Rick Cook - The Wizardry Quested

"How many?" the woman behind the counter asked.

"Two, no make that three sets."

"Fill out the forms over there and when you get done bring them back here." Secure in the knowledge that no one would pay any attention to what was on the forms until he was away from this world, Jerry indulged in an orgy of mendacity. By the time he was done he was president of his own company, Bal-Simba was

"Wizard In Chief* and Moira bore the title of " Exhibit A."

Since he had signed them all up for the seminars as well as the exhibit halls, the bill was in four figures. So much so that he was momentarily taken aback. What the heck, Jerry thought, it’s only money.

By the time he emerged, the better part of an hour later, Bal-Simba and Moira were waiting for him.

"Here." He handed Bal-Simba a paper bag of literature. "Most of this is junk but we can go through it later."

Next he gave Bal-Simba his badge. "Don’t lose this. You have to have it showing all the time."

The big wizard raised his eyebrows.

"Ifs, uh, a talisman, to get you into the exhibit areas."

Bal-Simba nodded and clipped it to his vest.

"Where shall I attach mine?" Moira asked.

"Just clip it to your: Ah, right. That is a problem."

Then it occurred to Jerry there might be a bigger problem. Even with a badge it would be nard to get a dragon into the exhibit areas.

"Wait a minute," Jerry said, "I’ve got an idea"

Ignoring the thronging crowds, Jerry went over to a banner decorating the side of the building. He quickly cut the ropes and gathered the banner as it fell.

"Here," he said to Bal-Simba, "help me drape this over her." With Bal-Simba holding one side of the sign, he threw the other over her back and crawled under her stomach. He barely missed being decapitated when Moira involuntarily raised a massively clawed hind foot.

"Be careful, will you?"

"Well, it tickles," Moira said.

With a little tugging and trimming he managed to get the cords tied under the dragon’s belly. That left the sign draped like a horse blanket over her sides. As a finishing touch he pinned Moira’s badge to the banner.

In the process Jerry noticed they had gathered a knot of onlookers.

"A dragon?" he heard one of them say.

"That’s the code name for IBM’s third-generation Personal Digital Assistant," announced woman in a serious gray business suit with Raiders shoulder pads and a pale silk jabot tied like a bow tie. "They’re pre-pre-announcing at the show to build momentum."

Her companion, a middle-aged man in a three-piece suit and a pony tail, looked unimpressed. "I think they should have stuck with the Little Tramp."

"I thought Harris was the company that used the dragon," said another bystander.

"See?" Jerry said softly to Moira. "This way everyone will think you’re advertising for a product"

"But the people who own the sign will know she is not with them, will they not?" Jerry smiled up at the dragon. "Forget it. It’s IBM. They’re so big and so confused everyone will just think it’s from another division." He turned to Moira. "If anyone asks tell them you were part of the Lotus acquisition. That’ll really keep ’em guessing."

Dragon and wizard in tow, Jerry made for the main entrance. The closer they got the thicker the crowds became. Although most of the throng was white and in business suits it was a wonderfully diverse group. Perhaps a quarter were women, dressed in everything from business suits to bunny suits (literally-someone had a product code-named "Easter" ). There were Indian Sikhs in business suits and turbans, American Sikhs in cotton pajamas and turbans, there were Chinese (both kinds), Japanese and Koreans from the Far East dressed in business suits. There were Chinese-Americans, Japanese-Americans and Korean-Americans, mostly in the American techie outfit of short-sleeved sport shirts and slacks. There were impeccably tailored Europeans and rumpled Americans. There were full beards and pony tails, although both were tending to gray and the pony tails started further back on the head than Jerry remembered-a reminder that the original technically oriented generation was being replaced by the corporate types, which made him a little sad. Here and there you could see the long white robes of an Arab or the rainbow robes of a West African.

They were standing in line waiting for shuttle buses, sitting on the grass eating off paper plates, leaning against the building resting their feet, handing out newspapers, rejecting newspapers, and talking, talking, talking. In addition to English of every conceivable variety, there were French and Spanish, Chinese and Korean, Japanese and Hindi, German and Russian, and a couple of things Jerry wasn’t even sure were languages at all.

He drank it all in in passing and flowed with the current of humanity toward the glass doors that led into the exhibit hall.

Three steps through the door and Jerry was in information overload. The place was not merely packed, it was stuffed. There were thousands of people in every direction, crammed shoulder to shoulder and seemingly all in motion. You couldn’t stand still unless you sought the lee side of an object to protect you from the flow.

"My Lord, I do not think I have ever seen so many people in one place at a time," Moira said in Jerry’s ear.

"Neither have I," Jerry told her. "They’re estimating two hundred and fifty thousand attendees this year."

"I see why you said this would be complicated," Bal-Simba rumbled.

Jerry flicked him a tight smile. This isn’t the complicated part."

Their first stop was the message center, in the hope that Taj had left someone a message saying where he was. Jerry didn’t have a lot of hope for that and he was right. After battling their way through the crowd and waiting in line at a terminal, Taj’s message box contained nothing but a couple of junk-mail announcements.

As they turned away and prepared to press onward, a man stepped in front of them waving his arms.

At first Jerry thought he was a high-tech mime. He had the jerky arm motions and sudden head movements.

"Amazing, isn’t it?" said a voice in his ear. Jerry turned and saw a man standing beside him with an armload of literature. He was trapped and he knew it

"It’s the first completely integrated Cybemautics system," the man said as he pressed a glossy brochure into Jerry’s hand. "There’s a P6 with a graphics accelerator in the backpack, transparent LCDs in the goggles and the gloves are 3-D pointing devices. There’s also a high-bandwidth cellular modem so you’re always hooked up. Right now he’s net surfing, playing Doom n and watching the Browns play the Bears, all at once. The next step is to install the ultrasonic proximity locators and the differential GPS system so he’ll never get lost." In spite of himself Jerry was impressed. The demonstrator continued waving his arms and jerking his head, oblivious to the conversation and the crowd.

"What do you do? Besides hand out literature."

The man looked apologetic. "I’m his guide. Without the ultrasonic locators he keeps bumping into walls."

Suiting his actions to his words, he took the cybernaut’s elbow and steered him away through the swirling throng.

"I think," Jerry said to Bal-Simba, "that’s a concept that needs a little development." Then he was all business. "Now let me see the show guide. Sigurd said Taj was interested in scientific visualization software."