Free The Merchant's War by Frederik Pohl Page A

along with the apartment, two hundred and forty channels. I ran through the selector—housewares commercials, florists’ commercials, outerwear commercials (male), outerwear commercials (female), news, restaurant commercials—yes, that was the channel I wanted. I picked a nice place only two blocks from the sea-condo, and it was all that I’d wanted. Because I had made a reservation I was only kept an hour or so in the bar, drinking gin-and-Mokes and chatting up my neighbors; the dinner was the best of brand-name soya cutlets and reconstituted mashed veggies; there was brandy with the coffee, and two waiters dancing attendance to unwrap my portions and pull the tabs on my drinks. There was one little funny thing. When the check came I looked at it quickly, then more slowly, then called the waiter over again. “What’s this?” I said, pointing at the column of printouts that said,
    Mokie-Koke, $2.75
    Mokie-Koke, $2.75
    Mokie-Koke, $2.75
    Mokie-Koke, $2.75
    “They’re Mokie-Kokes, sir,” he explained, “a refreshing, taste-tingling blend of the finest chocolate-type—”
    “I know what a Mokie-Koke is,” I interrupted. “I just don’t remember ordering any.”
    “I’m sorry, sir,” he said, all deference. “Actually you did. I’ll play back the voice tape if you like.”
    “Never mind the voice tape,” I said. “I don’t want them now. I’ll just go.”
    He looked shocked. “But, sir—you’ve already drunk them!”
    Nine A.M. Bright and early. I paid off my pedi-cab, pulled the soot-extractor plugs out of my nostrils and strutted into the main lobby of the huge Taunton, Gatchweiler and Schocken Agency Tower.
    We get older and we get cynical, but after the years of absence there was almost an epiphany of feeling that shook me as I entered. Imagine two thousand years ago entering the court of Augustus Caesar, and knowing that here, in this place, the affairs of the entire world had their control center and inspiration. With the Agency, the same. True, there were other agencies—but it was a bigger world, too! Here was where Power was. The whole vast building was dedicated to one sublime mission: the betterment of mankind through the inspiration to buy. More than eighteen thousand people worked in that building. Copysmiths and apprentice word-jugglers; media specialists who could sound a commercial out of the ambient air or print a message on your eyeball; product researchers dreaming up, every day, new and more sellable drinks, foods, gadgets, vices, possessions of all sorts; artists; musicians; actors; directors; space buyers and time buyers—the list went on indefinitely—and above them all, on the fortieth floor and higher, there was Executive Country where the geniuses who directed it all brooded and conceived their godlike plans. Oh, sure. I joked about the civilizing mission of us who dedicated our lives to advertising— but under the joking was the same real reverence and commitment that I’d felt as a cub scout in the Junior Copywriters, going after my first merit badges and just then beginning to perceive where my life could lead …
    Well. Anyway. There I was, in the heart of the universe. There was one funny thing. I had remembered it as vast and vaulted. Vaulted it was—but vast? Actually it seemed tinier, and more crowded, than the Russian Hills tram station; so those years on Venus had corrupted my sensibilities. The people even looked shabbier, and the guard at the weapons detector gave me a surly and suspicious look as I approached.
    No problem there. I simply put my wrist into the scanner, and the data store recognized my Social Security number at once, even though it had been ten years since its last use. “Oh,” said the guard, studying my stats as the recognition light flashed green, “you’re Mr. Tarb. Nice to see you back!” There was a false implication there, of course. From the look of her she’d still been in high school last time I entered the Agency building, but