G. H. Stone: Fatal Error

The guys turned. A short man with a whistle dangling from his bull neck pushed them aside and strode into the warehouse. “You step out to answer a question, and look what happens!” he muttered as he picked up a wall telephone and dialed. “Security!”

As he talked into the telephone, the dirt clumps and the scouring powder encircled the Investigators.

“How’d you guys get in?” asked the first dirt clod curiously.

“We never have visitors,” explained the second.

“That’s right,” the third added. “Not since the last batch of kids broke in and stole the old Grim Speaker masks and capes out of the garbage.”

Like E.T. and Batman, the Grim Speaker was a classic character loved by millions of viewers around the world. The difference was that the Grim Speaker appeared not in entertainment movies but in commercials to save the environment.

“Wait a minute,” Jupiter said. “What do you guys have to do with the Grim Speaker?”

“Our company made him. He’s manufactured, acted, and filmed here.”

“I don’t get it,” Jupe said with a puzzled frown. “I thought Oracle Light and Magic owned the Grim Speaker. They’re in L.A.”

“That’s us!” said the first dirt clod proudly. “We moved. We’re Oracle Light and Magic!”

“You’re the famous special-effects company?” Bob cried. “You did Cosmic Trek !”

“Harold, put a clam on it!” a baldheaded man in a business suit warned the dirt clod. He had come in through a door at the back of the room. Now he studied the boys through the wire-rimmed eyeglasses on his severe, lined face. Jupiter had a sudden feeling he should know him.

Meanwhile the short man with the whistle ran to keep up with the one in the glasses. “Throw them out!” he said, pointing at the Investigators.

“Who are you?” the severe-faced man demanded as he closed in. “You’d better have a good reason for being here, or your next stop will be jail .”

The scouring powder leaned toward the Investigators. They backed away quickly, remembering the white spray that had erupted from its top. But the powder simply wanted to talk. “Meet Silas Ek,” it said. “Chief of security. And Cole Paciano, our director.”

Jupiter took in the situation quickly and said smoothly, “Mr. Ek. Just the man we wanted to talk to.”

In a crisis, Jupe often drew on his childhood acting experience. Now he slipped into the role of a polished diplomat, introducing the guys and describing the cries for help they’d heard.

“We rushed in to the rescue,” Jupe said, laying it on thick. “We thought we were heroes, but it seems instead we were trespassers !”

The Three Investigators and the costumed actors laughed.

Silas Ek didn’t. “What were you doing outside?” he growled.

“As a matter of fact, we were looking for one of your programmers,” Jupe said. “Norton Rome.”

“Nort!” the first dirt lump said. “Now that’s one wacky guy. I mean strange. He’s the one who… ”

“Harold!” Silas Ek warned.

“Oops! Sorry, Silas.” The dirt clod backed away.

Cole Paciano, who had been impatiently watching the proceedings, stuck the whistle in his mouth and blew. “Back to work!” he ordered.

As the actors scurried to the center of the room and resumed their roles, Silas Ek studied the Investigators once more. Ek’s face seemed even more severe, the lines deeper. Jupe sensed he’d hit a nerve with Norton Rome’s name, and it was making Ek change his tactics. The security chief became friendlier.

“Come with me,” he invited. “We’ll talk in my office.”

“Great!” Pete said, pleased. “Can we see some of Oracle Light and Magic? You guys are fantastic. Wait till I tell Kelly — that’s my girlfriend!” And he’d blow his dad’s mind too. Mr. Crenshaw was in special effects himself, though nothing as high-octane as Oracle.

“That’s just what we don’t want,” Ek said as he led the Investigators through the rehearsal hall’s door and down a corridor. Glass-windowed offices lined one side, while fire extinguishers and photos of famous Oracle creations dotted the other. “We moved here to get away from notoriety.”

“That’s why you operate under a false name, the Reasoner Corporation?” Jupe asked.

Ek nodded. “In L.A. we had to have guards everywhere to keep people from sneaking in and stealing souvenirs.’ We don’t want the public to know where we are now.”

“We heard about the Grim Speaker stuff,” Bob told him.

“That was the final straw,” Ek agreed.

On Jupiter’s left, rows of computers crammed an enormous glassed-in room. The sign on the door said computer graphics department. All but three of the computers were dark, but at those three, programmers hunched over their keyboards, working feverishly. Jupe stopped abruptly to stare at the screens. They were filled with nonsense numbers and letters — garbage!

Bob, who had been following Jupe, bumped smack into him. Stout Jupe hardly budged, so intent was he on what he saw.

“Come on, Jupe,” Bob complained. “Get the lead out.”

“Keep moving,” Ek insisted.

Jupe asked Ek, “Oracle does a lot of computer graphics?”

“One of our specialties,” Ek said, increasing his pace so that the guys had to trot to keep up, “The animated computer graphics on Cosmic Trek set the industry standard. Everyone thinks computer animation started with the first Star Wars . But all computers did then, basically, was figure angles and speeds for the cameras to film miniature models of spaceships, floating cars, and so forth.”

“I’ve seen that movie eighteen times,” Pete said. “At least. I thought all the spaceship battles were animated on computers!”

“That’s what everyone thinks. But no drawings were animated. They just shot models.”

Ek climbed a flight of stairs up to a wide landing. There a full-length painting of a smiling woman in a fashion spacesuit peered down on them.

“Hey, isn’t that Phyllis Hyem?” asked Jupe.

“The lady who founded Oracle!” Bob said.

“She’s famous,” added Pete.

“Yes, that’s Ms. Hyem.” Ek opened the first door on the left. They entered a long office with a picture window on one side that looked out over the Oracle complex. Ek had a good view of the small buildings and sheds that dotted the grounds. A dozen security monitors covered the far wall of the office. They showed views of Oracle’s exterior, studios, and production rooms.

“You guys really stay on top of things in security,” Bob said, impressed with the monitors.

“Sit down,” Ek said pleasantly, and gestured at three canvas chairs in front of his desk. He sat down behind his desk, facing the guys and the video monitors.

“You asked about Nort Rome,” the security chief said. “Mind telling me why?”

“Sure,” Jupe answered. “He came to talk to my computer club and left behind something I want to return. But he wasn’t home yesterday or today.”

“He’s on an extended vacation,” Ek said promptly. “Why don’t you leave whatever it is with me? I’ll see that he gets it.”

“You don’t want what he left behind!” Pete warned the security chief.

“Not unless you want a computer virus!” Bob added.

Jupiter nodded. “But it looks to me as if Oracle’s already infected with a computer virus.”

“What?” Bob and Pete said. Silas Ek frowned angrily and picked up a paper-weight in the shape of a Cosmic Trek laser gun. “Aren’t you going off the deep end, young man?”

Jupe went on logically. “Your whole computer graphics department is closed down, even though you’ve got probably the busiest one in the nation. The only three computers that you’ve got on aren’t working — their screens are filled with the same junk that’s on our PC at home.”