Ninety minutes from the island of Al Amarja in the Mediterranean to the island of Oahu in the Pacific. Not enough time to catch a nap, thought Johnny Jihad. Too much time to be stuck next to Jerry Wylde. Usually. He glanced sideways at his employer. Jerry was strangely quiet, staring out the window at the slowly lightening sky. Jerry hadn't said anything since they boarded the suborbital jet an hour ago. That worried Johnny.
Jerry rubbed his chin, and then turned his head in Johnny's direction. Johnny quickly turned towards the trivee screen he had been trying hard to ignore.
"You know what we need, Jim?" said Jerry to Johnny. "A monkey.1 I shall buy me a monkey!"
The sinking feeling in the pit of Johnny's stomache had nothing to do with the aircraft's parabolic flight path. "May it only fly up your ass,"2 hissed Johnny. He kept his focus on the trivee screen. "You realize that buying a monkey is illegal?" He shook his head. "Of course you do."
"I shall call him, George," continued Jerry. "Or Bonzo. Or something else monkey-ish." Jerry's eyes gleamed for the first time in the flight. He pushed the flight attendant call button. When she arrived, he asked her breasts if he could have a pillow.
Johnny leaned into the aisle as the well-endowed flight attendant adjusted Jerry's pillow while Jerry asked her if she would like to be on trivee. In a few minutes Jerry's first class seat would become a casting couch. Johnny was suddenly filled with a strong desire to be somewhere else. Besides, Jerry's cyber gear was rigged to capture everything he saw for immediate uploading. The entire episode would be on trivee within an hour.
Two rows back sat Franklin, from The Bank. Franklin was Jerry's covert lending officer. Franklin lay back in his seat with his eyes closed. His eyelids moved as if he was in deep REM sleep. They had been out of web range the entire time they were in Al Amarja. Franklin was no doubt catching up on e-mail. Johnny spotted an empty seat beside the lending officer. He squeezed out of his own seat, freeing it for the flight attendant. Johnny plunked down beside Franklin.
Without opening his eyes, Franlkin said, "The stock markets have been on a wild ride."
"How did you know it was me?" asked Johnny.
The question might as well have been rhetorical, as Franklin ignored him. "A scientist in Cal-Tex posted proof that they had broken chaos encryption," whispered Franklin. "Apparently it had re-encrypted itself before more anyone could see the proof. Anyone outside of The Bank, of course."
"Should you be telling me this?" asked Johhny.
Franklin smiled. "If you told anyone, I'd have to kill you."
Johnny couldn't tell if Franklin was joking, or planting leverage over Johnny's life. Knowing Franklin, it was both. Johnny turned on the trivee. The sound shifted in and out as he adjusted the audible beam to focus on his head. The voice of an announcer boomed in his skull. Johnny dialed down the volume, while the trivee monitor tracked his every motion, keeping the audible beam focused. "Jerry's buying a monkey," he said.
"Is he now?" answered Franklin. "Does he know that's illegal?" Johnny ignored the question. Franklin continued. "I have some vacation time coming to me. I think I'll shop for some antique money."3
"Has anyone ever told you that you're obsessive?"
"I prefer to think of myself as 'focused'."
The trivee announcer reported that the ratings for Wylde's Kingdom had slipped precipitously from its lofty heights of just over a year ago. They attributed this to a lack of new episodes, which in turn was attributed to Jerry's recent preoccupation with producing soft core porn. "Jerry Wylde has been absent from the Web for more than two weeks now," said the announcer, "fueling speculation as to his whereabouts."
Johnny glanced back up the aisle. Jerry and the flight attendant were deep in contract negotiations. It wouldn't be long before Jerry made his return to trivee. He sighed and punched the trivee's power button. There was still a year left in his contract with Wylde. A year of indentured servitude.
"Jim!" yelled Jerry. Johnny looked up. Jerry was peering over the back of the seat with a wicked grin brushed across his face. Jerry turned to the flight attendant — who was adjusting her uniform — and then grinned back at Johnny, giving him a thumb's up sign.
Another year with Jerry Wylde, thought Johnny. Maybe the world will end before then. If I'm lucky.
His name wasn't really Johnny Jihad. He didn't know his real name and he was prevented by court order from discovering it. It was all part of a nasty custody fight between his parents and his trivee production company, a fight that had left Johnny penniless and with no one to whom he could turn... except for Jerry Wylde.
Johnny was a "plague punk", born just a year after the end of the plague that had eliminated seventy percent of the Earth's human population. He was barely five years old when he starred in his very first trivee show, Mahdi Knows Best. The show was a huge success, due in large part to the lovable street urchin Osama played by Johnny. It was during this period, under shady circumstances, that Johnny became a ward of the production company. Mahdi Knows Best went off the Web in 2029 after a successful five year run. Two years later, Johnny joined the cast of the less successful Where's My Iman? Iman ran for only one and a half seasons before it was unceremoniously yanked in the middle of the infamous "Prophet Mohammad" episode.
Johnny may have achieved some sort of normalcy in his life if he hadn't accidentally fallen into the role that would make him famous. It was at the tender age of 16 that he was cast against type, taking on the role of Le Boeuf in what would become the voraciously popular trivee comedy Hogan's Hebrews, set in a prisoner of war camp during the Fifth Gulf War. Hogan's Hebrews ran for ten years, twenty times longer than the actual war.
Johnny descends into substance abuse. unfortunately, someone should have read the fine print on his contract. Without Jerry's signed release, he was unemployable.
1 In game dialogue by Dave Nickle, playing Jerry Wylde.
2 In game dialogue by Michael Skeet, playing Johnny Jihad.
3 In game dialogue by Chris Smith, playing Franklin, from The Bank.
