The Shadow Maker (12 page)

Strickland rubbed his eyelids tiredly. ‘Why does this make me nervous?’

‘Because you’re twitchy?’ Rita offered.

‘No, because I know what you’re like,’ he countered. ‘You’ve already got your wrist slapped for going after one prominent target.

I owe you a favour, so I’ll protect your back as best I can. But if you try to interrogate someone as high-profile as Martin Barbie, you’ll stir up a shit-storm beyond my control.’

‘Relax,’ she told him. ‘I’m just doing background checks at this stage, and so far nothing’s been flagged up. No MX-5s owned by him or his employees. But something in Kelly’s attitude has aroused my curiosity. Barbie’s hosting an awards ceremony tonight at Crown Casino and I plan to be part of the audience, no more than that.’

A storm crackled in the night sky as Rita parked her car and hurried along the river promenade to the awards ceremony. The tops of buildings gleamed like geometric crystals in the flashes of lightning.

And high above the riverbank, reflecting the glare, was the cylindrical tower of the casino complex, rising like a citadel amid a sprawl of clubs, cinemas, gambling halls and theme bars radiant with neon.

By the time she made it into the reception venue proceedings were underway. Rita flashed her badge at a security guard and slipped into the auditorium through a side entrance. There in the spotlight, standing before the podium, was Martin Barbie. He was gazing down over a sea of faces from the advertising industry, delivering the opening address. This was the first time she’d seen him in the flesh, but it was obvious he had presence. Still in his early thirties, Barbie was well-built and broad-shouldered in his tailored dinner suit, his face tanned and chiselled like that of a sporting hero. As a television personality he was supremely polished, as a businessman, sharp and disciplined. But Rita suspected that, more than most, Barbie knew appearances were deceptive. Glamour, charm, the lure of the superficial were his stock in trade. Even his surname was deceptive, an anglicised version of the original. Although he’d been born in Australia, his father was Estonian, with a fierce reputation and a questionable past. In Rita’s opinion, it was unlikely that Barbie had emerged from his childhood unscathed.

He’d been invited to speak on the values of modern salesman-ship, and no one was more expert at proclaiming the gospel of the media, extolling the virtues of mass communications. Tonight he was in an evangelical mood, despite the fact he was preaching to the converted.

Rita accepted the offer of a chair from a waiter and settled down to listen.

‘I feel at home here,’ Barbie was telling them. ‘I feel a sense of community. A sense of purpose. We share a vision.’

He paused, saw the message was getting across.

‘And what could be more appropriate than to gather here, in the middle of a vast entertainment centre. No matter what the palaeo-traditionalists of our society say, it’s from places like this we project future lifestyles.’

Heads nodded in agreement above rows of dinner jackets.

‘I remember the barrage of criticism when this complex was built.

They said it was crass, in bad taste. They opined that the elegant charms of the city were being sacrificed to the vices of the consumer society. Reactionary rubbish. These are the arguments of people who feel nostalgia for an era that produced ice boxes, gramophone records, Bakelite phones, two global wars, and a depression. The sort of people who advocate an authoritarian society. Everybody in his or her determined place. Minimum skills. Limited prospects.

Basic income. The economics of intolerance. Well, if it comes to a choice, I’ll take the consumer society any day.’

A ripple of laughter.

Barbie gave a nod of appreciation.

‘Take a stroll around the amazing facilities of this complex and what do you see? The dynamic of social wealth? Certainly. The tangible rewards of a free market economy? Definitely. Or, as its critics suggest, a temple to mammon? Perhaps. Undeniably it’s devoted to the secular - a place where people can shop, dine, party, enjoy a concert, a cabaret, take in a movie, try their luck at the gaming tables. Commerce at every turn. But I’ll tell you what you see here above anything else. Something fundamental. Human happiness. People spending money and having fun. Individuals satisfying their needs in a way no earlier society could grant. If that’s a consumer paradise, then great. If it’s a neon temple to the god of entertainment, why not? After thousands of years of struggle, human beings deserve it.’

A wave of spontaneous applause.

Rita couldn’t help being impressed. Even though she objected strongly to his theme, she could see he was delivering it with charismatic flair. That in itself was a rare talent.

Barbie hurried towards his closing remarks, his voice resonating with conviction.

‘All of you here tonight play a role in pushing the boundaries of human fulfilment. For all the bad-mouthing it gets, advertising is one of the driving forces of social motivation and development. And more than that. It’s art. It’s psychology. It’s mind games - the semiotics of the future - or to borrow an idea from John Lennon, it’s the projection of images onto the blue screen of the cosmos. So congratulate yourselves. Be proud of what you do. The images you manipulate are more than marketing tools. They project reality. They reinvent it. They change our perception of the world. They help open up a frontier of individual freedom unattainable in all the centuries past. Forget Babylon and Byzantium. Forget the British Empire. The past is a place dominated by the hierarchy of indulgence.

The self-gratification of elites. In contrast, the consumer society breaks down class barriers and political divisions because it wants access for all. It’s global. It’s egalitarian. It’s a democracy of pleasure.

It’s also the fast track to the future - and all of us here tonight are helping to shape it.’

The audience leapt to its feet, clapping wildly, each one a believer

- all, that is, except Marita Van Hassel. She didn’t applaud, but simply observed an almost dangerous enthusiasm. There was no doubting Barbie’s ability as a communicator. However she was equally convinced that his message subverted the very notion of civilised values. It left her cold.

Rita walked out of the reception venue by the way she’d come in, leaving in her wake the sort of hero worship that troubled her deeply. When anyone was treated as an idol, her response was to look for feet of clay. It was partly because of her vocation - the deconstructive process involved in profiling - and partly because of her instinctive dislike of mass behaviour. What also bugged her was the self-indulgence of the idol himself.

She’d seen and heard enough for tonight. Her brief observation of Barbie in action had reinforced her decision to find out more about Xanthus, and with no other pressing line of inquiry open to her, she’d start in the morning.

For now, it was time to go home and catch up on some sleep.

For a while after his speech Martin Barbie basked in the admiring warmth of his audience, accepting the handshakes and backslapping from the men, and the appreciation in women’s eyes. It all served to reinforce his status as a social hero, and that was good for business. It didn’t bother Barbie that his heroic posture was a fiction choreographed by the media. In fact it was commercially satisfying.

After all, his business was nothing less than the cynical manipulation of mass culture. The adulation of others simply confirmed he was good at it.

As people resumed their seats and the presentation of awards began, he lost interest. A long and repetitive ceremony lay ahead, and he had urgent chores to attend to. As soon as he could he slipped out of the hall, made his way to his car, and drove to where the inner city development merged with the suburbs. He pulled off the highway and nosed the car into the concrete driveway of his small computer company, Xanthus Software.

It was a low smoked-glass building with nothing noteworthy about it, apart from the vaguely sinister look of the chain-link fence fringed with razor wire and studded with security cameras.

A uniformed guard sat in a cabin beside the tubular steel gates, which he opened promptly as he recognised the company boss sitting behind the wheel of his Lamborghini. Barbie drove onto the narrow forecourt as the gates closed behind him. Getting out, he strode through reception and climbed the stairs to his office on the first floor.

Two of his software developers were still at work, despite the late hour. Barbie expected nothing less. He was paying them huge 2/3/07 11:08:58 AM

2/3/07 11:08:58 AM

salaries to deliver a virtual reality games package in time for a meeting with Japanese executives, and the deadline was approaching. As he checked his email he could hear them arguing. Their nerdish banter irritated him.

‘It’s important.’

‘No it’s not.’

‘How do you know until I’ve explained?’

‘Just shut up.’

‘But I’ve been reading about brains. Human brains.’

‘I haven’t got time for this.’

‘We’ve got some spooky stuff in there. Hippocampus, hypothalamus, limbic system.’

‘I don’t care.’

‘And modern humans still have reptile brains inside their skulls.’

‘Bullshit.’

‘I’m serious, Flynn. It’s a biological fact. The structures in our heads evolved over millions of years, from the brain stem upwards.

And they’re still in there - still functioning. Producing the same thoughts as a snake or crocodile.’

‘You’re weird, Maynard.’

‘I’m just making a point.’

‘Which is?’

‘Brain chemistry.’

‘That’s not a point, you dork. That’s a meaningless statement.’

‘All I’m saying is we’re playing around with it, and we don’t know the consequences. We’re stimulating people’s brains electronically without knowing what the neurological effects are.’

‘You’re not making sense. Who’s this “we”?’

‘You and me. With this software. Plugging into people’s brains through stereoscopic images and synchronised sound.’

‘It’s a
game
, for fuck’s sake.’

‘No, it’s a computer-generated environment in which people are immersed.’

‘Quite right,’ said Barbie, interrupting them as he strode into the room. ‘And it’ll make a fortune for whoever markets it.’ Tokyo had emailed the schedule. ‘Will the software be ready in time?’ he snapped, then stared ominously at the two of them - Bruce Maynard, lanky and sullen; Eddy Flynn, wiry and volatile. Both dysfunctional human beings, but technically the best in their field.

Flynn and Maynard looked at each other, then spoke simul-taneously.

‘Probably.’

Barbie pursed his lips. Was this a wind-up, or was a multi-million-dollar deal really in jeopardy?

‘You don’t need reminding how important this project is to me.’

He took a deep breath. ‘So failure’s not an option. Nor are smart-arse comments.’

They slouched on their swivel chairs and gazed up at him with bland expressions - a pair of unresponsive geeks surrounded by their clutter of screens and keyboards and processors and tech toys.

‘We’re working our bums off for you,’ said Flynn. ‘For the past ten hours I’ve been chasing a paper trail because of a bug the test team failed to unearth. I haven’t had time to fart.’

Barbie leant over him, unimpressed.

‘Listen to me carefully. Timing is everything. Programming directors and software managers arrive from Tokyo this month. It’s my window of opportunity to sell this package while it’s still hot

- before anyone else fills the gap in the market. So I don’t want excuses. It’s got to be ready on time. Complete. Bug-free. Best-of-breed.’

‘Or what?’ said Flynn.

‘Or I’ll have your balls surgically removed and pickled.’

‘But there’s still an endless amount of diagnostics to do,’ protested Maynard. ‘Source code testing. Integration testing.’

‘Project artefacts,’ added Flynn.

‘Regression tests. Performance tests.’

‘Function point analysis.’

‘Code metrics.’

They were playing a game with him and he knew it.

‘Unless you want us to ignore the usual benchmarks and quality gates.’

Barbie stood up straight and smiled coldly. ‘I want you to get the job done without acting like a couple of propeller heads. Which reminds me - there are supposed to be three of you working tonight.

Where’s Josh?’

They exchanged a look.

‘Well, where is he?’ Barbie demanded.

‘Out getting pizzas.’

‘I’m not paying him to do pizza runs! He’s the number one troubleshooter on this software so the game succeeds or fails on his level of input. Next time get the fucking pizzas delivered!’ shouted Barbie, adjusting his bow tie. ‘And when Josh gets back, pass on my message. Up and running on time - or balls in a jar.’ He threw them a look as he walked out the door. ‘Code metrics, my arse.’

Barbie had been gone less than ten minutes when Josh Barrett returned, juggling a stack of pizza boxes, chocolate fudge cake and coleslaw tubs. He was greeted with looks of despondency.

‘What’s up?’ he asked.

‘Barbie wants to castrate us,’ said Flynn. ‘And Maynard’s got a reptile’s brain.’

‘That’s not what I said.’

‘And the game we’re designing will boil people’s heads.’

Josh dumped the food on a desktop among strands of cable.

‘Interesting sales pitch.’

‘He twists everything,’ Maynard complained.

‘You’re the one who’s twisted, arsehole. If anyone’s got the brain chemistry of a snake -‘ said Flynn.

‘I was just trying to make the point -‘ started Maynard.

‘The point is you’re weird. If you didn’t know how to point and click no one would even communicate with you. No wonder you frighten women.’

‘Go fuck yourself.’

With a scowl, Maynard picked up his pizza and went to the far side of the room where he could eat in peace and watch the highway traffic through the window.

‘See what I mean?’ said Flynn. ‘No social grace.’

‘And what about Barbie?’ said Josh as they helped themselves to the food. ‘What’s his problem?’

‘Shitting himself about the deadline.’