Fallen Nation: Party At The World's End (15 page)

Yeah. He had crashed a
company’s stock and smeared their public image because he was bored
and Wild Turkey was a hell of a drink. No strippers, no reptile
wrestling. Just an empty bottle, an empty apartment, and a horde of
empty people that would do anything to
–
He rolled over and fell straight
onto the floor. Train of thought derailed. The alarm continued
ringing from one room over, droning on like an unfed
baby.

He finally reached the
alarm and threw it.
Hard
. Really good thing he never had
children. He tapped keyboards and mouses as he made his way to the
harsh glare of the bathroom, knocking computers out of their binary
dreams. After brushing away the residue of last night’s dinner, he
sat down in front of a monitor and started scanning the headlines
over a cup of unsweetened black coffee.

He was mostly looking for Google alerts
linked to Europharm's recent “product releases.” Europharm was his
employer. One in a long line of corporations he’d infiltrated. Don
had everything there was to be had on them. Documents, files, video
and photographic evidence, financials. Every piece of information
that passed through the company was available to him, from the
sickening and puerile emails passed between certain secretaries and
middle managers, to the top-level deals with other corporations and
bodies of government.

R
ight now, some eleven-year-olds were strapping bombs to their
chests and calling themselves the Youth Resistance. That couldn't
really be causally tied to their products, despite the fact that
the members of this little cult had more chemicals than blood in
their veins. Legal got them off with a slap on the wrists but the
press – diligent little public servants, always in search of the
biggest scare-hypnotic they could find – was still working their
street-corners, trying to tie this Youth Resistance to the viral
following of a band called “Babylon.”

The worlds of PR and SEO had joined forces.
You just needed two words mentioned next to each other in a
newscast and pretty soon, the two of them may as well have fucked
each other for the past decade. Weapons of destruction in Iraq, you
say? Don only knew that he had to keep his finger to this pulse, as
when you want to bring down Goliath, it’s best to sling someone
else’s stones. Better the Youth Resistance or Babylon than him,
when it came time to lose a pound of flesh in the courtroom. (Or to
the court of public opinion, which took a Super-size order of flesh
with a side of blood and offal.)

“
Nice,” he said to no one in particular, leaning back in his
chair. Asshole execs had assumed this story would get buried
beneath the fold. Instead, it was getting top billing. “EUROPHARM
CHEMICALS LINKED TO YOUTH RESISTANCE SUICIDE BOMBERS.”

Had a certain dadaist ring to it. Just like
he'd said, bold in the fucking New York Times. But no one ever
listened to him. Those on the board would get theirs. They'd all
get theirs.

He almost fell backwards, and quickly sat up
straight.

The Europharm AG boardroom glowed with a
diffuse light, emanating from behind frosted glass globes
positioned at regular intervals along the slate walls. Don
recognized a number of the faces around the table, the sinister
cabal of leeches that sat on the board of directors – the head of
marketing, the Vice President with his classic comb-over, the
rat-faced CFO – all men of note, who held onto their positions
precariously under the critical gaze of the company’s CEO. There
was some unspoken executive rule: Stereotypes are only allowed past
this line. Don imagined they drank their morning coffee after
crawling out of sarcophagi hidden somewhere on the mysterious
thirteenth floor.

The present CEO’s predecessor, Mark
Greenwald, had increased profits by a wide margin. Ironically, Mark
died from complications from Effexarin, a drug he helped market.
God giveth and He taketh away.

Before Mark’s passing just a couple weeks
ago, he handpicked Al, the current CEO. The board took umbrage with
this decision, but, through a series of Shakespearean power-plays
and a healthy dose of good luck, Al maintained the CEO spot. Quite
simply, Al beat the board’s first pick to death with his own
mother’s arm, and ripped the face off of the second replacement.
Eventually the board had to bow to the unremitting will of their
new Genghis Khan.

This group of desiccated mummies were
leaning in towards the shiny mahogany table, waiting on Al’s
reaction to the vice president’s most recent suggestion. This would
be the first time Don actually sat in a meeting with Al since the
changeover occurred.

What Don found at the end of the table
shocked him so completely that he almost dropped the report in his
hand. He frantically looked from one sweaty suit to the next. They
were all subconsciously holding their breath, eyebrows raised
expectantly. None of them seemed concerned with anything aside from
Al’s acceptance of their ideas – expressed with guttural hoots, arm
flailing, or cooing.

They weren’t distressed by the fact that Al,
their CEO, was a chimpanzee.

A
l crawled onto the table, shot a wrinkled pink hand up into
the air, and let out a grunt before it dropped down, knuckles
rapping loudly. There came an audible sigh from the crowd.
Apparently, they interpreted this as approval for the advertising
budget. A $500,000 campaign, greenlit with the wave of a hairy
arm.

In an attempt to regain his composure, Don
straightened up and cleared his throat. “I know this isn't a PR
meeting, but. I wanted to bring up the piece that was recently
published in the New York Times.”

“
That's not what this meeting is about,” Dave, the head of
advertising interjected. “You're just here as a favor.”

Don generally reported to Dave. Don's
contempt for this beast had nearly shattered his impeccably
obsequious façade when they spoke privately. His cover would be
blown, and that could get ugly very fast. He wanted to squeeze
Dave’s T-bone steak neck until his eyes turned to foam.

The
Beast
. That’s what he called Dave to
himself, reciting it over and again in a hate-mantra incited to
invoke the Gods of malice that’d let him hold cover just a bit
longer. It wasn’t just because the man was evil, the very
embodiment of the abomination that beset the fall of Babylon. It
was the way he wheezed when he breathed, like he wasn't even human.
The veins that stuck out of his eyes swirled in place, like gray
worms. The bulge in his strangely fitting slacks made it look like
he was wearing a diaper when he waddled around. Don wasn’t sure how
much of his anarchistic world view actually leaked in these
instances. Possibly too much.

They were still in the boardroom. He was eye
to eye with a chimpanzee. A chimpanzee valued at 6.2 billion
dollars. No time for such daydreams. “I'm sorry, what were we
talking about?” Don asked.

“
The New York Times article that you're about to waste our
time with,” Dave said.

“
Let him speak,” one of the Lawyers said, after scrutinizing
Al’s face. “He is curious to hear this.”

Al sat down on the table and lobbed a
fountain pen at Dave’s head which missed by a narrow margin.

“
See?” the lawyer said, shrugging. Dave fell
silent.

Don tried to stare straight ahead without
matching gazes with anyone. “Let me just read the article…you at
least need to think about drafting a counter-story or a press
release.”

Al circled his fist in the air a number of
times and then defecated.

“
He wants you to paraphrase,” the CFO explained over his
bifocals. “His time is precious.” He then gestured to one of the
assistants waiting in the shadows, who quickly swept in with
machine-like efficiency to deal with the ape droppings.

Don sighed as he tried to
avoid staring at the pile of chimpanzee dung in the middle of the
boardroom table as it was removed from sight.  “Dr. Andrew
Mosholder, a senior epidemiologist for the FDA.
Moss-holder
. The hell kind of name
is that? Anyway, he uh found that children given antidepressants
were nearly twice as likely to become suicidal as those given
placebos. This you know.”

“
Yeah. Easily ignored by doctors so long as we provide
sufficient incentive,” the CFO continued dryly.

“
A second series of similar tests were undertaken, in the
hopes of proving the first series–” Don looked around the room.
Everyone was staring at the monkey, waiting for a reaction. “Fuck
this. I just want to be sure you understand the kind of business
that you are in, before I unleash unspeakable war and unholy
vengeance on you and the rest of
your
kind
in the name of the mother hive brain.
You are messing with a warlock.”

As Don spoke Al waddled off the table and
fell asleep in his chair.

“
I’m sorry Don, our CEO doesn’t consider this news worthy of
his time, but we will talk about it later–”

Dave said. “Now let’s move on to real
issues, shall we?” He waved his hand dismissively in Don’s
direction.

Don shook his head, heat rising to his
cheeks. They hadn’t heard a word he’d said. “Yes, sir.”

He turned and left.

The rest of the day, Don
couldn’t focus on his work. Instead, he pondered the company he now
served.

This was Europharm’s
business: One:
Restless Leg Itchy Crotch
Syndrome Is A Real Disease
. Inventing a
disorder based on constellations of psychological and physical
complaints, and selling medications which help some of those
symptoms, while in the process creating new ones in other areas.
Whenever the patent on a drug was about to run out, mysteriously a
new disorder would be diagnosed and dispatched to the press, a drug
would be renamed, a marketing campaign re-tooled, and the machine
marched on.

Two:
We Have A Cure To Your Wretched State of Existence, Just
Speak To Your Doctor
. Convincing doctors
to over-prescribe their meds. He felt sorry in a way for the
doctors, who really did want to help their patients and had to sort
through hundreds of ad-speak laden glossy pamphlets every
day.

Three:
You Are Afflicted, And It Will Never Go Away.
(But our drug may help keep the symptoms at bay.)
This was generally done to the patients by proxy through the
doctor.

Psych meds were the
biggest sellers in this market. Because the diagnosis of these
disorders is symptomatic – you can't test for bi-polar disorder.
Why not? If these diseases are caused by abnormal levels of certain
neurochemicals, then you should be able to test someone and see if
they're considerably off from the norm, like testing someone for
their vitamin D levels. Don knew this kind of testing was
impossible. He knew it because he'd seen the reports. The fact is,
people's neurochemical levels only become abnormal
after
they've been
subjected to their drugs. But these are subtleties the public is
bored by. Uncertainty gives leeway for spin.

These more nebulous disorders were
Europharm’s bread and butter. Admittedly, they did this as a result
of substantial financial pressure. Though the first pill may cost
millions in R&D, the profit margin on every pill that follows
is phenomenal. The trick is getting it in enough bloodstreams. A
lifetime sentence of medication sounds like a cash register
opening, to the boardroom.

This is where public-facing marketing kicked
in. Even to a well schooled doctor, if a particular disorder is
getting a news report every night, it’ll be at the top of their
mind.

Their lobbying also gave them a firm grip on
the legislation on the other end of the process. It was, as they
say, a “fixed game,” which explained why Dave was unruffled by the
news that Don presented in the board room. Popular opinion could
fuck itself in a closet with a rusty shovel, the story would be out
with tomorrow’s trash.

He emphatically pounded his skinny white
fist on the desk in front of him. Something has to be done. It’s
time for shit to get real. It’s time for The Plan.

Later that afternoon he entered Dave’s
office, carrying his laptop under one arm and his lunch (contained
in a paper bag from McDonald’s) in the other. Dave’s horse-faced
secretary was too focused on typing out a text message on her
cellphone to bother acknowledging his existence.

Dave sat behind a massive desk, silhouetted
before floor-to-ceiling windows. Don stood in front of the desk for
a moment in silence, broken only by Dave’s labored breathing. Don
felt like Luke Skywalker confronting Jabba the Hutt.

“
You wanted me?” Don prompted, resisting the urge to deliver
Luke’s line. If Dave caught the reference it would be all the worse
for him, and if he didn’t it would just confuse him.

Still not looking him in the eye, Dave
slowly opened up a drawer on his desk, and pulled out a cigar.
After running it under his hairy nostrils as he inhaled deeply, he
leaned back and pushed a button, turning off the smoke alarm.

“
Yes,” he said at length. “Have a seat.” His blood-shot eyes
finally locked with Don’s. They were the eyes of a reptile. A
stony, stupid and yet ruthless cunning lurked there that constantly
asked: can I eat it, or will it eat me?