MANHATTAN

The green room of theAckenbury at Large show was neither green nor roomy, but Patrick had it to himself. Half a dozen upholstered chairs surrounded a maple table that had seen better days; a small refrigerator against the wall sported a fruit bowl and a coffee maker. A wall-mounted monitor leaned from a corner near the ceiling; Patrick repeatedly glanced at it as he paced the beige carpet.

Reverend Eckert was running his line for the late-night network TV audience, but in a far lower key than on his own show. Instead of working himself into a red-faced, spittle-flecked frenzy, he was coming on as a calm, intelligent man with a mission: SimGen was doing evil by producing sims, and so it had to be shut down. Any products made by sims were the devil's handiwork and all God-fearing people should shun them.

Not good, Patrick thought, drying his moist palms on his slacks.

That was the role Patrick had planned to play - a calm, reasonable, compassionate counterpoint to Eckert's frenzy.

Now what?

Maybe this hadn't been such a good idea.

Upon leaving the sims this morning he'd placed a call to Ackenbury's offices. After being shuttled around for a good ten minutes, he'd finally found himself on the line with one Catherine Tresor, assistant producer. She didn't recognize his name, but when he explained that he was the attorney for the sims union, she jumped all over the idea of putting him on tonight's show. She said she'd have to run it by Alan first, but she'd get back to him right away.

She wasn't kidding. Less than five minutes later his car phone rang and he was scheduled for the show. But she told him not to trumpet the news. Alan wanted to surprise the Reverend Eckert.

As a result, Patrick had been ushered into an empty office when he'd arrived at six - the show was recorded hours before air time - and kept out of sight until the Reverend had gone on. After a quick trip to makeup, he was led to the green room and left alone.

He wished Pam were here. He'd asked her to come along but she had to work late. She was involved in some Pacific Rim deal that would tie her up till midnight. She'd promised to watch at her office, though. She sounded as though she'd recovered from this morning. Patrick was glad for that.

"Mr. Sullivan?"

Patrick looked up. In the doorway he saw a short, owlish, clipboard-toting woman with large round glasses. She extended her hand.

"I'm Cathy Tresor."

"And I'm wondering if this was such a good idea," Patrick said, shaking her hand.

She squeezed his fingers. "You're not backing out, are you?"

"It's not as if you need me," he said, wondering at the panicky look that flashed across her features. "I wasn't even on the horizon until I called this morning."

"We do need you," she said. Her blue eyes looked huge through her thick lenses. "Ineed you."

"I'm not following."

"I pitched your appearance with the Reverend as my own idea."

Patrick stared at her. "Let me get this straight: You take my suggestion, pitch it to your boss as your own brainstorm, and pocket the credit?"

She bit her upper lip. "Well...yeah." She looked away. "Sorry, but it can be hard to get noticed around here."

"Sorry!" He laughed. "Don't be sorry. I love it! Just remember the name: Patrick Sullivan. You owe me one."

She smiled. "I'll remember."

"You do that." Patrick liked her. Then he glanced at the monitor and sobered at the sight of Eckert's face. "And while you're at it, figure out a way for me to steal that guy's thunder."

"Best way is to get under his skin. Goad him."

"You don't mean that."

"You kidding? We'd love it. 'Let's you and him fight' - that's the Alan Ackenbury philosophy of quality TV."

Patrick jammed his hands into his pockets and did a slow circuit of the green room.

Goad him...how?

Patrick's gaze came to rest on the fruit bowl and an idea sparked...a last resort if nothing else worked.

"Almost time," Cathy said, glancing at her watch. "You go on after the next break. Let's get you in position."

He followed her down a hall and to a spot behind a curtain just off stage. Patrick's eyes fixed on the blank monitor.

"You've got one segment," she whispered as they came out of the commercial break. "Make the most of it."

"For your sake or mine?"

"For both of us, but more for you than me. Think of this as an audition of sorts. If you make sparks fly, Alan will want you back, and that will be good for your cause."

My cause? Patrick thought, then realized she was referring to the sim union. He'd never thought of it as a cause, just a case, a job.

He said nothing, though, because his gut had begun to twitch as Alan Ackenbury reappeared on the monitor screen. He opened the segment by saying that a last-minute opportunity had arisen to bring on a guest who could provide a counterpoint to the reverend's views.

Eckert muttered something to the effect that he'd understood he'd be the only guest. Ackenbury didn't seem to hear, or pretended he didn't, and introduced Patrick.

He felt Cathy's hand against his back, pushing him toward the stage.

"That's you," she said. "You're on!"

And then Patrick was out in the open, feeling the heat of the lights, hearing polite applause from the studio audience.

The first few minutes were a blur...Patrick had always consideredAckenbury at Large a punning reference to the host's Orson Welles - class girth, and in person Alan was even larger than he appeared on screen. He didn't rise, but extended his hand across the desk as Patrick arrived. Instead of the traditional desk and couch set-up, the Ackenbury show seated guests on either side of its host who could then mediate the fray when they went at it. The barrier also prevented guests from coming to blows if the discussion became too heated.

Patrick was aware of Reverend Eckert pouting and sulking on the far side of the desk as Alan asked questions about the coming court battle to unionize the Beacon Ridge sims. Patrick didn't mention that the case was as good as stillborn with Boughton on the bench, simply reeled off the canned responses he'd spouted to the press since the news first broke.

He felt as if he were on automatic pilot at first, answering the questions by rote. But as minutes passed  - minutes in which he noticed Alan Ackenbury's growing dissatisfaction with his flat, tempered answers - Patrick felt himself begin to relax. He remembered to mention the toll-free number and the website, www.simunion.org, and was casting about for a way to juice up the proceedings when his fellow guest did it for him.

"Admit it," the Reverend Eckert said, pointing across the desk. "You work for SinGen."

"Absolutely not," Patrick said. "In fact, I expect SimGen to do its damnedest to stop me." He quickly added: "That's why contributions to 1-800-SIMUNION are so vital."

"You have no idea of what's really going on, do you? Or who is chairman of the board of SinGen?"

"Mercer Sinclair."

"No! It's Satan! Satan himself - his very own self! Satan calls the shots in SinGen! And Satan has defiled the exalted holy clay of man by mixing it with the life stuff of a monkey. Through SinGen, Satan has defiled the pinnacle of the Lord's creation!"

"Depends on how you look at it," Patrick said. "You're seeing the glass as half-empty. Why not look at it as half-full? Why not see sims as a lower life form that's been improved?"

"Improved? You cannot improve on God's work! You can only defile it! Especially when you take the life stuff of man, the only being in the universe to possess an immortal soul, and degrade it by injecting it into a lesser being!"

"But a being with a shared ancestor."

"Are you talking evolution? That's blasphemy! God created mande novo  - that means completely new!"

"Then why do humans share all but one-point-six percent of their DNA with the chimps that sims are made from? If God made humans 'de novo,' as you say, and wanted us to stand out from the crowd, wanted us to be the shining star atop the Christmas tree of his creations, you'd think he'd have come up with a new and special kind of 'clay' - not stuff borrowed from primates."

"He did! He - "

"No, he didn't. Genetically we're ninety-eight-point-four percent chimp - which means we're far more ape than human."

"Speak for yourself, sir."

As the audience laughed, Patrick grinned and gave the Rev a thumbs-up. "Good one. But it doesn't alter the fact that only a few genes separate us from the trees. And even fewer separate us from sims. If chimps are our distant cousins, then sims are our nieces and nephews."

"I will not tolerate this!" He turned to Ackenbury. "Is this why you brought this man on tonight? Had I known I was to share the stage with a blasphemer who would mock my beliefs and the beliefs of my followers, mock the Lord Himself, I never would have agreed to appear."

"No insult intended, Reverend," Ackenbury said. "Just a fair airing of all sides of an issue. You have your beliefs, and Mr. Sullivan has his."

"No! My beliefs are supported by the Word of God!"

And then the Rev was off on such a tear that not even the host could get a word in edgewise. Patrick's mind raced, at a loss as to how to salvage the situation; then he remembered the bananas he'd snagged from the fruit bowl in the green room.

His original idea had been to offer one to Eckert in an ostensibly friendly gesture, assuming no one would miss the reference to their shared simian ancestry. But subtlety wouldn't fly here; he'd have to fire all barrels at once to break the Rev's filibuster. And he had an idea of how to do that. Question was, did he dare? This could backfire and leave him looking like a grade-A jerk.

What the hell, he thought. Go for it.

Slowly, Patrick raised his legs until his feet were on the chair cushion.

Squatting on the seat, he pulled out one of the bananas and, with exaggerated care, began to peel it.

Neither Ackenbury nor the Rev noticed at first, but the audience did. As laughter began to filter in from the darkness beyond the stage lights, Ackenbury turned to him; his eyebrows shot up in surprise, then he grinned. The Reverend Eckert followed the host's stare. His tirade faltered, then stopped cold as his jaw dropped open. The audience roared.

It had worked - the Rev finally had shut up. But Patrick couldn't jump into the gap because his mouth was crammed full of banana. He did the only thing he could think of. Returning to Plan A, he pulled the second banana from his coat pocket and handed it to Ackenbury.

"For me?" the big man said as he took it.

Patrick shook his head and pointed to Eckert.

"Of course," Ackenbury said, winking at Patrick, and handed the banana to the Rev.

Eckert shot to his feet and batted the banana away, sending it skittering across the desk.

"This is an outrage! I did not come here to be mocked! I refuse to stand for another minute of this!"

So saying, he wheeled and stormed from the stage.

"Reverend?" Ackenbury said, calling after him but with little conviction.

"That's okay," Patrick said after swallowing the last of his mouthful of banana. "I'm sure he's just hurrying off to phone in his donation to 1-800-SIMUNION before the lines get jammed."

Ackenbury was laughing as he turned to face the camera. "I'm afraid that's about all we have time for tonight," he said as if nothing the slightest out of the ordinary happened. "As usual, I hope you were entertained, and I hope you learned something as well. Until tomorrow night then."

As the outro music began, Ackenbury picked up the spurned banana, peeled it, and took a bite. The studio audience went wild. He leaned toward Patrick and extended his hand.

"You, sir," he said, grinning, "have a standing invitation to return anytime you wish."

Patrick didn't know how true that was, but he pretended to take it at face value. "I may be taking you up on that."

"Do. Just call Cathy Tresor."

As a stagehand came over and helped the host haul his huge frame out of the seat, Patrick felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned and saw Cathy beaming at him.

"You didgreat !"

"I hope so," he said. "I'm sort of new at this."

She fairly bounced along as she led him backstage and seated him in the green room, which he again had all to himself. She told him she'd find someone from makeup to stop by and clean him up - better that than run into the Reverend in the hallway.Ackenbury at Large liked to confine its conflicts to the onstage area.

As he sat alone, wondering if any of this would have a beneficial effect on the sim defense fund, he sensed movement in the doorway. He turned and found the Reverend Eckert, backed up by a steroidal slab of beef with 'bodyguard' written all over him.

Oh, shit, Patrick thought. He's come to mess me up.

"You've got cojones, Mr. Sullivan," Eckert said, hands on hips. "I'll have to give you credit for that."

"Hey, now listen," Patrick said, backing up a step. "None of that was personal. I didn't - "

But the Rev surprised him by grinning and thrusting out his hand.

"Course you didn't. It's all show biz. I understand that. Quite a scene stealer you pulled at the end there. Yessir, stole my fire good. But I'm not mad. I had my say. In fact, the reason I stopped by is I'd like to thank you for what you did."

"Thank me?"

"Yes! Just got a call from church headquarters. Our prayer lines have been ringing off the hook! Praise the Lord, never have we had such an outpouring of support. The money is all but flying through the window. And all because of you."

Hope my line is doing the same, Patrick thought. But was Eckert crazy?

"Why thank me?"

"'Cause caller after caller's been saying they want me to keep spreading the word that they ain't monkeys." He shook his head, beaming. "The Lord works in mysterious ways, don't he. I thank Him every day, but tonight I want to thank you too. God bless you, Mr. Sullivan."

"No hard feelings then?"

"Not a bit. Hard to be mad at someone who reminds you so much of yourself. You get tired of this lawyering and unionizing business, you come to me. I promise to have a place for you."

He gave Patrick's hand another squeeze and then he was gone. Patrick stood dumbstruck. Probably looked like Eckert had when he'd spotted him with the banana.

What a strange man. Patrick had expected a punch in the nose; instead he'd received a handshake and hearty thanks and a job offer. To do what? Take their act on the road and charge admission?

Hard to be mad at someone who reminds you so much of yourself...

The words echoed jarringly in Patrick's head.

Like you? he thought. Not a chance. I'm nothing like you.

But was he so sure? The possibility made him queasy.