Slick (44 page)

[mrvl_girl] 
I mean it’s Friday night. Shouldn’t you be out on the town?

[pr_demon] 
What makes you think I’m an “out on the town” kind of guy?

[mrvl_girl] 
Because when I first met you, you were just a dude cruising around Westwood at 3AM. At least that’s how I struck you. :}

[pr_demon] 
I was coming back from the airport.

[mrvl_girl] 
Really? So were we.

[pr_demon] 
Another “find & retrieve” for Madison, huh?

[mrvl_girl] 
No comment.

[pr_demon] 
Right. I forgot.

[mrvl_girl] 
But I did notice that you weren’t alone in your car.

[pr_demon] 
That was just a friend from New York.

[mrvl_girl] 
*scans for subtext*

[pr_demon] 
A _married_ friend from New York.

[mrvl_girl] 
Okay, but someone in this household thinks you have a special woman in your life.

[pr_demon] 
That seems to be the rumor.

[mrvl_girl] 
Do you?

[pr_demon] 
Nope.

[mrvl_girl] 
Special man?

[pr_demon] 
Nope.

[mrvl_girl] 
But you _are_ hetero.

[pr_demon] 
Yes. Non-practicing.

[mrvl_girl] 
You and me both, pal.

[pr_demon] 
But you’re married.

[mrvl_girl] 
Scott, if you think marriage guarantees constant, frequent, or even occasional sex, then you’re stunningly na
Å
¨ve.

[pr_demon] 
I think you meant “naive.”

[mrvl_girl] 
I did. This program seems to barf its umlauts.

[pr_demon] 
You mention your ex-husband all the time but you never talk about the current one.

[mrvl_girl] 
What would you like to know?

[pr_demon] 
What’s his name? What does he do? How long have you been married? How does he put up with you?

[mrvl_girl] 
Neil. Captions. Four years. Shut up.

[pr_demon] 
Captions, as in “closed captions for the hearing impaired.”

[mrvl_girl] 
Yep. He’s one of the guys who types them up, usually for live broadcasts. He does a lot of sports events. I believe he’s doing the Grammys in two weeks.

[pr_demon] 
Wow. He must haul ass on the keyboard.

[mrvl_girl] 
220 words a minute.

[pr_demon] 
220?!!

[mrvl_girl] 
I know. That used to really turn me on.

[pr_demon] 
How is that even possible?!

[mrvl_girl] 
It’s not a keyboard. It’s a 10-key touchpad, like the stenographers use. He just plugs it into the network console, and it all gets encoded into the broadcast.

[pr_demon] 
Wait. I think I read something about this.

[mrvl_girl] 
Television runs on 20 visible lines of data. The 21st line is hidden right out of view, until you press the Captions button. Then it gets pushed up to where everyone can see it.

[pr_demon] 
I did read something about this.

[mrvl_girl] 
Damn. I thought I was impressing you.

[pr_demon] 
You are. You know a hell of a lot about TV for a woman who doesn’t watch any.

[mrvl_girl] 
I just know a lot about Neil’s job. Yours, however, remains a mystery to me.

[pr_demon] 
You might say I also work with hidden messages.

[mrvl_girl] 
You mean like VOTE FOR FRED or BUY THIS PRODUCT?

[pr_demon] 
Buy this product. Buy this person. Buy this story.

[mrvl_girl] 
So what are you peddling now? Product, person or story?

[pr_demon] 
Actually I seem to be making a product out of a person’s story.

[mrvl_girl] 
Wow. That’s vaguely ominous.

[pr_demon] 
Hey, I’m a candy striper compared to the VOTE FOR FRED people.

[mrvl_girl] 
See, this is why I keep my nose buried in comic books and fantasy novels. Every time I look up at reality, I get depressed. Or repulsed. Or just plain pissed. I don’t even like fiction that takes place on Earth. Earth sucks.

[pr_demon] 
How do you know?

[mrvl_girl] 
Because I’ve lived here all my life.

[pr_demon] 
It’s just that the people who complain about the state of the world typically base their opinion on what they see in the news. That’s a big mistake.

[mrvl_girl] 
I’m not one of those people, but I’ll bite. Why is it a mistake?

[pr_demon] 
Because the news is all emotion-based propaganda. It’s all about showing you the worst of humanity. Not the common worst, the SHOCKING worst. And then they spin the shocking worst to make it look like it’s common. School shootings! Rap assaults! It could happen to YOUR child! It could happen to YOU!

[mrvl_girl] 
You’re talking about the tabloids.

[pr_demon] 
I’m talking about all the news.

[mrvl_girl] 
They can’t ALL do that.

[pr_demon] 
Now who’s being na
Å
¨ve?

[mrvl_girl] 
God, I am so far removed from this. For good reason, it seems.

[pr_demon] 
It’s all just part of the business.

[mrvl_girl] 
Yes, and apparently so are you.

[pr_demon] 
I never denied it. And I never said I was above it.

[mrvl_girl] 
So you like what you do.

[pr_demon] 
I love it.

[mrvl_girl] 
You love planting hidden inflammatory messages in the news.

[pr_demon] 
Yup. I think I’m good at it, too.

[mrvl_girl] 
And I think you’re trying to get an inflammatory reaction out of me. That’s what I think.

[pr_demon] 
Yeah, I probably am. And I should probably stop. I don’t want you pulling my assistant out of her job.

[mrvl_girl] 
No. God, no. That’d be like pulling her heart out of her chest.

[pr_demon] 
Good, because I’ve come to rely on her. The girl’s got talent.

[mrvl_girl] 
For planting subtext?

[pr_demon] 
For digging it up.

[mrvl_girl] 
Think she has potential to plant it?

[pr_demon] 
Like a mad farmer.

[mrvl_girl] 
See, that’s the part that makes me cringe.

[pr_demon] 
Don’t worry. You’re particularly safe from our evil mojo.

[mrvl_girl] 
Me? Why me?

[pr_demon] 
Because we mostly work with noise, and you’re immune to noise.

[mrvl_girl] 
You’re very interesting.

[pr_demon] 
Ha ha ha.

[mrvl_girl] 
What?

[pr_demon] 
You did this once before. You took a really long time to give me just a little bit of text. I sit here expecting twelve paragraphs and then I get three or four measly words.

[mrvl_girl] 
I was censoring myself.

[pr_demon] 
Don’t worry. I can take an insult.

[mrvl_girl] 
Actually, it was a compliment.

[pr_demon] 
You censor your compliments?

[mrvl_girl] 
I censored this one. It was pretty harsh.

[pr_demon] 
I have no idea what to make of that.

[mrvl_girl] 
Look, it was a good decision. I don’t make them very often. Let’s just skip it and move on.