“I’ll show you on my computer,” Jason said with just a bit too much volume. Jackie realized that everything that had happened to her—was happening to her—was actually a good thing for Jason. It was helping him belong, giving him a purpose. It wasn’t much of a silver lining, but it was something; Jackie tried her best to hold on to it.
Jackie sat at the computer station with both Jason and Ms. Onorati standing behind her. On the screen, Jason clicked a link to YouTube, and there in the middle of the screen was The Real Family Stone of Portland, Oregon: Episode IV, A New Hope.
Jackie knew the title was in homage to the original Star Wars. What she didn’t know was how a new episode of The Real Family Stone of Portland, Oregon could even exist.
“Seriously, what’s going on?”
“Just watch,” Ms. Onorati said, putting a gentle hand on Jackie’s shoulder.
On the screen, the video started. It was footage Jackie had shot more than a week ago, for the second episode. It was a thirty-four-second clip of the Jo Garvin interview, the scene where Jo goes from crying to winking at Andersona’s “Honey, you’re going to win an Emmy” remark. The image freezes on Jo’s wink and fades to black as a voice-over begins.
“This is unedited footage; it’s what actually happened.” Jackie didn’t recognize the voice, but the lilting Southern drawl gave her a good guess as to who it was.
“It has not been manipulated in any way,” the voice continued. “It’s footage that came directly from Jackie Stone’s now confiscated iPhone. Our showing this to you is not meant to influence your opinion of Jo Garvin. We only want you to see the truth.
“If we had wanted you to like Jo Garvin, we might have shown you this.”
A scene, back in the interview room, fades in. The footage is of Andersona interviewing someone. Jackie remembered capturing the footage her very first day of recording and knew that the shoulder the camera was looking over belonged to her mother. The shot is framed so that only the smallest wisp of Deirdre’s hair is visible. Out of context, it’s impossible to tell who is being interviewed.
“Tell me, what has this done to your career?” Andersona asked.
There is a seamless cut back to Jo Garvin, whose tears are already starting to fall. The unmistakable impression is that Jo Garvin is devastated that her career as a television character actor is over.
Max’s edits were so good that even Jackie did a double take, feeling, for a moment, sorry for Jo.
“Do you see?” the voice continued. “Do you see how easy it is to fool you? But it’s not you who should feel foolish; it’s them.” The voice said “them” with all the bile it could muster.
“And that brings us to the point of tonight’s episode of The Real Family Stone of Portland, Oregon. Jackie Stone never apologized; she never acquiesced. Everything you saw last night on Life and Death was a lie. You, America … no, not just America. You, world,” the voice grew in timbre and pitch, “have been duped.
“Jackie and her family are being held in a prison of the network’s making. It’s up to you to free them. Stop watching the show. Stop supporting the sponsors. Free Jackie Stone.”
The screen faded to black.
Jackie leaned back in her chair trying to take it all in. She looked down and saw that the view count on YouTube was 1,340,006.
“When did this go live?” she asked without looking up.
Jason smiled. “Forty-five minutes ago.”
PART SIX
Resolution
Thursday, October 29
Glio was ready to go for gold. Replete with almost all of Jared’s memories, and emboldened by his experience manipulating the conduits to the outside world, it was time for the tumor to become the host.
The plan was to stretch his mass to each of Jared’s sensory centers simultaneously, to use the sum total of the knowledge he had collected, and to interact with the outside world in the first person. And Glio had his target. He wanted to talk to that nun.
Everything in Jared’s memories had taught Glio to fear and respect nuns, in that order. He knew that they had devoted their lives to God, eschewing mortal pleasures, but he couldn’t understand why. Glio had learned a lot about mortal pleasures in a relatively short time. To reject them, he believed, was to commit a kind of suicide of the soul. Not that Glio really understood what a soul was. But that was the word Jared would have used.