"Because it has been claimed and scripted," the script girl replied.
The stage manager looked over the episode again. It was still a void, a placeholder in the great gulf of potentiality represented by AddVenture space optioned but not yet written. Had it been nearer the ragged edge of the constantly advancing written wavefront constituting the Periphery of the AddVenture it would have been peopled by the ghost images of nascent concepts and shadow beings struggling toward birth. But out this far there was hardly even a hint of that -- the only whispers of reality blowing through this region of the void were those set moving by the words in its Option.
To use Biblical terms, it was as if someone had said "Let there be light," but no one had yet lit a match.
The stage manager looked back at the script girl. "It's unfilled," he repeated.
"Yes," she sighed, "and that's exactly the problem. "We've been getting complaints from all over from Readers who got the rush notices and looked for the reference -- but only found this."
"I'm not sure I understand you. Are you trying to tell me that this option has been claimed and been scripted, but it's not here?!?"
"Yes, if you had been listening you'd know that's exactly what I'm telling you."
"Well, then, where is it?"
"I don't know."
The stage manager snorted in disgust. "Get the Operator on the line and call Adama," he ordered. "If it's to be found, the Indexer will know where. Then we can plug it in where it belongs, or, failing that, link out to it."
"I've tried that already. Adama's incommunicado. I was actually reduced to wheedling the proofreader into visiting all the nearby reference numbers in case the episode just slipped by a digit or two. He didn't want to, but I convinced him the situation was in Error, and hence under his purview."
"And--?"
"He didn't come back. Why do you think I called you in?"
"Huh! Didn't return, eh? Not surprising, given his level of competence. The typos that man lets slip through!"
"Now, now, be fair," the script girl admonished. "You know he's overburdened. Half the Authors we get are sweaty-palmed adolescents so focused on sex they couldn't spell their way out of a paper bag. He's got to be able to understand their gibberish before he can make a stab at correcting it."
"Whatever. T, what a mess! What the hell are we supposed to do?"
"I was hoping you could tell me that. But whatever we do, it needs to be quick, before our presence here attracts the attention of--" Glancing nervously out the fourth wall, the script girl froze. "Oh, bloody hell!" she swore.
The stage manager, following her gaze, echoed her comment. Keeping his eyes fixed on the Reader, he advanced slowly towards the Wall, his hands spread placatingly. "Move along, move along," he murmured. "Nothing to see here, move along...." If he could get the Reader to leave, he knew, the Episode would retain its potential. Otherwise their presence here might become Fixed, and no repair would be possible. T knew they didn't want that happening again. Such Fixings had happened enough in the past that the Readers were actually beginning to get some sense of his and his crew's existence, and that was bad -- very bad. And they were supposed to stay strictly behind the scenes....
The Reader's eyes began to glaze and lose focus. Good, good, the stage manager thought. He's losing interest....
That's when the proofreader finally returned, fucking everything up.
"Sandra!" he cried. "Sandra! I found it! It wasn't a sideslip, the scripting got shoved downthread several episodes and misfiled to a generic option! Come and help ... me ... move ... it?" He ground to a halt as he, too, saw the Reader.
"Your timing," the script girl told him, "could hardly have been worse."
"A Reader," the proofer groaned. "Shit! We're Fixed, aren't we?"
"We weren't," said the stage manager significantly, "but we are now."
"Fuck. Fuck, fuck, FUCK!"
"Simmer down, Daimler," the script girl soothed. "We can still salvage this. Do you have the number? We may have been Fixed into filling this Episode, but we can still link out to the originally optioned scripting. Quick! What's the new reference?"
"It makes no difference now," the proofer groaned in despair. "The T-forsaken thing's unlinkable!"
"What?!?" roared the stage manager. "What's the matter with these Authors? Backstage episodes are always linkable! It's a rule, damn it!"
"Well this Author broke that one," said the proofer miserably.
"Along with the thread," replied the stage manager in an ominous tone. "I tell you, crew, it's days like this that make me just want to chuck it and go back into retail with Cliff. How the hell are we going to get out of this mess?" He thought for a moment. "We need a subroutine," he decided. "Sandra! Get Macro!"
"Macro?" asked the script girl, startled. "But he's -- he's in the story!"
"Well pull him out of it, while there still is a story!" snapped the stage manager. "He's the only one handy who can do this!"
"You mean--?"
The stage manager nodded grimly. "Yes. We'll have to Javascript this one. And right out in the open, too...."
And as the interested Reader looked on, or rather, in, the proofer ran off to fetch Macro, who came, saw, and devised the appropriate remedy.
"Here," he told the Reader, "the episode you expected to find here is actually .”
But for the more traditionally minded, Macro also whipped up an ersatz option repeating the parent one, which also led to the desired episode.
Go back - Go to the parent episode.
Tue Jan 27 13:19:56 2004
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