“For your sake or mine?”
“For both of us, but more for you than me. Think of this as an audition of sorts. If you make sparks fly, Alan will want you back, and that will be good for your cause.”
My cause? Patrick thought, then realized she was referring to the sim union. He’d never thought of it as a cause, just a case, a job.
He said nothing, though, because his gut had begun to twitch as Alan Ackenbury reappeared on the monitor screen. He opened the segment by saying that a last-minute opportunity had arisen to bring on a guest who could provide a counterpoint to the reverend’s views.
Eckert muttered something to the effect that he’d understood he’d be the only guest. Ackenbury didn’t seem to hear, or pretended he didn’t, and introduced Patrick.
He felt Cathy’s hand against his back, pushing him toward the stage.
“That’s you,” she said. “You’re on!”
And then Patrick was out in the open, feeling the heat of the lights, hearing polite applause from the studio audience.
The first few minutes were a blur…Patrick had always consideredAckenbury at Large a punning reference to the host’s Orson Welles–class girth, and in person Alan was even larger than he appeared on screen. He didn’t rise, but extended his hand across the desk as Patrick arrived. Instead of the traditional desk and couch set-up, the Ackenbury show seated guests on either side of its host who could then mediate the fray when they went at it. The barrier also prevented guests from coming to blows if the discussion became too heated.
Patrick was aware of Reverend Eckert pouting and sulking on the far side of the desk as Alan asked questions about the coming court battle to unionize the Beacon Ridge sims. Patrick didn’t mention that the case was as good as stillborn with Boughton on the bench, simply reeled off the canned responses he’d spouted to the press since the news first broke.
He felt as if he were on automatic pilot at first, answering the questions by rote. But as minutes passed—minutes in which he noticed Alan Ackenbury’s growing dissatisfaction with his flat, tempered answers—Patrick felt himself begin to relax. He remembered to mention the toll-free number and the website, www.simunion.org, and was casting about for a way to juice up the proceedings when his fellow guest did it for him.
“Admit it,” the Reverend Eckert said, pointing across the desk. “You work for SinGen.”
“Absolutely not,” Patrick said. “In fact, I expect SimGen to do its damnedest to stop me.” He quickly added: “That’s why contributions to 1-800-SIMUNION are so vital.”
“You have no idea of what’s really going on, do you? Or who is chairman of the board of SinGen?”
“Mercer Sinclair.”
“No! It’s Satan! Satan himself—his very own self! Satan calls the shots in SinGen! And Satan has defiled the exalted holy clay of man by mixing it with the life stuff of a monkey. Through SinGen, Satan has defiled the pinnacle of the Lord’s creation!”
“Depends on how you look at it,” Patrick said. “You’re seeing the glass as half-empty. Why not look at it as half-full? Why not see sims as a lower life form that’s been improved?”
“Improved? You cannot improve on God’s work! You can only defile it! Especially when you take the life stuff of man, the only being in the universe to possess an immortal soul, and degrade it by injecting it into a lesser being!”
“But a being with a shared ancestor.”
“Are you talking evolution? That’s blasphemy! God created mande novo —that means completely new!”
“Then why do humans share all but one-point-six percent of their DNA with the chimps that sims are made from? If God made humans ‘de novo,’ as you say, and wanted us to stand out from the crowd, wanted us to be the shining star atop the Christmas tree of his creations, you’d think he’d have come up with a new and special kind of ‘clay’—not stuff borrowed from primates.”
“He did! He—”
“No, he didn’t. Genetically we’re ninety-eight-point-four percent chimp—which means we’re far more ape than human.”
“Speak for yourself, sir.”
As the audience laughed, Patrick grinned and gave the Rev a thumbs-up. “Good one. But it doesn’t alter the fact that only a few genes separate us from the trees. And even fewer separate us from sims. If chimps are our distant cousins, then sims are our nieces and nephews.”
“I will not tolerate this!” He turned to Ackenbury. “Is this why you brought this man on tonight? Had I known I was to share the stage with a blasphemer who would mock my beliefs and the beliefs of my followers, mock the Lord Himself, I never would have agreed to appear.”
“No insult intended, Reverend,” Ackenbury said. “Just a fair airing of all sides of an issue. You have your beliefs, and Mr. Sullivan has his.”
“No! My beliefs are supported by the Word of God!”
And then the Rev was off on such a tear that not even the host could get a word in edgewise. Patrick’s mind raced, at a loss as to how to salvage the situation; then he remembered the bananas he’d snagged from the fruit bowl in the green room.
His original idea had been to offer one to Eckert in an ostensibly friendly gesture, assuming no one would miss the reference to their shared simian ancestry. But subtlety wouldn’t fly here; he’d have to fire all barrels at once to break the Rev’s filibuster. And he had an idea of how to do that. Question was, did he dare? This could backfire and leave him looking like a grade-A jerk.
What the hell, he thought. Go for it.
Slowly, Patrick raised his legs until his feet were on the chair cushion.
Squatting on the seat, he pulled out one of the bananas and, with exaggerated care, began to peel it.
Neither Ackenbury nor the Rev noticed at first, but the audience did. As laughter began to filter in from the darkness beyond the stage lights, Ackenbury turned to him; his eyebrows shot up in surprise, then he grinned. The Reverend Eckert followed the host’s stare. His tirade faltered, then stopped cold as his jaw dropped open. The audience roared.
It had worked—the Rev finally had shut up. But Patrick couldn’t jump into the gap because his mouth was crammed full of banana. He did the only thing he could think of. Returning to Plan A, he pulled the second banana from his coat pocket and handed it to Ackenbury.
“For me?” the big man said as he took it.
Patrick shook his head and pointed to Eckert.
“Of course,” Ackenbury said, winking at Patrick, and handed the banana to the Rev.
Eckert shot to his feet and batted the banana away, sending it skittering across the desk.
“This is an outrage! I did not come here to be mocked! I refuse to stand for another minute of this!”
So saying, he wheeled and stormed from the stage.
“Reverend?” Ackenbury said, calling after him but with little conviction.
“That’s okay,” Patrick said after swallowing the last of his mouthful of banana. “I’m sure he’s just hurrying off to phone in his donation to 1-800-SIMUNION before the lines get jammed.”
Ackenbury was laughing as he turned to face the camera. “I’m afraid that’s about all we have time for tonight,” he said as if nothing the slightest out of the ordinary happened. “As usual, I hope you were entertained, and I hope you learned something as well. Until tomorrow night then.”
As the outro music began, Ackenbury picked up the spurned banana, peeled it, and took a bite. The studio audience went wild. He leaned toward Patrick and extended his hand.
“You, sir,” he said, grinning, “have a standing invitation to return anytime you wish.”
Patrick didn’t know how true that was, but he pretended to take it at face value. “I may be taking you up on that.”
“Do. Just call Cathy Tresor.”
As a stagehand came over and helped the host haul his huge frame out of the seat, Patrick felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned and saw Cathy beaming at him.