“Why not use your people,” Dan continued. “They’re obviously good at what they do; they’re already on the payroll; and if you allow them to transfer some of their equipment off me and onto Slate, it’ll probably be the most cost effective way to go.”
Dan stopped again, but Postadolas still remained silent. He was busy processing everything he was hearing.
“They’ll be responsible for bugging his house and car and following him everywhere he goes, twenty-four hours a day, using listening and video devices to record everything he says or does. They’ll feed the tapes back to my team for analysis, and we do the print outs that are necessary to satisfy advertisers, political campaigns, the lot. If I’m correct, Mr. Slate will make all of us that ocean of money I promised.”
Louis looked up at Dan, then rose from the chair and walked toward him. When he was two feet away, he was now a foot taller than the sitting Dan.
“Done,” he said, then turned and walked to the door stopping just before he exited. “And neither do I.”
“What?” Dan asked confused. “Neither do I what?”
“Have any scruples,” Louis said as he shut the door behind him.
Whereas Dan was having a joke at the expense of his guest, Louis was delivering a message.
CHAPTER 9
Within thirty-six hours the surveillance equipment was in place inside Slate’s home. Part was installed each time he left the house to do an errand or to go to work, and some was put into place by expert burglars who entered while the subject was sleeping. Tiny tracking devices were sewn into his clothes and inserted into the heels of all of his shoes. There wasn’t a place in the house where Slate couldn’t be viewed since it was important that all of his decisions be recorded for analysis. A series of cars and vans would trail him wherever he went; each was equipped with night vision gear and photo and audio surveillance equipment. It was essential that he not know he was being watched so that his decision-making was untainted by outside pressures.
One of the days, a technician posing as a cable repair man, got access to Slate’s two television sets on the pretext of checking the incoming signal. In the process, he substituted the regular cable boxes for rigged ones that would allowed Dan to insert special commercials in place of those regularly broadcast. In this way, the advertisers could test the commercials on Slate then fine tune them to his likes and dislikes. Naturally, they would have no knowledge that Slate was involved; they would just receive a print out addressing specific parts of the commercial that should be reviewed. This action would be done on a limited basis so that Slate would be unaware that he was viewing something that regular Americans weren’t able to see…yet. In addition, from time to time Slate would receive sample products in the mail so that his reactions to them could be tabulated
Dan got Ron and Richie to act as the coordinators of the data that was to be fed into the computers in the big rooms. All of the outside feeds, both picture and sound, were sent in as they occurred; and the programs would boil Slate’s reactions into patterns of behavior that could be attributed to large parts of the population as well. The field agents saw little snippets of Slate’s behavior and had no real idea of the big picture; that was only available to Dan, Richie, and Ron.
All Dan could think of was that this was something like the movie The Truman Show where a person’s life was chronicled from the time he was born until the time he died. It was the tops in reality television; the difference here was that only a limited number of people were watching.
Dan looked at the original print outs on Slate to try to determine why the computers picked a man and not a woman; why a guy in his late 20’s and not somebody older; why him in particular. He was unmarried, bisexual, moderately educated, an upper class blue collar worker on the fringes of being a middle class white collar worker, had an older sister, both parents still living, four years in the Army, liked sports and movies, good dancer, price comparison shopper, stylish dresser, 20/20 vision, excellent overall health, very slightly overweight, artistically inclined, independent, recycler, played the guitar, liked to read, better than average photographer, owned a hybrid car, loved to garden, snow boarder, owned a dog and a cat, donated to seven charities, and a church goer. There was no real one defining attribute that singled him out; that’s why he was the average person…he blended in with many groupings of people.
Dan made the decision to do observations and analysis for a week before reporting anything to Louis, who was strangely quiet since Dan had bluffed that there were other backers interested in the project.
The first thing the team discovered may have been one of the reasons the computer picked Slate: he had an affinity for the colors blue and purple. While the average man rated blue as his favorite color with green and black distant seconds, purple generally ranked in with his least favorite; but it was a color women preferred most. In observing Slate, however, the team found that he liked both colors equally indicating that he had some strong affinity with women’s preferences. In addition, they found he was very aware of different scents, liked antiques and old books, and alternated between baths and showers. His physical contact with his male friends was always very masculine with hits in the arm, pats on the ass, slaps on the back; but his physical contact with women was always soft, and courteous, and bordering on delicate. Both sexes ranked him highly as a friend they could count on.
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