by
Steve Jordan
There was something indescribably magic about flight... no wonder Man had dreamed of it, aspired to it, and waxed poetically about it, for as long as Man had existed. The mere idea of soaring with the birds, dancing among the clouds, and riding the wind currents, was as music to his soul. Moving faster than it was possible for any living thing to move... unfettered from the ground, not seated inside a loud, rickety frame of wood and wire, or encapsulated inside a metal shell with screaming engines... able to go where you want, flying above the clouds or swooping through low branches. Knowing that the mere effort was physically impossible. Knowing that, at the very least, your eyes should be watering, and your lungs laboring to catch a breath, from the onrush of air... though, in fact, they are not. It was magic, moving through a dream realm far above the ground. The sky was perfectly blue, the clouds were perfectly white, and the landscape below was not marred by a single column of smoke, scarred acreage, or ugly old building.
No question about it... flying was the best thing about his job. The one thing, in fact, better than—
He glanced down below, his incredible vision piercing miles to the ground, and like a hawk zeroing in on prey, picked out a commotion in the city. A commotion waiting for him. A problem to solve. The second-best part of his job.
Inclining his head downward, he led his body into an arrow-straight configuration, aimed at the ground far below. He began to fall at an impossible velocity, and within yards of the ground, reversed his descent, pulling G’s that would have caused any other person to literally liquefy on the spot. Almost as good as flying was landing. Not the sensation itself... it was the looks on people’s faces as they saw you landing, marveled at you and envied you the things that they could not do. His booted foot touched the pavement without making a sound, mere yards behind his target.
~
A group of masked men hurried out of the First National Bank of Miropolis, attracting stares from passersby. Three of them carried sacks over their shoulders, which seemed to be filled with paper money and metal safe deposit boxes. The bags were grotesquely large, almost thrice the size of their carriers... however, the three men carrying them were easily as grotesque in proportion, having impossibly wide shoulders and thick arms, and impossibly short, thin legs. These cartoon-shaped musclemen were having no trouble carrying their ridiculously large burdens.
The fourth man, who was rather short but otherwise not unusually built for a man, carried a strange box in one hand, and a stranger-looking pistol in the other. The box had a few control buttons on its face, and a short antenna, making it look like something from a cheap sci-fi movie. The gun looked similarly toy-like, with metal rings encircling the muzzle, and a tiny fin mounted on the hammer. He appeared to be the leader of the outfit, and seemed to be primarily concerned with the three men and their burdens, and the black van that they were approaching. It was a strange tableau... it was clear that the bags would never fit into the van, in fact, the three musclemen looked like they would barely fit themselves. The four men did not seem to be particularly perturbed by this proportional conundrum, however, and they did not stop until they were standing by the van.
“Put them down there, boys,” the leader ordered.
“Sure thing, Minimizer,” one of the thugs said. The three musclemen put their huge bags down beside the van, and backed away, watching their leader. The Minimizer struck a confident pose, and slowly raised the box in his hand. He pointed the box at the bags, and pressed a large blue stud on its face. Instantly a blue beam of light lanced from the antenna of the box, forming an enveloping energy around the bags, and bathing the entire block in its strange, blue glow. The bags seemed to twitch when the beam touched them... then, incredibly, the bags began to visibly shrink. Within the space of perhaps five seconds, they had been reduced to a tenth their original size. The fourth man turned off his shrinking box, and the blue ray disappeared, revealing three tiny bags that would easily fit into the van beside them.
Minimizer nodded smugly at this demonstration of his obvious superiority. “Okay, boys, they’re all yours!” The three musclemen smiled widely, and started forward to pick up the tiny bags and load them into the van. So intent were the musclemen with loading the van, and the leader with his self-indulgent gloating, that none of them noticed the man in blue that had descended from the sky and touched down silently behind them.
The man in blue was taller than the three thugs, and much taller than the toy-gun-carrying Minimizer. And unlike the thugs, his body was in perfect proportion. In fact, “perfect” may have been an incredible understatement in his case... his body was quite literally the epitome of the so-called Herculean Ideal, the ultimate expression of powerful and attractively-proportioned musculature, under a skin-tight blue uniform that displayed every line of his physique. And the face that topped his six-foot-four frame was that of an Adonis, handsome, expressive, and confident.
The moment the man in blue touched the ground, he said: “Good morning!” He said it in much the same tone of voice that a policeman might use as he surprised a group of kids about to spray-paint a wall. It had essentially the same effect on the four men. All four jumped and jerked around quickly, the three musclemen dropping their burdens in shock.
“Crap!” one muscleman spat. “It’s Zenith!”
The man addressed as Minimizer, however, did not display the shock of the musclemen. Instead, he reacted by swiftly bringing his toy-like gun to bear, pointing it directly at the chest of the man identified as Zenith, and pulling the trigger.
The blast that exited the gun was like a miniature explosion, a searing wave of white-hot energy that sent a shock wave through the air around them. The plasma of the blast struck the man in blue full-on in the chest, making a sound not unlike the crash of thunder a few yards from a lightning strike. People within a block’s radius were knocked off their feet by the unexpected concussion.
The man in blue, however, did not move an inch.
Minimizer and his thugs simply stood and stared, transfixed. Minimizer dropped his head and looked stupidly at his gun. Then, he looked back at the man in blue, who was now inclining his head sympathetically and smiling.
“New in town?” the man in blue asked.
Minimizer’s eyes went wide, and he gaped at his gun again. “But it was supposed to stop him!”
The man in blue grinned. “If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard that—”
He didn’t finish his statement, however, because Minimizer immediately brought the box with the shrink-ray to bear. He snapped it up, and pressed the blue button.
But the man in blue was suddenly gone. The blue ray lanced out of the box, struck a rose bush planted near the bank door, and reduced it to the size of a fist.
“Dammit!—” Minimizer swung about quickly, to find the man in blue... and almost bounced his nose on a massive blue chest. He cried out in alarm and pitched backward in fright. The man in blue reached out quickly, and at first it seemed he intended to catch the smaller man. But Minimizer hit the ground anyway, realizing only then that the man in blue had simply plucked the gun and the shrink-ray box out of his hands as he fell.
“Nice toys,” Zenith commented.
Minimizer, still seated on the ground, looked past Zenith’s blue-clad legs to the musclemen. “Get him!—” He choked off his command, as he realized that his henchmen were already moving as fast as their cartoon-tiny legs could carry them, in the opposite direction.
Zenith noted their rapid departure as well. Without warning, he pitched the gun and shrink-ray box high into the air with a quick flick of his wrists. Then he said to Minimizer: “Excuse me.”
Abruptly, he was gone. The cries of his henchmen were Minimizer’s first indication that Zenith had just crossed scores of yards in an instant. The blue-clad Hercules scooped up all three musclemen at once, and bore them into the air. Then he swung back, carrying his charges, and headed straight for the getaway van that had been waiting for them. When they reached the van, Zenith yanked a door open, thrust the musclemen into the van, and slammed the door behind them. He then seemed to dash all the way around the van in the space of a split-second, and returned to stand in front of Minimizer. He casually tossed the van’s door handles, and its engine, onto the pavement.
Then Zenith reached out his hands in time to catch the gun and shrink-ray box.
“So,” Zenith smiled down at the man on the pavement, “Mister—Minimizer, was it?—I’m sure you’d be glad to take your ill-gotten booty right back into the bank where you got it, now.” He leaned down close to Minimizer’s face, causing the smaller man to flinch. “Wouldn’t you?”
“Ah, shit,” Minimizer muttered. Then, without warning, he reached up with one hand, and tapped his temple with a finger, twice. Slowly, Minimizer’s face changed, becoming impassive, and losing color, until it was almost gray. His position on the ground changed as well, becoming more rigid. In seconds, the man called Minimizer resembled a strange store mannequin tipped onto the ground.
Zenith looked down at the man-turned-mannequin with a mix of amusement and disgust. “Chicken,” he sneered. Then he turned and recovered the miniaturized bags of loot, and strode up to the bank to return them to the vaults.
“I believe everything will be okay,” Zenith announced as he entered the bank, “assuming this shrink ray has a reverse setting...” He stopped, as he realized he did not see anyone in the bank. After a moment, though, he heard what sounded like voices. Cautiously, he approached the teller windows, and effortlessly floated above them and to the other side. He cocked his head, listening closely, then turned in the direction of the sounds.
There, in a corner near the vaults, he found the staff and customers of the bank, all reduced to an inch in height, imploring Zenith in tiny cartoon voices not to accidentally step on them.
“Okay,” Zenith whispered, “we’ll worry about the money later.”
~
Once the bank staff, the customers, and the money, were all restored to their normal size, thanks to the shrink-ray box’s clever red “restore” button, Zenith politely waited while everyone took their turns thanking him. It was all right to take the time... he had a sixth sense that assured him there were no other crises needing his attention at that moment. As usual, there were quite a few gorgeous and voluptuous young women, some of whom had come into the bank once they’d seen him outside, and who were all but disrobing in front of him, right there in the lobby... and as was his habit, Zenith did his best to discourage them without stepping on their feelings, while simultaneously thanking them all for thinking so highly of him.
Then, when it was time, Zenith took two steps back, and with a friendly saluting wave, vaulted straight up into the sky at just below Mach one. He could still hear their cheers, even when they could no longer see him.
As large as Miropolis was, Zenith could fly across it in a matter of seconds, and reach many other cities in minutes. He spent time crisscrossing the skies, making appearances in cities like Demo, Tronton, Getaway, Electra City, and Hologria, occasionally lending a hand with a vehicle that insisted on traveling sideways, a building that kept detaching from its foundations, or a group of pedestrians that could not circumvent a badly-corrupted fire hydrant. He seemed to have a way of sensing these odd happenings—part of the same “sixth sense” that had alerted him to the robbery earlier—and very often, he could fix the problem when no one else could. Therefore, Zenith liked to make the effort to be there when things crashed.
As he flew over Macroville, his sixth sense kicked in, and he started scanning about. Within a split-second, he’d found the problem, evaluated the situation, and veered in that direction to help.
~
The holes in the side of the building were fresh. They were so fresh, in fact, that pieces of brick dust were still breaking off of the edges of the holes and raining lightly on the ground in the alley, creating a hiss like steam escaping. An occasional concussion inside the building served to jar even more brick pieces loose, as well as pumping clouds of dust into the outside air.
From outside, came a voice: “All right, buddy... if you stand down right now, I promise I won’t hit you.”
The noises in the building ceased... and for a moment, the only thing to be heard was the light hiss of raining brick dust. Then, a figure stepped outside through one of the holes. The figure was that of a man, built lean and athletic. He wore a body-covering leotard, which was bright white at the top of his head, and progressively darker going down, until it was jet black at his feet. The light-to-dark effect made it appear as if his upper body was being illuminated by an unseen spotlight. The leotard-wearing man looked around in the clouds of dust he’d kicked up, looking for the source of the voice.
What he found was a baseball player.
The baseball player stood about ten yards distant, facing the man in the leotard. He wore what was clearly a regulation baseball uniform, as white as the top of the other’s leotard, with blue pinstripes. His white cap sported matching blue pinstripes, the same blue of his socks. In fact, the only two things about the player’s uniform that were not regulation were the cleat-less white sneakers on his feet, and the blue domino mask on his face. The baseball player was slightly crouched, ready to move, and he held a baseball bat, one hand choked high as if ready to bunt.
The man in the leotard looked at him, and his shoulders fell visibly. “You’re kidding. Right?”
The baseball player shook his head. “I’m not kidding. Stop kicking the crap outta this building, and stand down.”
“You’re threatening me. With a baseball bat.” The leotard wearer folded his hands across his chest. “You’re threatening me—you’re threatening Pulse—with a baseball bat!”
“No, I’m telling you—‘Pulse,’ if that’s your name—to stop tearing up this building,” the baseball player replied calmly. “Or I’m gonna have to take you d—”
But before the baseball player could finish his sentence, the man in the leotard threw out his hands. A blinding bolt of light shot across the alley at the baseball player, and he raised his bat defensively. The bolt of light struck the bat, and the baseball player was knocked off his feet. He flew a good fifteen yards through the air, tumbling head over heels, and landed in a heap in the alley. The baseball player did not seem too badly injured by the blast, but he crouched warily where he landed, re-evaluating his adversary.
The man who identified himself as Pulse, in the meantime, stood and laughed heartily. “That’s what you get,” he cried, “when you send a weekend warrior to do a man’s job!” Still laughing, he turned and pointed his hands at the building. Another bolt of energy arched from his hands, and an explosion of bricks resulted. Pulse dusted his gloved hands dramatically, and started inside the building through his newly-made hole.
Before he had taken three steps, a staccato of footsteps caused Pulse to turn. He was immediately bowled over by the baseball player, who had covered over thirty yards faster than any eager rookie stealing second, gripping his bat at either end across his chest to ram Pulse. The leotard-wearing vandal flew backwards, tumbled, and quickly tried to regain his feet. But the baseball player was still with him, and had brought his bat around to a more traditional swinging stance. He swung, connected, and Pulse went flying, landing in a heap on the ground.
Pulse responded by rolling upright and pointing a hand at the baseball player. Rapid bolts of light shot out, and the baseball player deftly used his bat to intercept each blast. This time, he was not knocked off his feet. However, the blasts were too powerful for him to advance, either.
“Dammit,” Pulse bellowed, “I’m gonna par-broil you!—”
Suddenly, a voice called down from the heavens. “Broiling and baseball don’t mix. You should be grilling hot dogs.”
Pulse craned his neck upwards, and saw Zenith hovering above him. Pulse immediately smiled. “Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about!” Then he raised his arms, and unleashed a furious volley of energy bolts at Zenith. The volley exploded, filling the alley with light, and causing Zenith to buck about in the air somewhat, but he did not seem to be particularly perturbed by the attack.
Pulse, realizing how little effect he was having, lost his smile. “Jesus! What does it take to drop you?”
Zenith merely said, “I think you’re worried about dropping the wrong guy.”
Pulse seemed to be confused by his statement for a second. Then it dawned upon him what Zenith was alluding to, and he groaned softly. He spun around quickly, but the baseball player was directly behind him, in a batter’s stance, his bat already coming around from its fully-cocked position. He connected with Pulse’s head, causing Pulse to flip end-over-end twice, and land in a heap on the ground. This time, the man in the white-to-black leotard did not move.
Zenith immediately called out, “And that’s another home run for Lucky Strike!”
The baseball player smiled casually and replied, “The crowd goes wild.” Then he approached his unconscious foe, prodding him with the bat to make sure he was out. “Thanks for the assist, Zenith,” he said.
“Oh, you had ‘im, Lucky,” Zenith replied. “I just distracted him. You good from here?”
“Yeah, no problem,” Lucky Strike replied. “I’ll make him sit on his hands.”
“Sounds good. Later!” And with that, Zenith shot up into the air.
The baseball player casually pulled out a cellphone from his hip pocket, and hit a speed-dial number. “Hello, this is Lucky Strike. Making a citizen’s arrest of a male reflection identifying himself as ‘Pulse,’ at 4400 Edwardo, in the alley.” Pulse abruptly groaned, and Lucky Strike looked down at him. He quickly bent down, put Pulse’s hands behind his back, rolled him onto his back, and sat on his chest, effectively pinning his hands under himself. Then he resumed speaking into his phone. “Subject severely damaged 4400 Edwardo building with meta powers. Use extreme caution.”
He closed and pocketed his phone. “Now then,” he said to Pulse, “you just sit tight and wait for the police to pick you up.”
To his surprise, Pulse merely smiled. “You got me, hot shot. I won’t make no trouble.”
“You seem awful calm about this,” Lucky Strike told him. “Your reflection’s likely to be locked up for quite a while.”
Pulse shrugged. “I did my job. It was easy money.”
Lucky Strike could hear the sirens of the police approaching. “How easy?”
“Easy enough. This reflection can rot, for all I care.”
The police arrived, and Lucky Strike waited until they had reached them in the alley before moving. “Morning, boys. One of you want to get his hands first? He shoots some kind of energy bolts out of ‘em.” Once one of the officers had themselves positioned behind Pulse, Lucky Strike got up.
Pulse immediately brought one hand up, but the officer behind him grabbed it, pulled it back down and behind his back, and slapped on a strange-looking set of handcuffs. Pulse struggled against the cuffs, straining and flexing his hands, but he seemed unable to fire off any more energy bolts. “Aw, damn...” he muttered, as the cop started to lead him to the car. As he passed Lucky Strike, he said, “They’ll be taking these cuffs off eventually.”
“Or maybe they’ll just leave them on in the jail cell,” Lucky Strike responded.
Pulse seemed to consider that, and a moment later, his face became panicked. “Hey... hey, you wouldn’t do that!” he said to the nearest cop. “You... you can’t do that! I got rights! Hey!...”
“Well, that seemed to put the fear of God in him,” Lucky Strike commented to a nearby cop. “It’s a shame you can’t leave ‘em on.”
“You know we couldn’t do that,” the cop replied casually. “Against the law.”
“Yeah,” the baseball player nodded. “Still...” He leaned on his bat, like a player waiting for his turn at the mound, while the police carted the vandal away.
~
Zenith continued upward, until the sky around him began to shift from blue to black, and the stars could be seen clearly above him. He changed his direction, veering about and covering hundreds of miles in seconds, specifically to make sure no one could follow or observe him. He remained orbiting the planet for a few more minutes, to make sure he was not required anywhere. Then, when he was sure his job was done, he reached up, and tapped a spot on his temple, twice. A moment later, Zenith began to change from a blue-clad superhero to a slightly-flushed blue-clad mannequin floating in orbit above Miropolis...
...and in his apartment in New York, Tom Calavero revived from his lucid dreamstate, reached up with his hand, and switched off his halo.
It was still early yet, not even eight A.M. Tom slipped the halo off and placed it on the small table next to his recliner. “TV, on to CNN,” he said aloud, and the wall-mounted screen came alive, displaying the CNN morning newscast. Tom then extricated himself from the recliner and walked into his kitchen.
He started to prepare breakfast, keeping an eye on the television in the living room through the open wall of the kitchen. There was nothing of note in the CNN news feeds that morning... the usual sect attacks in Iraq, the usual bluster between the U.N. and North Korea, the usual complaints about immigrants and refugees coming into the U.S., the usual arguments between lower, middle, and upper class Americans, and the usual blurbs about this or that actor or actress and the difficulties in their social calendar, or their silly run-ins with the law or the paparazzi, that should not have qualified as being fit to run on CNN at all. Today, it all became a droning buzz in Tom’s ear, not worth directing his attention to. On one hand, Tom was glad that the world seemed to be running business as usual... not that “business as usual” was necessarily good, but it presented no unwelcome surprises. On the other hand, as a writer he often developed ideas from the headline news, or at least ideas to pursue based on an aside buried deep in someone else’s story, or an unspoken suggestion of facts that needed to be dug up. Today, he could see, there would be no new stories to be developed from this.
Tom had always been a borderline news junkie, his parents having put him in the habit when he was a youngster, but even moreso now, given his unique avocations.
Tomas “Tom” Calavero was a second-generation American, his grandparents being Puerto Rican, and having moved to New York in the forties, in time to witness the first of the racial divisiveness that would one day inspire West Side Story. His parents hadn’t done much better than his grandparents, barely managing to avoid poverty status throughout much of their early adult lives, but they had fortunately insisted on Tomas’ concentration on his education, and as a result, Tomas earned himself a literary scholarship that propelled him through college in the top twenty of his class.
Tomas had managed to score a writing position at the New York Times soon after graduation, working under the name of Tom Calas. He’d moved on to a Times-Mirror staff position after three years of successful newswriting, and eventually ended up doling out his talent as a freelancer and ghost-writer around town. Tom (as most people called him) had managed to get onto the technology-writing bandwagon early on, to his fortune: He ended up with a syndicated newspaper column, and two books about the Internet and computer development that had made the best-seller lists. This had propelled Tom into an income bracket his parents would have killed to attain, and set him up in a comfortable downtown midrise, complete with a view of the city lights at night that was always a hit with the ladies.
Tom’s life, in short, was pretty damned good for a single guy in New York, and he honestly felt he probably could have lived the rest of his life that way, wanting for nothing... even without the extra-curricular activities provided in the Mirror.
In roughly three hours, Tom had a meeting set up with one of his frequent publishers, at which he planned to pitch an idea for his next series of articles. The meeting was only about twenty blocks away, so he had plenty of time to eat a leisurely breakfast, go over his pitch, and catch a cab downtown. And once it was over, he’d have the rest of the day to himself, thanks to his finishing his weekly column a day early.
As he worked in the kitchen, a soft but distinctly audible ping made itself heard throughout the apartment. Following the ping was a female voice, similarly pitched to be soft, but to be clearly heard over the television and the outside noises of the city: “Incoming call from Mira Winter.”
Tom glanced up at nothing in particular, and said, “Answer on kitchen com.” He paused a beat, as the TV in the living room dialed its own volume down, then he called out, “Hey, Mira!”
“Hey, Tom,” came a new voice on the kitchen’s speaker. “I just got your call—”
“Just, huh?” Tom grinned and rolled his eyes. “Out late last night?”
“I never left the house.”
“That’s what I meant.”
“Smart guy!” Mira responded, although it was clear from her voice that she was not angered by his questions.
Tom, for his part, resisted poking at her some more, and willingly changed the subject. “All right, so, what’s your answer? I should be out of my meeting by one, so we could go catch a late lunch or something. What do you say?”
“Aw, hon, I’m sorry, I can’t,” Mira replied. The grin on Tom’s face faded slowly. “Summer has a photo shoot this afternoon, and it’ll take me hours to get tweaked and ready for it. Then there’s a party after the shoot, sponsored by KJAK, and I can’t miss that.”
“Sure, I understand,” Tom said as he brought his plate to the breakfast bar. “You know, one of these days, you have to try to get me into one of those KJAK parties.”
“You know I’d love to,” Mira replied, “but, y’know, as Norm Thomas you’re hardly the kind of reflection KJAK wants to see at their parties. When are you going to upgrade Norm, anyway? Surely you can afford it.”
“Hey, I like Norm the way he is,” Tom stated. “And if you were willing to put me on Summer’s ‘boyfriend’ list—”
“Tom,” Mira cut him off, “you know I can’t do that, for the same reason I can’t get Norm into a KJAK party. Upgrade.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Tom said, but shook his head. “So when can we get together?”
“I don’t know, I have a lot of things going on this week. I’ll check my schedule and get back to you. Okay?”
“Okay,” Tom replied resignedly. “Soon.”
“Upgrade.”
“Soon!”
“Bye.”
“Bye, hon.” A subtle tone indicated the closing of the connection, and Tom started to eat his breakfast. He tried not to be too disappointed by the outcome of his conversation with Mira, after all, it went that way very often these days. More often than not, in fact. It was a shame, because he still loved hanging out with Mira, and she clearly still cared for him. But it seemed that their physical relationship just could not compete with the wild and crazy life of her reflection. More and more every day, he was losing his girlfriend to Summer Malloy, the Mirror’s renowned celebrity supermodel and sex fiend.
~
Tom arrived on time at the office of Dean Publishing, waved amiably at the guard at the security desk, and headed casually for the elevator bay. Although the guard clearly recognized him, no one else in the lobby reacted noticeably to his presence, and no one in the elevator bay (or in the elevator with him) recognized him. Despite his notoriety as a columnist, writer and freelancer, he had never developed a visual persona in his PR efforts, and so he was completely unknown on the street, and relatively unrecognizable even in professional circles.
Richard Dean, the President of Dean Publishing, was only one of many who had always felt that was a mistake. This was not too surprising from Richard Dean, considering he had started his career as a reporter and newscaster, then show host, of various tech-based television shows in the 90s and 2000s, and shifted into running an online publishing firm when the tech-TV shows began to dwindle. Dean was good-looking, outgoing, and personable, like any TV personality, and he couldn’t really understand why someone with Tom’s relatively good looks wouldn’t take advantage of them.
As the elevator doors opened, Tom could hear Dean’s voice nearby. Tom stepped into the lobby, and saw Dean with two young staffers, a guy and a girl, apparently holding court. Dean saw Tom at the same moment, and waved. “Hi, Tom! Wait a sec, okay?” As he waved Tom over, he turned back to the staffers. “So, the idea is to do a split-screen presentation. You have the presenter in one screen, on the top, or maybe diagonally above. On the bottom, you show the product they’re presenting. That gives the audience their choice of looking at the presenter, or the product, whichever they prefer. You lose fewer watchers that way.”
“Okay,” the female staffer said, “but how does the presenter concentrate on their camera time, and handle the product at the same time? Sure, if all they have to do is turn it over, that’s no big deal...”
“No, you don’t use this on the easy stuff like that,” Dean replied. “Save it for products that need involved manipulation to demo. Then you film someone else’s hands working the product, in sync with the presenter’s monologue, and split-screen it to give the audience the impression that it’s the presenter’s hands.”
“Another decades-old TV trick at work?” Tom asked as he walked up.
“Sometimes, the old tricks are the best tricks,” Dean smiled. Then, back to the staffers, “So, set it up for the presenter and the product handler... doesn’t matter if they’re done together or matched up later... and comp a split-screen version. Can you get that by tomorrow?”
The staffers nodded and Dean sent them on their way, then turned his attention to Tom. “We are getting great responses from the video clips we’ve been adding to our e-mags, especially the product demos. Y’know, the Net may not be TV. But it’s amazing sometimes how many TV tricks work just as well for the Net.”
“Not to mention,” Tom added, “the TV tricks that don’t work well on either.”
“Ha!” Dean patted Tom on the arm, and turned in the direction of his editors’ offices. “So, here to see Justina? What’s up?”
“Got my new book idea,” Tom replied.
“Excellent! What are you thinking, e-book? Or maybe a column compilation?”
“E-book, I think,” Tom said. “Not sure of the length yet, though... it depends on which elements I add to the overall package.”
“Sounds good,” Dean nodded. “The columns are still doing well, and you expect to be able to maintain your deadlines, right?”
“Yeah, no problem.”
“Great. And maybe we can have you do your own product demo for one of the e-mags. What’s it on?”
“About the Mirror,” Tom told him.
Dean nodded and smiled. “Perfect for Looking Glass, then. Keep me apprised!”
“We will,” Tom replied as they reached Justina’s door, and Tom knocked. “See you later, Rich.”
“See you,” Dean replied, as Justine’s door opened. “Good luck!”
The woman who opened the door smiled at Dean, then at Tom, both of whom were noticeably taller than she. “Hi, Tom! Right on time, I see. Come on in.”
Justina headed back into her office, as Dean veered off and headed elsewhere. Tom threw Dean a last glance, before closing the door behind him and following Justine. He had a brief moment to admire Justina’s petite but cute figure from behind, before she had moved behind her desk and sat down. She was one of those infinitely cute Latino girls, whose age he would not have been able to pin down within twenty years, he was sure. Given that she was his editor, he had never pursued a more personal relationship with her that would threaten their business relationship... but that didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy her company when he had the chance. “I liked the Pipeline article, by the way,” she said without preamble. “We got it into the lineup yesterday... we may even get it online a day early.”
“Thanks.”
“So,” Justina continued, “you have a new idea? Did you already tell Rich all about it, or do I get a shot at it first?”
“Nope, it’s all yours,” Tom grinned, knowing she was alluding to Dean’s habit to micro-manage projects that he knew too much about early in the process. “All I told him is that I’m looking at an e-book, and it’s about the Mirror.”
“The Mirror,” she repeated, nodding and taking on an open and interested posture. “Okay. Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“All right,” Tom nodded back, leaning forward a bit. “It’s coming up on the ten year anniversary of the Mirror. In those ten years, the Mirror has gone further than any other virtual reality environment, pretty much stomping the rest of them into obscurity, and becoming an integral, even a vital, part of global society. And all of that has been liberally discussed in other books.”
“Agreed,” Justina nodded. “So you’re not going to go there?” It was more a statement than a question.
“Right,” Tom replied, “I’m not. I want to go into the impact the Mirror has had on people, on a personal and on a societal scale. How it affects the way people are living their real lives.”
“Go on.”
“Okay.” Tom leaned back a bit. “Based on my cursory observations, there are people who now spend as much time in the Mirror as they do outside of it... and sometimes more. Some people are becoming dedicated to permanent jobs inside of the Mirror. We all know a lot of people set up Mirror relationships that are completely separate from their real lives. You follow me so far?”
Justina nodded. “Keep going.”
“In the Mirror, people live as fictional doppelgangers of themselves, but just as often, as financial doppelgangers... taking advantage of Mirror business opportunities to open a new business, or to try a different lifestyle. But you know what’s funny? There are shoe shine boys in the Mirror.”
Justina blinked. Tom could tell he had told her something that she’d never noticed before. He knew he had her.
“You know what else the Mirror has? Bank clerks. Bus drivers. Hot dog vendors. Ticket takers. Not bots or druids, real people. In a virtual reality. Why would anyone go to a virtual reality, where they can potentially be and do anything at all, and choose to be a bank clerk?”
Tom leaned forward in his chair. “We’ve created an alternate reality, a world that literally mirrors the real world more closely than we thought it would. More importantly, the Mirror has become a financial reality, now that you can buy things in the Mirror using real-world money, and wealth created there can be spent in real-world banks. We’ve created a new place for people to make a living, or to get a fresh start. It’s become a place where people actually make a living, and live a real life... alongside the life they lead out here. People have become schizophrenics with a foot in two universes. We’re seeing a major influence on human psychology and sociology here, and it’s not just about playing games.
“I want to explore that new psychology. I want to write a series of articles on the Mirror’s impact on people, and the way they relate to each other in both worlds. I’m thinking of alternating the material between observations and details, and a number of fictional John and Jane Does, acting out the things I’m describing. Sort of a day in the life of two universes, with explanations of what they’re doing, why, and how it affects them mentally.”
Tom leaned back, through with his pitch. “What do you think?”
Justina wasted no time... she nodded and smiled thoughtfully at once. “I like it. I’m not aware of anyone else who’s covered the material in anything other than a purely academic standpoint and a limited venue. And now that I think about that, I’m surprised no one has.” Now it was her turn to lean forward. “We’ll be your publisher on that book. But if I were you, I’d keep it under your hat. It would be too easy for TV or some other media to scoop you, if they think you’re on to something.”
“Good point,” Tom agreed. “I’ll come up with some cover story, something plausible but fairly innocuous.”
“Good, good. Were you planning to do interviews in the Mirror?”
“Maybe not formal ones, but yeah, I was.”
“Will you need a new reflection for that?”
“I don’t think so,” Tom replied. “My reflection is pretty much a full-time party guy. I can get him into almost anyplace.”
Justina grinned. “Yeah? What’s his name?”
“Norm Thompson,” Tom told her.
“Hmm... a partier with a normal name. What else have you done to him? I’ll have to look him up when I go in next time,” Justina said, cocking a suggestive eyebrow at him. Tom tried not to react too strongly to the revelation that she might swing with him in the Mirror. “How often do you go?”
“Oh, off and on,” Tom replied quickly. “When I’m working on a writing project, I don’t go in as often as I’d like sometimes.”
“Oh,” Justina murmured, disappointed. “Well, next time you do, look for me.”
“Who’s your reflection?”
“Vera Wilde.”
~
Tom left the offices of Dean Publishing thinking, this is exactly why I need to write this book. In all the time he’d known Justina Reese, she had never given him any sign of interest. In fact, he was sure she was as averse to messing up business relationships with personal trysts as he was. And yet, there she was, telling him outright that she’d love to date his reflection sometime. And in the Mirror, dating almost always meant sex. (And why not? There were no condoms, STDs, unwanted love children or back-alley abortions in the Mirror. It was amazing how much of an edge that took off of sex. Who wouldn’t take advantage of that?)
But more to the point, it illustrated the dichotomy of life in two worlds, the mass schizophrenia that was developing around it. Justina didn’t even seem to be aware of it herself, and Tom had decided not to point it out to her... it might turn out to be something he could use in the book.
Of course, he had told Justine that he intended to use his Norm Thompson reflection to conduct his research and interviews, but that hadn’t been necessarily true. In fact, he planned to use his other reflection—Zenith—as much as Norm. But as Zenith was still his secret, he couldn’t tell Justina that.
Robin e-Book edition is copyright ©Steve Jordan. All rights reserved.
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