Bones, in the center of the catwalk, was still invoking the gods of video. "Tonight we're going to find out for you exactly what is going on inside those fancy downtown buildings where the rich folks dream away their lives while homeboys like us can only walk by and wonder."

Bones probably had enough money to spend the next three centuries in a feelie, but he still pretended on the air that he was the ass-out-of-his-pants, inner-city home boy. Bones Bolt was possibly one of the most unlikely individuals ever to get on television. He had first come to the public's attention during the Vaccaville Correction Complex crisis. He had been serving fifteen to life for armed robbery, and as the twenty-nine-day standoff ground on between armed convicts on one side and riot police, FBI, federal troops, and National Guard on the other, Bones had quickly become the outspoken and flamboyant leader of the more moderate faction in the prisoners' negotiating committee. As such, he had started appearing on TV on a nightly basis. Once the emergency was over, following the bloody storming of what was, at the time, the most modern, state-of-the-art penal facility in the whole of the country, Bones Bolt came out a hero. The media credited him with personally being responsible for saving the lives of at least twenty of the hostage guards and civilian administrators. Although a good deal of doubt was later cast on Bones's role, it wasn't before he had received a presidential pardon. It was Taras Karamazov, at the time the wunderkind program director at TBN, who had come up with the idea of giving Bones his own talk show. Despite a storm of protest, "The Bones Bolt Show," and its explosive combination of populism, radicalism, and racism, seemed to strike a nerve cluster in the collective consciousness. People couldn't resist watching him. He set and broke ratings records and developed an almost fanatical following that was quite prepared to put sponsors out of business if they so much as hinted that they might be thinking of dropping Bones. Himmler Beer learned that to its cost when its largest Denver warehouse went up in flames after Joseph Himmler himself had withdrawn their advertising in a snit following a Bones show on the cult of multiracial pornography. The rest was so much a part of media history that individuals like Madison Renfield now felt it necessary to risk health and sanity to come on the show and justify their position for an audience of sociopaths.

Bones had turned and was coming back to Renfield. He was looking at the company man as though examining a specimen for the first time and not really liking what he was seeing.

"Now this smooth person here, brothers and sisters, he goes by the name of Madison Renfield and is something called a senior vice president at CM, and he's come along here tonight I guess to try and convince us that all those white boys over at CM are real nice guys only working for the best public interest."

There were shouts from the crowd in the pit.

"We ain't convinced!"

"We ain't convinced, motherfucker!"

Dustin, like most other media watchers, had heard how Bones's audience was heavily seeded with paid performers who would start those responses on hidden cue.

Renfield was attempting to look calm and collected but only managed to come off as frightened. Bones was standing beside him, introducing him-or maybe demonstrating the specimen-to the crowd.

"Now, as we all know, CM is the corporation that has the monopoly on the production and distribution of the feelies, and as a result of this monopoly, they can charge exactly what they want for the service. Maybe the first thing we ought to ask Brother Renfield is how come the feelies are so expensive that they're out of the reach of eighty percent of the population."

In the conversation pit, Dustin hugged his knees and wondered about a feelie. In public, he and Mallory always scoffed at the idea of a feelie-"technology and bad taste conspiring to take escapism to a pathological level"-but secretly he wasn't so sure. There was something very appealing about the prospect of sinking into a tailormade dream and never waking up.

Renfield's eyes flicked from side to side as he cleared his throat and tried to be heard above the noise of the mob. "First of all, Bones, let's get one thing straight. The feelies, or as we prefer to call them, integrated entertainment media, IE for short, are actually not really all that expensive."

Bones Bolt glared at the company man. "Sure seem expensive to me."

"Well, they aren't cheap, but when you take into account the cost of plant and production and the expense of maintaining a human being in permanent or semipermanent sleep state, they also aren't that particularly expensive."

There was a sudden close-up of a sweating Hispanic face. "Sure look expensive from where I'm standing, Jack!"

There were shouts from nearby.

"Right!"

"Yeah, right."

"Dammit."

Renfield attempted to go on. "As far as the monopoly is concerned, that was by no means our idea. When the IE system was out of the testing stage we had to apply to the FCC for a special license to market the service. At that time, it was agreed that only one corporation should control the process until a full socioenvironmental study could be concluded."

This time the close-up heckler was a white kid with limp blond hair and long sideburns. "So you bought the government. What else is new?"

The kid was replaced by a Bones looking less than convinced. "That was five years ago, man. You telling me that they still doing this motherfucking study?"

"It will be some time until we can really assess the long-term effects."

"And what do you guys up at CM expect those results to be, if and when this mighty study finally gets completed?"

"I'm quite confident that they'll show that IE is responsible for a whole spectrum of social benefits on all levels."

Renfield permitted himself a small half smile. He was clearly very pleased with his answer. That was a mistake. It only made the crowd madder than they were already. The pit was bellowing and shaking its fists. Bones swung away from Renfield as though in disgust and pointed dramatically around the curve of the wall.

"Is that a fact, Brother Renfield? You are confident? Well, along here we have someone who may not be quite as confident as you are."

Mark Sturm was leaning nonchalantly on the guardrail. Mark Sturm was a regular guest on "The Bones Bolt Show." As far as Dustin was concerned, the man was nothing but a troublemaker. Sturm had started his career as a stand-up comic with a taste for abusing corporations, but after his mouthing off had become increasingly pointed, he had found that disgruntled executives were starting to drop him pieces of dirt to include in his act. From a mere comic, he was transformed into a man in the know, a man who could at least give an inspired guess as to where the bodies were buried. He was courted by news and talk shows. He developed a research staff and became a definite thorn in the side of the corporations. Many of his researchers were attractive young women-all volunteers-understandable, as Sturm was tall and handsome, a somewhat beak-nosed Errol Flynn with shoulder-length brown hair, every inch the debonair swashbuckler.

Mark Sturm nodded and smiled to Bones. "Hey, Bones, how you doing?"

The two of them slapped hands. The crowd's cheering for Sturm was only slightly less deafening than it had been for Bones himself. Sturm was nothing if not in solid for the underdog and underclass. Bones greeted him like a brother. "I was doing fine, Mark, until I started finding out about this feelie bullshit." He indicated Renfield. "This individual right here wants me to believe that if ever this government report on the feelies comes in, it's going to be roses. You agree with that?"