Advanced Mythology (15 page)

Jen Schick noticed the long faces all around the table. “Hang in there for the Mark Two. It won’t have a keyboard, so it ought to be a lot cheaper.”

Keith shook his head. His heart belonged to Doris. No other pocket computer would do.

***

Chapter 13

Stefan looked up at the office building on La Salle Street, and scratched his head. “This place? It does not look like a wizard’s stronghold.”

“What are you expecting?” Beach said testily. “A castle with glowing turrets? This is modern America. If Ming says that a transmission containing the lingo was sent from here, that’s all it is. We don’t know if it originated from here, or if it’s a way-station between two points that haven’t been detected.”

“How do we find that out?”

“We talk to someone,” Beach said. “We ask questions.”

He’d been keeping a close eye on the Perkins Delaney Queen agency all day. God, American security was lax. They had locks on the doors, but they let you in on any pretext whatsoever. The receptionist had admitted Beach into the PDQ building at eight a.m. because he claimed he had a delivery for one of the names on the personnel list provided for his convenience in the lobby. She’d paid little attention to him thereafter. If he’d been serious about destroying their business, the bomb squad would have been picking up pieces, and no one would have connected it to the man in the natty gray suit who’d only stopped in for a moment and strolled casually out afterwards. Nothing about the suite of offices suggested that anything remotely mysterious was going on inside, but Beach knew better.

“Two weeks ago,” Stefan exclaimed. “What we want may have gone away from here by now. The program should work faster than that.”

“You fool, Omnivore has to sort through billions of messages every day,” Beach snapped. “The miracle is that we got word this fast. It’s only dredged up the image. It’ll take time to resurrect the whole of the message it was inserted into.”

Stefan frowned. “Then how did we find the location so quickly?”

Beach grinned like a death’s head. “Because Perkins Delaney Queen most obligingly put their address in the lower corner of the page.”

He had the sheet containing the sample of mysterious typography folded up in his inside breast pocket. It had been inserted into the midst of a graphic, presumably being sent from one business to another—but Beach wasn’t that naïve. Both addresses had to be covers for something else of a higher level. Ming had been very excited about the find. A healthy dollop of text, in a combination, the linguists had assured Beach, were in the same language, but this particular combination of words had not been seen before. They had no record of similar phrasing, not even in the precious documents locked up in the stronghold in Eastern Europe. Therefore, it was new. And it was in the midst of an advertising layout, where nearly everyone would overlook it, except the person or persons it was meant for. Therefore, someone at the agency knew this lingo. Follow the lingo, he thought, and you find the source.

Someone in there knew what it meant. The place looked so very innocent. He could only guess what secret government machinations were going on inside. The Americans, with their vast resources, didn’t need the further advantage of magic.
He
wanted it. It rightfully belonged to the disenfranchised of the world. He needed an inside contact. Beach was prepared to go to any lengths: threats, bribery, blackmail. All he needed was one vulnerable employee.

He’d counted almost a hundred men and women entering the building in the morning. Most of them did not leave the building at lunchtime. A privileged-looking few in executive-level clothing left in clusters or taxis in the early afternoon. Several food-delivery services entered, carrying white cardboard boxes or bags to feed the rest. But one boy, a slim young man with red hair, had emerged onto the pavement, walked to the nearest east-west street and hopped a bus going east. Leaving instructions for his enforcers to keep watch on the agency, Beach hailed a taxi to follow him. Stefan and one of the men took the cab that pulled up behind.

When the bus reached the lakefront, the lad swung out, hiked into the big park and found himself a seat by the fountain. Excellent. The sound of the water would cover their … negotiations. Beach gave him a chance to get settled. He stood admiring beds of gold and bronze asters planted throughout the huge lake front park, pretending that he was an ordinary tourist. Though his expression was bland, inside he was tense with anticipation. He waited a while longer, then approached.

* * *

Keith sat on the bench and stared out at the faint gray-blue line of Lake Michigan. The bright sun glinted off the sails of the boats nipping in and out of the breakwater past the end of Navy Pier. Keith began to wonder if he’d made a mistake coming to Grant Park to study. There were too many distractions in a nice day like this. His eye followed sailboats out through the breakwater. Birds circled above his head, calling for a handout. People milled around Buckingham Fountain, enjoying the nice weather, wondering how long it would be until fall kicked in. With a mixture of pleasure and guilt Keith closed his textbook on his finger to take in the scene. He should have taken Paul Meier up on his offer of a meeting room at PDQ. How could you think about administration issues when lake gulls were crying, and children were clamoring at their parents to let them wade in the fountain? Keith grinned, remembering countless times when his father had had to haul him and his four siblings out of the water. That was before the city had freshened up the statuary and relined the pools under the dancing water. Buckingham looked amazing now. Chicago had an inferiority complex next to the rest of the world, but in Keith’s opinion it had nothing to worry about. It was a serious city, deserving of its rating as one of the great places. Okay; so it wasn’t as old as London, or as busy as New York, but it had an identity with charm and style.

“I’m writing copy again,” he said, with a deprecating grin at his own flights of fancy. He opened the textbook, but his mind refused to settle down. The place was so alive. It would be a great spot to practice magic. He’d been working on making a little flame appear, real fire. Such a display would be small potatoes to the elves, but he was proud of it. How would it be, he thought, if he created a tossing, dancing fire right here on the palm of his hand, that would emulate the spray of the fountain? Holl would probably tell him not to be so frivolous. Maybe. The blond elf was capable of his own fanciful acts.

Keith was dismayed that Holl had backed out on his promise to come up to Chicago for a visit. The two of them had promised Maura a few days of doing touristy things, like seeing the Art Institute and the museums, and maybe going to a play one evening. She was shy about coming out among Big people, but with Keith and Holl both looking after her she ought to be fine. Dola could reassure her, but the older ones never listened to the younger ones, even when they were right. Some things were the same no matter how tall a person was. Keith had also been counting on the privacy to ask about what had been eating Holl since before the school year began. The young elf had avoided any and all private chats while he was down at the farm on weekends. Keith hoped it wasn’t something
he’d
done.

He’d have to turn on the charm. Christmas shopping wasn’t all that far away. Holl liked to indulge Maura. She rarely asked for anything, and she took such pleasure in small favors. She’d talked longingly about seeing the sights. How could Holl say no? The holly and ornaments would be up the day after Halloween. Keith brightened. That was the day the Origami ads would debut, and Keith could show off what he’d been doing. Except for asking for their help on the poster, he’d kept the rest of his work secret.

If they did come he’d have to move home to his parents’ for a couple of days. Space in the Crash Site was already at a premium, what with three active men occupying a small apartment with one bath. There’d be no privacy for Maura. Keith’s folks had offered their hospitality. They liked the Little Ones. Keith was surprised how well his parents took in their stride the presence of mythological beings occasionally occupying their guest room. Of course, they’d been raised on The Lord of the Rings.
Maybe he should be surprised that it took an
extra
generation to discover the Little Folk.

Better buckle down to the wonders of Entrepreneurship.
There was a test on Saturday.

* * *

The bench creaked when Beach sat down. The boy wriggled to a more comfortable position as the boards under his bottom shifted. Amazing that, after what he considered an unforgivable miss by Maria, good old technology managed to pin down a source of the lingo almost under their noses. She must have been wrong all along about the downstate location. Omnivore was a godsend. If the boy had any connection to his goal, he would discover it.

“Nice day,” he said. The boy glanced up, surprised, and gave him a pleasant grin, stranger to stranger. He had clear, hazel eyes that picked up the color of the trees. Guileless. A perfect target.

“Yeah. Beautiful weather.” The boy went back to his book.

“What’s the name of this fountain?” Beach asked.

“Buckingham,” the red-headed boy said, making brief eye contact, still friendly. “Named after some politician, I think.” His eyes dropped back to the page again.

Beach waited for a moment.

“Good view.”

Eyes up. “Yeah.” Down.

“What do you know about this?” Beach took the graphic image from his pocket and shoved it across the bench toward the youth.

Up. Glance at the paper. Down. Pause.

The boy’s eyes came up again, this time meeting Beach’s gaze squarely, mouth agape, his narrow, freckled face pale with alarm.

“What can you tell me about this?” Beach pressed, leaning closer to the young man. “What?”

“Nothing!” he sputtered, springing to his feet. He snatched up his papers and books in his arms. Beach stood up, but by then the young man was sprinting across the pavilion.

Stefan appeared from his place of concealment and folded his arms, nodded significantly toward the disappearing youth. Beach shook his head. No, there was no reason to detain the young man. The fact that he fled from Beach when confronted with the words meant he had seen them before. It was not a mistake. PDQ knew something about the lingo. The agency must be the front for a deep-cover operation.
Good camouflage,
Beach thought. He’d have to remember that some time when he needed to establish an organization that no one would question. Now, to find out more about PDQ, and just how much they were concealing.

* * *

How could that man have a copy of the Origami ad? Keith thought, his heart pounding as he raced back toward PDQ. The top secret file, for which he’d signed a confidentiality agreement, promised solemnly he wouldn’t reveal to a single human being, a complete stranger shoves into his face right there in the middle of the park. And not only that, one of the very same ads
he’d
worked on. How could the man have gotten hold of it?

“How could this happen?” Dorothy asked, glaring at Keith, who told his story in between gasps for air. She had dragged him and Paul Meier into her office and locked the door. “Those Origami ads are highly confidential material! It had to go out of here in someone’s pocket.” Her eyes blazed.

“Not me, I swear,” Keith said, holding his hands up in surrender.

“Then
who?
”
Dorothy demanded.

“Now, now,” Paul said, taking hold of her shoulders. “It’s not Keith’s fault. It’s a good thing that he brought it to us. We might never have found out until it made the papers in the morning. What did the guy want, Keith? Did you recognize him?”

“No,” Keith said. “I’ve never seen him before, anywhere. He had a husky voice, and some kind of accent. All he said was ‘What can you tell me about this?’ I babbled out something like ‘I don’t know,’ and got away from him as soon as I could. I
didn’t
say anything about the project.”

“Good for you. All right.” Paul sighed and leaned against the door. “We’re going to have to tell Jason. He’s got to decide what to tell the client.”

“The leak could be on the Gadfly end, too,” Dorothy said. “They had to approve the layout. It was transmitted to their home office.”

Keith shook his head. “It couldn’t be. This was the new ad, with the dummy copy in place and the new headline.”

“It’s not likely to be Gadfly anyhow,” Paul said reasonably, though his face was grim. “Why would they shoot themselves in the foot? It’s only a couple of weeks until this ad premieres.”

“Then that means it’s us,” Dorothy said woefully. “We’ve got a leak or a mole. This is bad. I … I don’t know what to tell Jason. This is my first big account!”

“I’ll take care of it,” Paul promised.

He left, closing the door of Dorothy’s office behind him. Dorothy flopped down in her chair and stared at the wall in front of her. Keith had recovered his breath.

“What can I do?” he asked. Dorothy seemed to recall he was there. She sat up, reasserting her professionalism, but Keith could tell how shaken she was.

“Work on catalog copy for the Origami,” she said. “We still need blurbs for the Sharper Image and the e-shopping outlets. And nothing leaves this room, you understand me?” she asked, putting a finger under Keith’s nose. Then, she turned her back on him, her head drooping. Keith reached out, setting a reassuring hand on her arm, but she shook him off. After a moment, she settled down and began to work on the piles of paper overflowing her desk. Nothing he could say or do could console her. This could be the ruin of months of work.

Keith was disconsolate, too. He sat at his little table, doodling on his legal pad, trying to drag his mind away from the encounter in the park. He kept wondering if he could have done anything differently. It was unfair to blame him for the leak—he would
not
have broken confidentiality. Then he remembered: he had shown the advertisement, the very same advertisement, to the elves. But they’d never let anyone else see it. Why would they? But the fact that he
had
let someone else see the top-secret ad made it hard for him to deny that it was possible he was to blame. He moped through the hours remaining, unable to concentrate. By the time the day came to a merciful end, he hadn’t produced any useful ideas, but he’d nearly worn himself out feeling guilty.