The Malicarn #2
Glenn knocked, though he did not expect an answer.
When he didn’t hear anything, he pushed the door open and walked through.
The room was very dim, all the light coming off a dozen or so LED screens arranged in rows on the wall.
Empty boxes, backpacks, and computer bags were stacked in the corner.
At the table in the center sat several more monitors, keyboards to multiple machines, and a host of half-eaten snacks: chip bags, soda cans, used napkins.
Sitting in a large desk chair, his back to Glenn but facing the myriad screens, was Jules, bent over a keyboard.
His long beard was a tangled mess, his eyes beady, face pale.
He did not respond at first, but when Glenn walked toward him he suddenly jerked and removed something from his head.
Glenn thought it might have been headphones.
“What, what?” Jules shouted, annoyed, his expression softening only slightly when he turned to see it was Glenn. “Oh, Gregorian. Hello. Do you have an appointment? Please check with Darla.”
“Didn’t Darla quit, like, five years ago?” Glenn asked.
Glenn sat down in another chair a few feet away and looked Jules over carefully. He was red-eyed and manic, his fingers tapping incessantly on the table in front of him. Jules’s clothes were stained with food and sweat. His beard grew out in every direction. He looked like shit.
Jules smiled. “Yes, yes, of course. I forgot. I don’t have a secretary anymore.
Should probably get one, don’t you think?
They gave me an intern. Some kid from Dartmouth.
Wants to be a writer. What nonsense! I told him to become an engineer instead.
But he said he hates math. Well, too bad I guess!
Hahahaha!” Jules laughed as if he were faking it.
“I just got back from the con,” Glenn said, looking around the room. “It was a pretty good trip. Nice change of scenery at least.”
“What, what?” Jules jumped, as if hearing Glenn for the first time.
“The Miami trip,” Glenn said. “Remember?”
“No. How’s Miami?”
“Different from when my grandmother used to live there.”
“Nice to visit with her, eh?”
“What?” Glenn could never tell when Jules was actually listening to him. “No, Jules, she’s been dead for years. Her condo’s probably underwater by now, anyway.”
“Why cry about it, then? Ha!” Jules didn’t laugh, just shouted loudly.
“Are you all right?” Glenn looked up at the camera feeds. No sign of the pilot. There was a lot of activity going on, though, more than Glenn expected. He couldn’t quite tell what was happening.
“Fine, fine. Look, I want to show you something.” Jules pulled out a box from underneath the table.
The neuroscanner. So at least Glenn knew where Jules was keeping it.
“I’ve almost finished it, Gregorian. You know how long I’ve been working on it?
It’s loading now. Gonna take a few hours to render properly, but then I’ll have it, finally.
The complete digital re-creation of Jean-Danton Souard.
Right here, in this scanner. And then I can understand him. ”
“Did you build a character on your own?”
“Not a character! Not a character, Glenngorian. No, it’s a real approximation.
It’s everything ever written by, about, and in relation to Souard.
Every word of his, every scrap of information anyone said about him.
His son, his colleagues, random fans who met him.
Plus everything he saw: Paris, the war, what Boston smelled like in the 1960s. It’s all here!”
Several miles away, Buck Douglas watched a large spider climb a tree. As he waited for night to fall, he could smell fire.
“There’s no way you captured everything,” Glenn said.
“I captured everything we know, which is the same as everything! Once I scan myself with it—”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Once I scan myself with it, I’ll be able to write a real story. I’ll finally bring something to the Malicarn, something new. What Souard would have written.”
Glenn wasn’t going to have to get Jules drunk to distract him. He was so revved up Glenn wasn’t sure Jules would realize a nuclear bomb going off on one of his screens.
“I really don’t know, Jules. I think you are doing a fine job writing as it is.”
“Rubbish! This whole revolutionary storyline is bonkers. Kreek’s been running it all himself, basically.
Didn’t even ask permission. I let him do it, because I recognize opportunity.
But I would have pushed it forward sooner.
He has no sense of timing. No need to kill those guards, just release the rider and get on with it. ”
“He did what?”
“Moving now, though. The riots are on in Kingstown, probably in Old Village by this afternoon. You shouldn’t go home for now, I need you for this next stage.
See!” He pointed to a monitor. A large mob was marching up a road away from Kingstown.
For the first time, Glenn looked at what was happening inside the Malicarn.
“Those ones are probably heading for the Mountain Keep to grab the queen. When she’s dead I’m going to need you to negotiate a peace, we can start over fresh. ”
“What are you talking about, Jules? What the hell is going on?”
Kreek and the dragon rider arrived at the Old Village. “Where is the wizard?” Kreek shouted. “Come forth and be counted!” The villagers surrounded Gregorian’s tower and began banging on the door.
Wu Zihao was afraid, but he tried not to move. He did not know if he could run.
Roger and Lilly’s Black Hawk took off from the battleship. It was loud and shook violently, and Lilly had to use all her willpower not to be sick. But that was all right. The motion sickness distracted her from thinking more about Glenn.
Derek and Paul used their radios to communicate with staff across the set. Production assistants, tech specialists, Cameroonian farmworkers. “If you can make it back to the Citadel, that seems to be the safest place right now. Hello? Hello?”
In Langley, Virginia, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency received an urgent cable from the Lisbon desk but he was leaving to play golf with the Senate Intelligence chair and so he didn’t read it.
“We need a strong man as the hero,” said Jules, “not a crippled girl. It’s boring. And well, you know diversity casting doesn’t really work.”
“We didn’t cast her, she was born.”
“I know, I should have been more proactive about her mother’s romance with Prion. Too bad. But she needs to go. She is such a boring character anyway, like her mother was. You know this, Glenn.”
Glenn sat quietly for a long moment, watching Jules jitter in his chair. He saw a screen of the Old Village, of the library in his tower, overrun by characters. His servant had let them in. They were tossing furniture out the window. “Why did you let this happen, Jules?”
Jules sniffed the air and coughed. “Ah, gads,” he shouted, and shuffled in his chair.
“This storyline can’t keep going. Jules, listen to me, there’s a—”
“Wait! Let me tell you about the guns! Listen to this! I just got a message last week, you know I really should write them back, but listen! New props! The studio thinks it is time to move the Malicarn into a more modern mode. Progress is very compelling, they say! So, guess what we’re going to get to use! ”
Glenn shook his head and didn’t say anything.
“Guess, guess!”
“Are they bringing back magic?”
“What? No, magic is banned. Come on, Glenn! We’re getting gunpowder! Rifles! Cannons!”
Glenn looked into Jules’s eyes, which were fluttering around as if unable to focus. “Why on earth are we—”
“Progress, Glenn, progress! Think of the story possibilities! They even gave me a rifle to use, to try out and think about ways I could incorporate it into stories. This is how the revolution ends, do you see it? Kreek’s men are already using them. A new world! New tech!”
Jules was vibrating in excitement.
“But all these people. Hannah—”
“The queen is nothing!” Jules shouted. “She’s a dead end! Let me do the writing, Glenn. You’ll say the lines. They gave me a gun, and you’ll get to use it too. How about I write it so that you invented it, eh? Some glory to an old wizard, yes? Ha! Of course!”
On the screens: People rioting, burning buildings. Pissing on the bodies of dead Council heroes. Lining up in formation for a march, like an army. He saw Hannah sitting in her room reading a book. A man chasing a monk with a sword.
“Jules, you can’t. They’re coming.”
Jules’s vision was fixed on his keyboard as he tapped away. “Who, what?”
“They’re coming for the pilot. British Intelligence, the Portuguese navy. Real soldiers. People with real weapons. They’ll be here tonight. You can’t keep doing this.”
Jules straightened up. His eyes were clear, and for the first time since Glenn entered the room, Jules was completely cogent.
“What did you do in Miami?”
“Nothing. They found me. They’re going to come in here and rescue that pilot and stop this.”
“The rider is part of the story now. They cannot have him.”
“You’ve known where he was this whole time, haven’t you? Jules, he’s not a character, he’s a person. Hannah’s a person, too, they’re all people.”
“You never were committed to the project. Okay, fine. I can’t protect you.” Jules pressed a button on the intercom on the desk. “Please escort Mr. Mackey from the premises.”
“Jules, don’t do anything stupid. Just hand the pilot over when they get here.”
“They want to come into my story and tell me how to write it? Well, this isn’t a revolution anymore. This is a war.”
Glenn looked at the neuroscanner, thought about jumping for it, but he wasn’t sure of his next move. He wasn’t going to fight Jules, that was ridiculous. Everything was ridiculous.
Derek and Paul entered the room. “What’s the problem here. Glenn? Jules?”
“Escort him to his apartment,” Jules said.
“It’s real hairy up there. We’ve actually been telling all staff not go out on set.”
“Do as I say!” Jules barked.