She squeezed my hand hard and her eyes shone. "I'll take it!" she said.
I laughed, and so did Dan. It was a polite, castmembery sort of laugh,
but underneath it was relief. "I think I'd better explain it to you
first," I said.
"Explain away!" she said, and gave my hand another squeeze.
I let go of her hand and ran down an abbreviated version of the rehab
plans, leaving out anything about Debra and her ad-hocs. Kim drank it
all in greedily. She cocked her head at me as I ran it down, eyes wide.
It was disconcerting, and I finally asked, "Are you recording this?"
Kim blushed. "I hope that's okay! I'm starting a new Mansion scrapbook.
I have one for every ride in the Park, but this one's gonna be a world-
beater!"
Here was something I hadn't thought about. Publishing ad-hoc business
was tabu inside Park, so much so that it hadn't occurred to me that the
new castmembers we brought in would want to record every little detail
and push it out over the Net as a big old Whuffie collector.
"I can switch it off," Kim said. She looked worried, and I really
started to grasp how important the Mansion was to the people we were
recruiting, how much of a privilege we were offering them.
"Leave it rolling," I said. "Let's show the world how it's done."
We led Kim into a utilidor and down to costuming. She was half-naked by
the time we got there, literally tearing off her clothes in anticipation
of getting into character. Sonya, a Liberty Square ad-hoc that we'd
stashed at costuming, already had clothes waiting for her, a rotting
maid's uniform with an oversized toolbelt.
We left Kim on the scaffolding, energetically troweling a water-based
cement substitute onto the wall, scraping it off and moving to a new
spot. It looked boring to me, but I could believe that we'd have to tear
her away when the time came.
We went back to trawling the Net for the next candidate.
#
By lunchtime, there were ten drilling, hammering, troweling new
castmembers around the scaffolding, pushing black wheelbarrows, singing
"Grim Grinning Ghosts" and generally having a high old time.
"This'll do," I said to Dan. I was exhausted and soaked with sweat, and
the transdermal under my costume itched. Despite the happy-juice in my
bloodstream, a streak of uncastmemberly crankiness was shot through my
mood. I needed to get offstage.
Dan helped me hobble away, and as we hit the utilidor, he whispered in
my ear, "This was a great idea, Julius. Really."
We jumped a tram over to Imagineering, my chest swollen with pride.
Suneep had three of his assistants working on the first generation of
mobile telepresence robots for the exterior, and had promised a
prototype for that afternoon. The robots were easy enough -- just off-
the-shelf stuff, really -- but the costumes and kinematics routines were
something else. Thinking about what he and Suneep's gang of
hypercreative super-geniuses would come up with cheered me up a little,
as did being out of the public eye.
Suneep's lab looked like it had been hit by a tornado. Imagineer packs
rolled in and out with arcane gizmos, or formed tight argumentative
knots in the corners as they shouted over whatever their HUDs were
displaying. In the middle of it all was Suneep, who looked like he was
barely restraining an urge to shout Yippee! He was clearly in his
element.
He threw his arms open when he caught sight of Dan and me, threw them
wide enough to embrace the whole mad, gibbering chaos. "What wonderful
flumgubbery!" he shouted, over the noise.
"Sure is," I agreed. "How's the prototype coming?"
Suneep waved absently, his short fingers describing trivialities in the
air. "In due time, in due time. I've put that team onto something else,
a kinematics routine for a class of flying spooks that use gasbags to
stay aloft -- silent and scary. It's old spy-tech, and the retrofit's
coming tremendously. Take a look!" He pointed a finger at me and,
presumably, squirted some data my way.
"I'm offline," I reminded him gently.
He slapped his forehead, took a moment to push his hair off his face,
and gave me an apologetic wave. "Of course, of course. Here." He
unrolled an LCD and handed it to me. A flock of spooks danced on the
screen, rendered against the ballroom scene. They were thematically
consistent with the existing Mansion ghosts, more funny than scary, and
their faces were familiar. I looked around the lab and realized that
they'd caricatured various Imagineers.
"Ah! You noticed," Suneep said, rubbing his hands together. "A very good
joke, yes?"
"This is terrific," I said, carefully. "But I really need some robots up
and running by tomorrow night, Suneep. We discussed this, remember?"
Without telepresence robots, my recruiting would be limited to fans like
Kim, who lived in the area. I had broader designs than that.
Suneep looked disappointed. "Of course. We discussed it. I don't like to
stop my people when they have good ideas, but there's a time and a
place. I'll put them on it right away. Leave it to me."
Dan turned to greet someone, and I looked to see who it was. Lil. Of
course. She was raccoon-eyed with fatigue, and she reached out for Dan's
hand, saw me, and changed her mind.
"Hi, guys," she said, with studied casualness.
"Oh, hello!" said Suneep. He fired his finger at her -- the flying
ghosts, I imagined. Lil's eyes rolled up for a moment, then she nodded
exhaustedly at him.
"Very good," she said. "I just heard from Lisa. She says the indoor
crews are on-schedule. They've got most of the animatronics dismantled,
and they're taking down the glass in the Ballroom now." The Ballroom
ghost effects were accomplished by means of a giant pane of polished
glass that laterally bisected the room. The Mansion had been built
around it -- it was too big to take out in one piece. "They say it'll be
a couple days before they've got it cut up and ready to remove."
A pocket of uncomfortable silence descended on us, the roar of the
Imagineers rushing in to fill it.
"You must be exhausted," Dan said, at length.
"Goddamn right," I said, at the same moment that Lil said, "I guess I
am."
We both smiled wanly. Suneep put his arms around Lil's and my shoulders
and squeezed. He smelled of an exotic cocktail of industrial lubricant,
ozone, and fatigue poisons.
"You two should go home and give each other a massage," he said. "You've
earned some rest."
Dan met my eye and shook his head apologetically. I squirmed out from
under Suneep's arm and thanked him quietly, then slunk off to the
Contemporary for a hot tub and a couple hours of sleep.
#
I came back to the Mansion at sundown. It was cool enough that I took a
surface route, costume rolled in a shoulderbag, instead of riding
through the clattering, air-conditioned comfort of the utilidors.
As a freshening breeze blew across me, I suddenly had a craving for
_real_ weather, the kind of climate I'd grown up with in Toronto. It was
October, for chrissakes, and a lifetime of conditioning told me that it
was May. I stopped and leaned on a bench for a moment and closed my
eyes. Unbidden, and with the clarity of a HUD, I saw High Park in
Toronto, clothed in its autumn colors, fiery reds and oranges, shades of
evergreen and earthy brown. God, I needed a vacation.
I opened my eyes and realized that I was standing in front of the Hall
of Presidents, and that there was a queue ahead of me for it, one that
stretched back and back. I did a quick sum in my head and sucked air
between my teeth: they had enough people for five or six full houses
waiting here -- easily an hour's wait. The Hall _never_ drew crowds like
this. Debra was working the turnstiles in Betsy Ross gingham, and she
caught my eye and snapped a nod at me.
I stalked off to the Mansion. A choir of zombie-shambling new recruits
had formed up in front of the gate, and were groaning their way through
"Grim Grinning Ghosts," with a new call-and-response structure. A small
audience participated, urged on by the recruits on the scaffolding.
"Well, at least that's going right," I muttered to myself. And it was,
except that I could see members of the ad-hoc looking on from the
sidelines, and the looks weren't kindly. Totally obsessive fans are a
good measure of a ride's popularity, but they're kind of a pain in the
ass, too. They lipsynch the soundtrack, cadge souvenirs and pester you
with smarmy, show-off questions. After a while, even the cheeriest
castmember starts to lose patience, develop an automatic distaste for
them.
The Liberty Square ad-hocs who were working on the Mansion had been
railroaded into approving a rehab, press-ganged into working on it, and
were now forced to endure the company of these grandstanding megafans.
If I'd been there when it all started -- instead of sleeping! -- I
may've been able to massage their bruised egos, but now I wondered if it
was too late.
Nothing for it but to do it. I ducked into a utilidor, changed into my
costume and went back onstage. I joined the call-and-response
enthusiastically, walking around to the ad-hocs and getting them to join
in, reluctantly or otherwise.
By the time the choir retired, sweaty and exhausted, a group of ad-hocs
were ready to take their place, and I escorted my recruits to an
offstage break-room.
#
Suneep didn't deliver the robot prototypes for a week, and told me that
it would be another week before I could have even five production units.
Though he didn't say it, I got the sense that his guys were out of
control, so excited by the freedom from ad-hoc oversight that they were
running wild. Suneep himself was nearly a wreck, nervous and jumpy. I
didn't press it.
Besides, I had problems of my own. The new recruits were multiplying. I
was staying on top of the fan response to the rehab from a terminal I'd
had installed in my hotel room. Kim and her local colleagues were
fielding millions of hits every day, their Whuffie accumulating as
envious fans around the world logged in to watch their progress on the
scaffolding.
That was all according to plan. What wasn't according to plan was that
the new recruits were doing their own recruiting, extending invitations
to their net-pals to come on down to Florida, bunk on their sofas and
guest-beds, and present themselves to me for active duty.
The tenth time it happened, I approached Kim in the break-room. Her
gorge was working, her eyes tracked invisible words across the middle
distance. No doubt she was penning yet another breathless missive about
the magic of working in the Mansion. "Hey, there," I said. "Have you got
a minute to meet with me?"
She held up a single finger, then, a moment later, gave me a bright
smile.
"Hi, Julius!" she said. "Sure!"
"Why don't you change into civvies, we'll take a walk through the Park
and talk?"
Kim wore her costume every chance she got. I'd been quite firm about her
turning it in to the laundry every night instead of wearing it home.
Reluctantly, she stepped into a change-room and switched into her cowl.
We took the utilidor to the Fantasyland exit and walked through the
late-afternoon rush of children and their adults, queued deep and thick
for Snow White, Dumbo and Peter Pan.
"How're you liking it here?" I asked.
Kim gave a little bounce. "Oh, Julius, it's the best time of my life,
really! A dream come true. I'm meeting so many interesting people, and
I'm really feeling creative. I can't wait to try out the telepresence
rigs, too."
"Well, I'm really pleased with what you and your friends are up to here.
You're working hard, putting on a good show. I like the songs you've
been working up, too."
She did one of those double-kneed shuffles that was the basis of any
number of action vids those days and she was suddenly standing in front
of me, hand on my shoulder, looking into my eyes. She looked serious.
"Is there a problem, Julius? If there is, I'd rather we just talked
about it, instead of making chitchat."