Big Egos Read online

  “Vincent,” I say.

  He sits up so fast his glasses slide halfway down his nose before he pushes them back into place. It’s a little Clark Kent, but Vincent is no Superman. He’s more like Jimmy Olsen, if Jimmy Olsen was a black, thirty-one-year-old Ego raver with a photographic memory who lived on quinoa, seaweed, and Red Bull.

  “What are you doing?” I ask.

  “Research,” he says, setting the magazine down on his desk and patting it for emphasis. “Boning up on late-twentieth-century pop culture.”

  Vincent claims he reads his magazines through osmosis and that his catnaps help him to think. I’d call bullshit, but he gets his job done, so I don’t care how he does it.

  “Don’t forget about those reports on The Rat Pack,” I say.

  The Rat Pack is a new Ego concept in beta testing that allows the user to experience being Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Joey Bishop, Peter Lawford, and Sammy Davis Jr. over a six-hour period, with a little over an hour for each one. Initial testing indicates that Sinatra overshadows the others and Lawford feels like he gets blamed for everything. It’s the first multiple personality Big Ego. In a number of departments, it’s affectionately referred to as The Sybil.

  “I’m on it,” says Vincent, popping another Red Bull.

  When I reach Angela, she’s just hanging up the phone. I don’t catch any of what she said, but she turns to me wearing a concerned expression.

  “Hey. I think we might have a little problem.”

  CHAPTER 12

  “We’ve got a little problem,” says Bill Summers, head of Applied Research at EGOS.

  “How can I help?” I say, taking a seat.

  Where I am is Bill’s office at the end of May, four months ago. Bill is a forty-something guy with a crisp suit, a smooth delivery, and dimples. I never met the man until this moment, but whatever it is Bill does at Applied Research, he probably does it well and is used to getting results.

  And I’d wager that goes for everything else he sets his mind to. It’s just a look he has. A look that says he’s confident and knows what he’s doing. Plus, you know, the dimples.

  “Can I get you a drink?” he asks.

  “Just a bottle of water, thanks.”

  There’s a wet bar over in one corner, with rock glasses and highballs and single bottles of top-shelf vodka, scotch, tequila, gin, and rum. I notice the bottle of tequila is more than half empty.

  “You’ve been with the company, what?” says Bill, pouring himself a glass of tequila. “Five years now?”

  I nod. “Not including the year of internship I did during my senior year at UCLA.”

  Bill opens a small refrigerator and grabs a bottle of water, which he hands to me before he sits down behind his island of a desk in his ocean of an office, a view of Beverly Hills floating in the late May sun behind him. If I were a woman and this were a date, I’d be flashing him a smile and playing with my hair.

  He glances at his computer monitor. “You’ve made some impressive contributions since you’ve been here.”

  First a drink, now a compliment. This guy knows how to score points.

  “Thanks. I just like to think I’m doing my job.”

  To be honest, I’m pretty good at what I do. When I first joined EGOS I was an entry-level investigator, earning an annual salary in the high five figures. After just two years, I was promoted to manager of Investigations and my income nearly doubled.

  But my father taught me the importance of playing roles and right now, I’m playing the part of the appreciative employee.

  “What attracted you to EGOS?” Bill looks at me from across his desk with his appraising eyes.

  If I were a woman and this were a date, I’d be lightly stroking my neck right about now.

  “Initially, the internship attracted me because of the experience it provided,” I say. “But after less than six months, I knew I wanted the opportunity to be involved in something groundbreaking. To play a part in the fostering of a revolutionary technology.”

  While I didn’t come here expecting to kiss anyone’s ass, sometimes it’s best to just hold your breath and pucker up. Plus, for some reason, Bill brings out the ass kisser in me.

  “So would it be fair to say that you’re invested in the company?” he says. “That you believe in what we’re doing here at EGOS?”

  “Yes,” I say. “Absolutely.”

  “Let me explain why we asked you here today.” Bill takes a sip of his tequila. “As you know, in the early stages of production, our competitors on the street were busy trying to replicate our technology, without much success.”

  The first year Big Egos hit the stores, knockoffs started showing up everywhere, and it wasn’t uncommon to see some grocery store clerk or coffeehouse barista looking like a bad copy of Scarlett O’Hara or Sylvester Stallone. Though with Stallone, sometimes you couldn’t tell the difference.

  “But over the past twelve months, it’s become apparent that the quality of their product has improved significantly,” says Bill. “And with the availability of Egos of living celebrities and serial killers, black market Egos have begun to grow in popularity and started to take a bigger chunk of the market. Though that’s not the problem I mentioned earlier or why we asked you here.”

  His use of the royal we makes me wonder who else knows about our meeting. And who it is Bill reports to.

  There are a lot of departments at EGOS. Research. Product development. Accounting. Marketing. Customer support. Biotechnology. Testing. Investigations. And a few others I can’t even remember. I’ve never met anyone from Applied Research and I’m not sure I understand what purpose they serve.

  “So . . . what’s the problem?” I ask.

  “We’ve discovered that some of the black market Egos are using intellectual property stolen from EGOS.”

  That is a problem. “How was it stolen?”

  “We don’t know that yet. But the issue we’re facing is that if this information gets out, not only could we be held accountable for any side effects caused by the black market Egos, but it could end up having significant ramifications to the public’s perception of the safety of Big Egos.”

  “I don’t understand. The knockoffs are unsafe because they’re encoded with RNA rather than with DNA. Everyone knows that.”

  “I know that and you know that, but the general public doesn’t pay attention to those kinds of details,” says Bill. “All they’ll hear is that black market Egos are using the same technology and intellectual property as our product and that will be the kiss of death for us. The public won’t see any distinction between legally and illegally manufactured Egos. Except for the price.”

  I nod. “So what can Investigations do to help?”

  “Not Investigations,” he says. “Just you.”

  If this were a date, I’d want to feel his hand running up my thigh right about now.

  “Technically, it’s not just you.” He takes another sip of tequila. “We’re bringing in several dozen employees from different departments to help.”

  Apparently this date just turned into a gang bang.

  “But you’re the only one from Investigations,” he says.

  “Why’s that?”

  “We’re just picking the most talented minds in each department. The best of the best, you might say. Plus we’re looking for people like you who have a knack for understanding the intricate workings of our product.”

  Instead of stroking my thigh, now he’s stroking my ego. And it’s working.

  “What exactly are we talking about here?” I ask.

  “As you mentioned, black market Egos are risky because they’re improperly encoded with RNA rather than DNA, producing retroviruses that take over the host brain, resulting in psychosis and other problems.”

  And by other problems, he means death.

  “We’ve developed an antidote that counteracts the retroviruses and stabilizes the DNA.” Bill produces a vial containing a clear liquid and hands it to me. “Wh
ile the chemical structure of the formula is a little complex and requires a degree in biochemistry to fully comprehend, suffice it to say that this will essentially turn the black market Ego into one of our own.”

  I hold the vial up to the light.

  “The problem we’re facing is that we don’t have the time to put the antidote through the regular channels to get it tested, approved, and patented,” says Bill. “It took more than half a decade to get the patents on the DNA replication for Big Egos and we can’t wait for that process to play out. Plus there’s the issue of going public with this, which is something we’d prefer to avoid.”

  I hand the vial back to him. “So where do I fit in?”

  “We need your help to test the product.”

  “Why don’t you just bring in volunteers?”

  “We tried that. But the results were corrupted by test subjects who were less than forthcoming about their Ego purchasing habits. Because of your familiarity with the product line, we need your help getting the antidote to the test subjects out in the field.”

  “How exactly will I do that?”

  “By attending Ego parties and identifying black market Ego users and giving them this,” says Bill, holding up the vial for emphasis. “We also have it in a powder form. Your job is to deliver the antidote to them in some manner unknown to them. That’s the important part. They can’t know what they’re being given.”

  “How will you know who’s received the antidote?”

  “The antidote is encoded with some of our GPS-tracking-enabled nanobots,” says Bill. “Once the subject has received the antidote, the nanobots will allow us to track him or her via satellite.”

  “Is that legal?”

  “It’s a gray area,” says Bill. “It falls under the category of what they don’t know won’t hurt them.”

  I don’t know if I agree with that assessment, but I’m intrigued enough to keep the date going.

  “So how would this work?” I ask.

  “First, we’ll have you go through some video testing to help you recognize the various symptoms most often caused by the use of black market Egos so you’ll be able to better identify those who are using them.”

  Ego Dementia is the commonly used academic term for what happens from repeated exposure to the retroviruses created in black market Egos, though I’ve heard the media use a number of other euphemisms to describe the condition, including Ego Mania, Ego Trips, and Inflated Egos.

  “There’s a bit more to explain if you agree,” he says. “And you’ll have to put in some extra hours, work a couple of nights a week, maybe an occasional weekend, but as I mentioned, because of your expertise, you’re an ideal candidate for what we have in mind.”

  I’m not sure I want to work nights and weekends, but Bill keeps saying all the right things. If this were a date, I would have asked him back to my place, though I wouldn’t give it up right away. I’d make him work for it.

  Bill flashes his dimples. “Naturally, if you agree to do this, we’d offer you additional compensation.”

  There goes my bra and sweater.

  “What type of compensation are we talking about?”

  “How does a six-figure bonus, an additional hundred shares of stock, and a corporate penthouse suite sound?”

  And off come the panties.

  I think about that 1962 Aston Martin I’ve had my eye on. And the upgrades to the house that Delilah wants. And how those extra shares of stock could allow me to retire even earlier than I’d planned.

  I know I should probably take some time to think about this before I make a decision, maybe talk to Delilah first, but my father always taught me that you need to embrace the opportunities that are given to you if you want to get what you want out of life.

  Plus Bill is really good at what he does.

  “All right,” I say. “When do we start?”

  CHAPTER 13

  “Ground control to Major Tom,” says Angela.

  I’m standing outside Angela’s workstation as Vincent walks past and gives me the thumbs-up before wandering off, looking industrious, while Neil continues his daily juice box ritual.

  Slurp, slurp, slurp.

  “What?” I say.

  “You looked like you went out of orbit for a minute there,” says Angela. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” I say. “So what’s the problem?”

  Angela pulls up a spreadsheet on her touchscreen monitor. “Come here and take a look at this.”

  I walk up behind her and look at her monitor, which displays a spreadsheet of Big Egos and various side effects, including frequency of occurrence and complaints. The spreadsheet I’m looking at now is for a group of fictional Egos we call The Icons, which includes The Holly Golightly, The Sam Spade, The James Bond, The Annie Hall, and The Captain Kirk, among others.

  This is Angela’s area of expertise. Fictional characters. She’s the only member of my team who has injected more fictional Egos than I have. And out of the more than three thousand Egos in our product line, the bestsellers are typically fictional characters.

  It’s not that surprising when you think about it. Not only are some celebrities better known for the characters they portray than for their own fame, but fictional characters in Hollywood and literature and folklore are often more real to us than the people in our lives.

  Peter Parker. Jane Eyre. Santa Claus.

  Harry Potter. Buffy Summers. Superman.

  Not only are these characters always there for us and never let us down, but they affect us and inspire us and have a profound impact on who we are and what we believe in.

  They’ve changed our lives. Made us laugh. Made us cry. Given us hope.

  What’s more real than that?

  I think we long to be them because they’ve been such an important part of our lives. And since they’ll be around long after we’re gone, being one of them allows us to become immortal, even if only for a few hours.

  “So what’s the problem?” I repeat.

  “Well, I was going over some numbers from The Icons and came across a couple of anomalies that show up in certain Egos during the third year.”

  “What kind of anomalies?”

  “It’s not something we’ve encountered before.” Touching the screen, she sorts the spreadsheet according to one of the columns. “But they show up in the interviews and voice scans of a large number of customers who purchased one or more of five specific Egos.”

  Voice scans are used by EGOS investigators when talking with customers to help identify and compile potential problems. You can learn a lot from a person’s voice, especially when it’s run through software with a state-of-the-art polygraph program. Voice scans are more cost-effective than brain scans and easier to obtain, since the subject only needs to be recorded over the phone. With their permission, of course.

  We record their voices and run their responses through a software app that searches for inflections, inconsistencies, repetitive phrases, etc. It’s also used to compare changes in voice patterns in a customer from one interview to the next. Most of those changes can be attributed to normal fluctuations in stress levels brought on by relationships, work, financial issues, menstrual cycles, and children, among other things. But if you’re trying to hide something, or if there’s something else going on other than the normal day-to-day challenges of being an adult, the voice scan software will pick up on it.

  “Which five Egos did the anomalies show up in?” I ask.

  Angela sorts the spreadsheet again and points to her monitor. The Egos highlighted at the top of the spreadsheet are The Indiana Jones, The Captain Kirk, The Rocky Balboa, The Philip Marlowe, and The Charles Foster Kane.

  It’s not lost on me that three of the five Egos on the list are in my personal collection at home. And that I’ve been using all of them for going on three years now.

  “During the first two years, everything was normal,” she says. “No indications of any abnormalities for the sampling of custome
rs we interviewed.”

  She keeps talking about speech patterns and inflections and vocabulary. I’m listening and nodding in all the right places, but I’m waiting for her to get to the point.

  “So what are the anomalies?” I ask again.

  “Nearly three-quarters of the customers interviewed over the past month who’d used at least one of the five Icons regularly during the last three years mentioned that the number zero seemed to come up a lot for them.” Angela sorts the list to highlight her point.

  “What do you mean it came up a lot?”

  “In random conversations,” she says. “On digital clocks or temperature readouts or roulette wheels. Symbolically. Metaphorically. Socially. Sometimes the combined numbers for the time or the date or an address always seem to add up to a number ending in zero.”

  In some cultures, zero is a powerful number that brings about great transformational change, often profound. And profundity is something I can get excited about. But zero is also the absence of all quality or quantity, the lowest point, nothing—which doesn’t exactly give me the warm fuzzies.

  “If it was just a handful of customers or even ten percent, I’d probably write it off to a subconscious fixation—people looking for numbers or symbols and attributing some significant meaning when the number or pattern keeps coming up,” says Angela. “But when seven out of ten customers mention the same thing, then I think it’s a little more than people looking for patterns in chaos.”

  “What’s the other anomaly?” I ask.

  “Regular users of multiple Icons over that same three-year period who were interviewed each repeated some unusual or specific phrase multiple times.”

  “The same phrase?”

  Angela shakes her head. “Something unique to each customer that they would use repetitively.”

  “How many of the customers displayed both behavioral anomalies?”

  Angela touches the screen again and pulls up another spreadsheet. “More than fifty percent.”

  “How often did they use their Egos?” I ask.

  Angela pulls up another spreadsheet on her monitor. “An average of seven times per year. Though users of The Indiana Jones and The Captain Kirk reported an average of once per month.”