Godless (19 page)

Matthew waited for more.

“Oh, no,” Mori said, resisting the urge to continue. “I'm not about to tell you the whole tale. Read the rest for yourself. And not one of those micro-book recaps. The whole thing. Deal?”

Matthew nodded. “Deal.”

“Dostoyevsky was way ahead of his time,” Mori said while grabbing his mug for a post-lecture guzzle.

“Do you think he would have approved of the transition industry?” Matthew asked.

The professor peered over the rim of his tilting mug to indicate he was still listening, then plopped it back onto the table before wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “Who knows?”

“But you just said—”

“I said he was ahead of
his
time,” Mori interrupted. “Not that he would agree with
ours
.”

Matthew missed the distinction, prompting a frown from his self-appointed guru.

“Look,” Mori said, “Dostoyevsky was part of the Russian Orthodox Church.” He stopped, as if the comment had been enough.

“So he was religious?”

“It was the nineteenth century, for Pete's sake! Everybody was religious.” He sighed at Matthew's expression before explaining the obvious. “Point being, I don't know what he'd have believed had he had a proper education. But I'd like to think he would agree with Ivan Karamazov.” The professor cleared his throat for dramatic emphasis. “If there is no God, then all things are permissible.”

Matthew waited while his mind absorbed the statement. “That makes sense, I guess,” he said submissively.

“You guess? What other option is there?”

“Well,” Matthew began, finally feeling the conversation shift to his own turf. “I think it's possible to be a good person without believing in God. I mean, I'm pretty sure I no longer believe in God. But I still try to do what's right.”

“
I guess. Pretty sure
. What are you, Matthew Adams, a man or a Ping-Pong ball?”

Matthew chuckled at himself. “I guess I deserved that.”

“I
know
I don't believe in a God,” the professor announced. “So no one has the right to condemn my choices. Or anyone's for that matter. Like Ivan said, everything is permissible.”

“Even murder?”

The question gave the professor pause. “I don't use that word. It carries judgment.”

“Would you kill someone, then?”

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“On simple arithmetic. If the death of one person can benefit many others, well, why not? Religious people, including Dostoyevsky, would call that murder.”

“What do you call it?”

“Like I said, I'm not religious.”

Mori appeared at ease with his viewpoint, as if its raw honesty gave it a sort of virtue. He affirmed simple ideals that were unencumbered by the thorny complexities and moral quandaries Matthew's own patchwork of beliefs had created.

Does God exist? If yes, life includes obligations and, probably, consequences. If no, then run the numbers and do what needs to be done. What
ought
to be done.

“Besides,” he recalled from the scene Matthew had just read, “what value has the life of that sickly, stupid, ill-natured old woman in the balance of existence?”

“Makes sense, I guess.”

“Again with the guessing?” Mori chided. “You should become a weatherman or an economist.”

Matthew smiled. “Not I guess. It definitely makes sense.”

The declaration felt right. Not because the man had made a convincing argument but because Matthew had made a necessary choice.

“Don't let the moralists get to you, Matthew Adams,” Mori said. “Take pride in what you do.”

Matthew accepted the affirmation with a grateful nod.

The conversation drifted into less lofty territory more fitting for guys in a sports bar, mindless chatter about the Rockies' chances at the pennant and whether Franklin had the Republican nomination locked. None of it was interesting enough for Matthew to accept Mori's offer of another round of drinks.

“Not for me, thanks,” Matthew announced. “I'd better hit the road.”

So he did, but not before tapping the screen to pay his tab. That's when he noticed the bouncing icon in the lower right corner, the second message he had never read.

Matthew felt himself smile at the notification of a job well done.

Julia quickened
her pace to catch up with a euphoric Paul Daugherty as he hurried toward what he called the Launch Room.

“Not the
lunch
room,” he explained. “The
Launch
Room.”

“As in launching big ideas?” she guessed.

“Bingo!” he confirmed with a wink.

She had arrived, as promised, a few minutes before the brainstorm meeting that, she quickly learned, had started early.

“Genius doesn't keep a schedule,” he explained before urging her to follow.

The editor turned entrepreneur paused outside the glass-walled room where a team of soldiers armed the first missile in his moneymaking arsenal, nearly all of them quite attractive soldiers. No surprise. Paul Daugherty had always insisted his employees possess two qualities: looks and talent, in that order.

He pointed toward the front of the room, where a manicured young man appeared to be leading the discussion. “He goes by Lancelot,” Paul explained. “His real name is Lance Nordeman.” He paused dramatically as if Julia should recognize the name. She didn't.

“As in Carnes and Nordeman, the big Madison Avenue firm.”

Neither name meant anything to her. “Wow!” she bluffed.

“I know, right?” Paul said proudly. “Lancelot is the co-founder's son.”

“Looks young,” Julia observed. “What is he, twenty-five?”

“Twenty-three. Not much experience, but I'm betting he inherited his mother's creativity along with her beauty!” He chortled like a naughty child.

“Is Lance your creative director?”

“Lancelot,” Paul corrected sternly. “He insists. And yes, he is. But Monica is the project leader.”

Julia looked at the other faces in the room. “Monica Garcia?” Julia asked in disbelief. “You hired Monica Garcia?”

He smiled sheepishly. “The old gang together again!”

Julia stiffened. She had no interest in working alongside the woman who had once taken her job, not because she had a speck of talent, but because she had great legs. The woman who had “coauthored” a feature that had nearly destroyed Kevin Tolbert's reputation and happy home.

“Come on, Jewel!” Paul said playfully. “Water under the bridge. It's a new day. She'll behave, I promise.”

Julia eyed Paul crossly.

“Please, Jewel, give it a chance. Monica has great instincts in the Launch Room.”

Not to mention the bedroom
, Julia thought to herself.

“Here we go,” Paul said while opening the door.

She reminded herself of what she and Troy had discussed. Paul thought he was hiring Julia Davidson, the award-winning columnist who personified anti-breeder and pro-transition spin. He wasn't expecting the woman who had suddenly found religion and, worse, gotten married.

“Not just married,” Julia had added. “But married to Kevin Tolbert's best friend, a man charging the evil Youth Initiative empire with a water pistol!”

She and Troy had shared a laugh before Julia pulled out of the driveway toward her top-secret assignment: undercover reporter investigating what she assumed had to be a crooked deal. Paul must have called in favors or, perhaps, blackmailed someone to win the contract. Her job, she reminded herself while entering the room, was to find whatever dirty little secret Paul had wrapped within the respectable veneer of a plush office suite.

“Everyone,” Paul announced with his usual flair, “I'd like to introduce the newest member of Daugherty and Associates, the legendary Julia Davidson.”

Five of the six people in the room joined Paul in offering a smattering of obligatory applause.

“As most of you know, I think the world of Julia. She and I go way back. You won't find anyone who knows how to connect better with our core audience.”

“There, you see!” said a thirtyish man with a long, dark beard resting comfortably on his massive trunk. “He
does
have a target demographic in mind.”

“I never said he didn't have one,” Monica Garcia countered while sending an awkward, false,
lovely to see you again
wave in Julia's direction. “What I said,” she continued, “is that it was evolving.”

“We've been over this already.”

Julia glanced toward the digital board, where the noble knight of Camelot stood trying to facilitate some sort of Round Table consensus. He looked toward Paul.

“Say it again.”

Paul hesitated. “Say what again?”

“The target demo.”

Silence.

“The center of the creative bull's-eye,” Lancelot said while rolling exasperated eyes.

“Oh, right,” Paul said clumsily, finally grasping the lingo.

“We have several targets—”

“See!” Blackbeard said.

“—but,” Paul continued, “we want to speak most directly to fiftyish women who lean left.”

“Exactly what I said!” Monica crossed her legs with self-satisfied emphasis, Lancelot's eyes following earnestly before he turned them toward Julia. She felt his gaze examining the merchandise while he flashed a licentious grin.

“How?” he asked in Paul's direction.

“How what?”

“How is the famous Julia Davidson supposed to reach our market? She is clearly too young to relate to fiftyish women.” He winked in her direction as if to flirt. Julia took it otherwise.

“Well,” she began while recalling the project summary Paul had sent. “If the goal is to recruit more seniors to volunteer, your best bet is to convince the person closest to them. The person likely managing their medications and trying to pay their escalating bills.”

Paul smiled and took a step backward to give Julia the stage.

“That person,” Julia continued, “is most likely a daughter who, up until now, has been reluctant to suggest the option to the mother who breast-fed her or the dad who still calls her sweetheart.”

She paused. All eyes were fixed on to the newcomer who, she had made clear, hadn't been hired for her looks alone.

“Exactly!” Paul shouted. “Just the way I would have said it!”

“So would anyone who read the executive briefing,” Lancelot said as if irked. Creative directors don't accept the final word. They give it.

Monica and the nubile blonde sitting beside Blackbeard both squirmed in their seats.

Julia and Paul slipped into open seats at the table while Lancelot refocused the team's attention on the question they had been tackling before the interruption.

“Let's keep going,” he said. “We need at least a dozen more ideas before we break for lunch.”

Julia pulled out her tablet to capture an image of the board on which earlier ideas had been posted. She tried to mentally fill in details behind four sketchy notes.

HEROIC CHOICE
: They must have restated the existing mantra. To volunteer is to be heroic, part of the solution rather than the problem.

LASTING LEGACY
: Possibly a reference to President Lowman's original argument that aging and disabled citizens would welcome the opportunity to leave an economic legacy to the next generation rather than become a burden.

DEBIT DEBT
: This one included a parenthetical note: “Needs positive spin.” But the suggestion, Julia imagined, had been anything but positive. Kevin had told Troy about Senator Franklin's idea to publicize the portion of the mounting national deficit linked to caring for seniors and the disabled. Insiders called it “debit debt” because the old and sick lose value. They are like depreciating assets rather than long-term investments.

FOR THE KIDS
: Another familiar angle. Julia had used it herself in a column back when the president first floated the Youth Initiative concept. “What better way to show your love,” she had parroted, “than to reallocate assets to your grandchildren rather than prolong the inevitable?” The memory filled her with shame. How many vulnerable readers had she nudged toward death through such careless prose?

“So far,” Lancelot said while reviewing the same list of brainstorm droppings, “all we've got is overused clichés. We need something original!”

“I was thinking about beer ads,” Blackbeard offered. “You know, spicy gals hanging all over beefy guys.”

Monica rolled her eyes at the obvious jest while the blonde added her two cents. “Yeah. Sex sells!”

Paul chuckled at the thought. “I can see it now,” he piled on, “geriatric geezers and cripples sipping the good life.”

“Right!” Blackbeard bellowed. “Only instead of swigging bottles of beer we could show them injecting yellow toxins!”

The room exploded with laughter. Even the stern-faced Monica appeared to enjoy the moment. Julia smiled awkwardly in reaction to Paul's playful pat on the arm. She needed to play along despite a sudden mild nausea.

Lancelot retook control, tapping three fingers on the digital board before using his index finger to capture the suggestion. “Like I said, at this stage of the process there are no bad ideas.”

He wrote two words,
BEER PARTY
.

The process had its intended effect. For the next several minutes ideas flowed, some of them silly, others deathly serious. None of them, Julia realized, touching upon the fundamental challenge advocates of the Youth Initiative faced. Given the choice, most people preferred to go on living. Studies had shown that a high percentage of the early recruits had been mentally ill or severely depressed. No matter how slick the marketing campaign, sane and sound people would not volunteer in anywhere close to the numbers recorded in the early days of the initiative.

Or would they? She recalled reading Antonio Santos's journals. He had been perfectly sane: a pretty optimistic outlook on life despite everything, a mother and brother who loved and cared for him. And yet he decided to choose death. He actually believed the rhetoric about heroic self-sacrifice. And he hated being on the debit side of the ledger. How had he said it? “I may be worthless, but I have my pride.”

She felt a swell of anger at the playful banter occurring around her. At the risk of blowing her cover, Julia felt an irresistible urge to call attention to the insanity.

“Why not virgins?” she asked caustically.

Every eye stared blankly in her direction.

“I don't get it,” Blackbeard finally said after straining to find the joke.

“Me, neither,” said the blonde.

Julia bit her tongue at the realization that she had accidentally voiced her sarcasm.

“Ms. Davidson?” Lancelot prodded.

She looked around the room sheepishly, then decided to take the gamble. “I was thinking about what motivated the old suicide bombers in places like Palestine, Iraq, and Afghanistan,” she explained.

The blank stares remained fixed in her direction.

“Think about it for a second,” she continued mockingly. “How did leaders in those days motivate men, women, and children to strap on explosive vests to become human bombs?”

No reply.

“By offering them something better in the next life,” she added. “Kill the infidels and earn a harem filled with virgins.”

“Ah,” Paul said, indicating he finally understood.

“Go back even further,” Julia continued. “The emperor of Japan convinced pilots to crash themselves into targets. Again, human bombs.”

Paul leaned slightly forward in his chair. “Listen, Jewel,” he said, “I think you're taking my Launch Room analogy a bit too far. We aren't talking about recruiting suicide bombers or kamikaze pilots. We're trying to increase the number of old people volunteering to—”

“Wait,” Blackbeard interrupted. “I think she's onto something.”

Julia waited for a punch line that didn't come. She glanced toward the bearded man who, to her horror, looked serious. He must have misread her sarcasm. Rather than grasp the obvious parallel to manipulating people toward insanity, he appeared eager to use the examples as a springboard.

Blackbeard continued. “How would it look if we leveraged the power of religious belief to motivate volunteers?”

“Like promising rewards in the afterlife?” asked Paul.

“No go,” Lancelot interjected while making a time-out sign with his hands. “This is a government-funded campaign.”

“I don't mean literal religion,” Blackbeard said, “just the idea of something better.” He looked up while closing his eyes, as if entering his brilliance space in search of the right words. He started spouting off a sequence of possibilities. “Something more. Something greater. A better tomorrow…” He opened his eyes. “Come on, everyone, help me out here.”

Different voices added creative dominos to the brainstorm while Lancelot rushed back toward the board to capture anything useful.

“A better place.”

“No place like home.”

“Where no one has gone before.”

“Hold on,” Lancelot said with a snap of his fingers. “Go back.”

He scribbled on the board.

Paul read the solitary word aloud. “Home?”

Lancelot tapped his index finger against it and asked, “What can we do with this?”

The room fell silently into a moment of collective contemplation. Julia tried to think of a razor-sharp quip or caustic jab, anything to distract the group from whatever wicked stew they were cooking up in their minds.

“I've got it,” said Monica. “‘Going home.'”

While Lancelot began writing the phrase on the board, Paul leaned farther forward in his chair. “I like it,” he said. “I like it a lot.”

“Me, too,” said Blackbeard. “It evokes a sense of comfort, sort of like heaven but without the religious overtones.”

“I hadn't even thought of that,” Monica replied. “I was thinking of the in-home transition process Congress recently approved. The idea of going to a clinic gives people the creeps. Doing it at home feels much more, more…”