Back in the day, with the takeover of the country in full swing, Cyrus’s team asked him about a location for his headquarters. The head of The Crowe Corporation responded with a list of needs, never wants, that included the following: a fully-outfitted bunker in case of nuclear attack or attempted takeover; a multi-level, subterranean building beneath the visible one in which he could run a production studio and house a militia; and, a rooftop, Olympic-sized pool complete with sundeck. Cyrus and his team knew there was only one address in D.C. that would do, but it was occupied.

For eight years, Cyrus tried to coerce its resident squatters into giving the property up. It wasn’t until a new and more willing group of older, sicker men rolled in that he was able to get its status as property of the United States National Park Service changed to private. Immediately, he bought the place and took possession.

In the years since Cyrus moved into his palace on Pennsylvania Avenue, the structure has tripled in size, each of its six sides, blooming outward. The foyer and front wing now abut the iconic street that lends its name to Cyrus’s mailing address, and the only green visible from above is a small park located on the building’s backside where his geriatric dog, Mrs. Thatcher, can take a quickly palmed shit.

A dozen red eyes watch from within their housings as a black sedan slides into the building’s drop-off lane. As the car pulls noiselessly into its daily port, The Crowe Corporation’s enormous glass atrium comes into view through the vehicle’s windshield. The driver puts the car in Park and finds the backseat passenger’s eyes in his rearview mirror.

“You’re sure about this, ma’am?” he asks, adjusting the mirror so the rest of her head, covered in a forest-green hood, is visible. “There are people here.”

The woman follows the driver’s nodding head to a group of khaki-shirted tourists marching up the front steps. Two-dozen of them, she estimates. And more approaching from the road.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” the driver says, one hand moving towards his gearshift. “It’s just too dangerous.”

Before he can pull away, the woman gathers the edges of her hood in a fist and opens the door. “I’m not missing this meeting,” she says and gets out of the car.

Keeping her eyes down, the woman walks up the building’s steps and pushes through the first of two sets of doors. Before she can proceed into the lobby, she spies an approaching group of night watchmen just off their shift and goes still. As the men push into the breezeway next to her, the woman bends down to fiddle with a shoe. With a whoosh of air that sends her cape flying, the men disappear into the first rays of sun they’ll have seen in twelve hours, and she’s alone again. Unseen.

Standing up, the woman spies a halo of lights high up in the lobby’s tall atrium. Unable to see them in whole from her current position, she follows the C-shaped breezeway to its opposite end and watches the display she’s heard so much about but, for security purposes, has never been allowed to see.

A dozen yards beyond the doors and high up in the 40-foot atrium, an enormous holographic cloud floats beneath a sky-blue ceiling. Soft and spongy with The Crowe Corporation written in its center, the cloud bobs gently as holograms of winged bubbles rise up from the floor towards it. Once they’re within striking distance, they’re absorbed into the cumulonimbus mothership, feeding it until the large cloud has turned dark and fat. When whatever critical mass has been met, sparkling pin lights appear all around it and the foyer fills with a distant and rumbling thunder. Quickly, it gets louder and nearer, heralding a rain made up of words.

The initial downpour, studded with slow-flowing, readable drops, contains terms such as Sustenance, Energy, Entertainment, Employment, Housing, Health Care, and Education. As soon as those categories have all plumb-lined down onto the green carpet below, a new, fat-bellied deluge begins. As before, a sampling of these new rain words stalls before they’re halfway down, revealing a handful of C-Corp’s many products and services: Formula, Daycare, Groceries, Pharmaceuticals, Fast Food, HVAC, Lawn Care, Elder Care.

The woman follows the rain down to the atrium’s grass green carpet. As more of it is absorbed, deeper-green puddles appear, roiling and spreading as a new rubric of products and services begins. The patches grow larger until the whole carpet has turned the color of an overripe olive.

The rain drizzles to a stop and a hidden sun casts down its rays. As soon as the holographic light strikes the near-black carpet, tall grasses and wildflowers erupt from the oily earth. They continue until the floor has been replaced by a meadow.

The invisible, overhead sun crosses the atrium sky until all shadows point the other way. The holographic meadowland wilts and dies. Bubbles full of customer’s faces rise off the detritus and head towards the cloud, now trembling as if in anticipation. As soon as the last face is absorbed, a clap of thunder queues a fresh cycle and the word rain begins anew.

Her hood clasped tight around her face, the woman puts her hand on the door’s silver push panel. Before she can enter the lobby, the khaki-shirted crowd pushes into the breezeway behind her. Already oohing and aahing over the atrium display, they’re carried forward by their hive-minded fandom and neither notice, nor care about the woman who’s swept along with them.

Inside the lobby, the rest of the group turns right towards the display. The woman heads left and walks towards the circular reception desk on whose front multiple, circular screens have been posted. As she goes, one streaming coil of white-blonde hair flaps out from beneath her hood. It trails down her green cape like the tail of a kite, catching the attention of a watching tourist until a clap of holographic thunder gets it back.

The caped woman stops in front of the desk and waits to be noticed by the receptionist manning its far-left side, a dark-skinned woman with long black hair falling around trim hips. The holographic box floating a few inches in front of her face, and always in perfect proximity to it, fills up with her current conversation.

“So you’re naming your first born after the Travel Angel,” the receptionist says, her words appearing in black text between the red lines of the customer speaking through her headset. “Is that correct?...Of course, we’ll let her know...I can assure you, she will be thrilled...No, thank you. And thank you for calling The Crowe Corporation, your cradle-to-grave companion on this journey called life. Have a good day.”

The hooded woman puts a hand on the desk to get her attention.

The receptionist sees the movement and looks over. Her chestnut-colored eyes travel from the woman’s hand, spread wide on the desk’s edge, to the fold of green material covering her eyes. She holds up a finger while continuing her call.

Impatient, the cloaked woman steps to the desk’s right side where the other receptionist, a woman with skin the color of cotton and hair not much darker, is also on a call.

“So, what I’m hearing is the following,” the pale receptionist says, her holographic text box just now filling with words, “is that your name is Joseph K. Itasky...yes, thank you....you can send the poem via email, sir....alright...yes, sir....I’m happy to deliver it for you, sir...yes, the Travel Angel will read it...ready when you are, sir.”

Frustrated, the hooded woman glances back at the khaki-shirted tour group, their numbers increased since the last time she looked back. One half of them are now blocking the main hall, probably hoping for a fleeting glimpse of C-Corp’s Travel Angel. The other half stand heads-up beneath the holographic cloud, looking like turkeys as they wait for the next bout of rain. One of them looks over and, stepping farther back, out of their line of sight, the hooded woman steps on one of the bright green circles in the carpet; a sensor that sparks the reception desk’s multiple round screens to life.

“Welcome to The Crowe Corporation,” the Travel Angel’s voice announces from a set of hidden speakers.

The screens, eight of them positioned in a staggered line on the desk’s front, come up on The Crowe Corporation’s name and logo. The two capital Cs detach, invert, then come together again to form a series of spinning globes as all but the center two screens fade to black. The globes there slow their spin and become ovals. The ovals become faces, one male and one female, both older and with the same rust-red hair.

“Were you to ask founders Cyrus and Melba Crowe what inspired their comprehensive, cradle-to-grave, partners-for-life model, they would tell you what their father, and his father before him, said,” the angel announces as the faces fade away and are replaced by dark, unsmiling daguerreotypes; their identities, Heller Augustus Crowe and Spiro Faustus Crowe, written beneath. “It all starts with family values. And, to a Crowe, everyone is family.”

The faces fade out and each screen fills with a holographic raindrop, like those currently seeding the lobby floor.

“It was with this partnering model in mind that The Crowe Corporation has built its many industries,” the angel says, pausing as the first raindrop falls.

The drop splashes onto a hard white surface and explodes into footage of a pregnant woman walking into a Crowe Corporation Birthing Center.

“From the first moments of life,” the angel says as the shot drills down on the woman’s round belly. The image morphs, turning her into a headless, limbless caricature. The baby within, bouncing in a glowing, circular womb. “To the precious care and feeding of a family.”

The second and third screens fill with a montage of relevant images: an infant sucking down a bottle of Crowe Corporation formula; a toddler eating different colored lumps of food off a trisected plate, cans of C-Corp’s Kidz Meals stacked on the sideboard; a C-Corp engineer hand-feeding sparkling corn to absurdly large chickens; a delicious looking roaster being delivered to the table by an apron-wearing mother as Dad smiles overlarge from the table’s head; the kids, now teenagers, complete with acne and bad hair, marveling over steaks and potatoes presented to them by their mother, her hair starting to gray, same as the father’s.

“C-Corp is also there for your family’s benchmark events,” the Travel Angel continues as the fourth screen comes up on the same dining room.

The kids are now young adults and the son occupies the Head of Household seat. His parents look proudly on from their side table positions as he cuts into a cake bearing the message, Happy 21st! As the camera closes in, the son holds up a bottle of C-Corp Lager, Low in Acetaldehydes! indicated on its splash text. The young man takes a long chug and smiles big into the camera as if it’s both his first sip of alcohol, and delicious.

The fifth screen blooms into a picture of the same young man, now middle-aged. He stands in front of the same house, the brush in his hand dripping blue paint as two kids play in the yard. The son’s parents are now gone and the house is presumably his.

“We’re here to help you with all of life’s chores,” the Travel Angel continues as the man watches his pretty, middle-aged wife walk past.

The camera follows the woman as she carries a bag of fertilizer towards a raised flower bed. She sets the bag on the bright green lawn and the camera drills down on its label, which reads, C-Corp’s Ka-Bloom! Her husband walks past and the camera tracks with him, following his slowly swinging arm down to the can in his hand, C-Corp’s 360 Degree Paint.

“There’s a C-Corp product or service for everything, from those chores we relish,” the Travel Angel’s sugary voice continues, “to the ones that test our mettle.”

The panel’s sixth screen comes up on the same man and wife. Both are now white-haired and loose-skinned as they sip tea on their blue-painted porch. The wife looks over at her husband, the pain in her eyes morphing into relief as she passes him a trifold brochure. The man opens it and the camera drills down on its front fold, which reads, The Crowe Corporation’s Cancer Boutiques.

“Jesus Christ.” The hooded woman bristles.

Aware of her raised voice, she looks up at the receptionists through the drawn edges of her hood. Both women are still tethered to their calls.

The seventh screen comes up on the same couple walking out through a cancer boutique’s front doors, a bouquet of C-Corp balloons in the man’s hand. Their children, and their children’s children follow like goslings. The whole family stops halfway down the building’s wide front walk as the camera floats higher above them. When the man releases his balloons, they rise to fill the screen before disappearing into a bank of clouds. The camera follows.

“The Crowe Corporation has been there for it all,” the Travel Angel says, each of the eight screens filling with clouds. “Every day, in every way, they’re here to assist you on this journey called life. It’s why Cyrus and Melba Crowe enlisted me.” The clouds roll back and the Travel Angel’s sky-blue eyes are revealed in the two center screens. “Your advisor, confidante, and co-pilot on this journey called life. Your Travel Angel.”

The shot widens to show C-Corp’s mascot in full. Platinum blonde hair flying away from high, wide cheeks. Perfect, smiling, bow-shaped lips. Ankle-length wings flapping lightly as she hangs mid-air.

“We’re here for you,” the Travel Angel says as the shot again tightens on her face. “For every stage of your life. For every need.”

The mascot spreads her muscular arms and the clouds grow thick until the only visible parts of her are her eyes and the manicured tips of her fingers. Slowly, she moves stage left, becoming nothing but a reaching hand. From the screens’ opposite side, another hand appears. It reaches toward the angel’s, cycling through every race and age. As soon as the two hands connect, they both go bright before fading to black.

“May I help you, ma’am?”

The voice startles the woman who jumps, shifting the material of her hood. She looks up to find the dark-haired receptionist, come to the front of her desk. As soon as the woman sees her guest’s blonde hair and blue eyes, she backs away.

“I’m so sorry, Miss Sontag,” the receptionist says, recognition two bright spots of red on her coffee-colored cheeks. “I wasn’t aware there was something wrong with the other entrance,” she adds, eyes skimming the suddenly quelled crowd at the front of the lobby.

“Could you call Becca, please?”

“Of course.”

As the receptionist makes the call, the hooded woman glances back at the plague of name-tagged tourists, most of whom are still ogling the atrium’s display. One of them, a tall man, turns and catches her looking. His eyes fall on that portion of her face visible through the hood’s ruffled edge and he elbows the woman next to him.

“Is that who I think it is?” he asks his companion, pointing towards the desk.

Before the woman can cinch closed the material of her hood, the man’s companion catches sight of her eyes. “Oh, my God!” she squeals, putting a hand to her mouth. “I think it is!”

“Ma’am,” the dark-haired receptionist whispers, making a move to hit the Security button just beneath the desk’s lip. “I think I need to handle this...”

“No.” The hooded woman shakes her head. “Let’s wait for Becca.”

“Is that the Travel Angel?” a new khaki-shirted visitor calls out. “Miss Sontag? Is that you?”

Their interest sparked, the crowd begins to murmur.

“Please!” The dark-haired receptionist raises her voice so as to be heard over the growing din. “We need you to keep your voices down!”

Instead, the crowd grows louder as many of them start towards the desk. Her head turned, the hooded woman can feel the press of their curiosity like a barometric front.

“Calm down, please!” the receptionist shouts again, to no effect. She removes a shoe and, using its chunky, wooden heel, brings it down like a gavel against the desk’s polished edge. “You will be asked to leave if you don’t keep your voices down!”

The crowd quiets, but does not go silent.

“I repeat, you will be asked to leave...!” the receptionist begins again, and is cut off.

“Mylene Dunne!” The unseen voice is deep and warm as it precedes its owner into the lobby.

The group turns their attention to the petite woman who rolls out of the circular main hall like a lolling tongue. No more than thirty-years old, she has large, olive green eyes that appear luminescent beneath the curved, reflective ceiling, pale brown skin, and straight, caramel-colored hair that falls to her shoulders. She spies the hooded woman in front of the desk and walks directly to her.

“Mylene Dunne, I’m Becca Price,” she says overloud, winding around those visitors who don’t move out of her way. “So good to see you again.”

Head down, the caped visitor takes the younger woman’s hand in a shake and follows her back through the crowd and towards the hall. As soon as the two are out of sight, the tourists return their attention to the atrium’s display, vague expressions of disappointment on their faces.

The two women walk in silence down the hall’s main artery. As soon as they make their first turn and the marble floor turns to Persian carpet, the cloaked woman pushes back her hood and coils of pale, shoulder-length hair tumble out.

“Who’s Mylene Dunne?” she asks, pausing to work at the cape’s ornate brooch.

Becca stops to assist her. “My first girlfriend.”

“Yeah?” the woman asks, watching as her assistant works on the clasp. “What happened?”

“She went back to France.” The brooch released, the young woman steps back, eyes focused on a spot of unblended blush high up on her superior’s cheek. “Jesus, Eve,” she mumbles, blending the color with a finger. “Why are you still doing your own makeup?”

“It’s an in-house meeting,” Eve responds, starting them down a new hall. One studded with ornate mahogany doors and a domed ceiling.

“And what about the interview you just came from?” Becca prods. “They didn’t take photos? If they don’t retouch them...”

“I had forty-five minutes’ notice,” Eve interrupts. “Feels like Pritchard doesn’t want me at Jeremy’s meeting.”

“Yeah, well, he’s been up my ass about you doing your own makeup, so stop it, would you?” The young woman collects a ringing cellphone from her purse and looks at its display. “Speak of the devil.”

Eve nods at a passing executive. A man who blushes from crown to collar as the Travel Angel and her liege walk by. “What’s he want?” she asks as Becca’s phone continues its ring.

“Probably to know why you’re coming through the front door.”

“Don’t answer it,” Eve says, then thinks better of it. “No, do answer it. Then ask him why he scheduled a fucking interview with the New England Free Press just before Jeremy’s meeting.”

“OK.” Becca looks down at the phone still ringing in her hand. “But what do I tell him about why you’re coming through the front door?”

They turn into a new hallway. One that’s wider, with Moroccan tiles on both its floors and its walls. One with petite chandeliers hanging above each burled wood door. At six feet, three inches tall in her five-inch heels, Eve has to duck to avoid their low-hanging crystals.

“Tell Pritchard I came in through the front door because he scheduled me with the Goddamned New England Free Press while I was supposed to be at my first Jeremy meeting,” she answers. “Tell him, the front door is faster than the tunnel.”

Becca depresses the Receive button on her phone and puts it to her ear. “Good morning, Mr. Pritchard,” she says, then goes silent for two more hallways before arriving at their intended door. She closes with, “Will do.”

Becca re-pockets her phone and looks up at Eve. “He wants you in his office at nine o’clock, sharp.”

Eve slow blinks wide-set, dark-blue eyes. “It’s quarter ‘til.”

Becca shrugs, a weary smile on her lips. “I’m getting you the notes.”

As the assistant goes to push open their chosen door, a young man appears in the hallway. Pushing long, oily pieces of hair away from a moist brow, he hurries towards them.

“Tell me this is the Executive Marketing Room,” he says, out of breath. “I’m late.”

Becca looks the young man up and down. “Right here,” she confirms.

No thanks provided, the young man throws open the door, hitting Eve with its edge before disappearing inside.

As the door settles back into its frame, Becca extracts a polishing cloth from her purse. “Asshole,” she mutters beneath her breath while pressing the green material of Eve’s cape away from its brooch. Working quickly, she polishes the jewel in its center. “How long do you give that guy?” she asks. “A week?”

Eve shakes her head. “If he pulls that shit in front of Jeremy, he’ll be gone before lunch.”

The room in which the Executive Marketing Committee meets is opulent, massive, and designed to appear one-part gentleman’s club, one-part library. Hanging from the high ceiling’s four well-deep coffers, are four enormous chandeliers, each one looking like a sixteen-armed octopus. Centered atop the room’s wall-to-wall Persian carpet is a massive, circular, open-bellied table made of the same burled wood as Cyrus Crowe’s famous desk. Tall, plush chairs, their seats and headrests upholstered in the same green as Eve’s cape, have been pushed up to its outer loop. Seated in each of these chairs, save one, are executives sipping at amber-colored drinks poured into cut crystal glasses. Drinks made for them by one of two minimally-clad bar maidens who man the room’s two cherrywood cellarets.

As Becca, then Eve, enter, the man standing in the desk’s open center stops talking and flashes them a smile. “Glad you could join us,” he says in a deep, southern drawl, grinning as the other executives laugh.

In his late-forties, with a wave of thick, dark hair, Jeremy Fine has a life-chiseled face that reads handsome, if also austere. Unlike the rest of the executives in attendance, he sports a muscular body never fitted correctly to his white business shirts. The seams of these tailor-made shirts appear ever at risk for failure. Never more so than when a pretty woman, or two, are present.

“Come in, ladies,” Jeremy beckons them into the room.

Becca proceeds first past the book-lined wall, her eyes catching on rogue titles such as, The Purchasing Power of Leveraged Ideals, and, What People Will Do (or Buy) for Love. When Eve passes the same stretch of space, Jeremy’s attention goes to her. He watches as their most precious commodity puts out a hand that trails along the books’ binding. He smiles as Eve pauses briefly at Dictating Trends: A User’s Guide to the Uninformed Mind. He laughs when she flicks its cover with a manicured nail.

As Eve proceeds towards her seat, all but the new executive stand. Jeremy sees the young man reading a text off of his phone and crosses the desk’s center towards him. When the man doesn’t look up, Jeremy moves closer, burying the young executive in his shadow.

“Your name is Evans, right?” he asks.

The young man rolls up his eyes. “Yes.”

“Well, Mr. Evans, you’re in the presence of Miss Eve Sontag,” Jeremy says, voice low. “So get your ass up.”

Expressionless, the man pockets his phone and rises from his seat.

Becca and Eve walk around the table’s wide loop to a single, empty chair. Eve removes her cape and passes it to her assistant who carefully affixes its brooch around the chair’s high neck. The green material, the same color as the seat’s upholstery, fades so completely away that, when Eve sits down, the jewel-like brooch looks like a crown free-floating above her head.

Dismissed with a nod, Becca walks back to the room’s front and takes her place alongside the other assistants on their single pew; a seat not much more than a board on legs that makes the lot of them, mandatorily dressed in black, look like crows on a wire.

Jeremy glances up at the room’s massive clock, posted just above the door, then turns to Eve. “I believe Cyrus needs to buy his angel a new watch.” He smiles, revealing double rows of pearl-white teeth.

“What are we talking about today, Jeremy?” Eve asks.

“Geographs, primarily. How we use them to define, track, and motivate our customers. After that, well, I’m going to keep you in suspense on that one, Miss Sontag. Let’s just call it a brainchild of mine.”

“I certainly don’t want to miss the birth of your brainchild, Jeremy,” Eve says. “How close are we to meeting the little devil?”

“Crowning as we speak.” Jeremy winks at her, then turns and motions to the new executive. “Or was, until you two newbies showed up.”

The room fills with groans and protests as Eve looks up at the clock: 8:46 A.M.

“Alright, boys. I hear you.” Jeremy waves at the men. “But we have in our midst not one, but two virgins to the Executive Marketing Committee meetings, and rules, as they say, is rules.”

“Can’t we go over it later?” Eve asks. “I have to be in Pritchard’s office in fifteen minutes.”

Jeremy shakes his head. “You wouldn’t be trying to get me in trouble now, would you, Miss Sontag?”

“Just trying to get in on your big reveal,” Eve replies.

“I’ll do my best, fine lady.” Jeremy winks, then turns to look up at a red light, hidden between two of the ceiling’s coffers. “Tippy, darling? Bring up the mandatory history slides, please.”

“Yes, Jeremy,” the operating system responds, her voice that of a mature woman of midwestern descent. “Would you like a slow spin on those?”

“Oh, yes, ma’am.” Jeremy smiles at like-minded members of the crowd, their brows wiggling. “I’ll give you all warning now, I’ve switched out the stock images we use for this presentation.”

A ring of chart-sized, holographic slides appear above the opening in the desk’s center. Each one represents a benchmark event identified by the year in which is took place. Each model is presented nude with that year fig-leafed across their groin. Arms and legs akimbo, they parade in a slow circle above Jeremy’s head.

Jeremy reaches up and taps the slide marked 2015. As the others continue their slow spin, the chosen one disappears then reappears larger and to the side, separate from the continuing herd. As it moves slowly in its own circle, giving all the committee members a good look at its representative, a wave of laughter washes across the room. The model shown arms out and legs spread has sparse, carrot-red hair tufted around a largely bald head. His heavily-jowled face is bracketed by a mustache and beard and sagging nipples rest atop a taut, bulbous belly. Piping out from beneath the 2015 resting atop his groin are surprisingly muscular legs and, rolled beneath his thick feet are two, red, marble-like balls. It’s Bob Pritchard, Head of Marketing.

A thin, gray-haired executive rises from his seat near the room’s back. “Is that Bob?” the man asks, his voice thick with reproach. “Who changed the model for this?”

“Who else?” Jeremy asks, smiling.

The older man rolls back his shoulders. “This is completely out of line.”

Jeremy claps a hand to his chest. “Why, I’m offended at your offense, sir,” he says, earning a few laughs from the crowd as he glances up at the operating system’s red light. “Just in case Mr. Parsons is right, Tippy,” he says. “Let’s put some clothes on Mr. 2015.”

There is another bout of laughter.

“Yes, Jeremy,” the OS responds and the rotating slide pixellates.

When it morphs back into a discernible form, the man sporting the 2015 identifier is shown clothed in jeans and a t-shirt.

Steely-eyed, Mr. Parsons retakes his chair.

Jeremy follows along beneath the circling slide, his pale brown boot tips kicking out from beneath dark trousers. “It was mid-January in the year of our Lord, two-thousand-and-fifteen that our founders’ efforts to find a cure for cancer bore fruit in a little green pill we call Modal. Now, the public didn’t hear a thing about Modal for another ten years. The story of why is legend and goes as such.

“Ten months later, on his seventh and final interview, having been screened, vetted, and sworn into a lifelong secrecy, my boss and personal savior, Bob Pritchard, met with Cyrus and Melba Crowe to present the final piece of his interview, a rollout plan for the drug of the century.” Jeremy pauses to look around him at the circle of rapt faces. “So Bob walks into their office and, before so much as introducing himself, he tapes a single piece of paper containing the following.”

Jeremy reaches up and taps on a red asterisk beneath the benchmark model’s feet. A new slide blooms outward from it. “Loyal for Life/63% Market Share of Majority of Domestic Products and Services,” he reads. “Bob wasn’t pitching a rollout for a single drug. No sir. He was pitching a takeover using a drug so powerful, it would net the Crowe’s a power never before seen in a, quote-unquote free nation.”

Jeremy pauses to look out around at enraptured faces around him, then continues, “So Bob proceeds to tell these two members of pharmaceutical royalty how he’s going to get them to a nation of life-long customers and a monopolization of this country’s products and services market. First thing he tells them: hold off on the mass production and marketing of Modal for ten years.” Jeremy shakes his head. “Ten years. Imagine it. Asking Cyrus Crowe to sit on the world’s largest pot of gold for a decade. Giant balls of steel, my friends. That’s what Bob Pritchard has hanging in those loose cargo pants of his.”

Jeremy pauses for a smattering of laughter, then continues. “So Bob explains that, in the first phase of this glacially-paced rollout, they’re going to target the wealthy and well-situated, making just enough of the drug to keep this market wanting...no, needing more.”

Jeremy continues, delivering the details of this benchmark without once referring to the slide where they’ve been bulleted around Pritchard’s figure. “Ten years, Bob had told them. Ten years of keeping sales few and far between so they could get the right people in their pockets. So they could eradicate any regulatory flotsam. Net themselves five seats on the Supreme Court and no less than three-quarters of congress. Time enough to buy the keys to the proverbial kingdom so, when they enacted a full rollout, there would be no monopoly issues. No branding issues. And, more than anything else, no generic. No sharing their find with others.” Jeremy looks out at the men around him. “And, by God, they did it. For 24 years now, C-Corp has boasted full rights to the only cancer drug in the world. Rights granted to them in perpetuity.”

A few executives whistle. All applaud.

“Bob then explained to Cyrus and Melba that a big part of those first ten years would be about developing a brand loyalty that would carry them into their rollout of Modal, and he could develop it by virtue of a one-two punch he’d cooked up.”

Jeremy taps a second asterisk at the base of the 2015 slide and a free-floating hologram of a colorful triangle appears next to him.

“Bob explained to the Crowes, who, as the children of successful immigrants who’d invested in real estate, that the vast majority of people purchase needs first, wants last,” Jeremy continues. “By using Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs as a guide and investing in the products and services people needed the most, the Crowes could put those first ten years to use by insinuating themselves into people’s homes. Securing for themselves relationships that would be hard to break later. Utilities first.”

Jeremy reaches up and taps against the widest section of the pyramid, a thick, red bar whose title, Physiological, lifts off the holographic triangle and floats in a fuzzy, black sans sarif slightly away from it.

“Water, shelter, electricity, real estates, and so on.” Jeremy taps the pyramid’s next level up: an orange holographic strip whose title, Safety, moves forward as the red hologram beneath it recedes.

“For safety needs,” he continues, “Bob suggested investing in health care, home security, and banking.”

Jeremy gives the yellow stripe one level up a tap and the word Belonging moves forward.

“To help people fulfill their need for belonging, Bob suggested counseling centers, dating sits, whatever churches would agree to the necessary quid pro quo.”

Another tap on the next level up and the word Esteem rises off the green holograph. “For feeling good about one’s self,” Jeremy says, “Bob’s suggestion was education, cosmeceuticals, the publications industry, fashion.”

Jeremy steps away from the holographic pyramid then turns and waves a reproaching finger at its blue capstone.

“Give me a marker, Tippy,” Jeremy says, holding out an open hand.

“Yes, Jeremy,” the OS responds and his palm fills with the red handle of a holographic pointer.

Rising up on the tips of his boots, Jeremy draws a radiant red X over the pyramid’s top tier, Self-Actualization.

“We all know self-actualization is marketing’s kryptonite. So what do you think Bob suggested Cyrus invest in for this need?” he asks, shaking the holographic tool from his hand and looking out at the rapt faces. “Nada. Not a Goddamned thing.”

A few men laugh. A few clap.

“By hitching their wagon to the industries Bob suggested, Cyrus and Melba would not only create for themselves a productive line of generally low-risk, high-return feeder companies, they’d develop a brand loyalty unseen in the history of marketing. Hell, in the history of history. The vision, my God. It’s almost inconceivable.” Jeremy pauses for more whistles. “It’s brilliant. But not, for my money, as brilliant as Bob’s second suggestion for developing a dependent and loyal customer base: the Travel Angel. An attractive, beloved, trademarked companion who would, as Bob Pritchard so eloquently put it, be able to walk with each one of C-Corp’s customers on this journey we call life. Tippy.” Jeremy calls up to the OS. “Clear the deck and bring out slide 2024, would you, darlin’?”

All the other slides evaporate as the new one appears in the desk’s center. In it, a blue-eyed woman with long, platinum-colored hair that obscures full breasts stands arms out and legs spread, the year 2024 etched in gilded numbers over the V between her thighs. Its model is an air-brushed version of Eve.

Some of the men in attendance murmur and laugh. Unfazed, Eve checks her watch and shoots Jeremy a look.

“My apologies to you, Eve, if this is in any way offensive,” he says. “What can I say? Given the circumstances of her departure from the role, it would have been inappropriate to use Gretchen’s image.”

Eve points to the oversized clock hung over the door. “Hurry up, Jeremy.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he says, adjusting an imaginary tie. “So, in the year 2024, one year in advance of the launch of Modal and time enough for our mascot to seduce the masses, the first of our two Travel Angels, Gretchen Graham, came on the scene. As expected, all the boys, and all the girls fall in varying forms of love with her and customer loyalty numbers double.” Jeremy looks up at the OS. “Tippy, considering Miss Sontag’s need to leave early, let’s pull the rest of the history lessons, please.”

“Yes, Jeremy.”

The slide bearing Eve’s likeness disappears. No new one shows up to take its place.

“Last thing I’ll say about Bob Pritchard before moving on is this,” Jeremy says, kick-walking his way across the desk’s open center. “All those years ago, it was Bob who explained to the Crowes that they didn’t just have the holy chalice of pharmaceutical discoveries in their hands. They had a new kind of currency, and that’s exactly what it’s become. Let’s give a round of applause to Bob Pritchard, the visionary who put each and every one of us in the positions we enjoy today.”

The men stand and applaud. Eve joins them.

“On to our discussion about geographs,” Jeremy says, waiting to continue until the executives retake their seats. “Tippy, bring up the relevant slides, please.”

A new slide titled, Geograph/Subset 143, arrives to the desk’s empty center. In it a male in his late-forties with muscular shoulders, chest, and thighs stands in its center. The smile on his handsome, time-worn face drawing the eye upward, then a set of overlarge genitals, front-and-center, drawing it down.

The executives, and even a few of the assistants, laugh at the image of Jeremy on slow procession above the desk’s center.

“No one’s out of bounds in here, are they Tippy.” Jeremy winks up at the OS.

“No, Jeremy,” the OS returns.

“Give me a pointer, please, Tippy.” Jeremy holds out a palm and, immediately, a long holographic rod is placed in his hand. “This slide is a primmer to part two of today’s meeting...”

“Which I’m going to miss entirely if you don’t hurry up,” Eve interrupts.

“Note taken, Miss Sontag.” Jeremy shoots her a wink. “I’ll put a little giddy-up in it.”

Using the holographic pointer, he depresses a red asterisk floating just above his doppelganger’s shoulder and details burst out around his naked figure like coronal ejections.

“This slide is here to elucidate how far we’ve come since 2015 as regards data mining and targeted marketing. To give you just a glimpse of the big picture on how much we now know about every man, woman, and child in this country, I’m going to show you just a fraction of subset 143‘s data, or his geograph, as the data miners call it.”

Mr. Parsons, the older executive who’d opposed the naked image of Bob Pritchard, holds up a slim, tapering hand. “For those of us who were born before the internet, would you further clarify the term geograph?”

Jeremy waits for the smattering of laughter to pass before answering. “Absolutely,” he responds in a clipped voice. “A geograph is a term we use for a category of citizen sharing the same race, creed, sexual orientation, life experience, culture, and the list goes on. What a geograph gives us is the ability to put a bull’s eye on one, narrow sector of our population for the purposes of marketing, profiling...”

“I’d like to hear a few of the geographic variables that apply to Mr. Subset 143,” Mr. Parsons interrupts, rising up in his seat. “Especially if that subset is actually your subset, Mr. Fine, as your image on the slide would seem to indicate.”

Jeremy stares at the older man for a beat as a fresh round of laughter comes, then goes. “Alright,” he answers. “A very few of the things that we know about Mr. Subset 143 are that he’s between the age of forty-seven and fifty-one which, as you so aptly pointed out, means, I, too, am older than the internet which was officially born in 1983.”

The room fills with a more robust laughter and, frowning, Mr. Parsons repositions in his chair.

Jeremy continues while walking around the desk’s inner loop. “Other things we know about Mr. 143 is that he’s at least 80% Caucasian, and was born in the midwest...”

“Give us somethun’ lascivious,” Mr. Parsons interrupts in a poor facsimile of Jeremy’s voice. “Somthun’ revealin’.”

Jeremy looks down at the floor as he makes his way towards the older executive. “We know that this man was the product of a broken home. We know that he didn’t finish high school. We know that he’s been in juvenile detention centers no less than one and no more than three times before the age of fifteen. We know that’s he’s been divorced no fewer than two times himself and, that despite the desire, circumstance has left him with no children.”

Jeremy stops at the man’s section of desk front. “The larger question should be, what can we do with that kind of information when gathered en masse?” He watches as the slim man rolls back his narrow shoulders.

“What can we do with it, Mr. Fine?” Mr. Parsons plays along, eyes narrowed. “An example with some meat on it, please.”

“We can predict what kind of toilet paper he prefers,” Jeremy answers, the others around him, laughing. “We know what kind of women he likes to fuck. What kind of car he wants for his fiftieth birthday. What kind of home he’d buy if he was the kind to put down roots. And we know which way he’s most likely to vote.”

The light slipped out of his eyes, Jeremy turns and looks up at his face on the overhead slide. “Tippy, take down the hologram, please.”

The request barely made, the slide disappears and Jeremy returns to the desk’s empty center.

“Here’s the skinny, my friends,” he says. “Because we live in a world of free-flowing information, and because we’ve gained the legislative power to plunder that data, and because we know how to use that data, we’ve become wizards of the media age. We’re able to turn all that knowing into predictions. Predictions about where customers will want to live. What they’ll want to wear. What they’re likely to eat for breakfast. When they’re likely to die.

“See, what we’d hoped to accomplish through all this rigorous data collection and mining was to fashion for ourselves a kind of time travel. A way to get out ahead of all those needs and non-essential wants and provide for our customers the products and services that were still just a gleam in their heart’s desiring eye. And it’s worked. Not only are we able to provide everything our customers desire, we’re able to dictate trends. Tell people what they want, and further to that, make them want whatever product or service we’re in a position to corner. It’s a perfect loop. A never-ending circle of buying and dying, if you will. The possibilities are quite literally endless, thanks, in large part, to the vision of Bob Pritchard.”

The men seated around the desk, even Mr. Parsons, stand and applaud. Everyone but the new executive who wears an expression of fatigue on his shiny face.

Jeremy stares at the young man as the others retake their seats. “You with us, Mr. Evans?” he asks the new executive. “Anything I need to clarify, or is all of this old hat for you?”

The other members begin to laugh. Soft at first, then loud. Each decibel turning the young man’s face a deeper shade of red.

“I thought not,” Jeremy says, turning back to Eve. “Thank you for coming today, my lady....”

“What happened to our first angel?” the young executive interrupts, shooting up from his chair.

“Jesus H. Christ,” Eve mutters, glancing back at Becca who throws up her arms.

A corridor of thick air develops between Jeremy and the new employee. A zone of pure quiet through which Jeremy walks in his loud cowboy boots.

“Tragic accident,” he answers, leaning over the young man. “But I’ll tell you something, Mr. Evans. Somewhere in that terrible thing was a bit of good because what it brought us was Miss Sontag.”

A round of applause fills the room as all eyes go to Eve, who, ready to go, is standing behind her chair.

Jeremy holds up his hands and the clapping stops.

“As most of you know, Eve and I are often at odds about the way we do things around here,” he says, dark brown eyes finding hers. “Like me, she can be stubborn. But numbers don’t lie. In the four years since Eve Sontag has come on board as our angel, we’ve grown exponentially. And our numbers on brand loyalty have never been higher. It might have been Eve’s uncanny resemblance to her predecessor that first brought her to our attention, but it was something less tangible that’s mesmerized a nation and earned us their trust. How about we give her another round of applause for all she does?”

The men stand. Lit from overhead and applauding loudly from their green-clad chairs, they look to Eve like a field of dark grasshoppers, fiddling beneath Tippy’s red glow.

Jeremy thrusts out an arm and checks his watch.

“I do hate to see you go,” he calls to Eve over the din, “but I believe you have a meeting with Bob Pritchard right about now.”

The applause trickles away and the men resume their seats.

“Thank you, Jeremy,” Eve says, winding her way towards the door.

“No, ma’am,” Jeremy calls after her. “Thank you.”

Across the room, the young executive holds up a hand. “Before we continue, can I ask a question about Melba Crowe?”

Jeremy expels a held breath. “You may.”

“I’ve heard rumors that Ms. Crowe has cancer and that’s why she left four years back.”

As Eve approaches Becca, her assistant looks past her to the green cape, left on her chair. Its jewel-like clasp, still affixed around the chair’s high neck.

“Let me put it this way,” Jeremy says to the young man as both women proceed towards the door. “Melba Crowe is still a full voting member of C-Corp’s Executive Board. And if she prefers to spend her twilight years at home, she’s damned well earned it.”

“So does she have cancer? Or did she get herself a husband?” the young man asks. “Nobody seems to know.”
“You know what, Mr. Evans?” Jeremy grunts. “I believe that’s exactly the way Melba...”

The door closes on the rest of his answer.

∅ ∅ ∅ ∅ ∅

On the back nine of his fifties, Bob Pritchard has lost whatever glue used to bind his charm to his features. The wet brown eyes women used to file under endearing now strike chords more resonant with illness, allergies, or a failing liver. The scruff of red, curly hair growing out just the one side of his neck had, at one time, been considered aesthetic largesse. It had worked on the level of a flamboyant fuck you to decorum that used to bring young women across rooms. Having been left to grow long and gray, it’s become an oddity women stare at from across rooms they no longer bridge.

Ever the marketing guru, Bob used to know how to parlay his physical peculiarities into long lunches that turned into mid-afternoon trysts. More than once during her first couple of years at C-Corp, Eve has walked into his office to find the pink, clenching cheeks of Bob Pritchard’s ass working at some new receptionist, barely arrived. A girl he’d bedded by artifice who would figure out later, and always too late, that watery eyes had more to do with vodka than a big heart, and wayward hair was a sign of sundowning genes that had lost their way. Nothing more.

It’s been a year, maybe two, since Eve’s seen Pritchard with a fresh young thing. More vexing than his dry spell is his state of mind regarding this prolonged girl-lessness; he no longer seems to mind.

Eve takes a seat in the chair across from him. “Why was it necessary that we meet at precisely 9 A.M.?” she asks, no greeting. “I was looking forward to my first Jeremy meeting.”

“Hello to you, too.” Pritchard pulls a bottle of ibuprofen from a desk drawer and pours a few directly into his mouth. “You were scheduled to meet with me at 9 A.M. because Mr. Crowe asked me to schedule a meeting with you at precisely 9 A.M. Why, I have no idea and, because I choose to stay ignorant of whatever’s going on between him and Jeremy, as well as whatever secret plan Jeremy is rolling out as we speak, I didn’t ask,” he says. “And, while we’re on that unpleasant subject, please don’t call them Jeremy meetings. Those meeting are Strategic Positioning meetings. Meetings put together by about six people, one of whom happens to be Jeremy.”

Pritchard looks for something to drink, finds nothing, and dry swallows the pills.

“What I would like to know is why you wanted to be there in the first place,” he continues. “You’re busy enough as it is.”

“It makes me feel important,” Eve says, gaze drifting. “Like I’m a part of things instead of just being the face of things.”

When Pritchard doesn’t respond, Eve looks back to find him staring at her, a crease between his eyes.

“Do you know the definition of the word important?” he asks, not waiting for an answer. “It means, of great significance or value. It means you’re having a profound effect on someone’s success, well-being, and/or survival. You, Miss Sontag, are the most important person I know. You sure as hell shouldn’t require a Jeremy meeting to make you feel that way.”

Eve nods and leans back in her chair. “What am I here for?”

Pritchard glances down at the red asterisk on his desk calendar. The misshapen star has been applied to the June 5th square. Tomorrow.

“I have two things I need to talk to you about.” He thumps his knuckles against the papers on his desk. “Thing one, I get worried when our Travel Angel breaks protocol.”

“I used the front door because I was in a hurry,” Eve says. “I’m sure people know that I have legs.”

Pritchard leans towards her, muddled brown eyes becoming sharp. “And you’ve been putting on your own makeup.”

“I’m sure people know I wear makeup.”

Pritchard regards Eve carefully before responding. “I pay six salaries to keep you looking a certain way.”

“So fire them.”

“This is serious, Eve...”

“It’s makeup.”

“No. It’s an image.”

“It’s unnecessary drama.”

“Goddammit, Eve!” Pritchard lands a fist on his desktop and the loose papers there scatter. “This is a serious issue!”

Startled, Eve goes silent.

Pritchard pushes himself backwards and opens the small, square door set into the wall behind him. Inside its cutout’s copper-lined sides is a pyramid of cigars. Deftly, as if he does it a dozen times a day, C-Corp’s Director of Marketing grabs the top cigar from the geometric pile then palms the lighter next to its base. A blue flame is there and gone before the door is closed and, by the time he turns back to Eve, a rope of gray smoke has begun to pipe from his cigar.

“I can’t believe you smoke those in the office,” Eve says, watching as the man sends a series of cloudy circles towards the air return, directly overhead.

“I’m never anywhere else.” Pritchard smiles weakly. “I’d offer you one, but you’re too valuable an asset.”

“And you aren’t?”

“Seemingly not. But that’s not what I’ve asked you here to talk about.” Pritchard removes the cigar from his mouth and exhales deeply. “This thing with the makeup. It’s been an issue before.”

Eve slides forward in her seat. “What do you mean?”

“Your predecessor had an incident at a Meet and Greet somewhere in the midwest. There was heavy snow. Her crew was late. Long story short, she decided to do it herself and the job she did, well, it wasn’t good enough to satisfy her followers.”

When Pritchard doesn’t continue, Eve taps a finger against his desktop. “Explain please.”

The man pauses to run a hand over the stubble of his chin. “One of her false eyelashes came loose. She forgot to put in her colored contacts. Her wig slipped. We’re not sure, Eve,” he says. “All we know is that something was off with her appearance. That was the only shared thread running through all the offenders’ depositions. That her proverbial veil slipped. Anyway, the same people who arrived twenty-four hours early to meet Gretchen were the same ones who tore her apart.”

“Jesus, Bob.” Eve slides back in her chair.

“Yeah, well, I’m telling you this because I will not...no, can not, go through the same thing with you.” Pritchard scratches at the back of his head. When his hand comes away again, a few strands of red hair are caught in his chewed nails.

“I don’t know if I believe that,” Eve says, a slight tremble in her voice. “They loved her. Why kill her?”

“Fallen God Syndrome,” Pritchard answers perfunctorily. “The more harm people do to themselves or others in the name of their sacred vessels, the less they enjoy having those vessels exposed.” He pauses to look at Eve, an earnest expression on his face. “We keep the people who killed Gretchen on a twenty-four-seven watch. Same as those categorized as likely offenders...”

“Hold on,” Eve interrupts. “The people who killed Gretchen haven’t been incarcerated?”

Pritchard produces a small, dark laugh. “Not only did we have to keep them out of jail, we had to bribe them with Modal to keep them quiet about her death.” He takes a drag on his cigar and blows its smoke over the scattered papers on his desk. “The world in which we live. Huh?”

“I’m sorry, Bob,” Eve whispers. “No more putting on my own makeup.”

“And no more coming through the front door?”

“And no more coming through the front door.”

“Good. Now, on to point two.” With a sigh, Pritchard turns the desktop papers so they’re readable from Eve’s side. “You’ve heard about the photos someone took of Cyrus last week, yes?”

“Yes.”

“The whole thing’s getting legs so this has come down from on high as a way to handle it.” Pritchard pushes the papers towards Eve. “You’ll need to be here tomorrow morning no later than six for makeup and hair.”

Eve holds up the first page and skims its contents. “You don’t think this is going to cut into my numbers?” she asks, face flushed red.

“Prognostics says no, but, I’ll tell you this now, you can save your arguments against it. On this one, I’ve been trumped.”

“I thought you were the supreme marketing authority.”

Pritchard grunts. “That makes exactly two of us.”

Eve looks up at the man across from her, his brown eyes empty of any spark. “When did we do a poll on this scenario?”

“Last week.”

“And?”

“And, you shouldn’t worry about it.”

Eve looks at the second page of the unbound document, eyes catching on rogue terms like intimacy, lingerie, kiss.

“Will we be doing another poll after?” she asks, voice clipped.

“If you’d like.”

Unable to keep the document from shaking in her hand, Eve drops it on his desk. “I’d like.”

Pritchard comes around the table and leans against its front. When Eve refuses to return his stare, he turns her chair his way.

“I’m sorry about this, Eve,” he says. “I know the timing couldn’t be worse.”

“I can’t lose this position,” she whispers.

“Two things. First...” Pritchard lifts her head with a finger. “...you won’t. And, second, I understand how you feel. I know you don’t believe that, but I do.”

Eve wills the moisture leaked into her eyes back through her tear ducts and Pritchard returns to his side of the desk.

“So who’s going to be at this thing?” she asks as he settles back into his chair.

“The Times, The National, The Pacific. Others.”

“You know what I’m asking, Bob.”

Pritchard nods his head. “Shepherd will be there.”

Eve blinks at the news.

“If you’ll excuse me,” she says, collecting her things and heading towards the door. “Mr. Johnson has me in the recording studio in two minutes.”

Pritchard follows her to his door. “Lucky Mr. Johnson,” he says, mirthless, and watches her go.

Next Chapter: Chapter Three