I jumped up from the couch and did a little happy underwear dance. "I
_was_, but I'm not _now_." I felt better than I had in days, ready to
beat the world -- or at least Debra.
"Let me take a shower, then let's get to the Imagineering labs. I've got
a pretty kickass idea."
#
The idea, as I explained it in the runabout, was a preemptive rehab of
the Mansion. Sabotaging the Hall had been a nasty, stupid idea, and I'd
gotten what I deserved for it. The whole point of the Bitchun Society
was to be more reputable than the next ad-hoc, to succeed on merit, not
trickery, despite assassinations and the like.
So a rehab it would be.
"Back in the early days of the Disneyland Mansion, in California," I
explained, "Walt had a guy in a suit of armor just past the first Doom
Buggy curve, he'd leap out and scare the hell out of the guests as they
went by. It didn't last long, of course. The poor bastard kept getting
punched out by startled guests, and besides, the armor wasn't too
comfortable for long shifts."
Dan chuckled appreciatively. The Bitchun Society had all but done away
with any sort of dull, repetitious labor, and what remained -- tending
bar, mopping toilets -- commanded Whuffie aplenty and a life of leisure
in your off-hours.
"But that guy in the suit of armor, he could _improvise_. You'd get a
slightly different show every time. It's like the castmembers who spiel
on the Jungleboat Cruise. They've each got their own patter, their own
jokes, and even though the animatronics aren't so hot, it makes the show
worth seeing."
"You're going to fill the Mansion with castmembers in armor?" Dan asked,
shaking his head.
I waved away his objections, causing the runabout to swerve, terrifying
a pack of guests who were taking a ride on rented bikes around the
property. "No," I said, flapping a hand apologetically at the white-
faced guests. "Not at all. But what if all of the animatronics had human
operators -- telecontrollers, working with waldoes? We'll let them
interact with the guests, talk with them, scare them. . . We'll get rid
of the existing animatronics, replace 'em with full-mobility robots,
then cast the parts over the Net. Think of the Whuffie! You could put,
say, a thousand operators online at once, ten shifts per day, each of
them caught up in our Mansion. . . We'll give out awards for outstanding
performances, the shifts'll be based on popular vote. In effect, we'll
be adding another ten thousand guests to the Mansion's throughput every
day, only these guests will be honorary castmembers."
"That's pretty good," Dan said. "Very Bitchun. Debra may have AI and
flash-baking, but you'll have human interaction, courtesy of the biggest
Mansion-fans in the world --"
"And those are the very fans Debra'll have to win over to make a play
for the Mansion. Very elegant, huh?"
#
The first order of business was to call Lil, patch things up, and pitch
the idea to her. The only problem was, my cochlea was offline again. My
mood started to sour, and I had Dan call her instead.
We met her up at Imagineering, a massive complex of prefab aluminum
buildings painted Go-Away Green that had thronged with mad inventors
since the Bitchun Society had come to Walt Disney World. The ad-hocs who
had built an Imagineering department in Florida and now ran the thing
were the least political in the Park, classic labcoat-and-clipboard
types who would work for anyone so long as the ideas were cool. Not
caring about Whuffie meant that they accumulated it in plenty on both
the left and right hands.
Lil was working with Suneep, AKA the Merch Miracle. He could design,
prototype and produce a souvenir faster than anyone -- shirts,
sculptures, pens, toys, housewares, he was the king. They were
collaborating on their HUDs, facing each other across a lab-bench in the
middle of a lab as big as a basketball court, cluttered with logomarked
tchotchkes and gabbling away while their eyes danced over invisible
screens.
Dan reflexively joined the collaborative space as he entered the lab,
leaving me the only one out on the joke. Dan was clearly delighted by
what he saw.