by Diane Duane
“Thank you,” MJ said. “I hope you’ll all bear with me: I’m very new at this.”
Marion chuckled. “You’ve done live TV, though. You’ll do fine—this is a lot easier.”
“MJ auditioned wonderfully,” Jymn said, “and she’s going to be super, no pun intended. Now listen, group, let’s get our act together here. MJ, you had enough time to look over the script for tonight, and the other material?”
“Sure.” Jymn had given her several copies of scripts for Giga-Group, and the series bible; she had read it avidly after getting home from the food store. Only Jymn’s high good humor during the audition had later kept her from wondering whether she was making some kind of awful mistake, for as MJ read the bible, it became plain that Giga-Group was probably the most politically correct super hero cartoon she had ever seen—and she thought that because of this, the concept suffered somewhat. You could not have found a more, well, homogenized group of super heroes anywhere: speaking racially, sexually, and culturally alone, there was at least one hero in the group of every imaginable kind. They all had “sexy” names that were supposed to be evocative of their individual super-powers: Hotshot, Tripwire, Roadblock, Wrecker, on and on. She privately wondered how (if such a group of characters ever existed) they would keep each other’s nicknames straight, let alone their normal names. There would have to be a point, she had thought, where, when you’re forming a new super hero group, everyone has to wear name tags for a few weeks until they get each other sorted out. All the heroes also had (to judge by the bible) periodic outbreaks of extreme angst, and appeared to be cursed by the show’s writers to speak almost entirely in cliches. When she finished reading through the first script she had been given, MJ was laughing so hard she practically started wheezing—and not because it was supposed to be funny.
“Well, you get the general idea,” Jymn said. “Ten super heroes, battling more or less constantly against a rotating group of super villains who are either in jail, executing devilish schemes, or sitting at home in their secret hideaways hatching devilish schemes.”
“They’re not villains,” Doug said, grinning. “They’re just ethically challenged.”
“Oy,” Jymn said. “All right, it’s true enough. This show is an ungodly hybrid between the caring-and-sharing shows of the early Eighties, and the irradiate-’em-till-they-mutate-then-put-costumes-on-’em-and-let-’em-all-fight-it-out shows of the late Eighties. That said, all we have to do is try to make it sound good.”
“Frankly, Jymn,” said Marion, “we couldn’t do that with a rewrite by God, and the Archangel Michael running a digital mastering board. As it is, we have to make do with Paul—” Paul, outside the window, gave them an enthusiastic raspberry. “Okay, okay. Saint Paul.”
“Better,” Paul said.
“Oh come on,” Jymn said, “this script isn’t so bad.”
“You mean, it won’t be when we’re through with it,” Halsey said in his soft drawly voice: and MJ paused for a moment, recognizing it suddenly as the voice of a famous cat in a cat food commercial.
“You people are going to teach MJ bad habits,” Jymn said, despairingly.
“At least she’ll learn them from professionals,” Rory said. “We haven’t seen a good script for this series yet. But then it’s just getting started, and that’s normal. Still, we’ll know one when it comes along. Meantime we’ll make them sound the best we can; that’s what we’re taking the King’s Shilling for. Here, MJ, you come sit by me and look over my shoulder while you work in.”
MJ took the offer gladly, perching on the next director’s chair over, and putting the marked script for that evening’s work on the music stand beside it.
“Okay, people,” Jymn said. “You all have your parts marked. MJ, I want you to read the part of Tripwire, the one I marked for you this afternoon; she’s one of the villains. And also there’s a part for a cat. Can you meow?”
MJ laughed out loud, taken by surprise, and emitted her best imitation of the loud cat that lived in the garden of a brownstone a few doors down from their building.
“Not bad,” Jymn said. “Paul, you get that level?”
“Yeah, it was good.”
“Okay. MJ, can you make it sound like it’s talking?”
“Noooouuuuw.”
“Hey, that’s good,” Rory said. “We’ve got another Frank Welker on our hands here.”
“Always steady work for people who make animal noises,” Marion said, smiling at MJ.
MJ smiled back. “Okay, come on, people,” Jymn said, “let’s get settled. From the top of Act One…”
From that affable start the evening got strange, and continued to become stranger. The script they were reading was really so bad that, at first, during the read-through rehearsal, one or more of the actors was likely to break up at any moment. Rory seemed most affected by this problem, which astounded MJ, since he seemed the oldest and most experienced. But when it came to actual recording, the guffaws were nowhere to be found. MJ found herself surrounded by people generating the voices of super heroes, ringing voices full of commitment and power. She believed them when they spoke. It astonished her. She tried to work to make her voice resonate that way. “A little more of that, MJ,” Jymn would say from outside the recording room, and she would do it again, breathing deeply, as the other actors coached her, and setting herself into the voice.
“Don’t let it make you crazy, MJ,” Marion said at one point. “I’ve seen your commercial work. If you can act like you really believe a dishwashing detergent is going to be kind to your hands, then this isn’t that much of a jump.” And Marion was right. It got to the point where she could cry, for her super villainness character, “Resistance is useless!”—and believe that it was useless—and no one laughed. The others nodded and looked serious, and got ready to read their own parts.
There were occasional bouts of hilarity, primarily when MJ did the cat voice, and another one when Doug, playing the villain called Optimum, suddenly seemed to get his voice confused with a bad imitation of Charles Laughton doing the Hunchback of Notre Dame, and half fell out of his chair to slouch and stagger around the room shouting, “The bells! The bells!” These things always seemed to happen when there was a little tension in the room, MJ noticed. Too many errors in a take, too many takes on a line, then something would happen to let the tension loose, and the next take would go all right. A couple of times, MJ caught Jymn provoking one of these releases; other times, the actors themselves would cause them. It was the sign of a team that had worked together amicably for a long time, on and off, and who trusted one another, and had fun together.
The session went by in a hurry, this way. About halfway through the evening, Jymn said, “Marion, I’d like Glaive’s voice to be a little more different from Lasso’s. Let’s let MJ take her.” So MJ became, however temporarily, the voice of a guest super heroine, Glaive, and spent the rest of the evening enjoying learning how to produce on demand what Jymn referred to as “the right hero-style delivery,” and claimed she had a naural talent for. For about the millionth time that night, she bit back a reply about occupational hazards. She was almost sorry when, by midnight, they were almost through with the script, except for some patching and relooping of lines that Paul didn’t like the sound of. Finally even that was done, and at twenty after twelve Jymn came into the studio and said, “That’s it, crew. Next session’s tomorrow night.” To MJ he said, “Nice work. You’ll be back tomorrow?”
Truthfully she said, “I wouldn’t miss it for anything.”
“That’s great. A good first night, MJ! Go home, get some sleep—we start a little earlier tomorrow. Six o’clock, everybody.”
So they all departed, to a line of cabs waiting outside the studio for them. “MJ,” said Marion, “you’re just down the block from me, aren’t you? Come on, we’ll split the fare.”
They did, and MJ walked into the apartment, not too much later, feeling utterly on top of the world. Another couple of weeks of work l
ike this, and the phone bill could do what it liked. “Peter?” she said, heading for the bedroom. “You up, honey?”
The bathroom light was on. He leaned out to look at her—and MJ gasped. “Oh, jeez, honey, what happened to you? You’re one big bruise!”
“Venom,” he said, sounding rather resigned.
She stared at the elastic bandage wrapped around her husband’s chest. “Oh, no, he didn’t break your rib again, did he?”
“No, it’s just sore. But how was your evening?”
“Terrific. I am a happy, happy woman,” she said, not sounding at all happy for looking at her injured husband. “But never mind that! Come sit down and tell me what happened.”
“You won’t like it.”
And she didn’t.
* * *
IN the barren luxurious apartment, not too far from there, the big-shouldered, broad-bodied man who was born with the name Otto Octavius sat behind the desk again, going through some paperwork. In front of him on the marble floor, waiting, stood the red-haired man.
“So,” said Doctor Octopus, the nom de guerre he preferred. “How are our various laundries doing, Niner?”
“We washed about eleven million dollars last week alone,” said the man in the black jacket. “The cell-model recruitment for laundries has worked out very well. The problem was always finding enough people to do the legwork. That’s solved now.”
“Good,” said Octopus. “We have a lot more to do yet over the next couple of months. I want to accelerate this process so that it’s finished well before Day Hundred. Have Galya look into it—his people seem to be acting like real go-getters at the moment. What’s the status on the currency situation?”
“About four billion in counterfeit is now in circulation in Europe,” said Niner. “The Union’s economies are going to have a nasty shock in about sixty days when their governments notice the surplus.”
“Just before the Dublin summit,” said Doctor Octopus. “That’s excellent. The yearly G7 conference is barely a week later. They’ll be at each other’s throats, and whatever economic coalition remains between them and the Russians will fall apart on the spot.”
A long metallic tentacle came arching over, seized one of the pieces of paper in delicate grippers, and turned it over. “Our last shipment of ‘emplacements’—” said Doctor Octopus.
“They’re ready to roll, sir. If we ship them during the G7, every one of them will be in place within two days. That leaves nearly thirty days of the Hundred to make the final settings.”
Octopus nodded, turning over the last piece of paper, and looking keenly at Niner. “And that last emplacement I entrusted to you,” he said, “that’s been successfully completed?”
“Yes, sir. It’s right up there, where they’ll never look for it, and never find it until the sky lights up.”
“Excellent. Go get in touch with Galya, Niner. I want the rest of that cash dealt with while cash still works.” Obedient, Niner went. Doctor Octopus got up from behind the desk and slowly crossed the bare room to where the curtains hung down. One of his metal tentacles reached out and twitched one of the curtains aside just wide enough to let him look out. Below him, Manhattan lay in the sun: shouting, stinking, pulsating with noise and life.
“Not for much longer,” he said softly, to the stones of the city. “A hundred days or so, that’s all. Just be patient. A hundred days.”
The tentacle withdrew. The curtain fell.
SEVEN
THE next morning, Peter got up and tiptoed out of bed, leaving MJ still snoozing there, to find an early call waiting on the answering machine. “This is a call for Peter Parker,” said a soft woman’s voice. “It’s Doris Smyth. Would you be able to come see me sometime after ten this morning? No need to return the call unless you can’t. I’ll be home all day.”
Has she found something already? he wondered. Wow! As quietly as he could, he washed and dressed and had a hurried breakfast, left MJ a note to tell her where he was headed, and then left for Doris’s.
When she opened her apartment door for him, Doris looked up at Peter with an expression that was slightly more muted than the sunny smiles she had been giving him when they first met. She was still smiling, but the look had a slight edge of caution to it. “Peter! Good morning, come on in. Would you like some tea?”
“Uh, yes, I’d love some, thanks.”
She led him to the dining-room table, where a teapot, a cozy, and silver tea service were set out, incongruously next to a partially disassembled cell phone, various delicate tools, and a small black box with a liquid-crystal readout on the top. “Here, sit down. Milk? Sugar?”
“Sugar, please.” He stirred it in and peered at the phone. “That’s our phone?”
“That’s the phone you brought me,” Doris said mildly, sitting down herself and taking a sip of her own tea. She reached out for the bottom half of the phone’s shell, the part with the most electronics in it, and turned it over thoughtfully in her hands.
Then she glanced up at him. “I’ve been looking for this for a while,” she said.
“You’ve lost me.”
Doris made a slightly regretful expression. “Let me be plainer. This phone is one that both its home phone company, Americell, and the police in several states have asked me to look out for. Its present calling records have been hacked several times, with great virtuosity, by someone whom the police are most eager to find. But more—look here.”
She picked up one of the tools on the table, a little slender metal rod with a hook at one end and a little slanted, slotted screwdriver head at the other, and pointed into the body of the phone with it. “See that little chip there?”
“Uh, yes. It’s awfully small.”
“True enough. Here’s another.” She picked up from the table a twin to the first chip, a tiny wafer slice of green-and-gold patterned plastic no bigger than her smallest fingernail, and with great care, using her own thumbnail, split it apart. Nestled inside it was an even smaller chip, about the size of two pinheads. Peter squinted at it.
“You are seeing,” said Doris softly, “one of the better-kept secrets of the telephone industry. It won’t remain secret forever, but it’s doing its job pretty well for us at the moment. This is a ‘covert’ chip, one that the phone companies are increasingly having installed in their phones without even the manufacturers being entirely sure what it does—or most of the people at any given manufacturer, anyway. The phone companies have been so concerned about the rampant cloning of phones that they came up with a microchip whose only purpose is to secretly record all the numbers that have been programmed into a telephone as its ‘own’ number, for the duration of its lifetime. It doesn’t take a lot of memory or power, and when a professional gets their hands on a much-cloned phone, its whole audit trail is laid out for you to see. Very useful.”
She put the phone down, gazed at it for a moment in a slightly unfocused way. “Very few phreaks or hackers know about the existence of the chip, and even those who stumble across it aren’t going to be able to reproduce the algorithm that makes the chip dump its data, much less the one to erase the data trail. This one hasn’t been tampered with, I’m certain, and its trail indicates that over three hundred different numbers have been cloned into it over the past year and a half.” Now she looked up at Peter, and the expression was a little challenging.
“What I need you to tell me now,” she said, “is exactly where you got this phone in the first place.”
“Uh,” Peter said. Those gray-blue eyes looked at him, and he said, “Uh, Spider-Man passed it on to me.”
Doris looked at him. Then she nodded. “I thought so,” she said and glanced over toward one of the coffee tables across the room. Peter followed the glance, and saw, somewhat to his surprise, a copy of Webs, the coffee-table book of Spider-Man pictures he had gotten published not too long ago.
“Yes,” she said, “I did just a little checking up on you. I tend not to take things at face value, in my line of
work.” And she smiled slightly: that sunny look again. “Where did your web-slinging friend find it?”
“At a crime scene of some kind. A robbery, I think.”
“Hmm. Yes, that would fit in.” She got up and went over to an escritoire by the wall—yet another beautiful antique—and pulled its doors open. A computer and printer were hidden inside, and by the printer was some stacked-up paperwork. She brought it over to the table. “Here,” she said, “is a list of all the phone numbers that this phone has ‘owned’ in the last year and a half. All stolen from other, legally held phones belonging to the three New York companies, and two of the Connecticut ones, and some from Pennsylvania.”
She turned back to the escritoire. “And here,” she said, coming back to Peter with a ream package of paper and plumping it down on the table in front of him, “is a list of all the numbers called by this phone during that period.”
He stared at the wrapped package. “This is a list?”
“Four hundred and fifty-three pages,” Doris said. “The numbers are ranked most-used to least-used. It’s interesting reading. A lot of calls to betting shops, hundreds of calls to a corner grocery not far from here.” She looked rueful. “I used to shop there all the time. I’ve stopped now. But almost all of them are calls to places that are the subject of an ongoing police investigation. So if your friend Spider-Man is interested in this kind of thing, you’d better pass this information on to him. I hope he’s a fast reader.” She thought a moment and added, “If he has a computer, I can give you this data on disk. It’ll be easier to sort.”
