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⚒️ At last she was free

by Joel Glover

Working for the company which is owned by the company which is owned by the family who own a significant part of the world’s press comes with some advantages and disadvantages — especially when you are one of the most recognisable people on the planet.

Amma recognised neither the glowing, hagiographic depictions of herself in the media owned by Cavendish, nor the scurrilous and vivacious rumoured versions of herself which splashed across the gossip-sphere.

There were days when we wished the rumours were true; she owned a private island, somewhere in the warm wash of the long-since shifted Gulf Stream; she was part of a polycule that included a jazz sousaphonist—who she had once seen in concert — and two vivacious researchers; that she slept according to the times on Titan, to synchronise better with research being carried out in the black beyond.

“We only need you to sign here, and here, and here.”

In the early days, the Head of Public Relations had been a friend, but she had long since retired and been replaced by thrusting, enthusiastic types who had only known the Cavendish Way.

Her voice was mother’s milk to them, part of their scholastic curriculum. Most of them did not hesitate to tell her this, but even those who did sometimes went wide-eyed when she reeled off a catchphrase from long ago or (heaven forbid) showed herself to be an imperfect human beneath all the media training.

“And then you can just use the archives to populate this series?”

Propaganda had taken her away from too much of the work, from too many of the breakthroughs and synthesised discoveries.

Call it what you wanted, Amma knew in her heart of hearts it was propaganda.

The latest suggestion had been the final drop that breached the flood defences. A cartoon about her cohabiting with an alien.

The rumour-rags would pretend it was true, she’d protested.

That there was a cover up.

No matter how ridiculous that sounded.

If they were going to do it, let them do it without her.

Her media agent read through the contract, and warned her not to sign it. Words like ‘loss of control’, ‘authentic voice’, ‘contradictory opinions’, ‘perpetual enduring licence’, and ‘insufficient royalty streams’ had assaulted Amma’s weary ears.

Her media agent.

The entirety of her problem encapsulated in those three, weary, words.

What business did a scientist have with a media agent?

None.

Use her voice, she didn’t care.

Her likeness, go ahead.

She had enough money in royalties to fund three schools in the floating shanties of her home borough of Newham and bursaries at her alma mater. A charity she established was reclaiming land in Norfolk, pumping the seas back beyond renewed flood defences.

“There are advantages to being one of the most recorded people in human history,” Wallace St John had commented, when he made the proposal to her. He was a pale shadow of the spectre of his father, but sharp enough commercially.

Sharp enough she didn’t trust him.

“Get back to the lab, oh?” He had an affected manner to him of a bygone imperial age. 

It set her teeth on edge.

She signed the papers, and shoved them across the desk at the PR flack.

“All done.”

At last, she was free.