the last month writing software to run on a Calyx workstation. This software would scan the incoming stream of data and present it in a graphical form so that Ogle, or anyone else, could glance at the computer screen and get an immediate snapshot of what the subject was feeling.

Several times, Aaron had been on the verge of asking why it was that such quick analysis was needed. He couldn't understand what the big rush was. But before he asked this question, he always remembered what Ogle had told him during their meeting in Oakland: You can't understand everything. Only I, Cyrus Rutherford Ogle, can understand everything.

Shane Schram's voice continued to drone from the speaker. When he had greeted these people as they came from the elevators, he was bouncy and exuberant. But now that they were cuffed to the chairs, he had gone back to speaking in a knowing, New York tone. Everything he said, he said as if he were resigned to it, tired of it, and as if it should be fairly obvious to anyone who wasn't stupid. If you listened to it long enough you began to think that you and Schram were in together on a number of secrets that were hidden from ordinary saps.

"Now, the subject of today's little get-together is the wonderful world of politics."

Up on the TV screen, six faces nodded and winked knowingly. You could get a rise out of just about anyone by referring to politics in this tone of voice.

"Since we can't bring any politicians in here, we're going to show you a bunch of television instead. All I'm asking you to do is to watch this TV program - it'll run to about a quarter of an hour - and then afterwards, we'll sit and talk about it."

In the hallway outside the monitor room, Aaron heard a shuffling noise. Then a loud metallic clank. Then another shuffling noise. Then another loud metallic clank.

"I'm pushing the button that says PLAY," Schram said, jabbing at a button on the VCR, "but it's not playing. Another wonderful product from our sneaky little Jap friends."

Intense movement and color blossomed on all six of the monitors. This crack about the Japanese had produced the strongest emotional response of anything he had said today.

The only problem was how to translate the physical data coming over the wires into information about their emotional state. That was still an inexact science. Seeing the vivid responses on the computer monitors, Aaron glanced up at the television screens, trying to read faces.

To some extent, all of them were smiling at Schram's little joke. But most of the smiles did not look very sincere. They knew he had made a racist remark at the expense of the Japanese, and they knew that they were supposed to find it funny, but none of them was sincerely amused. They were faking it.

Which still didn't tell Aaron why they were really thinking. Were they angered by Schram's display of racism? Did they feel humiliated to be reminded of Japan's economic success?

"Oh, no wonder," Schram said, "there's no videotape in the machine. My secretary must have taken it out. That fucking cunt."

Another burst of color and activity hit the computer monitors. The faces all looked shocked and nervous. But not all of them were responding in the same way. In particular, the women responded completely differently from the men.

Schram left the room, leaving the subjects alone with each other.

Once again, Aaron heard the shuffling and clunking noise out in the hallway. He stuck his head out the door. It was a janitor emptying metal wastebaskets into a rolling dumpster. The janitor was some kind of an astonishing carnival freak; he was hunched over and he dragged one leg as he walked, and something didn't look entirely right about his complexion.

"Jesus," Aaron mumbled under his breath.

The janitor turned to look at him. He must have been some kind of a burn victim. His skin was rough, mottled, striated, like a pizza. He had no neck per se; his chin seemed to be welded directly to his chest by a long sheet of skin that had contracted as it healed.

He turned into the room where the subjects were seated, dragging his dumpster behind him. Aaron ducked back into the monitor room to see all of the computer screens going wild. The six faces reacted almost in unison: they glanced up, their eyes widened, they gaped and stared for an instant, then manners got the better of them and they pretended not to notice. But Aaron could see the emotional impact of this spectacle continuing to simmer away beneath the surface. He could see them sneaking quick glances at the janitor, then looking away, ashamed by their own curiosity.

Within a few seconds, the janitor had finished emptying the wastebaskets and moved on down the hallway. The subjects sat quietly, shooting looks back and forth, daring one another to say something.

Schram came back into the room. "Well, my fucking secretary took an unauthorized break. She obviously thinks she can use the bathroom any time she feels like it."

This brought up lots of interesting stuff on the computer screens, particularly among the women.

"But I rummaged through her desk and I found this videotape in her bottom drawer. It's unlabeled, but I think it's the right one."

Aaron's monitor room had a seventh TV screen showing him the same program that the subjects were watching. Until now it had just been showing static. At this point, the static was replaced by a moving image.

It was a videotape of a woman sucking a man's penis.

"Whoops," Schram said: "How do you stop this thing?"

The image changed. Now it was a woman sandwiched between two men on a large, heart-shaped waterbed, having simultaneous anal and vaginal sex.

"Goddamn new VCR. I'm not familiar with the controls," Schram said. "Hang on a second, I think I heard my secretary coming in, she knows how to work this thing. I'm really sorry about this."

Schram left the room for a minute or so, long enough for the woman on the heart-shaped waterbed to reach an electrifying climax. Both of her lovers withdrew and reached a simultaneous, on-screen orgasm. Then a new sequence began: a man tied to an overhead pipe being whipped by a woman in black leather.

About this time, Schram and his secretary got back into the room.

"Oh, Jesus," the secretary said, "where did you get this? Where did this come from? Turn this thing off."

The pornography stopped rolling and was replaced by static. Aaron could hear the sound of the videotape being ejected from the VCR.

"I found it in your desk," Schram said. "I was trying to find the political spots, which you so brilliantly lost."

"Oh. And that gives you the right to go through my personal things?"

"Hey. What you do on your own time is your own goddamn business. If this kind of stuff turns you on, you're welcome to have it around your home. But when you bring it to work-"

"You bastard!" the secretary screamed. "You bastard! just because you couldn't get it up with me! That's why you did this!" Then she burst into sobs and ran out of the room, screaming in humiliation.

"I couldn't get it up with you because you were such a frigid bitch!" Schram yelled down the hallway.

Aaron had long since stopped paying attention to any of the monitors. He was just staring at the wall, listening to the speaker, as if it were some kind of intense radio play.

"I'm sorry about that, folks," Schram said. "To tell you the truth, I've always harbored a suspicion that she was one of those Anita Hill types. You know, comes on real sexy and then turns around ten years later and says you've been harassing her."

Out in the hallway, Aaron could hear the secretary's high heeled shoes clacking and popping as she returned. He stuck his head out the door.

She was storming back toward the interview room, her face a ghoulish vision of streaked mascara. And she was carrying a gun. Aaron withdrew his head and slammed the door.

"This is what you deserve, you son of a bitch!" she screamed, and then three quick explosions overwhelmed the speaker system.

"I should kill you all, because you're witnesses!" the secretary said. "Don't anybody move from your chairs!"

The only thing Aaron could do now was look at the TV monitors. The subjects' faces had turned into sweating, distorted fright masks. Their eyes were wide open, darting back and forth, they were blinking rapidly, their jaws trembled, several held their hands over their faces, trying not to scream.

One of them - the debt-hounded wage slave - suddenly held both of his hands straight out in front of his face and turned his head to one side, bracing for the impact of a bullet.

A metallic click sounded from the monitor speaker.

"Shit!" the secretary said. "I'm out of bullets."

This revelation triggered a burst of emotions on the computer screens that was more vivid than anything seen yet.

"Freeze!" another voice shouted, a deep male voice. "Nobody move! Put the weapon on the floor, ma'am."

Aaron couldn't see what was happening, but he could see the relieved expressions on the subjects' faces, he could see the emotional response on the computer monitors. On the speaker, he heard the litany of the Cop Show Bust: "Lie down on your stomach and lace your fingers together behind your head. Don't move and nobody will get hurt."

It sounded safe. Aaron decided to go out and see what was going on. He walked down the hall to the interview room.

The secretary was lying on the floor. A large black cop was in the process of handcuffing her. Schram was half-sitting, half-lying on the floor, crumpled against the far wall of the room, covered with blood. Huge bursts of his blood had splattered on to the wall from the impact of the bullets and what looked like a gallon of the stuff had run out of his wounds and puddled on the floor all around him.

"My God," Aaron said. "I'll call an ambulance."

"I already done it," the cop said. "Go to the elevators and wait for 'em."

Aaron did exactly that. And he didn't have to wait for very long; the crew arrived with astonishing speed, four men rolling in a big gurney and carrying their equipment in bags and boxes. They didn't do much work on Schram, just lifted him directly on to the gurney and wheeled him out of the room. And down the hallway. Down the hallway to the bathroom.

The bathroom? Aaron followed them in there.

Schram had already climbed to his feet and was in the process of stripping out of his bloodstained clothes. Underneath his shirt, several small packets had been taped on to his body, electrical wires running into them. All of these things were soaked with blood and appeared to have been blown open from within. As Aaron watched, Schram ripped them off his body, exposing clean, unblemished flesh, and tossed them into the garbage.

"Squibs," he said. "Do you think they bought it?"

Aaron was still just standing there, his jaw flopped open like the hood of an abandoned car.

"You bought it, obviously," Schram said, "so they probably did. Why don't you get back in there and I'll meet you in a couple of minutes, after I get cleaned up." Schram stripped off the last of his clothes and walked, buck naked, into a shower stall, leaving a trail of bloody footprints on the polished white marble floor.

The secretary had been hauled off in chains. Several more "cops" had arrived and begun to interrogate the six witnesses. One of the cops was blustery and bullying and seemed to be treating the six as though they were all potential suspects in the crime. One of them was soothing and sympathetic. As they took turns talking to the six subjects, the readouts on the screen fluctuated back and forth from one extreme to the other.

Within a minute or two, Schram had joined Aaron in the monitor room, wearing a fresh set of clothes. "Can't you get in trouble for doing this?" Aaron said. He knew it was sappy even as he was saying it. But he couldn't help himself.

"For doing what?" Schram asked, sounding perfectly innocent.

"For - for what you just did."

"What did I just do?" Schram said.

"You - I don't know, you scared those people."

"So?"

"Well, isn't that a little extreme?"

"Life is extreme," Schram said.

"But isn't it illegal to do that, or something?"

"They all signed releases. Why do you think we're paying them money?"

"Did the releases give you permission to do that!"

"The releases say that these people are willingly taking part in a psychological experiment," Schram said, "which is certainly the case."

"But aren't you going to tell them it was fake?"

"Of course I will. Of course I'll tell them," Schram said. "How else are we going to get them pissed off?"

"You want them to be pissed off?"

"Before they get out of that room," Schram said, "I want to run them through every emotion in the book."

"Oh. Well, which emotion are they being put through now?"

"Boredom. Which is going to take a while. And in the mean­time, I want to go back over our results so far."

Everything that had happened to this point - the six feeds from the six video cameras, the audio track coming over the speaker, and the streams of data coming from the PIPER prototypes - had all been recorded by the computers. By entering some commands into the Calyx system that controlled the whole thing, they were able to go back and replay portions of the experiment, seeing everything, on the dozen or so screens, just as Aaron had seen it the first time it had happened.

The door opened and the hunchbacked janitor dragged himself into the room. He fixed his one good eye on Schram, slouched over to him, and gave him a high five.

"Oscar-winning performance," the janitor said. "You get best supporting actor, Cy," Schram said. "Nah, it's all special effects," Ogle said, reaching up to grab the curtain of tortured flesh that ran from his jawbone down to his chest. He pulled on it, and most of it peeled away in a single piece, leaving a few strips and patches of burnt-looking skin adhering to his face and neck. With a few minutes of additional peeling and scrubbing, Ogle managed to get loose from most of the makeup, though a few fragments of it still stuck to him here and there, like bits of tissue paper left over from a bad shave, and the part of his face that hadn't been covered still had colored greasepaint on it. Ogle didn't care; he was too busy staring at the monitors.

He loved it. His eyes were virtually popping out of his head. His mouth was wide open and frozen in an expression of boyish glee, like a farm boy getting his first look at Disney World. His eyes darted back and forth from one screen to the next; he couldn't decide what to look at.

"Days. Weeks," Ogle said. "I'm gonna be looking at this thing for weeks."

"Check out the look on that can stacker's face when you dragged your sorry ass into the room," Schram said.

"She's not a can stacker," Aaron said, "she's a coupon snipper."

They ran through the whole thing a couple of times. The computer allowed them to run it like a videotape, with fast-forward, rewind, freeze-frame, the whole bit. As they went through it, Schram jotted down notes on a yellow legal pad. Finally they shunted the screens back over to a real-time display of what was happening, right now, in the interview room.

Nothing was happening. The six faces were a picture of terminal boredom. The good cop and the bad cop had gone away and been replaced by a droning, monotonous voice that was going on and on in some kind of pseudolegal jargon.

"That's an actor claiming to be a lawyer for Ogle Data Research," Ogle explained. "He's been lecturing them for half an hour while we dicked around with all this stuff."

"Let's see what self-righteous indignation looks like," Schram said, rising to his feet and heading for the interview room.

"Ten-four on that," Ogle said.

Schram walked into the interview room a moment later and the monitors all went ballistic. Ogle howled like a dog.

"All the same," he said, "they all react the same. The hunchback, the shooting, the pornography, and they all reacted differently. But when they're pissed off, they all look alike. And that's why self-righteousness is the most powerful force in politics."