35

Sparko, the wombat with the spiky neon hair, wasn't a real person. He was a fictional character. But at any given moment, devoted cadres were watching, reading, listening to or otherwise experiencing parts of Sparko's life.

Deet thought about the cadres as he stood on a soundstage in the capital city of Norway. There were people all around him who knew what city they were in, but he didn't. He meant to look it up. He was embarassed not to know and embarrassed to let on.

Typical American, he thought. Plow a new place in your image. Someone is being destroyed by the plow, but by the time you move in, they're gone. Bulldoze yourself a climate-controlled bunker, put up some shiny American wallpaper, with more wallpaper on the inside of a limo or taxi.

He was aware of these ideas but carried on with the work, trying to compensate for the carved-out nature of his visit by not making any demands on his surroundings.

Which is silly, he thought, considering that this bunker has to be in someone's back yard.

The Wizard Star cast was international. The crew was all English, working illegally, just existing in a very literal way, relying on luck.

He opened the outermost door of the soundstage and walked inside. He heard a voice over the PA, not Norwegian, probably Brazilian.

"Writer's meeting, large conference room, writer's meeting, large conference room"

Good. The part of his job he enjoyed the most. He walked into the conference room and saw a motley assortment of writers, editors and other staff members. The mononym Klausthaler was there, wearing a Sparko T-shirt. When Deet saw it, he cracked up in loud laughter.

"All right, Sparko," he said, womping Klausthaler on the shoulder playfully. "Let's do some damage."

A visiting journalist, on seeing Deet's approach to production and creation and creativity, had been blunt.

"That's not how it's done!"

The writer was Debbie Nixon, from Rolling Stone and later a reporter with the Sloan City Daily News. Deet instantly suspected her reliance upon cultural trash. Her red hair was streaked with blue and her blouse was the same exact color scheme, so that where her hair tapered off was roughly where the redhead-red and the crayon-blue picked up on her shoulders, collar and back. She looked weird.

"Huh? Sorry, what?" Deet asked, his eye to the eyepiece of his camera. The interview was being conducted as Deet worked, which he had warily agreed to because he didn't wish to take time out of his schedule for the press.

"Sorry," Debbie said. "But nobody works like this! It's just ... wrong! The details are all wrong!"

Deet smiled. "Someone does do it this way. I do it this way."

"Doesn't it get awfully expensive? You've practically got a miniature city here! The fleet of limousines?"

Deet stepped away from his camera. "I would take a taxi," he explained patiently, "But I've heard that the taxis are Mafia. And I don't speak the language, so it would be very easy for me to get cheated on the fare."

He looked at Debbie again. He ventured a guess that she wasn't Norwegian

Anything is possible though, he thought.

Talking to another non-Norwegian made him feel better in some ways and made him queasy at the same time.

"What can I say?" he asked her. "Wizard Star brings in a very large amount of money for the producers, so I pretty much get carte blanche to do things my own way."

Debbie nodded.

"The key to Wizard Star is that we take our characters seriously. Sparko is a living breathing wombat to me and we're very careful about what we will allow him to do."

Debbie nodded again.

"For example, if one of our associates wanted to manufacture drinking glasses or clothes with Sparko's image on them, that would usually be fine. But if they wanted to produce additional stories or have Sparko dressing up as a cowboy or have Sparko actually wearing a Sparko T-shirt or holding out a Sparko T-shirt and saying, "BUY THIS', we would say no. And the best way to ensure I am always consulted on every decision is to administer every decision from here in our little city, as you call it."

"Gee," Debbie said. "So I've heard a few cassette tapes of Sparko stories, I guess they were the -"

"Books on tape, uh huh."

Debbie hesitated, nodding and rifling through notes. "Oh!" she said. "Did you read the New Yorker article? Well, Mittel thinks you're taking swipes at real people through Wizard Star."

Deet rolled his eyes. "Oh, the hatchet job theory. It's too easy, miss Nixon. That's like lazy journalism. What is he saying, that Megan the igneous rock, is-"

"Is Megan Rodgers. Bears a strange resemblance to Megan Rodgers."

Deet smiled. "No, that kind of thing would require a degree of time and organization which we just don't have around here. People like Mittel see grand designs in everything, especially when they're on a deadline. I think Mittel should-"

A voice on the PA system interrupted Deet.

"Writer's meeting, large conference room..."

"Oh," muttered Deet. "I'm double booked. Ms. Nixon, I have to - unless, would you like to sit in on a writer's meeting?"

"I sure would!"

"Then you can see for yourself just how disorganized we really are. Now, I would need you to sign a nondisclosure agreement with us."

"Wow," Debbie said. "Don't you have lawyers who do that kind of thing for you?"

"I am a lawyer," Deet said.

There was a beat, then he busted up.

"Hahahahaha! No, actually, it's a way we cut our costs, I guess you could say we're very extravagant in some ways and very frugal in others. I do everything! All the facilities work, the cooking, the cleaning, that's all on a rotation. We all take turns. It's just how I like to work. I don't -"

Debbie nodded. "So, um, the NDA? I mean, you don't want me to leak the plots for next season, of course. But can I talk about how you work with your writers? I-"

"Well," Deet said. "I wouldn't have a problem with your talking about us all sitting in a room, so long as you don't discuss any specific activities that our characters could be doing."

The PA cut in. "David Deet, please come to the large conference room. David Deet, large conference room"

"Okay," Deet said. "We're late. Let's go!"