Authors: Walter Greatshell
Mad Skills (34 page)
The question was, how did they get the stuff?
Following branching links like a snake seeking eggs, Maddy plumbed other dossiers, discovering her parents, all her friends and family, with each of their personal histories compiled in a similar fashion. Their bottled lives dangled in cyberspace like so many ornaments on a plastic Christmas tree, while Maddy herself was the star at the top.
They all existed just to support her delusion. As oddly flattering as it was, she couldn’t help but wonder,
Why am I so important?
Why am I so important?
There was a radial structure to this tree. Its trunk was the time line of her personal history, and every event in her life was a branch, so that as she followed the central axis downward, she was proceeding backward in time.
She followed the chain of recorded events from the present day back to the night of the carnival accident—back to the fun house. She’d always wondered what exactly had happened that day, and at last the pieces of the puzzle were hers to assemble:
She and Ben, kissing in the dark. The hitch in the ride. Ben leaving her alone. Maddy getting off the car and making her way toward the exit. Groping toward the next car, and the hooded figure seated there. And then …
And then the file ended. There were no records beyond that point, and her personal memories were no help, just the monotonous dreams and impressions left over from her long convalescence.
So what happened? They had saved her life, yes, she could see that, and there were the implant procedure logs—hers only one of many thousands, including Ben’s. But Maddy’s operation was clearly different in its particulars, a custom job that included a number of steps she wouldn’t have thought necessary, such as orthodontic surgery, a nose job (to make her nose
larger
!), breast alteration, and other, more obscure cosmetic changes.
larger
!), breast alteration, and other, more obscure cosmetic changes.
Something was obviously very weird. The data was confusing:
On the night of the fun-house accident, Maddy’s memories inexplicably converged with a second time line, both cut short by the brain injury.
Whose life was that?
The ghost time line forked off into darkness, protected by its own password. What was disturbing was that it was an earlier file, to which Maddy’s history had been surgically appended like an extra limb.
Whose life was that?
The ghost time line forked off into darkness, protected by its own password. What was disturbing was that it was an earlier file, to which Maddy’s history had been surgically appended like an extra limb.
But this was the only life she knew—the childhood world of Madeline Zoe Grant, with all her minor neuroses and her parents and their Ozzie-and-Harriet-from-Hell lifestyle. The recent news that her parents were imposters and she was adopted didn’t make her existence any less real.
Yet it was not real.
The life she remembered was the downloaded one, the superfluous one, the overwrite. The shell. The older, hidden time line was clearly the real history, her true story, which had been pruned from her brain like so much deadwood to make way for a nice clean graft.
Is that all I am—a graft, a transplant?
The more she looked, the more apparent it became. She could see it all in the arrangement of her memories. The timing of them, the selection, the emphasis—it was all a clunky, overly cute montage. Her life had been
edited
.
The more she looked, the more apparent it became. She could see it all in the arrangement of her memories. The timing of them, the selection, the emphasis—it was all a clunky, overly cute montage. Her life had been
edited
.
I’m not me.
An orphan girl had been adopted by Braintree scientists, then used as a template, a sacrificial cow plundered for her “typical” life experiences, which were then coded, digitally embellished, and finally written over the fried neurons of an entirely different person. Since the original Maddy might likely collide with her doppelganger, they couldn’t coexist in the same world. Hence there had to be an artificial world to accommodate the artificial people.
Harmony.
I’m a copy,
she thought wildly.
A counterfeit.
Were they
all
counterfeits, all her friends and family? An entire population of bootleg copies? No—most were just mind-controlled, not mind-Xeroxed. Maddy was one of a select few, a trial run. But where was the genuine Maddy, the source of her memories? Where was her Content Provider now? Obviously not in Denton, or she would have encountered herself. There was no record of any other Madeline Zoe Grant, living or dead.
she thought wildly.
A counterfeit.
Were they
all
counterfeits, all her friends and family? An entire population of bootleg copies? No—most were just mind-controlled, not mind-Xeroxed. Maddy was one of a select few, a trial run. But where was the genuine Maddy, the source of her memories? Where was her Content Provider now? Obviously not in Denton, or she would have encountered herself. There was no record of any other Madeline Zoe Grant, living or dead.
Had they killed her?
It would help if she knew who she really was. Who had this body belonged to before being possessed by Madeline’s decanted spirit? It was tempting to believe that maybe they had simply tampered with her mind and reloaded it back into her own body. At least that would mean she was still at least partially herself.
There was only one way to find out. Clearly, there was an alternate Maddy Grant in the computer, an alien one she was forbidden to know. The information was buried underground, hidden beneath a layer of redundant encryptions like the severed taproot of her Christmas tree.
Maddy made a virtual shovel and began digging. In a moment, the ground gave way, revealing a whole other tree beneath—an inverted tree and an entirely new file, this one labeled MARET 99. Maddy opened it up and gasped.
It was Marina Sweet.
THIRTY-SEVEN
PEP
OH shit,
she thought.
I’m her! I am Marina!
she thought.
I’m her! I am Marina!
Marina Sweet was not dead. The golden girl designed to earn the love of millions and fleece them like sheep was alive and kicking in the persona of her biggest fan: Maddy Grant.
Marina Sweet. The little girl manipulated by her daddy and his corporate overseers to nurture and grow her own legend until it was big enough to sell the ultimate self-help program, the final bandwagon from which no voice of dissent would ever again trouble the dreams of the mighty:
No pep? Want pep? Marina Sweet says, “Get PEP!”
No pep? Want pep? Marina Sweet says, “Get PEP!”
Maddy wormed out the roughs for the ad campaign:
Feeling overwhelmed? Depressed? Mentally exhausted? Tired of mood-altering drugs and expensive therapies? PEP’s exclusive, ASR-based technology gives you the power to cope with the ever-increasing demands of modern life. Guaranteed safe and effective, our patented Autonomous Self-Replicators deliver the power of PEP at a price you can afford. PEP—Personal Enhancement Prosthetics for a better you. PEP and PEP PLUS Accessorized Neural Architecture are trademarks of Braintree, Inc. PEP—For The Life You Deserve.
And Marina was to have been chief spokesmodel. Her career trajectory was mapped out with the mathematical precision of a mission to Mars: pop princess to sitcom star to glamour girl to Big-Time Movie Actress to Media Saint. And right when she was at her peak, beloved by billions around the world, she would become the face of PEP. Who wouldn’t trust America’s Sweetheart? Anything with her face on it sold millions. Hearts and minds, hearts and minds. Don’t worry about the hardened cynics; aim for the sweet spot, the big soft middle. Sell the sizzle not the steak.
The girl had been their grandest experiment: an artificial icon, a perfect pop star, a pretty human puppet made to sell strings.
But Marina went bust. The merry-go-round broke down.
Marina had awakened. Over the years of stupid pet tricks, she had somehow come to her senses and rebelled against being the clone they wanted—the Hannah Montana Candidate.
Maddy could see it all: how the starlet had spiraled into depression, dabbled with drugs and dangerous diets, and even tried to kill herself. But they caught her, cooled her down, wired her up again for another try. Marina’s implant was too valuable to destroy—they had invested too much time, money, and technology just to kill her. Better to kill her memories. Starve her brain of oxygen until it got soft, then snip off the troublesome bits. Lather, rinse, repeat, until total amnesia was induced. Then fill the void with … someone new.
There were arguments made against this; not all the scientists were on the same page. Few on staff objected to adult terrorists and criminals being purged and rerecorded, but many had ethical misgivings about doing it to minors. There was a big fight over it—Maddy recovered tons of heated, deleted correspondence.
The justification offered by Mogul Corporate was that this was the purpose of their existence, doctors and patients alike. Unlike the adult subjects, the minors all arrived at Braintree either severely brain-damaged or legally deceased. Their personalities were
already
secondhand. That was cold comfort to the aggrieved doctors, particularly those who had signed on as adoptive parents of their test subjects—a necessary means to acquiring the orphans in the first place.
already
secondhand. That was cold comfort to the aggrieved doctors, particularly those who had signed on as adoptive parents of their test subjects—a necessary means to acquiring the orphans in the first place.
Over the years of intensive monitoring, Marina’s adoptive father, “David Sweet,” (actually Dr. Neil Breitling) had grown very attached to his troubled “daughter,” and objected to her personality being erased. He was not just a drone Placeholder, programmed with recycled feelings, but an aging, divorced scientist with heavy alimony payments. Placeholders were useful under optimal conditions such as existed in Harmony, but for a high-profile implantee like Marina, operating in the real world, it was necessary she be accompanied at all times by her actual sponsor. For Dr. Breitling, the emotional pressure of this task had already cost him his marriage and children. And the company wanted to rob him of the only thing he had left: Marina.
Likewise, Maddy’s dad, “Roger Grant” (actually Dr. Bernard Fenster), truly cared for her, and when he found out that her pure and painstakingly catalogued life experiences were needed to replace Marina Sweet’s corrupt ones, he was appalled. Not only because he didn’t want Maddy’s innocent mind to be put in the dysfunctional brain of an overindulged and self-mutilating pop princess, but because Maddy—his Maddy, the
real
Maddy—would then have to be wiped and replaced.
real
Maddy—would then have to be wiped and replaced.
Objections were raised, which set off a series of corporate crackdowns and even government intervention. There were resignations, terminations, quashed leaks to media. Behavior-modification programs became compulsory, and national security was invoked to justify the creation of a special squad tasked with putting out media fires before they could spread—the dreaded Firemen.
The people chosen to be Firemen were some of the earliest Braintree subjects, dregs of the criminally insane who had initially been cured by their implants but later developed strange tics as a result of their long interface with the Leech-Tron. They were frightening characters though utterly docile unless commanded otherwise by Dr. Stevens.
From the scanty available records, Maddy suspected it was these Firemen who caused the mysterious disappearance of Dr. Vanessa Hunt—Ben Blevin’s crusading mother—and drove Dr. Fenster to take his own life … which Braintree restored to him, along with the behavioral chip that enabled him to resume the role of Maddy’s daddy.
Such events prompted the divorce-and-remarriage scenario, an attempt to salvage at least one “average household” from the mess. Maddy’s mother could be paired with Ben’s father. Not an ideal solution, but the rationale was that divorce was typical enough to not constitute a fatal breach in the family dynamic. Marina/Maddy could still fall within normal, healthy parameters. The superstar scenario would have to be scrapped, of course, but in some ways Marina might be even more useful as a plain Jane. As Maddy Grant, she would be nobody; she would be invisible—the ultimate spook.
But before they could erase Marina’s scratched master reel and dub Maddy over it, a boy had come—a boy Marina had secretly been communicating with for some time.
The boy was one of the roadies for her show, a high-school dropout and former carnival mechanic named Duane Devlin. Marina and Duane had raided Dr. Breitling’s personal computer and learned the whole story. There was a police report filled with Duane’s frantic testimony, which went utterly ignored. After failing to interest the media, then nearly being arrested by local law enforcement, Duane had come up with a plan for getting them both to Canada.
At Marina’s next gig—a traveling carnival in Denton, Colorado—she was to leave the show early, ditch her people and the paparazzi, and meet Dev at the fun house. Once inside, the two of them would be met by some friends of his, who would hide them in the caravan until they could be smuggled over the Canadian border.
But it all went wrong. Someone had spilled the beans, let the cat out of the bag—however one cared to put it, royally fucked them over. The fun house became a trap. A chamber of horrors, as the news would say.
They
were inside, waiting. The Firemen.
were inside, waiting. The Firemen.
A boy and a girl went in, a boy and a girl came out … just not the same boy and girl.
Dr. Neil Breitling, Marina’s father, who had fought this, failed, and ultimately fled, took with him the only two people he could still manage to help: Madeline Grant and Ben Blevin. They were both under anesthesia, being transported to Braintree for removal of their inconvenient identities. Breitling used his credentials to have them put aboard his private helicopter. All three died in the suspicious crash.
So Madeline Grant was dead.
And Marina Sweet, the faded legend, whose life Maddy would once have given anything to live, was literally her own flesh and blood. The Grants were a nuclear family again. Last but not least, Marina and Dev were Maddy and Ben, trapped in this magical, mystical Valley of the Dolls, forever and ever, amen.
Fuck that.
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