Fantasy & Science Fiction, February 2008 by Spilogale Authors

Author:Spilogale Authors [Authors, Spilogale]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Magazine, 2012
Publisher: Spilogale, Inc. www.fsfmag.com
Published: 2008-07-13T05:08:36+00:00

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And a very good business it was. Wally's company--Ancest, he called it--caught the world's eye and the world's ear. The backers had poured in plenty of start-up money, a good portion of which went into a saturation ad campaign on network television. Within days, Leno and Letterman were making jokes about their imaginary ancestors, Regis and Kelly were interviewing Wally live, and the stock price hit two hundred a share, then split. It was structured as a straight-out franchise operation and the prospective franchisees were fighting each other to get in the door."Come work with me," Wally said. He offered me a salary that was one figure more than the six I'd been getting as an orthopedic surgeon, plus options, expense account, corner office, company Lexus.

I said, "What on Earth can I do for you?"

"It's medical research. You're a doctor."

"I'm just a bone cutter."

He gave me his bashful Tom Sawyer look and said, "You're my touchstone. Everybody else, they're always slapping me on the back and telling me what a brilliant researcher I am. You don't do that. You're the only one keeps my feet on the ground, Jimmy-boy."

I should have run for the hills. Instead, I took the corner office with the title of Executive Vice President on the mahogany door behind which I did a lot of not very much, while being well paid for my exertions. It turned out, though, that there was one chore Wally wanted me to take over.

"I'd like you to interface with the backers," he said. "Give me less time in meetings, more time in the lab. I've got some interesting projects on the burners."

"Okay," I said. I figured it wouldn't be too onerous a task to schmooze the money people, dazzle them with a little science and set visions of sugar-plum dividends dancing in their heads. Thus armored in my innocence I walked into the Wednesday afternoon board meeting with a fat folder of glowing results from the first few weeks and even shinier projections for the next three quarters.

"We've blown right through the granddad and granny market, and we're into a serious run on major historical figures," I said. "Now that the federal court has ruled that DNA from more than four generations back is public domain, it's not just Robert E. Lee's descendants who can have him for a son; we estimate we'll sell him to about five percent of the population below the Mason-Dixon Line. Plus the interest in European monarchs is picking up, particularly the Bourbons."

I had plenty more, but I was strongly sensing that the five men in black suits on the other side of the table didn't give a damn. I set aside the bar charts on eighteenth-century poets and nineteenth-century composers and said, "Gentlemen, am I missing something?"

"Project Parousia," said the Chairman of the Board. He was a big, stone-faced man with eyes that had had a lot of practice at weighing and winnowing his fellow human beings. I had the feeling I was close to being assigned to the giant bin labeled Chaff.

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