The Unincorporated Man (26 page)

“We need to find a way to get him and us out of the spotlight,” Mosh said wearily.

“That’s not going to happen anytime soon.” It was Gil. “You’d have an easier time reversing the Grand Collapse.”

Dr. Wang cleared her throat. “Most people are famous in a reflected way. They reflect the fame of other people or events or actions. Those people are relatively easy to separate from the spotlight. You simply remove them from the source of their fame, and soon the world loses interest. The actor stops acting, or the sports figure stops playing, etc. But Justin is not reflecting fame. He is fame. You cannot separate him from himself. The world will have to grow tired of Justin for the spotlight to fade, and that, I suspect, will take some time.”

“Unfortunately, I agree with the assessment, Doctor,” answered Mosh. “My question is, how do we get the damned spotlight to shine somewhere else?”

“Mosh,” chided Eleanor, knowing what her husband was implying, “we will not throw that nice man out on the street.”

“What street, Eleanor? That man is going to be one of the wealthiest men in the system the second he steps out the door.”

“Actually,” said Gil, “he may already be. Justin’s been giving me lists of stocks and works of art and collectible items he’s socked away—if they’ve survived, that is.”

“You mean other than what we found in the tomb?” asked Dr. Wang.

“Precisely.”

“So,” said Mosh, “you’re telling us he buried treasure around the world before he was suspended?”

“That’s what I’m telling you,” answered Gil. “Or, at least, that’s what he’s telling me.”

“Rich or not, we can’t simply throw him out,” insisted Eleanor.

“We don’t have to,” said Neela, interrupting the fracas. “He wants to go. To be exact, he wants to give a press conference and move back to New York.”

“Well, why didn’t you say so?” Mosh asked, glaring at Neela.

“I tried,” she answered, “but you all seemed pretty intent on not letting me get a word in edgewise.”

“I wonder why that is?” Gil asked, neither needing nor expecting an answer. Everyone laughed.

“Yeah, yeah,” chortled Neela, “very funny, Gil. But the fact remains, he does want to leave.”

Mosh’s sense of relief was palpable and visible. He’d been thinking of sending Justin for a long space cruise on a private yacht, something that would’ve taken him to the Oort Cloud and beyond. It would’ve taken over a year before he’d have gotten back, and by then he would have hopefully had enough time to begin a proper adjustment into society. Or had Justin preferred, he could have become one of the many people who simply wandered through the solar system, content to call home wherever they happened to be. But now it was moot. Justin had solved his problem, and for a lot less money.

“Is he really ready for that?” asked Eleanor.

“You’d think not,” answered Dr. Wang, “but Neela and I have gone over his biophysicals, and they’re all in proper balance. And if he does have any emotional turmoil he’s hiding it better than anyone I’ve ever seen.”

Gil was perplexed. “I know I’m not an expert or anything, but shouldn’t it take longer to mainstream someone like that?”

“Like what?” asked Neela.

“Like, that old,” answered Gil. “Not to mention the fact that everything and everyone he held dear is irrevocably gone.”

“Not his nature,” said Neela. “Justin will always try to deal with reality without pretensions or delays. It is in his nature to accept a situation.”
And try to master it
, she thought.

Mosh drummed his fingers on the table until he noticed the racket he was causing. “Alright, people, let’s figure out what to do here.”

“Legally,” answered Gil, “we have to keep him here until he’s ready to leave. And that doesn’t mean when he says he’s ready. It means when
we say
he’s ready. We’re a medical facility first and a harried bunch of workers second. It’s important we remember that.”

“Morally, we have an obligation to keep him till he’s ready to go,” added Eleanor, looking to Neela for support.

“He’s ready,” said Neela, “but he does have one condition.”

“Name it,” said Mosh, a little too quickly.

“Me.”

Advertising media saturation in a society as advanced as this one is both a blessing and a curse. Indeed, had it not been for the market demand and successful application of products and services to help limit advertising, society would have experienced a second Grand Collapse (by the simple fact that no one would have wanted to leave their homes for fear of advertising inundation). Luckily, there was almost as much money to be made in antipublicity and antiadvertising product development as in the traditional fields of advertising, and so a healthy balance was reached. But if the public wanted to be informed of an event, or in effect allowed themselves to be advertised to, then what became known as “permissive” market saturation could easily reach so close to 100 percent as to make no statistical difference whatsoever. Of the four events in modern times to reach the magic 100, three of them involved Justin Cord.

—FROM A LECTURE GIVEN BY PROFESSOR MARTIN JONES, UNIVERSITY OF SAN

MIGUEL DE ALLENDE, POSTED AT MEDIA AND MODERN SOCIETY

The press conference was held in the clinic’s loading dock. Although not ideally suited, it was the only place big enough to hold the event. Floaters and reporters were busy scurrying about everywhere, except for a small area cordoned off by the main entrance leading into the clinic. And that’s where most of them were encamped, waiting for the system’s hottest news story to walk through the door.

Justin and Neela were waiting patiently on the other side of it, listening to the clamor, and occasionally peering out through the one-way mirror.

Justin couldn’t help but laugh at the melee occurring in his honor.

“You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you?” Neela asked, resisting the urge to gently poke his ribs.

“Sure. What man wouldn’t like to have the whole world—sorry—the whole
solar system
waiting with bated breath to hear what he has to say?”

“In that case,” chided Neela, “it’d better be good.”

He laughed and smiled at her, indicating he was ready to go. Neela smiled back. He seemed, she thought, transformed. He also appeared to be totally accepting, and even eager, about beginning his new life. She wished she could have claimed some of the credit, but she wouldn’t. Even though she’d helped Justin center himself, and was there for him during his first week, it was nothing like how a reintegration, especially of this sort, was supposed to go. If anything, she should have gotten him to slow down, not plow ahead. And now she realized she didn’t want him to walk out that door, because when he did, everything would change again. Not that it hadn’t already, but the few steps he was about to take into the world’s waiting arms would solidify the change irrevocably. Neela wanted to keep this moment for herself before the world took him away.

“You know,” she said, “it’s not like the world knows nothing about you. Besides what’s already on the Neuro, that interview you gave with Mr. Veritas is systemwide.”

“True enough, Neela. I’m happy to say that they know about you as well, Miss Famous Reanimationist with a specialty in social integration. If I’m not mistaken, your interviews with Irma Sobbelgé were broadcast systemwide as well.”

Neela feigned amusement at Justin’s remark, but inside she was worried. The associative fame of being so close to the system’s newest frenzy had shot her stock value way up—beyond what she could have ever hoped to earn in her lifetime. The immediate effect was to make her a wealthy woman… at least, on paper. The downside was that her dream of gaining self-majority was slipping further and further away. The more well-known she became, the more her stock shot up. And the more her stock shot up, the more difficult it became to buy it back. She likened it to a cat chasing its tail.

As a precaution she’d called her parents and sister before news of Justin broke and told them not to sell any shares that they owned, no matter how lucrative. As was customary, most parents promised not to sell their children’s 20 percent, and usually willed it back to their offspring in the unfortunate event of an accidental permanent death. But it would have taken saints to turn down the type of offers Neela’s stock was getting. While Neela understood that the decision to sell was her parents’ and sister’s to make, she didn’t want them to get swindled. She’d breathed a sigh of relief when they’d told her that no matter what the going price, the shares would remain in their name alone. As far as her brother was concerned, she’d wisely bought back her few shares from him well over ten years ago.

Another downside to her newfound notoriety was how busy her schedule had become. She’d been booked for countless talk shows and speaking tours, something she looked forward to with loathing. She would have loved to refuse them all; however, as long as she was a minority shareholder of herself she had no choice but to agree. Even the extra credits she made did not make up for the loss of the quiet life she’d almost grown used to. In many ways, she’d often reflect, she was living a parallel life to that of her patient. Suddenly thrown into the spotlight, people fawning for her attention—almost as if she, too, had been reborn.

Incorporation headaches
, she thought sadly. She put on a smile for Justin and wondered what it would be like to not owe anybody anything—to be
that
free.

“Besides,” Justin said, breaking Neela out of her reverie, “those interviews explained the past. This press conference is about the future.” He again motioned toward the doorway. “Shall we?”

“By all means, Justin,” Neela said, sighing slightly. “Let’s not keep the future waiting.”

They stepped through the permiawall into a hailstorm of shouted questions and the associated sounds of buzzing contraptions used for high-quality recording. Justin was a little surprised by the lack of flashes going off but remembered that a civilization with sourceless lighting wouldn’t need a flash to illuminate a face. Still, the noise was enough to deafen, and the shouted questions reminded Justin that this was indeed an old-fashioned media frenzy. He stood in front of a small dais and held up his hands, hoping it would bring some order. The mob quieted down. He pointed first to Irma Sobbelgé. It was their agreement that she would get the first question, and then all special treatment would end. Justin felt he had more than lived up to his end of the bargain, and Irma had agreed.

He put both hands on the dais, readying himself for the onslaught. “Yes.”

Irma stood up, basking momentarily in the special treatment accorded her and her paper. “Mr. Cord, Irma Sobbelgé,
Terran Daily News
. We have it on good authority that you’re leaving the clinic. Is that true? And if so, where will you be living now?”

Justin smiled, knowing that Irma had just asked two questions instead of one, but he admired her desire to milk her moment for all it was worth.

“It is true,” he answered, “that I will be leaving the clinic, and I wish to thank all the staff here for doing an amazing job under the most unusual of circumstances. I am grateful. But a man is reborn in a clinic; he is not meant to live there.”

The room started to laugh, taking Justin by surprise. He didn’t think what he’d said was all that funny, but it may have struck a cultural chord he knew nothing about. When the laughter subsided, he continued.

“I’ll be living in New York City for the time being, though the asteroid belt is looking interesting to me. I may eventually settle in Ceres.”

And in one fell swoop what had been meant as a joke set off a real-estate war on the tiny boulder that raised property values by an average of 37 percent.

He pointed to another reporter, a pretty woman of Asian descent. She stood up to speak.

“Miss Huan Lee Kim of the Neuro News,” she belted out.

“Yes, Ms. Kim.”

“Mr. Cord, will Dr. Harper be continuing on as your… integrationist?”

“Yes. I have signed a contract with the director of the clinic for her services for the next year.”

“May I ask as to the nature of that contract?” she pressed.

“No,” snapped Justin.

Miss Kim was about to sit down, not expecting an answer but having more than enough to scandalize her readers for weeks, when Neela, who was standing behind and to the right of Justin, stepped forward.

“If you would allow me to answer that question, Justin,” Neela said.

Justin nodded in surprise and took a small step backward to allow Neela front and center.

“Miss Kim, Mr. Cord has agreed to pay my salary for a year, as well as the cost of replacing me on staff for the year. In return he will be my exclusive patient, though I have contacted Dr. Gillette of the Vegas Clinic, and he will be consulting on this case. I would also like to say that the tone and emphasis of your questions were not becoming to my professional integrity or your own. Mr. Cord is my patient, period. Soon he may be mine and Dr. Gillette’s.”

“Doesn’t he trust you?” someone shouted from the back.

“Completely,” smiled Justin, “but Neela insisted, and who am I to argue with my specialist?” The crowd chuckled, and Justin picked someone else before they started shouting out their own questions. A well-dressed man in an intricately layered, multicolored suit stood up.

“Mr. Corwin of
The Detroit Times
,” he said, as proudly as he could manage.

“Yes, Mr. Corwin.”

“Mr. Cord, I am sure that you
will be
a wealthy man, but where did you get the funds to pay for your own private specialist for a year?”

“Before I had myself suspended, I took the precaution of placing certain valuables in places around the world. Sadly, most of them were found and looted, but three of my troves went untouched. According to the appraisals I’ve received you can consider my financial status as ‘comfortable.’ ”

Justin pointed at another woman standing off to the side but jumping in a manner that caught his eye.

“Yes, you over there with the impressive jump.”

“Thank you. Miss Daniels,
Boulder Sentinel
.”

“Yes, Miss Daniels.”