#
Offline, I filed out of the Hall of Presidents. Offline, I took Lil's
hand and walked to the Liberty Belle load-zone, our spot for private
conversations. Offline, I bummed a cigarette from her.
Lil was upset -- even through my bemused, offline haze, I could tell
that. Tears pricked her eyes.
"Why didn't you tell me?" she said, after a hard moment's staring into
the moonlight reflecting off the river.
"Tell you?" I said, dumbly.
"They're really good. They're better than good. They're better than us.
Oh, God."
Offline, I couldn't find stats or signals to help me discuss the matter.
Offline, I tried it without help. "I don't think so. I don't think
they've got soul, I don't think they've got history, I don't think
they've got any kind of connection to the past. The world grew up in the
Disneys -- they visit this place for continuity as much as for
entertainment. We provide that." I'm offline, and they're not -- what
the hell happened?
"It'll be okay, Lil. There's nothing in that place that's better than
us. Different and new, but not better. You know that -- you've spent
more time in the Mansion than anyone, you know how much refinement, how
much work there is in there. How can something they whipped up in a
couple weeks possibly be better that this thing we've been maintaining
for all these years?"
She ground the back of her sleeve against her eyes and smiled. "Sorry,"
she said. Her nose was red, her eyes puffy, her freckles livid over the
flush of her cheeks. "Sorry -- it's just shocking. Maybe you're right.
And even if you're not -- hey, that's the whole point of a meritocracy,
right? The best stuff survives, everything else gets supplanted.
"Oh, shit, I hate how I look when I cry," she said. "Let's go
congratulate them."
As I took her hand, I was obscurely pleased with myself for having
improved her mood without artificial assistance.
#
Dan was nowhere to be seen as Lil and I mounted the stage at the Hall,
where Debra's ad-hocs and a knot of well-wishers were celebrating by
passing a rock around. Debra had lost the tailcoat and hat, and was in
an extreme state of relaxation, arms around the shoulders of two of her
cronies, pipe between her teeth.
She grinned around the pipe as Lil and I stumbled through some insincere
compliments, nodded, and toked heavily while Tim applied a torch to the
bowl.
"Thanks," she said, laconically. "It was a team effort." She hugged her
cronies to her, almost knocking their heads together.