We Are Legion (We Are Bob)

Book 5: Chapter 33: Finally Working

Book 5: Chapter 33: Finally Working

Howard

December 2342

Vulcan

We’d gotten an invitation from Mark to attend a meeting in New Landing, and I noticed that it was phrased in an unusually formal manner. I checked the headers, and it wasn’t from a lawyer, so we weren’t getting sued. Bridget took one look over my shoulder and said, “They think it’s ready.”

“You sure?”

She gestured at the text on the Canvas. “That’s Mark bursting with excitement but trying to act casual. Have you not met him?”

“I can be a bit obtuse that way,” I replied. “Have you not met me?”

Bridget laughed and lightly slapped my shoulder. “Come on. We can get some lunch and still make it on time.”

“Bronto burgers?”

*****

A few moments later, I sat up in the Vulcan manny pod. Bridget was already climbing out of her pod. As we straightened our clothes, I got a message from the local auto-attendant. I could see from Bridget’s slight jerk that she’d received something as well.

$1

$1

$1

Management

MannyPark Remote Services LLC

Well, that sucked something fierce. I glanced at Bridget, who was already changing her features and hair color. There wasn’t much either of us could do about the manny’s hairstyle, but we tended to keep a short, nondescript, and not particularly fashionable hair length on our mannies. Bridget had always been proud of her fire-red hair, though, and all her mannies were redheads by default.

I followed suit, and we walked out of the pod room, guided by the glowing line on the left wall. The company was situated in a business complex, far too large for protesters to barricade without creating a major snarl and forcing the cops to invoke the Riot Act.

When we arrived at the Institute, we were met by Mark, Terry, and several suits who turned out to be management. And my employees, apparently. These were the administrators of the Huey Project, which was completely financed by yours truly and missus yours truly, and they knew whose butts needed to be kissed. The level of fawning would have been nauseating if the whole event wasn’t so surreal.

After several minutes of fending off attempts to butter us up, I’d finally had enough. “Mark,” I growled, “if I don’t get some answers in the next few seconds, I’m leaving. I was going to lube my joints today, and you’re cutting into that.”

Mark, shamefaced, replied, “Uh, yeah, sorry, we planned a dog-and-pony show, and it kinda got out of hand. Everyone kept wanting to add something, until we ended up with a floor show. So here’s cutting to the chase.” He gestured to Terry, and she stepped forward. ???????

Terry went into a stage-magician routine, with the “nothing up my sleeve” and the posing. I resisted the urge to say something sarcastic. Terry was normally no-nonsense and acerbic, so there had to be a punch line of some kind coming.

Finally, she grinned, lifted her T-shirt, and displayed her abdomen.

Which was transparent. We weren’t seeing human intestines, but a manny status display panel.

This wasn’t Terry.

Which was interesting, of course, but mannies had been good enough to fool people for a long time. I cocked my head. “Okay, you’re riding a huey today. Why is this significant?”

Terry looked a little crestfallen at my response and pulled her T-shirt back into place. “Because I’ve been living through my huey for a week now during work hours, using the production remote, and haven’t experienced a single glitch.”

“It’s ready, Howard,” Mark added, punctuated by the rapid nods of the management team.

Now the penny dropped. Everyone here was a shareholder, because that’s how Bridget and I liked to run things. All employees had a personal stake in the outcome, and the outcome of this particular project could make millionaires out of everyone. I reluctantly conceded that a certain level of excitement was justified. Then I grinned uncontrollably.

I looked at the management team. “And you guys have a marketing plan ready, I guess?”

The leader, who had introduced himself as Hector Rodriguez, stepped forward. “We do. We have mountains of documentation, and we prepared a presentation, but”—his eyes shifted back and forth between Bridget and myself—“perhaps we can go with the short version for today.”

This elicited another smile from me and an amused snort from Bridget. I made a go ahead motion.

“We have a short- and long-term marketing strategy prepared. The benefits of the invention are obvious, but we believe that playing off the existing FUD about mannies wouldn’t hurt, as long as it’s not laid on too thick.”

“The Luddies,” I interjected.

Hector nodded. “Their whole platform has revolved around the advantages that replicants have and the innate unfairness of it all. We propose to use that directly. Sell the public on the idea that they can even the playing field and join the elite without the minor inconvenience of dying first.”

I couldn’t help it. I laughed out loud.

“There’s still the issue of life span, though,” Bridget said.

“Statistically, if you are not personally exposing yourself to all the normal risks that form part of everyday life, average life expectancy should go up six to ten years, even with no other changes to habits or lifestyle.” Hector paused. “Even the terminal phase, the last five years or so of accelerated senescence, can continue to be productive using a huey. It’s not immortality.” He shrugged. “But it’s a little closer.”

Bridget nodded and glanced at me before replying. “And we’ve been funding some research into delaying the terminal phase as well. I can see this all playing well together.”

“Well, hell,” I said. “Let’s do this.”