The Brand's the Thing

 
"It’s superb," Daniel said, with studied calm and rationality, as if there were no worms of apprehension squirming in his stomach. "The only problem is, I didn't write it." 
 
Yesterday, he had found Wolfe vs. The Hood in his inbox while he was doing his final e-mail check of the day. The manuscript was two hundred and thirty thousand words long, his preferred length. It had all the trademark features of a Cyberagent Wolfe action-adventure. There was no reason to believe that it would not equal or exceed the success of its eighteen predecessors. It had his name, Daniel A. Chalifoux, in big letters on the title page. 
 
After skimming the first chapter, Daniel had hard-copied the manuscript and spent most of the night reading it. After he finished, he turned out the light and tried to catnap in his recliner until morning. Instead, he stared into the darkness, trying to explain the existence of the nineteenth episode in the Cyberwolfe series. Was he suffering from retrograde amnesia or some other esoteric mental illness? Was it possible that he had written this work and e-mailed it to himself during a blackout? Or was this fanfic by some anonymous genius? If only Agent Wolfe were a real person, standing by to help! He always knew what to do.
 
At seven in the morning, Daniel started calling the office every ten minutes, hoping that someone had decided to come in early. He reached Arlene, his workaholic line editor, at ten to eight, and left a message for Dex the Acquisitor. He took a taxi to the office instead of driving, trying to keep his hands from shaking. Helen in Reception greeted him with her usual pleasant good morning.  She informed him that Mr. Crandall had cleared twenty minutes in his schedule, and suggested that he might want to stop off at the washroom and comb his hair before their meeting.
 
At 9:05 Daniel was sitting across from Dexter Crandall, vice-president of Acquisitions, Behemoth Publishing, clutching the manuscript. Dexter was sipping cappuccino from his hand-crafted custom mug, beaming with satisfaction. 
 
"We really liked the seminal plotlines that you queried us with last week, especially Dame Harry and their acolytes. So we had Charlie write it up."
 
"Charlie?" Daniel asked weakly. He couldn't recall anyone by that name on the company letterhead.
 
"Charlie. AI in charge of action adventure. He's edited your last four books, and has thoroughly digested every word you've ever written, including your e-mails to your fans."
 
"The way I remember it, I was working with Arlene and Garth," Daniel said, wrinkling his forehead. "And since when have you been monitoring my e-mails?"
 
"Access to your public interface is part of our contract," Dexter said amiably. "Your relationship with your fans is vital to our understanding of the market, and helps guide our publishing decisions. We've been using human intermediaries between you and Charlie because he tended to be socially awkward, but he's much more user-friendly now and all our action adventure authors will be working directly with him soon."
 
Daniel shook his head, hoping to clear the surreal fog choking him. Was this a nightmare? Had he fallen asleep in front of the TV last night, and somehow been sucked into the plot of a weird horror-scifi movie?  A great premise for a story, but pure insanity in the real world.
 
Easy does it. Fake it until you make it. Dexter is obviously happy, so there’s nothing to worry about. He’ll explain what happened, and I can go home and start working on the real Cyberwolfe 19.
 
"So what happens now?" Daniel asked.
 
“We’d like to start our promo tomorrow, and release in five weeks, prime time for the Christmas market. We’ll have Charlie add a bit of seasonal fluff to charm the Christmas crowd. The question is, are you on board?”
 
“What, exactly, do you mean by on board? Are you asking me to endorse a book that I haven’t written?”
 
“If we market this book as yours, we will maximize our profit and be in a position to offer you 50% of your usual royalty.  If that doesn’t work for you, we’ll promote it as the debut novel of Charles Contretemps. We would have to recast the characters and settings. It might take two or three sequels for it to gain best-seller momentum.  We’re confident that Charlie’s analysis has identified the optimal element mix to generate fan buzz. Marketing Cyberagent Loup-Garou immediately is doable, but not our Plan A.”
 
“So you want me to lend my name to something written by … a computer program … to increase your revenue stream? That’s not exactly ethical, Dexter.”
 
“Happens all the time, these days,” Dexter said. “Most highly productive authors use ghost writers. Charlie is no different, except that he’ll never demand credit or financial rewards. He is perfectly happy doing what he’s programmed to do.”
 
“If I put my nose to the grindstone, I might be able to churn out something in five weeks or six weeks,” Daniel said. “I’ve got a few plotlines tucked away in my files.”
 
“And we’d love to see them,” Dexter said, “but we won’t be using you as a primary creative any more. The CW series is well established and can easily be maintained by Charlie until people get bored and start looking for something else.”
 
“You. Won’t be. Using me?” Daniel was hyperventilating now. “What about our contract?”
 
“Our contract stipulates how we will do business with you, but not for how long. Behemoth is ready to move into new territory. We are offering to buy your brand.”
 
“Buy. My. Brand.” Daniel took a deep breath, then another. “Exactly what is that supposed to mean?”
 
“Charlie will continue the series, maintain your public interface, and start up a couple of U-Tube channels where you will discuss life, love, and espionage with readers and aspiring writers. We have enough footage of you to create a convincing deep fake. If that flies well, we’ll commission a video game and maybe some VR scenarios, fund another movie and animated series, as well as subsidiary book series featuring Dame Harry, Poo-Poo Jones, and Terrafinger’s clairvoyant cat. We have a lot of franchise potential here. Who knows, there might even be a Cyberwolfe TV network some day.”
 
So I’ll be able to watch myself on TV, saying whatever they want me to say, to promote their agenda.  They will never have to worry about my opening my mouth and making things awkward for them. Editorial squabbles will be a thing of the past. And Charlie will churn out whatever they want in just a few hours, instead of months.
 
He could fight Behemoth, of course. But that would mean the end of an attractive income and the beginning of bankruptcy. His lifestyle had expanded considerably in the past decade, and his royalties had not been able to keep pace with mortgage payments. If Behemoth disowned him, it was unlikely that any publisher would dare to touch him..
 
Daniel closed his eyes and imagined his attention floating, ever so lightly, over gentle ocean waves. Breathing fully in, and fully out, lengthening the space between breaths, hoping against hope that the whole thing was a bad dream and everything would revert to normal if he just kept calm..
 
When he opened his eyes, Dexter was still sitting behind his desk, gently shuffling paperwork.
 
Dexter looked up.  “We can offer you two point six million, give or take. We will require you to do a maximum of a dozen public appearances on our behalf over a period of six months, and then tactfully relocate to an undisclosed location and let the AI do what he does best.”
 
“I’ll have to talk to my wife.” Helen would be ecstatic, of course, and start booking spa dates and cruises and real estate viewings. She enjoyed the money he earned, but she never stopped complaining about his lack of availability. 

“Take all the time you need. We need an answer first thing tomorrow morning, so we can launch our promotion.”

“Will I be able to start a new career under a pseudonym?” Daniel asked. This whole mess might be a blessing in disguise. Much as he hated to admit it, Cyberagent Wolfe had gradually become much less fascinating than he was during the hoopla of Books One and Two.

“Unfortunately not. We don’t want any clouds of controversy calling Behemoth’s good will into question.”

“Can’t we just leave things the way they are?” Daniel pleaded. “I can work harder, be more productive.”

“I imagine that would be a comfortable rut for all of us, but the stockholders would be livid.” Dexter was making eye contact now. “We have to move ahead.” 

For a moment, Daniel saw through Dexter’s veneer of easy self-confidence and realized that he was haunted by doubt and apprehension, just as he was. All of Behemoth’s minions had surf the wild waves of change, or drown.

“What will happen to writers now?” Daniel asked.

“They will have to morph into designers, planners, wellsprings of original ideas … or maybe primary school teachers. This is the industrial revolution of intellectual property, Daniel. It’s not going to slow down, and there is nothing we can do to stop it.”

“Only readers have that power,” Daniel mused.

“They’ll be like kids with new toys. Look what manufacturing did to the clothing industry. Very few women needed walk-in closets when everything was hand-crafted. Now it’s fast fashion, grab and discard, creating so much waste that it’s a toxic environmental hazard. Our economy depends on our ability to persuade people to keep buying the latest thing. We have to adapt or die.”

Daniel shifted in his chair. “I feel like I’ve died already.”