"I've heard the songs Sorrel's recorded so far," says Brenner. "They're a mess, I agree with you. He's spending millions in studio time and the project isn't even near completion. A disaster."
"The computer projections aren't good, either." Robertson, staring down at the smog from his air-conditioned aerie, feels a reflex irritation at the back of his throat. Suddenly he's glad he gave up smoking. He clears his throat. "The whole middle-class rebellion thing is dying out. The declining economy won't support it. People are too interested in hanging on to their jobs to worry about ideology." He clears his throat again. "Sorrel's career peaked two albums ago. He's going to lose his audience in the next eighteen months. Something has to happen to make him recast his message. He needs to go affirmative."
"The psych profiles aren't encouraging, either." Hose-covered thighs sing against one another as Brenner crosses her legs. "He's losing his inspiration. Velda isn't helping. He needs something to shake him up, jump-start his creativity. Move him in a new direction."
Robertson nods. Sorrel had been his discovery, the means by which he ascended from among the smog-bound proles below to the highest penthouse atop the Lizard Records building. Talent like that comes once a decade. But what happens when the talent uses itself up?
"Velda," Brenner says, "could have an accident." Her voice is tentative.
"He'll find someone else just like her. Veldas aren't hard to find. Then we're in the same bind."
Robertson turns away from the transparent, bulletproof, evolved-aluminum window and steps toward his desk. He opens a drawer and takes out an atomizer of throat spray. He sprays his throat carefully, thrice. Brenner opens her compact and stares into the mirror.
"You know what to do," Robertson says.
Brenner, fluffing her hair, gives a single, precise nod.
)
