Glenn Beck - The Eye of Moloch

“You must have some questions about what goes on here,” Ira said.

“That’s putting it mildly.”

“Well, then, let me show you around a bit and I’ll fill you in.”

One wall was dominated by a huge flat-screen monitor. Noah’s father had kept a nearly identical device running constantly in his private conference room. Its ever-changing display was a patchwork mosaic of running videos, pictographs on hot topics, graphs of market movements, headlines, and scrolling news items. All the little blocks were in constant motion, organizing and reorganizing themselves. Top to bottom, left to right, the order reflected the trending importance of each item. This visual gauge of popular interests would be of critical importance to the hive-mind of the press-and-PR juggernaut as it worked to shape the public discourse to its own ends.

The rest of the space seemed like a standard modern newsroom, though like the other rooms down the hall it looked virtually deserted. With the exception of their three places all the desks were unoccupied.

“Where is everybody?” Noah asked.

“All of this,” Ira said as he gestured around them, “started as an experiment. The news would be created and supervised in places like this, managed from a central location, and then that approved content would be sent out for the people’s consumption. What it took them a long time to realize, though, was that they were wasting a lot of effort. It turned out they didn’t have to compel their messages by force. There was no need to trick the majority of today’s pack of so-called journalists to do and say what they wanted. All they really had to do was ask.”

Across the room but obviously within earshot, Lana Somin quietly put on a handmade tinfoil beret and continued her work without further comment.

Despite the girl’s obvious skepticism this was a lesson Noah’s father had taught him when he’d first begun to intern at Doyle & Merchant. A subservient press corps was one of the keys to power in the PR business. The same sickness had long ago infected politics: promises of access, reward, and advancement had become the primary driving forces for most reporters, especially the sharp and ambitious ones. Any pretense of truth-seeking was left by the wayside, stuck in the back of the briefcase with their diplomas, their pride, and their principles.

On the flip side, naturally, there was a swift punishment waiting for those who defied their industry’s corruption. By way of example, Ira Gershon explained his present situation.

His last position in the mainstream media, granted as a favor from a retiring network CEO, had been as the executive producer of a weekly local investigative news segment. His contract included total control over staff and content; apparently no one upstairs had expected much controversy from an aging icon on the verge of being put out to pasture. He’d immediately landed in hot water over a segment on the widespread use of a cancer-linked growth hormone in the American milk supply. The manufactured hormone was the cash-cow product—no pun intended—of a multinational biotech giant. This company had its fingers in more than enough pies to get whatever it wanted, especially from the media. They killed Ira’s story with nothing more than a threat to pull their advertising.

Needless to say, the problem wasn’t that the story was false. It never ran, Ira sued his employer, and the only outcome of the protracted lawsuit had been a landmark decision in American media. The court ultimately determined, once and for all, that bald-faced lies in the news were perfectly okay. Journalists had neither the inherent right nor any legal obligation to go on TV and tell the truth.

The story that finished off his waning career, though, had been a multipart series about the sinister origins of the debt crisis that was currently rocking the world. It was his magnum opus, the treasure at the end of a trail he’d been following since the 1970s. The piece was well researched, carefully vetted, and it centered on a shadowy financier and economic plunderer named Aaron Doyle.

“Aaron Doyle,” Noah said. “He was a principal at my father’s company.”

“Was?”

“Yeah, was. I met him a few times when I was a kid. He was old as dirt back then; he can’t possibly still be around.”

Ira Gershon sat thoughtfully for a moment.

“Noah,” he said, “do you believe in God?”

“There he goes again,” Lana sighed, from her desk several feet away.

“I don’t know. Not really, I guess. Why?”

“Because I first met Aaron Doyle when I was a kid, too. He was old as dirt even then. And once you’ve seen the devil, son, trust me, it really helps if you believe in God.”

Chapter 29

Noah felt worn to the nub by the end of his first workday, but though it was hard to admit, overall it hadn’t been so bad.

This mix of feelings had been familiar in his old life in civilian PR. It was rewarding on some level to have spent eight solid hours on tasks he was very good at accomplishing, regardless of who he was doing it for or why they wanted it. A lot of people spend their days that way, he reminded himself, gritting their teeth at times to support someone else’s agenda just so they can devote whatever free time they have left toward their own pursuits.

This new apartment, too, was a definite upgrade from the stark cell where he’d been housed during his previous sentence. His place was on the floor just under the penthouse levels and it seemed like any random executive suite at an extended-stay hotel. The furnishings, the art on the walls, the fabrics, paint, and carpeting were all of the sort that everyone could get used to and no one would particularly hate. It wasn’t a home you were meant to make your own; it was simply an inoffensive and comfortable place to stay, and he’d stayed in much worse.

As Ira had explained it earlier, the lower floors and some subterranean levels of the building comprised housing for the less privileged residents and a number of actual prisoners, political and otherwise. Their presence below you was meant as a reminder of the blessings you’d been granted, and the ease with which you could lose what you thought you were entitled to.

In the course of the day Ira had also told Noah how it was that he and Lana—two supposed rebels against the corrupt establishment—were seemingly helping the very forces they should hate. Some local activist attorney had gotten wind of Lana’s age and situation, and before he could be bought off he’d come in and arranged for Ira Gershon to become her legal guardian. After that, as much as the men in charge would have loved to lock them both up and throw away the key, in exchange for their promise to cooperate they were granted a spot in limbo until the very minute she would turn seventeen.

As Noah approached the refrigerator, a screen set into the door lit up to inform him of the time and date, the weather, the indoor temperature, and his own full name. The appliance also informed him that Noah W Gardner, #078-05-1120, was almost out of nonfat milk. It further said that his dairy quota for the week had not yet been exceeded, and so if he touched YES a delivery order for a half gallon would be sent to the nearby market.

Creepy, but convenient.

He’d just picked out a meal tray from a stack in the freezer when, across the suite, a pretty woman in a bathrobe appeared at his bedroom door, drying her hair with a towel. He tried once to blink her away but she stayed right where she was, and then he recognized her. As much as the artificial nature of her left leg, it was that somewhat enigmatic smile that he remembered most clearly about Virginia Ward.