Advanced Mythology (25 page)

“Why?” Jen asked. “I like that one.”

“Well,” Rita said, “people have already seen it. Some of them will already be sick of seeing it.” When the marketing director looked stricken, Paul hastened to explain.

“This is not a slam against the product. We do broadcast the first ad quite a few times over a very short term, to introduce the product and get it before the most eyes possible. A small percentage of the market saturates out on first viewing. It doesn’t mean these customers are writing off the unit. The ones who already bought an Origami are going to be humming along with the ad. It’s the slow shoppers, the ones who take their time to make up their mind that we want to capture. We want to give them a new way of looking at something they’re already considering. And for the people we didn’t catch the first time around, a new approach will wake them up. The buzz is good. We’re getting terrific feedback. Our people,” he turned a hand toward Keith and Rollin, “are already working on some good ideas.”

“Well, all right,” said Mann, a little uncertainly.

“Trust us,” Doug said, offering his most winning smile.

“I dunno,” Bill Mann said, his small mouth curling up at the corners. “When someone tells me that, I always count my change.”

* * *

A surreptitious, after-hours visit to Galleria Tony turned up nothing that appeared to connect with Keith Doyle. VW and Beach’s other operatives took apart the white desk, searching for whatever had attracted Maria’s attention. Beach watched them, tapping his lip. He was puzzled, and he didn’t like to be puzzled.

Like everyone else in the world, Galleria Tony kept their books on computer. In another shocking example of American arrogance with regard to security, the hard drive had no password. Anyone who could get by the primitive burglar alarm setup protecting the premises could have whatever they wanted and be away long before the staff returned in the morning. Beach ordered VW to copy the gallery’s database to disk for Ming. If there was a connection she would pick it up.

As to what had set Maria off earlier that evening, Beach could only postulate a random emanation from the world of the unseen. These were old buildings, former warehouses turned into lofts and trendy shops. They’d have to check to see if anyone had ever reported the gallery haunted. In the meantime, Keith Doyle was their main target. Find him, Beach was certain, and he’d find what he was searching for.

Vasques disconnected his pirate drive, and nodded at Beach.

“Very well, gentlemen,” Beach said. “Let’s blow this pop-art stand.”

***

Chapter 23

“I don’t know if you’re ready for television ads, Keith,” Doug Constance said, shuffling the pile of roughs that Keith had set on his desk. “You’re doing very well with the print ads. I like what you and Dorothy have been turning in. I think you should keep going. You can study what Janine and Rollin are doing, and we’ll consider media scripts later on. I know you’re gung-ho, but we have to be careful. The Origami’s big money for the agency. Really big money. We’re going great with Gadfly. I know you’ll understand when I say it’s nothing personal, but we don’t want to queer this second line of ads. Maybe later.”

“Come on, Doug,” Keith pleaded. “Let me try. I’ve got a terrific idea. It’ll look great.” An inspiration struck him, and he grinned at the executive engagingly. “Look, if I bring you a rough, will you consider it?”

“A rough? Not a storyboard.”

“No,” Keith said positively. “I’ll bring you a real-time run to look at. Will you leave the assignment open until you see it?”

Doug looked at Dorothy, standing by the door. She raised her hands to her shoulders and shrugged.

“All right,” Doug said reluctantly. “I’ll hold back for a couple of days. Is that enough?”

“Should be plenty,” Keith said, backing out of the office. Dorothy followed, shaking her head. “Thanks!”

“What have you got in mind?” she wanted to know as the two of them took a taxi northwards. “By the way, where are we going?”

“My apartment. Now that the Origami isn’t a secret any more, can I bring someone in to help?”

“Will he want a consulting fee?”

“I don’t know,” Keith said. “I’ll have to lay the whole thing out for him and see.”

“All right,” Dorothy said. “What about non-disclosure?”

Keith tapped the portfolio on his lap. “I’ve got the form right here. He knows all about them. He’s a programmer.”

Dunn was waiting for them in the Crash Site. He looked businesslike, his short hair freshly styled and wearing a pressed cream shirt, brown khakis with a crease down the front, and deceptively expensive shoes. Keith introduced him to Dorothy. Dunn shook his head as though doing a double take and took in the whole woman from head to foot. Keith grinned. She was a picture that day in a moss-green pullover and plaid skirt that hugged her curves. Dunn even admired the matching plaid shoes. “Mmm-mm-mm mm
-mmh
!”

Dorothy was flattered. She looked him up and down, a cool, amused expression on her face. “Easy, tiger, I’m taken.”

Dunn raised his eyebrows. “Too
bad.
Well, if we can’t run off and get married, what can I do for you?”

“Coffee might be nice. You programmers do drink it?”

“We live on it,” Dunn said. “Come on back.”

* * *

With two more chairs squeezed into Dunn’s bedroom office things were tight, but it meant everyone could see the sheet of paper Keith pulled out of his notebook.

“I’ve got an idea for a commercial for the Origami. I need you to help out on the animation.”

Dunn’s eyebrows went up. “Sure.”

“Great!” Keith exclaimed, talking with his hands. “Here’s the idea. There’s this architect on a flight. Everyone around him is bored. They’re watching a boring movie, being served boring food, flying over boring landscape—we can have everything sort of grayish. He’s working on technical drawings with a stylus on his pocket computer. He’s the only one who isn’t bored, of course, because he has the great new product, the Origami. His drawings are great. The line drawings get filled in with color, become real buildings, on streets with real landscaping. There’s a kid kicking the seat behind him. He glances back, thinking he’s going to be ticked off, but he decides he feels sorry for the kid. So he sketches out a stick figure on the screen, and makes it dance or something. He tilts his seat back and holds the screen so the kid can see it. The kid starts to get interested.…”

“I get you,” Dunn said, getting interested himself. “So he starts to make a cartoon for the kid right there in the plane.”

“Yeah!” Keith said. Dorothy watched the two, nodding to herself. “So, then he sends the figure on a new little adventure, sketching in stick houses—the houses he was working on—and animals. He can draw because he’s an architect, of course. People begin to lean over and watch. The man fills the images with color. He uses the infrared link—we’ll animate the red line, because I know infrared is invisible—to pipe his little story to the movie screen, taking over from the constipated movie. His video is primitive but more alive and animated than the film. He adds music. People start to relax. The kid adds his own ideas, which the guy can sketch in or grab from clipart and his own video collection, you know, having the stick figure dance past home movies of the guy and his cats. Color spreads out from the screen, affecting the whole plane, even the world around it. By the time they land, the kid and the man are friends, and nobody on the jet is bored anymore.”

“That’s great, Keith,” Dorothy said. “How hard will that be to do?”

“So easy even he could do it,” Dunn said, flicking a hand toward his roommate. “You use a commercial animation program, something you’d load to it from your desktop or using a CD-ROM. Dunno if they’ve got any of those programs on mini-CD yet.”

“You can use the infrared link or even modem it over to an Origami,” Keith said. “I thought you could use AnimaToaster 3. It’s compatible with the system.”

“No, man. This is the program you want.” Dunn clicked an icon on his computer. “If the Origami can use AnimaToaster it can run ToonUp. It’s faster and uses less memory. Here, watch.”

Following Keith’s idea, Dunn brought up the blue-line of a city plan. With a flurry of clicks on the mouse, he filled it in with color.

“That looks like fun!” Dorothy said. “Let me try!”

“My pleasure,” Dunn said, standing up to make way for her at the keyboard.

“He must really like you,” Keith said playfully. “He won’t let me touch his setup.”

“And on the first date, too,” Dorothy said, looking at Dunn through her eyelashes. In just a few minutes they had an animated stick figure walking jerkily along the blueprint. “I’m hooked. Say, I’ve got a suggestion to make your storyline even better. What if somewhere along the way, along with colorizing the city, he puts in the actual image of the little boy, so he’s the one having the adventure?”

“Yeah!” Keith said, raising his eyebrows. “That would be better.”

Dorothy looked around. “I don’t suppose you have any video of a child around here we can use to try it out?”

“I’ll go check the video collection,” Keith said.

He returned in a few moments with his magic lantern. He carefully avoided Dunn’s eyes as he set it down. Dorothy eyed the carved wooden box with its gauze screen.

“What’s this?”

“It’s, uh, like those greeting cards that store a message on a chip,” Keith explained. “This stores a couple of minutes of video.” He set it screen to lens with Dunn’s peripheral camera and invoked the charm to play. A small boy in a blue-striped tee-shirt with light brown skin and a mass of dark, frizzy hair sat looking at them. He had one and a half front teeth and a dimple in his right cheek.

“What a cute little darling!” Dorothy said. “Who is he?”

“It’s me from third grade,” Dunn admitted, giving Keith a dirty look. “You had to do it, didn’t you?”

“Well, I don’t have any of
my
school pictures here,” Keith pointed out reasonably.

“Well, you were adorable,” Dorothy said soothingly. “Let’s use it.”

In no time they had incorporated the footage of Dunn’s school picture, so he appeared to tame tigers, fly from building to building, wade in a fountain, and slide down the stone bannister in front of a library. Dorothy sat back in delight and grinned at Keith. “You’re practically out of the picture on this one, hot shot,” she said. “It doesn’t need any dialogue. We can use this one worldwide as is.”

“Yeah, but it was
my
idea!” Keith complained.

“There’s no
I
in ‘Team,’ and no ‘my’ in ‘advertisement,’” Dorothy said dispassionately, and turned to Dunn. “And this’ll cost what to do?”

“You’re looking at it,” Dunn explained. “Substitute film of actors and you can actually use this animation. Or I can do custom. My brother’s company,” he produced a business card for Uhuru Enterprises, “charges very reasonable rates. By the way, if you’re giving these Origami things away, I’m in line right behind Red here.”

Dorothy raised her eyebrows at Dunn’s cheekiness. “Yeah, you and the rest of us. I’ll see what I can do about getting you paid. You’ve got something here, Keith. Let’s take it to the man and see what he says.”

* * *

Doug didn’t need a lot of convincing. He called in Paul and half a dozen others into the boardroom to watch the rough Dunn had made and burned onto a CD-ROM. Even Rollin had to admit it was a good storyboard. “You’ve got to cross-culturalize the actors,” he pointed out. “Get all the combinations in there. Maybe a black architect and a white boy, a white man and an Asian girl, a Hispanic woman and a white girl. Got to cover all the bases.”

“Sure,” Doug said. “It’d be easy. God, I love this new technology. I cannot believe how fast you cranked this out.”

“It’s one of these days,” Paul said, slapping Keith on the back, “when I’m proud to be in advertising. Let me call up Bill Mann and see what he says.”

“How could he say anything but ‘go’?” asked Dorothy.

That was exactly what he’d said. Within fifteen minutes of e-mailing them the MPEG of the rough animation, PDQ had the go-ahead to take it to production. Dunn showed them how to capture frames from the file to use as a storyboard for the director.

“Man, I like this,” Paul said happily, leaning against the wall. He offered a toast to Keith, Dorothy, and Dunn with his coffee cup. “We’ll never have to call a messenger service again. Start calling kids’ agents. Hey, we ought to get the Fairy Shoes girl in there as one of the kids. Think she’d be interested?”

Keith grinned. “She’d love it. She’s the techno-whiz in her family.”

“Dorothy will be the producer for PDQ at the post-production house,” Doug explained, “but both of you can oversee the filming. Jen Schick said she wants to be there, too.”

“Fine by me,” Dorothy said. “I’ll schedule it.”

* * *

But a new commercial for Dola wasn’t the big news at Hollow Tree Farm. When Keith called that evening to see if the elf girl was interested, she told him to hold on the line.

The next voice that reached his ear was so excited he hardly recognized it as Marcy’s.

“Keith? My folks love Enoch. We’re getting married!”

***

Chapter 24

Snow falling in the field outside the big picture window in the living room of the old farmhouse only added to the beauty of the scene inside. The Little People had nailed up pine boughs and clusters of holly leaves and berries, making the whole room smell fresh and new. Luscious aromas of baking bread and bubbling gravy floated out of the kitchen, adding to the bouquet. Orchadia, mother of the groom, had a large crew of volunteers marshaled to take care of every task that arose. The event would be organized, if she had to worry herself to a nubbin before it began. The Master, and anyone who had the sense to stay out of her way, were helping Enoch and Marcy get dressed, in rooms as widely separated as possible. The Colliers, mother, father and younger brother, had been seated in a corner of the living room to be entertained by Dola and Borget.

Keith, who usually prided himself on being equal to every occasion, was himself having an uncharacteristic attack of nerves. Diane had had to remove him to the cellar to get him out of the way of everyone trying to get the room set up for the big moment.

“What if I blow my lines?” Keith asked, pacing up and back in between the wine barrels. “What if I say something stupid?”

“No one will mind,” Diane said placidly, seizing him and pushing him up against a wall so she could straighten his tie. “Don’t fidget! This isn’t a movie. These are our friends. They asked you to participate because you’re a part of their lives. I mean, I could get really bent because Enoch’s having you play the part of the old boyfriend, but do you hear me complaining?”

Keith looked at her as if he was seeing her for the first time and grabbed her hands. “
Do
you mind? Because if you do, I’ll go up there and tell them I can’t do it.”

“No way,” Diane said, crinkling her eyes. “You just want to get out of having to do it. You’ll be fine.”

“Thanks,” Keith said, breaking loose to pace again. He stopped to straighten his tie and comb his hair into smooth waves. After one experiment with the mousse he decided he was happier with his own style. The stiff, rubbery feel of dry hair gel made his scalp twitch. He glanced down at Diane. “By the way, you look absolutely gorgeous.”

Diane smiled shyly, turning so he could admire the cream velvet dress she was wearing. “Thank you. I bought it especially for you.”

Keith, overcome, felt his throat go dry. “Diane, I …” At the serious tone of his voice she stopped twirling to face him. He took her hands again. “Listen, I wasn’t …”

“Come on, you two,” Holl called down the stairs. “We’re starting!”

To outsiders, the Little Folks’ celebration of the joining of lifemates didn’t look much like a modern wedding. The pair entered separately, to be met by friends, family, even old rivals, to challenge them and ask them if they were certain they were making the right decision. The Little Folk considered matches to be forever, and with their lifespans, forever was a very long time.

Though he was in the thick of the action he found himself watching Marcy’s parents. Mr. Collier, dapper in a black suit just one-step down from a tuxedo, kept his face expressionless. His eyes were always on the move, settling on one of the elves or another. Keith thought he was still having trouble reconciling their childlike faces with the fact they were adults. Candlepat in particular added to the confusion. The size of a ten-year-old, the blond elf girl had a curvaceous shape that her lipstick-pink dress hugged tightly. Mr. Collier glanced at her frequently, then looked away, his pale cheeks flushed. Keith could also tell by the mischievous light in Candlepat’s eyes that she was enjoying his discomfiture.

Mrs. Collier, whom Keith had only met once or twice a few years before, was emotionally in pieces. Fashionably thin, with small delicate hands clutching a handkerchief, her soft brown hair gathered in a loose knot at the back of her head, she looked too young to have a grown daughter. Marm stood next to her, thoughtfully holding a tissue box up to her whenever the tissue she had became too sodden. Her light blue eyes were rimmed with red. Marcy also had a younger brother, who looked a great deal like his mother. Curly-haired Josh was watching the whole proceedings with huge, gleaming eyes, torn between disbelief and excitement. If Keith had had to put a caption over his head, it would have read, “Oh, wow!”

Diane had been worried about Josh. When he’d arrived she dragged Keith aside. “I don’t want to ask Marcy this, but can we trust him not to tell anyone what he’s seeing?”

“It’ll be okay,” Keith had assured her. “If he got in here, someone will have put the whammy on him so he can’t tell anyone, or just one other person. And that person can only tell one person.” Diane looked dubious, but the elves had been getting by with that system for years.

He had other things to be worried about. Enoch arrived, wearing a silky tunic of ruddy bronze embroidered about the hem, neck, and sleeves. He always bore an aura of dignity, but today he was majestic, passed the challenges set him by his mother and Holl, answering their questions about his intentions with quiet pride. Last came Catra, looking proud and lovely in a high-necked dress. Her hair was swept up to frame the tall points of her ears.

“You and I are of an age,” she said. “We are both intelligent and hardworking. We would make a good pair. We are also,” she said with a surprising sly gleam in her eyes, “sufficiently strong-willed to withstand one another. Consider before you step outside your own circle for a bride. There is joy now, but what of the future?”

“I have thought,” Enoch said, and though it was part of the tradition, he frowned, lowering his brows at being questioned. “And I have considered. I am fond of you, but there is not that spark that lights a fire within me. I would not take this step, if not to join Marcy. I am fortunate that she came into my life. What of appearances? If the souls meld, why should the lives not join? She is the only one that I love.”

Catra bowed her head. Keith was deeply touched. Enoch didn’t speak easily of his feelings. He stepped back a pace as Enoch passed, afraid to brush against him and break the mood. Diane and Mrs. Collier were sobbing audibly. The black-haired elf stepped proudly into the center of the room, turned to face the opposite door, and waited.

Rustles and whispering heralded Marcy’s appearance. Her sable-brown hair was spread out on the shoulders of her dress, white velvet for a winter bride. The roses embroidered on its rich surface stood out, almost like real flowers. Their color matched the pink glow in her usually pale cheeks. A cloud of white and red flowers was in her hands, and on her head a wreath of magical white bell flowers, without which no joining of lifemates was complete. She looked ethereally beautiful. Pat, who had taken over from Keith the duty of movie-cameraman for the occasion, let out an audible whistle.

Shyly, she came into the room. The elves made an aisle for her as they might for a visiting queen.

Keith was so entranced by the moment that it took a poke in the back from Marm to remind him what he was supposed to be doing. He jumped forward, blocking her way.

“Don’t do it,” he said. The moment of placid grace was broken by the sound of his voice. He was sorry, and Marcy looked a little shocked. “You know I was crazy about you. We could still be a couple. You don’t have to live on a farm in the boondocks. What do you think?”

It wasn’t as eloquent as he would have liked. He blushed, the ruddiness drowning out the freckles on his cheeks. Marcy reached up to touch the side of his face.

“You’re my best friend, Keith,” she said softly but clearly. “You showed me the truth about myself. You gave me the confidence to admit what I’d been feeling for months. I’ll always love you for that, but my heart belongs to Enoch. I can’t imagine turning back now.” Her hand dropped to his, squeezed it, and let go. Keith stood aside. No one could have stayed in her way after a speech like that. At the center of the room, she came to stand beside Enoch. The usually dour elf looked so happy that Keith felt tears start in his eyes.

Before the community, their friends and relatives the couple declared their love for one another. There was nothing childlike about Enoch as he stated his vows. The Elf Master, as the Headman of the village, and Mr. Collier, looking nervous, came forward to join their hands together. It was so nice, so natural, so about time that Keith was nodding at the rightness of the whole event.

“Before our friends,” Enoch said, “I swear that I will be a good husband to you, support you, and provide for you. Not only a lover I’d be, but a friend and partner in all things. No other will ever supplant you in my heart. I promise to enjoy and suffer life alongside you all the days of our lives. I will protect you from your fears and nurture your dreams.”

Marcy’s voice was almost inaudible as she replied. Her cheeks were scarlet. “I knew from the time I met you that I love you. I come to you with joy.”

He kissed her gently. The Elf Master beamed at them.

“As you haf claimed one another, none of us shall stand between you or compel you apart. I offer my congratulations and good wishes.” Marcy embraced him, then her father, as everyone broke into cheers and applause.

“A toast to the couple!” Holl cried.

“A toast!” Marm echoed, springing up to stand beside the punch bowl and a tun of his best wine. He put Keith’s mug in his hand.

“To Enoch and Marcy!” Keith announced.

“To Enoch and Marcy!” everyone echoed, and drained their glasses.

“Another toast!” shouted Tay. “Long life and happiness!”

“It is over so quickly,” said Ludmilla Hempert, seated in front of the wide fireplace among her beloved “little ones.” One toast had led to another and another. Drinking progressed naturally to eating. The guests sat wherever there was a flat place, partaking of the feast. The cooks and bakers brought out platters, baskets, and bowls of delicious food, offering refills to the diners who overflowed all the “public” areas of the big, old house.

“They’re good cooks all the time,” Diane said, grabbing another biscuit from a passing basket, “but they’ve just excelled beyond anything I could have imagined. This is ambrosia!” She and Keith were perched on the windowsill. It was cold, but they had it to themselves. Nearby, Mr. and Mrs. Collier shared a bench with their son. Already the dutiful son-in-law, Enoch had brought them a small table for their plates and glasses. The Elf Master and his wife were next to them at another small table. The newlyweds had a place all their own in a nook next to the big fireplace, hung with garlands and glorious, out-of-season flowers that Keith was sure had been brought to bloom by one of the plantwise elves.

“Keith,” Mrs. Collier said softly, leaning toward him and putting a hand on his, much as her daughter had done, “I heard what you said. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know how deeply you felt for Marcy.”

“I … don’t,” Keith said hastily. “It’s part of the ceremony, Mrs. C. Both of them have to meet the challenges. It’s traditional. She’s my friend, nothing more, I promise. Enoch roped me in as one of the ‘disappointed suitors’ because I used to have a crush on her. She ended up with the right man, I swear.”

“Really?” she asked, her smooth forehead wrinkling.

“Really,” Keith assured her. He took Diane’s hand. “I found the right woman for me a long time ago.”

“How lovely!” Mrs. Collier beamed. “So, when are the two of you getting married?”

Diane and Keith exchanged glances, hers expectant, his uncomfortable. “Well, you know,” Keith said at last. He didn’t want to give away details of his savings plan, and he knew the Folk were listening. “We want to be ready. Both of us are still in school.”

“Of course,” Marcy’s mother said, nodding knowingly. “You’re right. It’s so expensive these days to set up a household.”

“By the way, is this … wedding … legal?” Mr. Collier asked uncomfortably.

“It can be legally registered,” the Master assured his new in-laws affably. “Though my son has no official birth records, the correct officials can be persuaded that they haf seen the right documentation. If this is important to you.”

Mr. Collier seemed uncomfortable at the open manipulation of legal matters, but he tried to recover the mood. “Oh, well,” he said jovially. “How else do you explain leprechauns in the family?”

Enoch glowered at the description, and a wave of muttering swept through the room. “Never mind,” Tay whispered to him as he refilled his glass at the long buffet table. “You won’t have to see the in-laws very often.” Marcy, close enough to hear, blushed.

“How did your final exams go?” Holl asked Keith, a little louder than necessary.

Keith answered at once. “The most you can say about them was that I survived. I think I did okay, but I’ll wait for my report card.”

Mr. Collier looked embarrassed. He seemed to understand that he had committed a social gaffe. “Say, honey,” he called to Marcy at her little table in the inglenook, “you were going to give me the e-mail address down here.”

Marcy looked thankful to change the subject. “Yes! Of course!”

“Good. Give me a moment.” Mr. Collier reached into the inner pocket of his suit coat and came out with an Origami. He touched the ON button, and the little screen hummed to life.

“Hey,” Dunn said, elbowing Keith. “Isn’t that one of your things?”

“Why, so it is,” Catra said, from her perch on the arm of Ronard’s chair. “Keith Doyle has been telling us much about them for some time now.”

“Yours?” Mr. Collier asked, interested. Keith explained that he was working for the advertising company hired by Gadfly to promote the Origami. “They’re pretty terrific. Do you have one, too?”

“No, sir,” Keith said fervently. “I wish! I’m saving up for one. They’re pretty expensive.”

“I’ll say! I bought this one bundled with business software. It set me back $2,500. It’s the greatest thing I ever had, though.” Mr. Collier started playing with the unit’s panels, flipping up the screen to show the telephone face below. The graphics on the screen reversed at once so the lettering would be the same side up as the numbers on the keys. “It’s a workable office machine, but it’s like a toy, too.”

“I know,” Keith said, fixing fond eyes on the blue-green device. “I am just crazy about it. I can’t believe how good the graphics are. The buttons are just far enough for good game play. And you can have three or four applications running at the same time. If you’ve got Doris, you don’t need most of the stuff in your office!”