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LiveAfter’s Vice President for Client Relations grabbed a patience inhaler and took two deep puffs before taking the next call, the fourth one of the morning, and with her luck, probably another complaint about the same damned thing. The clients must be coordinating this assault. She glanced at her reflection in her office window and practiced her smile once more, then hit the button. “Good morning, sir! How may I serve you?”
“Morning, is it? One could hardly tell from the landscape here. And service? Ironic wording. I have played tennis three times a week for the last forty years. And what passes for a tennis court, and a racket, in this place is an insult to the sport.”
They none of them appreciated the difficulties in synthesizing experience. Of course they took for granted the incredibly complex and groundbreaking nanotechnology that had traced and recorded their neural contents and connections. Most of them never bothered to begin to understand it. So they didn’t realize how different a task it was, how much more research still remained, to reproduce the type and quality of experiences they were demanding.
“I distinctly recall the promises your sales representative made. And I have verified that your promotional materials included such promises. My family, whose resources have been significantly diminished by your fees, are more than prepared to pursue appropriate legal remedies.”
For far from the first time, the VP cursed the sales department, silently and without moving her lips or changing her expression. The “promise first, deal with it later” mentality got the sales, certainly—and saddled the rest of the company with consequences like these. The legal costs had no doubt been included in the budget. But there was no budget item for the length of vacation she would need to recover from the aggravation.
Meanwhile, the client’s rant continued. “If retirement is to be forced on me, I at least expect—I demand—the amenities that could make retirement acceptable!”
A brain wave struck her with such force that she forgot, for a moment, the irate customer on the line; then, seeing his eyes bulge out further, said hastily, “Sir, please give me a moment to check on a possibility.” Without waiting for a response, she put the call on hold and checked his file. Yes, she had remembered correctly: the man had been heavily involved in politics, though not actually an officeholder. And someone at their ad agency had suggested something close to her idea—which meant she’d get less credit for originality, but also less risk of being thought too original.
She put the caller back on and waited for a pause in the spate of angry words. “Sir—sir! I completely understand that retiring before your time is a major hardship. But what if your unfortunate demise did not in fact force retirement upon you?”
A momentary silence, and then, in a quite different tone, perhaps even a bit tremulous: “What was that?”
Now she had to decide whether to over-promise in her turn. . . . Maybe just a little. And now that she thought about it, she’d heard some rumors; so she might not be exaggerating. Much.
“Sir, I believe the time has come for me to disclose to you an exciting new program we have in the works. If you, and our other clients with similar concerns, could just be patient. . . .”
The Vice President for Client Relations made a pitch to the CEO. The CEO met with the Board of Directors.
The idea had marketing potential. The politically active might find storage more attractive if the stored retained the right to vote. Those who had, in life, been wooed for their money would find some comfort in being wooed for their votes. And as the VP of Client Relations had discovered, the promise of political engagement might provide some compensation for, or at least distraction from, the current shortcomings of the virtual environment.
The Board voted to proceed.
* * * * *
The senior member of the ad team reread the client’s new request for the third time. Arrange a favorable political climate for a push to let stored people vote? LiveAfter must think the agency had done a damn good job on the last campaign, to be asking them to pull this off.
She had the authority to limit which members of the team took part in followup projects, but she never liked to exercise it. Excluding anyone led to hurt feelings, and often to rumors at least as lurid as those a well-informed team member might start.
Her young co-leader had better stay in place. It would do her career too much damage to oust her, whatever the explanation provided. The DA could also remain: he would have a head start at predicting the difficulties ahead.
She brought up the video of the team’s first in-person meeting and watched it from start to finish. She’d forgotten that wisecrack the copy editor made, toward the end. At least, that’s what he’d probably thought he was doing. But now, he had better be kept in the loop.
They were likely to need some actual legal assistance, whether from LiveAfter’s legal department (if they could get access to it) or from outside counsel. Would the law buff be good at working with lawyers, or would his or their egos interfere? It might be just as well to leave him out. At least, she would check around for other projects where his skills could plausibly be in demand.
As for the others, she could decide later, when the details of the new campaign started to emerge and the necessary skill sets became clearer.
She looked at the client’s paperwork one more time and smiled ruefully. If they could pull this off, it’d be a hell of a coup; but the agency might not want to (so to speak) advertise their role.
The senior team leader opened two windows on her screen, one for the latest sketches and one for the audio, and studied the sketches.
The first showed a healthy, subtly muscular older man, with gray-to-white hair and plenty of it, and even a well-trimmed mustache. He wore casual but well-fitted pants and an argyle sweater, and sat in an expensive-looking armchair, facing the camera. The second sketch showed a brother and sister, the brother about four years old and the sister no more than two, standing in some sort of field and looking off into the distance with wide eyes. Attached to the sketch was a note: “Alternative: suburban setting, in playground or waiting to cross street.” The last sketch showed the same older man close up, his gaze more intent, with another note: “Dissolve to slogan, still in progress.”
She took another look at the first sketch and jotted down a note: too much wealth here, especially that chair. We’ll be fighting resentment of rich folks. How about old pants and a flannel shirt, sitting at a kitchen table?
She started the audio, the strong and confident baritone of a well-established voice actor, and wrote another note: Less recognizable voice might be better.
“I’ve always been involved in my community. All my life, I’ve made sure to keep up on local politics. I served on the school board even after my children graduated from high school. I’ve volunteered at soup kitchens and bookmobiles, not to mention the polls on Election Day, and shown up at city council meetings.
“I take enormous pride in being an American citizen, and I’ve always done my best to make the most of that privilege. Because I care about my country and my community. And I care about the town, and the country, and the world that my grandchildren are going to grow up in.
“I don’t like to brag—but I think I have something to offer my fellow citizens. I don’t want to waste it.”
Ensure video not too static.
“If not for LiveAfter’s amazing technological achievements, I would have no chance to know about my grandchildren’s future, let alone participate in it.”
Avoid contradicting still-common religious notions such as “grandpa watching over us.”
“But I’m still here. All of me—my love for my family, my concern for my country, and any small portion of wisdom I may have acquired over the years.
“I would hate to have to sit by, helpless, the next time my town, or my state, or my country is faced with an important decision and calls upon its citizens to make that decision. How would you feel?
“I still have a voice. Let me use it. Don’t condemn me and those like me to silence. Don’t discard our experience.
“Let us vote.”
Too long. Could use smoother transition to main point. Needs more visuals. Show participation he’s talking about. Q. Any patriotic symbols still effective with majority of viewers?
She ran the audio again and added more notes. Who else? Young voter, only voted once, pleading not to be deprived of long-anticipated political rights? (Credible?) Mother of teenager? Let’s aim at a total of four.
Then she sat up and called the lawyer they’d found. Once connected, she hurried through the pleasantries and asked as soon as she could, “Are the stored still citizens of wherever they used to live?”
A short pause, then: “Damned if I know. I’d think they’re as likely to be ‘resident’ in whatever computer’s running their programs. Why?”
“I just needed to know for the ads. Thanks.” She ended the call and dashed off the draft of a memo to the client, urging them as tactfully as possible to work their legislative contacts. The stored would be less invested in politics if the issues had nothing to do with their previous lives. And practically speaking, the agency could hardly generate a nationwide legislative consensus if all the stored were deemed citizens of one state and county, instead of their widely distributed original communities.
She saved her notes and put them aside. Time to spend time on some task with fewer unsettled questions, and a more immediate payoff.
* * * * *
The new ad campaign hit more snags than the earlier ones. The first focus groups made zombie jokes, a few members even dredging up the old stories of “cemetery voting.” The more academically inclined members of the team attempted some psychological research, with inconclusive results; then the team as a whole tried to agree on a level of negative response that they, and LiveAfter, could tolerate.
Finally, after an all-night virtual brainstorming session, they came up with a new approach. Instead of more ads, they scheduled virtual town halls, using every stored person both willing to participate and—according to LiveAfter, which insisted on the final say—suitable for the task. After some initial missteps, they avoided providing scripts.
The team tried working with LiveAfter’s lobbying people, who knew the concerns that most needed assuaging among the influential and politically connected. That attempt did not last long: pitches that would strike a favorable chord with political elites were less well suited to those leaders’ constituents.
The polls moved slowly; but they moved. By the time the senator from Delaware proposed legislation allowing verified stored individuals, registered to vote prior to their demise, to continue voting, popular sentiment was sufficiently balanced that senators and representatives could contemplate supporting the legislation.
The dot-com millionaire turned representative raised concerns about stored personalities voting simultaneously in multiple locations; the lobbyists (after hurried consultation with the technical gurus) assured him that fail-safes made (or from now on would make) such manifestations, for voting or any other purpose, impossible.
The bill passed; and after a suspenseful nine days, the President made known to its sponsors that while she would not actually sign the bill, neither would she veto it. It became the law of the land for federal elections; and states began following the federal lead.
But that was only the beginning. The rules implementing the new statute threatened to become byzantine even by regulatory standards. And the focus on those rules reminded the regulators that LiveAfter’s basic role as guardian for its clients needed further micromanagement, which must then be reconciled with the rules specifically addressing voting. . . .
The team leaders, sitting back and watching the show, thanked their currently lucky stars that the agency would play no role in the efforts to get a working structure in place before the next Election Day.
* * * * *
The leader of the technical team in charge of the voting arrangements sat at her ease in the executive vice president’s office, despite that august official’s startled expression. “Yes, that’s correct. We’ve had three separate attempts, traceable to overseas actors, to put software in place that would override our clients’ votes.”
The executive vice president cocked his head. “And you don’t appear concerned because?”
The young woman made a graceful fanning gesture with her left hand, suggestive of Italian ancestry. “I don’t know for certain, of course, but it’s highly likely that the same foreign countries are working even harder to hack the votes of the living. It’s inevitable with digital voting and tallying of votes. If we need to, we can ask for assistance from whatever agencies are fending off those attacks.” She waved her fingers again, less elaborately. “Or we can just take for granted that voting is a more uncertain business than it used to be.”
The executive vice president grunted. “More than in my antediluvian era, I assume you mean. No, don’t apologize! But despite the temptations—and the financial savings—offered by such cynicism, I prefer to make some efforts to guard against future incursions. See to it, if you please.”
* * * * *
The Vice President for Client Relations approached the COO’s office just as three technical people left it, all with variations of the same hunted expression. When she had dodged them and made her way in, the COO gave her just enough time to sit down before barking his demand. “Too many customers are still bitching about the environmental features. We need a distraction. What have the customers been requesting?”
She only wished she could feel surprise. “I’ve been filing reports that include discussion of that question.”
“It’s quicker to ask you than to wade through reports.” She suppressed the urge to roll her eyes, or even glare, as he went on. “And I want the hottest topic, the frill they’d be most excited about.”
She, at least, knew the contents of her reports. “Many of the clients had assumed—and I wouldn’t be surprised if some sales people helped them assume—that they’d get to choose their appearance, or at least roll back their apparent age. When they woke up with the face and body they’d had toward the end of their lives, they were disappointed, some intensely so. Most of the customers who felt that way still do, and complain regularly. In fact, I’ve tried to flag this issue as a potential legal exposure.” She paused, then could not resist adding, “In my reports.”
“Why haven’t we already obliged these people?”
Couldn’t he have asked the technical people before he drove them out of his office? “It turns out body image, including facial features and all the rest, is more than one isolated bit of stored information. It’s distributed, and related to a number of other things. Changing it means monkeying with areas we can reproduce but don’t fully understand.”
Clearly, this was not what the COO wanted to hear. “I’ll goose the technical people to study the area. But unless they can tell me about why it’s a problem, and tell me soon, we’ll be giving these people what they want. Start hinting, without actually making any promises just yet. That’s all.”
He dismissed her, probably to summon back the technical staff who had so recently escaped his presence. She would take them out for a drink, later, to show her sympathy.
* * * * *
The COO watched the VP hasten down the hall and cursed quietly to himself. Hadn’t the whole point behind the voting initiative been to keep the customers occupied and take the pressure off on the environmental front? But apparently not enough of them really cared about politics.
That suggested another question he could put to the technical staff. Would it be quicker, more practical, simply to increase political interest among the stored? It would be a new technical frontier, certainly—but for all he knew, a less challenging one.
* * * * *
The general counsel had had many occasions to congratulate herself on her arrangements to review internal memos on whose circulation list she did not appear. If she had any way to calculate the millions of dollars she had undoubtedly saved the corporation in outside attorney fees and damage awards, not to mention the impact of adverse publicity, she could make a compelling case for a substantial raise. And while the practice was of necessity known to the various corporate officers whose harebrained ideas she had scotched, there had been no concerted movement to terminate her access.
This time, as on too many previous occasions, the current COO was the culprit. The general counsel did not even pause to imagine, with any specificity, the legal and political consequences of tinkering with their client’s established habits and preferences. It should suffice to make clear that she would involve the CEO, and if necessary the Board, in her quest for an unequivocal veto.
