"I know the Flacks are out in droves. But this has got to be a legitimate story."
"It's a phony," I said. "The gift is just too integral. Don't be slow to punch the button on a deal like this."
IV
It was a phony of course. Despite Vern's failure to signal for a double-check, the WPA had delayed publication and run the circuits. Similar but not identical stories had gone into Scoops in 14 major cities, all at the same time today; each involved a near death or disaster, with a reference to a recognizable gift that couldn't be edited out. In each case the Source was a retailer visiting that city—and yet the stores and 14 retailers matched up perfectly.
In our particular "accident," the woman turned out to be a clandestine actress—they had all virtually disappeared after the Edict, needless to say—hired for her ability to fall and fake injury convincingly. She hadn't cut herself on the glass, only burst a hidden capsule of her own blood drawn off weeks before. The actual gash in her throat was made with a shard of glass by the "unidentified passerby"—really the Flack himself—when he saw the store doctor coming. The artificially-stimulated birth of twins that had delayed the doctor, had also been part of the Plant.
The doctor was found innocent. The guard, only true victim of the plot, was cited as unobservant but not held for correction. The Flack, the actress, the mother of the twins and the visiting retailer were, before my shift was half over, sentenced for conspiracy to deceive and falsely advertise in violation of the Edict, as were the culprits in the 13 other Plants. Their conviction was the play story, all editions in the 10:00 hours Sun.
All that, to remind people about gifts, and Crimmus. The WPA had exposed the plot, and printed the truth about it as no human news-reporting agency could have.
Even so, I wondered, if, despite the Edict and WPA, the Flacks hadn't gotten their Crimmus reminder before the public, after all. I stared in at the Scoop.
Physically, the Scoop is just a short, thick tube projecting from a blank wall; it ends in a round orifice covered by a grille, and is adjustable to the height of the speaker. Below it is an ID sensor plate, and above it, the viewer and the preamble to the Edict.