It was Geographical - you had to BE there!

The Postman came, and in the delivery was Travis' first evidence in the trial of his sanity for the discovery process - he hadn't delivered the manuscript IN PERSON. Predictably, he HAD used EXPRESS mail, and Sam reflected that if he ever got a letter from Travis that employed the superior time-saved to dollar-spent ratio of Priority (two day delivery) mail, he would _actually_ be prepared to doubt it was from Travis.

He broke the seal, and made a mental note to ask Travis to email him a random number to be duplicated on his "special" deliveries, so that Travis wouldn't doubt Sam's ability to know a polecat on sight, two days after Sam believed his protestations.

Inside was Bubba's rejection letter. He examined the language for loop-holes; it appeared that if you could obtain a request from the Studio to write them one, this script rejection process would be greatly impeded. He had already talked it over with Ursula, and her insight had been typically piercing:
- Write a Manuscript about something you know (taking the "write what you know," advice,) and care about
- Don't marry the Producer - bigamy charges were prohibitive
- Pick a time in history when the audience _WANTS_ to hear about the issue (or the vehicle is in "Fad.")
- At the appropriate moment, approach an agreeable Producer to find the right Studio whose agenda is advanced by the _particular_ submission under consideration

He reflected on the marvel that ANY movie is made EVER - it was comparable to a hard drive not crashing 20 times a day - statistically the things were incredible; he dashed off an inquiry to see how Travis' Terra-byte HDD was performing. As long as he used a good pseudonym, it didn't even matter if he was in violation of the Head Honcho - he would sneak in a hit, if his pitch was just the right speed and spin.

He idly flipped through Bubba's effort. It was predictably, for Travis (at least in his _present_ temperament,) still attached. In less than three hours he had an outline. Bubba's script lacked basic plausibility, but was a candidate for a parody of security problems, it was so funny.

1. The National Security Association had envisioned the Dept. of Homeland Security before it was even chartered. As an association of agencies, they collectively blamed CIA for all their mistakes.
2. They had a cadre of Satanist adherents that joined the Secret Service for the credential of the only organization ever to penetrate the historic patriots. In the sequel, they would only be the first.
3. They had a group of fraternity members who joined the old boys club, and disrupted communications between their enemies.
4. Over time, they branched out into counterfeiting identities, and began answering emails and letters of protagonists as they went. They would discourage a protagonist by rejections, and take their best ideas, de-nature them with PC vocabulary and promote them as their own. By careful choosing, the association soon had members in prominent circles everywhere.
5. They communicated on a blog called "Pravda" and this was how they kept their multitude of stories straight. Sam would have made the improvement of distributing the blog content securely, and using update and version tracking software in conjunction with his plot-line checker to keep the "La Cosa Nostra" impostor invisible to the electronic eye of all automatons.
6. The bad actors eventually fell to a little old lady trying to use the Sandia National Laboratory's atomic clock to time latency of hard disk drives, for a "truth in advertising" suit she brought in conjunction with Gigabyte representations.
7. Despite its failings, the conclusion was well introduced. Richard Gere made an excellent Corporate White Knight, and Julia Roberts a stunning little old lady.

He put it down and called to Ursula. "Care Bear, have you figured out who likes Bubba yet?" he asked. "Yes," she replied economically. "Well can you get her to bring him to the 'Disciplinary Barbecue,' on Thursday, to meet Travis and the Nippons? You KNOW it's always the ladies that do all the social arrangements!"

Ursula paused before replying. "She'll be a real cheap date, Sam," she led out. Unalerted, Sam inquired all unsuspecting. "Don't ask HIM to pay, or he'll NEVER come. What's her name?" "She doesn't have one Sam - NO ONE likes Bubba." She soon presented herself in person to her favorite voyeur. "If you _promise_ not to ask me to do the impossible, I'll volunteer to get him to come." "You win," Sam capitulated quickly. "I'll let _you_ make the deal; Travis will be helpful I suspect. Bubba has a whole new hobby ever since his visit to Montana."

Secure in the knowledge that he had a world-class co-conspirator, he returned to his online investigations. BBC usually had a global perspective on things; he knew from past experience it would take time to read all the news, and he applied preemptively for a glass of Orange Juice. Ursula's encouragement had taught Sam to appreciate the value of a good cheerleader.