Somehow Allan and Mikkel had each managed to score a red carpet photo with at least one Hollywood A-list starlet at this celebrity fundraiser for the cure to some disease. Which meant their picture would be in every tabloid web site and celebrity blog for the next couple of days. Which meant their Q-score would climb at least three points. Which meant their agent could ask for more money for them to appear at the next celebrity fundraiser for the cure to some disease, and so on.
“How do you manage it?” Allan asked the actress, whose name he could not remember, as he maintained a practiced smile for the paparazzi. “I mean, isn’t this, like, your third one of these so far this month? I’m sure I saw you last week at the Hurricane Norman Relief fundraiser, and the week before that, wasn’t it Nurses Without Nationalities?”
The A-list starlet placed her left hand on her hip, angled her right knee to better show off her red Manolos. She was concerned about appearing in the same shot with an almost-but-not-quite A-list filmmaker, albeit an up-and-coming not-quite A-list filmmaker. “Honestly, I’ve lost count.” She managed to answer without turning her head or changing expression as camera flashes lit up their faces like miniature fireworks. Behind them the names and logos of the charity and its sponsors were printed on a white matte backdrop in a repeating pattern that guaranteed appearance in every photo, no matter how tightly cropped. Allan learned early on you could always gauge the importance of an event by the number of sponsor logos on the photo backdrop.
At dinner (butterfly salmon pâté with caviar and peppered chateaubriand with port wine glacé), Mikkel chatted up an insurance underwriter from Oxnard, under the impression he was a B-list producer. “So we’ve got a development deal for two more pictures, but we may exercise our option on those. I mean, creatively, you know, we’re getting a little tired of the same old storyline. Want to branch out, maybe do some animation.”
The insurance man, who had no idea who Mikkel was, kept scanning the room for the A-list celebrities he’d paid a thousand bucks to see. Clearly this loser wasn’t one of them. “You don’t say. You mean, voiceover work?” He speared a bite of pâté, washed it down with some decent champagne.
“Oh, no, no, no. I’m talking Pixar or Disney, one of those places. I’m thinking we could do some good business, maybe start a series going. You know, like Toy Story, or Shrek. Like that.” The insurance man nodded in a way that signified he couldn’t care less. Mikkel’s eyes darted around, wondering when Allan had wandered off to. Last seen, he’d been arguing with the person in charge of the gift bags, complaining the complementary sneakers were not available in his size. Mikkel snagged one of his dinner rolls.
Just then a boy materialized next to the table, about twelve or thirteen, wearing clothes more expensive than his. While Mikkel was trying to figure out how he got past security, the kid started babbling in his ear. “So I just had to tell you, like, how much I really, really liked the graphic novel you guys did, and, like, how it’s really cool the way the Frankenstein character falls into a vat of chemicals and gets super-powers, and, like, only, some of the super powers don’t make sense, like, why can he see through things only at night and not during the day, and, like …”
When this sort of thing began happening with some frequency, it dawned on Mikkel that he and Allen had actually achieved a kind of fame. Had become recognizable objects of desire, separate from their “real” selves. People to be seen talking to, to be photographed with. Celebrities. True, they were not A-listers, not quite yet. They’re the guys available as last-minute fill-ins on late-night talk shows when someone cancelled, the on-call party guests when a clean but nerdy, quasi-bohemian vibe was required. Always ready with a quote for the next news cycle. Okay, minor celebrities. But that was enough.
It started with an uptick in personal e-mails from total strangers. Letters, requests for money from people they’d never met. Once their faces had been on TV there were greetings on the street, people in cars honking their horns. It began to become difficult to go anywhere with any hope of privacy. People coming up out of nowhere. “Aren’t you —?” Allan and Mikkel began to avoid public places, each with his own strategy for eluding the unblinking public eye. Allan used disguises until he was caught on video by a celebrity blog in a ridiculous beard and cap combo. Mikkel simply refused to make eye contact when he was outside, just kept walking.
As their options for public anonymity dwindled, Allan and Mikkel found themselves gaining entree into the exclusive world of celebrity society. It was heady stuff. Actors calling each other by their nicknames. Star athletes trading advice about nannies and daycare with celebrity chefs. The megastar with a billion-dollar worldwide grossing movie chatting with you about his golf score. Seeing an actress on the front page of a dozen tabloids and knowing you have her personal cell number. Like being a member of a secret society whose founding principles are power, money, importance and fame.
Just as Mikkel was about to give the kid his “Not now” look, the father showed up. “Aiden, lad, don’t bother the man when he’s trying to have a conversation. You know that’s rude, son.” To Mikkel: “Sorry, mate.”
It wasn’t the sunglasses or the leather outfit that stopped Mikkel mid-look. It was the voice, famous to millions as the lead singer of a certain multi-platinum rock band. The underwriter from Oxnard began to choke on a piece of beef. Mikkel stood up, right hand extended.
“Oh, hey, no problem. Mikkel Hansen. Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you.” He’s talking to me. Shaking my hand and talking to me, Mikkel thought. This is unreal. Be cool, now. Play it cool. Remember, you’re in the club, sort of. “Ah, won’t you join us? Allan’s stepped away for a moment but I’m sure he’ll be right back.”
The rock star glanced over at the insurance man, now dabbing sparkling water onto his tie with a napkin. Not in the club. “Thanks, mate, but I’ve got to get back. Maybe we can catch up later? There’s an after party at that new place on Sunset. Just give your name at the side door.” He placed two hands on the boy’s shoulders and turned him like a steering wheel until he was facing away from the table.
“Sure, great. Thanks. See you there.”
Allan returned as they were leaving, lugging two gift bags. “Who’s the kid?”
“That’s his son.”
“Huh. Nice sneakers.”
Missy was fast becoming a regular at the mall coffee shop. The baristas knew her by name and had her order ready by the time she was at the register. Once in a while, just to be a pain, Missy would ask for something different. She had to admit the café au lait with cinnamon was pretty good. Maybe life after black coffee wasn’t so bad after all. She’d arrive just as the place opened, staking out a spot in a corner near the coffeemakers and insulated mugs for sale and as far away from the rest of the seats as possible.
Always Missy assumed Jake was inside her head, watching her progress as she made her way through the tangled labyrinth of the Internet. Maybe that’s why she sat apart, to give the two of them some privacy. She couldn’t feel his presence, never knew when — or if — he’d come or gone. It reminded her of the first time she’d been vaccinated. She’d tensed up and closed her eyes and held her breath until the doctor said “That’s it — all done.” Just like that. Missy hadn’t felt a thing. This was the same kind of deal. Except much creepier.
The night after she’d fixed the computer Missy had again extracted a solemn promise that Jake would never, ever read her mind outside of the coffee shop, and only read it there for this purpose. Not go poking around. Realizing that’s exactly what he’d done in her bedroom, Jake made a similar vow to himself: never again. Even though he hadn’t intended to pry, he’d given his word. And that meant something, as he explained now to Missy.
“I’m sorry I can’t sign anything in blood,” he’d smiled. “Or even cross my heart and hope to die. But seriously, Missy, ghosts don’t lie; they can’t. The ghost rules are built around truthfulness. I have to keep my word. That’s just the way it is. Besides, it’s the way I am.”
“What do you mean?” Missy thought.
“I don’t know, I guess it’s how I was brought up. Mom and Dad were all about honesty and keeping your promises. I mean, you might do something bad; that was one thing. But lying about it was ten times worse.” Jake’s head was bowed, remembering, his hands in his pockets.
Missy knew there was a reason she liked this guy. That was her family, in a nutshell.
“On top of that I hate this whole stupid mind-reading superpower I have. I’d give it back if I could. I don’t want to know what people are thinking, Missy. I really don’t. I mean, at first it was cool, I have to admit. There was this woman in Max’s apartment …” Jake went on to tell the story of the chance encounter that revealed his ability. How it brought him to the attention of the ghost leadership. “And then, when I couldn’t read your mind at the Lizzie Borden house, Betty and I went to a mall to make sure I could still do it. I must have passed through a couple dozen people that day. Each one bummed me out worse than the one before. It’s like, no one’s really happy. Out of all those people. They’re worried about money, or how they look, what other people think, or what’s gonna happen to them, or something about work or school or home is stressing them out. That’s when I realized that people’s private thoughts should stay private. I mean, I don’t just hear what they’re thinking, I feel it, too. The anxiety, the worry, the pain … all of it. It’s more than just empathy, it’s their sensations in me. Like, one guy was miserable because his dog had died. I was in his head for just a second but I felt so bad it took me, like, an hour to recover. And now I have his memory with me forever. So, thanks but no thanks. You don’t want me in your head? Believe me, Missy, I don’t want to be there.”
It was that speech, tumbling out of Jake like an overstuffed closet, that won Missy over. Not just to the job she’d already agreed to do, but to the entire ghost world. Missy now realized the figures in her dreams weren’t freakish blobs of ectoplasm trying to attack her sanity but actual, living people. Maybe not living in the conventional sense but existing like she did, with the same emotions, the same values she had. Missy still had no idea why she could communicate with them only in her dreams, but at least now she knew she wasn’t crazy. This other world was real, as real as this wobbly table in the corner of this stupid wi-fi hotspot.
Over the past few days Missy had logged more time on-line that in her entire life up to that point. Between the slow-as-molasses home computer and the limited hours at the library, Missy had had to focus on whatever task she needed to accomplish. Get on, get off, pronto. No surfing, no social networking. Now it was just the opposite. She was under orders to poke around the most popular web sites, find out what was trending (whatever that meant), see what people were talking about. And she could take her sweet time. As long as she ordered something Missy could stay until the place closed if she wanted to.
“You need to get a Facebook account,” Jake had said, surprised she didn’t already have one. “And all the other socials, too.” The moment she woke up Missy had written all of them down in her dream book, although it had taken her two mocha frappawhatsits to decipher them all. “Also, check out the entertainment sites,” Jake had added, naming half a dozen of the most popular. “Scan the posts and also read the comments. See what people are talking about.” He showed her how to find key words on a web page using her browser. For example all matches for mark twain would be highlighted, each in a little yellow box.
To a newbie like Missy, the part of the Internet concerned with connecting people who shared similar interests was seductive and crazy and undisciplined and just plain nuts, all at once. A person could spout the most idiotic gibberish imaginable, and, sure enough, someone else would come along and “like” it. Or you could be reasonable and sensible and a complete stranger would call you an idiot, or worse. The same for pictures and videos. Some of them, it was true, had made her laugh. She even copied one or two to her hard drive. A few images made her widen her eyes and put her hand over her mouth in disbelief. A lot of them contained pop culture references Missy didn’t understand, since she’d spent little or no time in front of the TV when she was growing up, hadn’t read comic books or science fiction, and the nearest movie house was a half-hour’s drive away. All of it was like the Wild West, she thought, only stupider.
No matter how much she may have disagreed with something she read, Missy had to resist the temptation to add any comments herself. Jake had told her, “Don’t get involved in anything you see on-line. Just look at it and move on. It doesn’t matter how fast you go; I can slow it down later.” Easier said than done. The computer made it so easy to copy a picture, post it somewhere else. Send a short message out to your “followers,” which to Missy sounded like you were pretending to be some sort of cult leader. Proper grammar or spelling weren’t necessary. In fact, seemed to be discouraged. Abbreviations, symbols and net-speak showed up everywhere. At first Missy kept a reference list of chat terms and social shorthand lingo, but Jake said not to bother. “It doesn’t matter if you understand what they’re saying; I do. All you have to do is scan it. It can even be in another language, although I’m pretty sure what we’re looking for is on the English-language sites.”
“If you can call this English,” Missy snorted, now reading a reply to a comment of a comment about some stupid new movie. Something called FrankenTwain. And apparently it was all over the Internet.
“Well, it was really Allan’s idea.” Mikkel and Allen wore chunky headphones and sat next to each other at a round table, coffee mugs in front of them. Microphones angled toward their mouths from extending desk lamp-style mechanical arms. A banner on the wall behind them screamed “Hot 109 Morning ZOOtopia.” The same logo was emblazoned on the mugs.
“Aw, thanks man, but I think we both thought of it.” Allan leaned forward in his ergonomic chair. “I mean, really, it just made sense, you know, if you’re doing a movie based on a story by Mark Twain, to put him in the picture. Like another character. So it would be, you know, like when the original Doctor Frankenstein faces the monster …”
“The creator dealing with his creation …” Mikkel added.
“Right, the creator has to confront the whole, you know, ugly situation,” Allan finished.
“Awesome insights from two awesome dudes! We’ll be right back with Allen and Mikkel, the creators of FrankenTwain, opening this Friday at theaters everywhere! You’re living the dream on Morning ZOOtopia with Moondog Mike! Hot 109 FM!” The radio host cued the engineer, setting off a chain reaction of sound effects, music bumpers and recorded commercials.
Jake paused the video clip. “That’s got to be it. Gotta be.” He bookmarked the radio show’s video and went back through all of Missy’s collected web site data, looking for the names Allan and Mikkel. He found the first mention of them in an article on one of the news aggregators. Something about a recently-discovered three-act opera by Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn meet Frankenstein. The two claimed to have found a portion of an original typewritten manuscript. They didn’t say where it was found. Several experts had gone over the sample they’d submitted for analysis. Although none was prepared to stake his or her reputation on its authenticity, at the same time they couldn’t point to definitive evidence that it wasn’t the real thing. The “is it or isn’t it” story was carried for days in over twelve thousand news outlets.
In the meantime, Jake read, Twain scholars had complained that the characters, the plot, and the writing style of the so-called “opera” were completely atypical of the great author. But these protests went largely unnoticed after Allan and Mikkel unleashed their video “based” on the manuscript. Jake located that with no trouble on YouTube, near the top of the “most watched” list with over eleven million views. Missy had only played it about halfway through before she’d moved on, and Jake could understand why. It was easily the stupidest thing he’d ever seen on-line, maybe even dumber than the farting panda set to music by Pink Floyd.
Jake arranged the search results chronologically, translucent icons hovering in space at eye level. He tapped one to bring it forward and enlarge. Allan and Mikkel had become the media wunderkids who wouldn’t go away. They gave interviews shamelessly, relentlessly, on any medium anywhere. Before their video had had a chance to become yesterday’s meme they were already knocking on Hollywood’s door. A director known for his Japanese anime work signed onto the film project. A couple of rising young stars agreed to portray Tom and Becky. The latest indie rock band flavor of the month would play on the soundtrack. And so on.
The clincher was another video Missy had found on YouTube, following a link from the original Allan/Mikkel production. Jake stretched it to fill his field of vision. It was a recent clip from one of the late-night TV talk shows, a much-beloved feature called “Vox Pop.” Its premise was simple. The host would stop random people and ask a general knowledge question, cherry-picking the silliest wrong answers and creating a video montage of illiteracy. Examples of past questions included “Who won the Civil War?” (Answers: “France,” “Mexico,” and “civilians”), and “Who was the first man on the moon?” (Answers: “John Glenn,” “Lance Armstrong,” and “Captain Kirk”).
As Jake watched, the TV host set up the premise. “This Friday, as you probably know, the movie FrankenTwain opens in theaters all over the country.” Applause. “We’ve had Allan Bunce and Mikkel Hansen on the show a couple of times, talking about the movie, which is based, uh, loosely, as I understand — on a manuscript. Am I right, Bill?
“Hi-oh!” Bill the bandleader grinned, gave a big thumb’s up accompanied by a rim shot.
The TV host turned to the audience, flashed his ironic “he’s a complete idiot but it’s all in good fun” smile and plowed ahead.
“So we wanted to know how many of our citizens on the street know who Mark Twain actually was and what he wrote. All right?” More applause from the audience, another flourish from the drummer. “So here’s what we found out, in this episode of ‘Vox Pop.’”
The band played an intro riff and the director rolled the pre-recorded video, which began with the host in a parking lot sticking his microphone in the face of a somewhat startled girl.
“Hi, I’m Johnny Banterman from the Late Evening Show. I’d like to ask you a question if that’s okay. What’s your name?”
“Uh, Michelle.”
“Michelle, how old are you?”
“Sixteen.”
“Sixteen, that’s great. So that’s not the question I have for you, okay?” Background laughter from the studio audience, watching on the monitors.
Michelle smiled nervously, wishing she were anywhere else.
“The question is, who was Mark Twain?”
“Say again?” Michelle twisted a strand of hair around one finger.
“Mark … Twain.” The host enunciated as though speaking to someone who was hearing-impaired.
Tentatively, “Uh, a rapper?”
The host was loving this. “A rapper?”
“Uh-huh.” Michelle, now feeling like she wanted to melt into the sidewalk.
“No, but thanks anyway.” More audience laughter. Cut to the next subjects. A young couple, obviously out on a date. The clip was picking up in mid-interview.
“Hi Curtis. And how old are you?” The host swiveled the mike into Curtis’s face, just missing the brim of his A’s cap.
“Eighteen.”
“Eighteen. Okay, here’s the question. Who was Mark Twain?”
“Oh, I know this.” Curtis turned for support to his girlfriend, standing nearby. “Do you know?” The girlfriend giggled and shook her head. Curtis looked back at the host. “Mark Twain, you said.”
“That’s right.”
“Ah, I think he was some kinda writer maybe?.”
“Very good!” The host turned to the camera, both eyebrows raised in mock surprise. “Can you name something he wrote?”
“Ah, gimme a second.” Curtis looked again at the girlfriend. No help there. “Is that the guy wrote all that stupid monster stuff?”
The host was loving this. “Monster stuff?”
“Yeah, you know … like Frankenstein and the Wolf Man and Dracula. Stupid stuff like that.”
The studio audience erupted in hoots and screams of delight. As Jake watched, the remainder of the segment produced more howlers. An older man thought Mark Twain was the host of a reality TV show. Two boys in a car were pretty sure he was the owner of a fast-food franchise. Walking out of a convenience store, a single woman said she remembered reading something about him somewhere but couldn’t think of what it was. The answers were edited to dovetail with the smirks and shrugs from host reactions into a seamless flow of stupidity. Jake felt as though he’d lost a few IQ points just looking at it.
So that must be it. Among those familiar with Mark Twain, his reputation was being called into question. Somehow the beloved writer of Tom Sawyer, et. al., had also penned a ridiculous libretto full of man-made monsters, anachronistic black holes and Transylvania. Dementia? Who knew. At the same time that portion of the populace who had no idea who Twain was, now thought he had something to do with Frankenstein’s monster.
This had to be causing the Vortex, right? Jake shook his head to clear it of memes, though sadly he now had those images forever.
“Missy, we need to locate these guys in real-time. I have to read their minds and try to figure out how this happened and see if we can make it un-happen somehow.” Jake was alone with Missy in her bedroom, Betty still on the East coast helping Tom the former tech journalist ease into the reality of Tom the ghost. Missy’s dream projection was sitting on her bed next to her sleeping self.
“How are you gonna do that? From what I see, they’re on the go pretty much all the time. All that celebrity stuff. Parties, red carpets, TV shows.” Jake had shown Missy how to set up a CelebAlert on the computer; now she received a text message whenever Allan and Mikkel were in any news story anywhere. On any given day at least two or three messages popped up on her screen: “Reese Witherspoon, Mikkel Hansen light up red carpet at euro film fest” and “Las Vegas Comic Con features FrankenTwain filmer Allan Bunce.”
Missy stood up, walked around to the foot of the bed. It was weird to watch herself sleeping. A thought occurred to her. “So if you’re in the same room together, could you tell it’s them? I mean, you know, like you see me?”
Jake let the memory of a rueful smile flicker over his mouth. “I wish. Sorry to say, ghosts can’t perceive anything in the spectrum of visible light. You all look like reddish-orange blobs to us, with a little blue and green mixed in. We can see outlines, so for instance it’s easy to tell if we’re looking at a human or an animal. And if we get really close we can see, like, the shape of a face. But no actual features. So for example I could pick out a basketball player in a roomful of normal-sized people, but if there were two basketball players I couldn’t tell you which was which.”
“So it wouldn’t do you any good to know where they are unless they’re alone,” Missy thought.
“Right. And I think I know how that could work.”