I didn’t belong.
I knew it the second I walked in the room.
There were a dozen of them. Scattered around a long stainless steel table. I wish I could say I didn’t stare. But these guys...these guys weren’t just any old bunch of pushes. These guys were giants.
I didn’t have to scratch my ’plink to learn their names. I knew them by heart. Everyone in the industry did. Besides, you don’t easily forget a name like Xeno Zander or Jericho Mao. Fell Lazarus or Darkling Loch. Names you’d think were the origin of the industry stereotype.
I’ll tell you straight out: if they were on trading cards, I’d have downloaded them all. Might have even sucked up the exorbitant cost of having them printed. Screwed them between two thick panes of mylar and showed them off in a mirror case.
But it wasn’t their names that told me I didn’t belong. Or that the top tier agencies they came from had been called by initials so long even dinosaur pushes couldn’t remember what the letters stood for. It wasn’t even the beta phase ’plinks peeking out from behind their ears—sleek, unobtainium jobs, which would fetch more digicoin on the street than I pulled in a year.
It was the ink.
Brant Gnarley—the push next to me—his arms were so inked only flecks of raw skin poked through. Globes, crests, starbursts, banners, monograms popping all up and down his forearms. Push had a crowned cap on the back of one hand and a fat golden harp on the other. A thick swipe of jet-black shot out from his rolled-up plaid shirt sleeve, cut down the inside of his arm, and hooked back up. I nearly grew dizzy, counting at least a dozen birds and bulls and lions and whales and mythical creatures.
Grey Ochre’s back was to me and everyone else at the table. But her tank dipped low enough that I could see arches, a bell, and a freckled redhead in pigtails smiling at me from between her shoulders.
Arlo Stenz’s shirt, unbuttoned right down to his navel, revealed a chest so packed with car logos they nearly interlocked like chainmail.
And the rest of the pushes were inked up every bit as badassed. Every piece of artwork, emblem, icon and typeface was timeless.
What blew me away even more? I counted fewer than ten patches of scar tissue among them, at least that I could see.
I tried to be casual about unrolling my sleeves and buttoning the cuffs at my wrists, but I’m sure at least a few of them noticed. I was fine showing off my ink at my own agency. But to hang with these pushes, my arms blazing with nothing but minor league healthcare, pharma, and finance firms...that just wasn’t gonna’ cut it.
It was looking more and more like my being there was a—
I nearly jumped out of my seat when the door slid open and a tall, wiry woman knifed into the room, heels hammering like she was trying to split the marble floor. Her pale bluish face had hard angles, smoky eyes, and a shock of gelled platinum hair pinched to a razor’s edge. Her skintight black suit glistened like wet paint. She looked like a hatchet spliced with a strap-on.
A pair of juiced-up gym dandies in sharp cut suits lackeyed in behind her, looking as manscaped as any man I’d ever seen. The one carried an i-glass, the other a deep metal tray that looked like something you’d cook food in.
The three of them fell into formation at the head of the table, the shaved apes on either side looking well-trained and ready to pounce at her command. The door hissed shut.
I had no idea who they were. But a quick glance at the bodies straightening around the room told me I should have. I turned back just as the woman’s slow scan of the table fixed on me. This is the part where I get sent packing, I thought.
All I did was swallow. But in my head it sounded like a bomb dropped.
Without a word, she reached into the tray in left mannequin’s hands and pulled out something soft and lumpy and dripping red. She let it drape over one hand like pizza dough. She grabbed its drooping edge with her other. And she frisbeed the awful thing half-way across the table. Landed right in front of me. Slap.
I was too stunned to wipe the freckle-spray of blood off my face.
In the center of that ragged patch of skin was a jet black circle surrounded by a burst of dead-straight crimson rays.
I knew the logo immediately. I knew the push who used to own the belly button staring at me from the center of that art deco solar eclipse. And by the looks of it, he must have screwed up big-time. Most inkers were kind enough to be precise, not touching the art around it. But this guy nicked at least half a dozen other logos, cutting low enough to carve out a tuft of pubes. And the ragged edge... So much for a pound of flesh, no more no less.
“Good evening, all, and thank you for coming.”
The voice pop pop popped like gunshots. Shrattled me in my seat. When I looked over, she was wiping her hands on right goon’s lapel.
“As you can see, McQueary & Ballard is no longer Elyzion’s agency of record.” She shot a hand toward the center of the table. “And, clearly, Haley Valentine is no longer directing our advertising efforts.”
Clearly? Clearly was the understatement of the century. What was static for me was why Haley would put so skittish a brand on so tender a stretch of hide. And go so damn big with it.
Push was veteran enough to know Elyzion chewed through internal marketing drones faster than their customers chewed through their monthly teras. One day, you were sittin’ pretty, milking your client contact for all they could squeeze out of procurement. The next, you were scrambling to prove your worth to the next hack, who wanted nothing more than to cut you out so they could bring in their own push of choice. And the next, you were on a table having grafts carved out of your ass and hammies.
I’d lost my share of hide over the years. But my scars were nowhere near as bad as some pushes I knew. Say what you will about my ink not being all that, but at least I’m not walking around with a cane or sitting on a doughnut pillow with an ass that looks like fifteen pounds of chewed bubblegum. Flesh before ’folio.
“My name is Clarion Heatley,” she said. “These are my associates, Jason Jester and Alan Beck.” She didn’t bother clarifying who was who.
“As Elyzion’s new VP of Brand Identity, I’ve been tasked with injecting a bit of disruption into how we do things. Or I should say—how we used to do things.”
She swept her hand through the air in front of her, real slow. Probably so we could all get a good look at the blood still caked on it.
“That’s why I’ve called you all here today.”
She looked right at me. Maybe it was just nerves on my end, but I swear I saw her brow crinkle like she had no clue who I was. I could feel my face flush and the janglies crawling up my back. But she went right on.
“I need a tagline,” she said. “I need a strap. A slogan. A statement. Our essence. Mission. Promise. Encapsulated in a short, sweet, simple, brilliant little line.”
She clasped her hands in front of her—long, bony, white Nosferatu hands.
“That is all I need from you.”
The kind of hands made for ripping hearts through ribcages and showing them to people bloody and beating as they died.
“There will be no intakes. No discoveries. No tissue sessions or brainstorms. And I won’t insult you with an overview of our capabilities. You know who we are. And if you don’t...you don’t belong here.”
I caught a few pushes looking my way. And you know what—I couldn’t blame them. No one in a position like hers with a corpo like that would even think of putting their brand in a pair of hands like mine. I was sure my being there was a typo.
“The winner—assuming there is one—gets to walk away marked.”
I couldn’t get my head around it. Winning AOR with a tagline? Was she Hatter?
I glanced at my competition, thinking these pushes must think the same thing I was. But they seemed completely at ease. Like it was same old plain old for them. Just another day in the life of a bunch of high-power pushes. It was an uppity club. And I wasn’t in it.
“Shall we?” She nodded to the mannequin stage right, who started fat fingering his i-glass. The lights dimmed and the row of windows at the far end of the room misted opaque with white. Four chunky words faded up in vibrant blue.
Trusted Technology for All
“This is our current tag,” she said. “I hate it. It had its time. Its place. It served us well.” She clapped. We all jerked back her way. “But our time and place have changed. Our capabilities have changed. Our offerings have changed. It’s not just about trust and dependability. It’s not about the comfort of knowing your connection won’t be interrupted. Or that your uplink won’t short and take your hearing with it.”
She stopped. Sighed real deep. Even closed her eyes. And when she opened them, those icy blues blazed like hellfire. Like she’d set her internal dial to sermon.
“It’s about...” she started, but paused to raise her arms, palms up. She opened her eyes and we all followed her stare back toward the screen.
The line in blue dissolved. And I nearly laughed out loud at what took its place.
“Empowerment,” she read. She lipsmacked the “p“ hard enough to blow the oxygen out of the room. “Elyzion empowers people.” She actually smiled at that. A smile that would have gone great with a straight jacket. “Our technology empowers people. Our products and services—boundless, bold, better—empower people. To link-up with their world. To achieve synergistic, translobal connectivity. To leverage hybridized neural-inductive surrogacy. Experience a more impactful level of ideative collaboration vis a vis meta-neuroptic augmentation. To discover personal brand extensibility in the shared space through true neodynamic immersion. To unbridle unknown intersectional possibilities. Unlock untapped potential. Realize unrealized promise. To work with Elyzion is to be empowered. To have Elyzion as your carrier is to carry that empowerment. To interface with Elyzion is to wield that empowerment.”
I wasn’t tracking any of it, especially the bit about empowerment. Corpos had been slinging that rock for ages. The word had its meaning snuffed out years ago.
“You’ll have five minutes,” she said.
I must have heard that wrong.
“At the end of which, you’ll ping your response to this number.” On cue, the gymbot spun his i-glass around and displayed a string of baleful red digits.
If I didn’t think this whole thing was a joke before, I was sure of it now. Because coming up with a tagline for one of the largest corpos on the planet in five minutes was exactly that. A goddamn jo—
“Go,” she barked.
The word made no sense to me. Go? Go what? Go where? I had to look around the table to see all the other pushes’ eyes rolling back in their heads to realize they were already churning and burning.
I snapped out of it and got my sorry ass to work. I levered my ’plink to full bore. Words came furious as vomit.
Empowerment. Empowerment. To empower is to enable. Encourage. Engage. Grow. Strengthen. Burgeon. Bludgeon. No. Empowerment. Empowering. Emergence. To empower is to emerge. Empowering emergence through...emerging empowerment. Shit!
“Four minutes,” from left gymbot.
To empower is to build. To build up. To power up. Level up. Advance. Push. Force. Empowerment is a weapon. Use it. Shoot it. Swing it. Fight. Forward. Further. Farther. Forward. Empowerment is...Fuck!
“Three minutes.”
Empowerment is up. Upward. Lift. Rise. Rise! The will to rise. Rise up. All rise. Revolt. Bagpipes. Dammit! Rise up against a...rising. Bruce. Dammit! Rise and shine. Rise and reign. Let it reign. Reign reign go away. Go away and go back to...Rise! Rise again. Rise up and...Rule!
I reeled that fish in. And just like that, my hook was hot.
“Two minutes.”
The words were roaring by but I knew exactly where to cast. There was nothing I couldn’t land.
“One minute.”
Another gem. Mine.
“Thirty seconds.”
And another.
“Fifteen seconds.”
Just one more.
“Ten.”
And there it was. Staring back at me.
“Five.”
I scanned the addy on the i-glass.
“One.”
Sent.
“Time.”
I was almost too busy catching my breath to notice Liberty Belle and Arlo Higgins pop up and storm out. That they weren’t able to submit on time blew me away.
The Elyzion team didn’t even acknowledge they’d left. They just stood there staring down at their i-glass. And for the next ten minutes, they kept on staring down at their i-glass, nodding and glowering and pursing up their mouths, not making a sound except to tap and swipe, tap and swipe.
Cut the teaser, I thought. She could have done this all through her ’plink. Especially since we all knew there was no way she paid any mind to what the minions thought. This baby was hers and hers alone.
“Yes,” she hissed. She had that same awful burn in her eyes. “It’s...” she started. And it felt like an hour before she continued. “Brilliant.” She drew a long, slender finger across the i-glass in a slow figure eight. “So simple...and yet...so powerful. It encapsulates everything Elyzion stands for. Our purpose. Our promise. It’s...” She brought her bloodied hand to her mouth, as if trying to stifle what she was about to say. “Perfect.”
For a second I thought she might smile.
“Christopher McCoobery,” she said.
I’m out, I thought. She didn’t even need to finish. And you know what? Fuck it. I never should have been there in the first place. And hey, at least I finished. And ahead of two titanic pushes at that. Besides, it was a great line. Way better than the stepped on lines I typically pushed. And if Elyzion didn’t want it, I could peddle it elsewhere.
“You may stay, the rest may go,” she said.
I can’t really be sure what happened next. I sorta’ recall the rest of the pushes springing out of their seats and storming off. This one named Heat—just Heat—glowered at me and shook his head as he left, probably as stunned as I was at the outcome.
“Congratulations, Mr. McCoobery,” Clarion said. “You have the honor of returning to Staats & Staats with the news that you are now Elyzion’s agency of record. That is, should you choose to accept it.”
All I could do was nod.
“Good,” she said. “Our brand is in your hands.”
I cleared my throat. “Thank you.” It came out far more composed than I would have thought. My head was spinning. This was flat-out surreal.
“You’re in luck,” she said. “We’ve procured quite the inker.”
She nodded at the door. I looked up just as this stout guy walked in behind a large steel cart full of guns, needles, paint, tubes, bandages. He had a beard and mustache that seemed a century and a half out of place. White undershirt. Shredded skinny jeans. And a black leather apron flecked with blood.
Holy shit, I thought. It’s Schatzi. I’m getting inked by Schatzi.
You had to be somebody just to get on his wait list. Then you had to hope your number came up while you still had the big league corpo that got you there. Sure, he had a rep for having a lead hand. But I didn’t care. This was Schatzi. And this C-list creative director with a rind full of ink that most people wouldn’t even recognize was about to get marked by the man himself—and with the logo of the biggest data-comm corpo on the planet. As far as I was concerned, the deeper the better.
“We’ll be in touch, Mr. McCoobery,” she said.
She breezed out of the room without another word, right and left puppets tagging along.
I turned to Schatzi, who was slapping on a pair of latex gloves.
“You know where it’s going?” he asked.
Of course I did. I had this large patch of skin between my shoulder blades that I’d been keeping bare for something worthwhile. And it didn’t get any more worthwhile than this.
“Right here,” I said, jerking my thumb at my back.
“You sure?” He said. “Tender spot for a brand. And it’ll hurt way worse if...” He trailed off.
You believe this guy, I thought? Five minutes as Elyzion’s AOR and already he’s counting on having me back under his knife.
I looked him square in the face and didn’t say a word. Just unbuttoned my shirt.
He shrugged and made a face that told me he couldn’t care less. “Take a seat,” he said, wheeling a pair of chairs away from the table for us.
I can barely describe what I was feeling as I popped those buttons one by one and straddled the chair, looking at Schatzi putting his gun together like a sharpshooter, shaking up tubes of color, tearing open little packets of gauze and ointment. That empty disc of skin on my back was bristling with current. And my whole body was humming along.
“Head down,” Schatzi said.
He tapped the power supply with his foot and that familiar angry insect buzz filled the room. No. Not familiar. This was a new vibe now. Forget about rolling up my sleeves to show off my ink. Tomorrow morning, I was walking into Staats & Staats shirtless.
I felt Schatzi’s cool, gloved hand on my back. Then a fiery singularity as the needle bit into the skin over my spine. For a hot second I actually worried I wouldn’t be able to take the pain. But I pushed-up fast. Because I knew—all I had to do was wait it out a bit. Just wait it out. Pretty soon, it wouldn’t hurt anymore. Pretty soon, I’d go numb.
Originally published in The Overcast