Mr. Mead stepped out of the cool darkness of the metallic police car that had been his home for the past five hours. The bright light of the sun burned his eyes as he looked up at the large metal building looming over him.
"Welcome to the C.I.E." Said the 6 foot 5in giant of a man standing in front of him with tan darkened skin. "The Center of Idea Extracting, you will address me as sergeant and nothing but sergeant."
"I'm sorry sir" claimed Mead. "I have no idea what you're talking about. I thought I was supposed to be going to the psychiatric center for research on regressive tendencies?"
"That's just what we tell people as an excuse for collecting weirdoes. Now, if you will come with me"
Sergeant put an arm around Mead shoulders and led him to the large metallic building.
The inside the building smelled just like the police car. Its silvery walls sparkled too much for Mead or for any one for that matter. Sergeant led him down several halls with no distinctions from one to another. He showed him to a small white room. A desk and a chair were siting off on the left side of the room and an uncomfortable looking bed was sitting on the wall opposite the door. A dresser stood on the wall beside the desk. A minuet widow was on the back wall. It was only about 2ft wide and 2ft tall and when you looked through you could see a seemingly infinite range of mountains. On the right wall there were two doors.
"The door on the right leads to your bathroom the other leads to the machine room. You will only enter when you are told to otherwise it's locked." The sergeant stated. "There's a folder on your desk that has all the information you will need. There are clothes in the closest on the left wall that will fit you if you want to change. You are expected to be in the meeting room in 30 minutes, it's the room at the end of the hallway to the left."
Mead sat at the end of the bed which was surprisingly comfortable. He walked to the closet and found an assortment of slacks, jeans, tee shirts and long sleeve shirts. At the bottom of the closet lied two pairs of shoes, a pair of white sneakers and a pair of light brown loafers. He pulled on a pair of jeans and a tee shirt and was surprised to find that they fit even thought they weren't to his taste.
Mead directed his attention to the folder on the desk. It was manila colored and the words "C.I.E. classified" were written on it in large red letters. He opened the folder to find multiple pictures of him walking down the dark streets of his town or at his desk coming up with new story for the science fiction magazine that he used to work for before TV became all anyone ever paid attention to. He pulled a packet of paper almost ten sheets thick from the small stack of papers titled rules and regulations. The list ended at number 312.
Finally after he leafed through most of the folder he found what he was looking for, a packet titled "history of the CIE." He found the page called "what we do" it had a large play button on it. He tapped it and a voice like the ones you hear during commentary at football games sprouted out.
"The C.I.E. stands for center of idea extracting; here your wildest thoughts and dreams will be transferred on to the big screen, quite literally. We take your thoughts and ideas and turn them into television programs. We have a machine that takes your creative imagination on to a live screen and eventually broadcast it to the world. When the public wants a new show we have one of our people think one up. We have a person for every kind of show one for drama, one for romance, one for action, exedra. We make sure we have all that you need to keep being Imaginative including an extensive library. Now that you have all your information you can start working. Good luck!
The voice clicked off. Mead turned his head to the wall clock above his door. His 30 minutes was up. He left his new room and turned down the hall towards the meeting room.
He entered the room and it was empty except for a thin wiry man with a head of kinky black hair some were between forty and fifty. He was sitting on his knees on the rectangular table that took up most of the room. His arms were shoulder length in the table pulling at the wires in side of it. At last he stepped back and steeped of the table and hit a switch on the wall. A projector slid out of the table. The man smiled satisfied with himself. He looked at mead and shook his head. "New, new, so, sooo new. You know what we do yet you still can't come to believe that you of all people are here. After all you're just the man that walks in the dark." His light violet eyes gleamed as he said this as if he were mad man.
Before Mead could answer or ask for the man's name a small girl with hair like poppy's stepped in to the room rubbing her sleepy eyes. "Hatter what are doing here?" the girl asked
The mad man's eyes softened at the sight of her. "Lilly," he answered the seven year old girl "I'm here to see you of course!" he pulled the little girl in to his arms and hugged her.
"Are you goanna stay grandpa?" she asked him
"I'm sorry Lilly I'm afraid I can't" he answered sadly
"I have to go get the machine ready for after the meeting."
"All right hatter, I'll see you later" the girl answered cheerily
"All right sweetie. I will see you later" with that note he left the room.
"How could this little girl be that mad man's granddaughter?" Mead thought to himself. Confused as he was mead didn't have the time to realize that this was just the beginning, because only a second after that another girl stepped in to the meeting room. She was short and dressed in all black except for the shirt she was wearing that looked like it became a splatter wall for the color red. She looked to be in her early twenties maybe younger.
"Hey Olive" Lilly said jumping out of her chair "where's R.J." She asked "he will be here in a minute" Olive answered
Soon enough exactly one minute later a tall blond man in his mid-twenties stepped in to the room. Lily ran in to his arms and embraced him "hey sweet heart who's the old man?" he inquired his voice in one fluid motion, quick as a wink.
"I'm Lenard Mead" he answered attentively "cool" answered R.J. "I guess you're taking Milos place then as the science fantasy provider. Good luck they will need you a lot they tired Milo out fast. Only five years until he went insane. Although he was even older than you so I guess you're goanna last a few more years."
Before Mead could even think of what to say the sergeant walked in. The sergeant carried four folders just like the one that were lying on the desk in Lenard's room. The only difference was that these were thinner. He handed one to each on them. Mead opened his folder and found a slip of paper in side.
The sergeant addressed Mead "This slip tells you what kind of new show the public wants. If you read it you will see that they want a mission to mars with a female led and a love tringle. So when you go to the machine that's the story you will think up one with a female led on mars with a love tringle."
"All right I think I can do that" Mead answered
"Ok Lily, Olive, R.J. You have fifteen minutes before it's your turn so go think about what your goanna do. Mead you come with me"
Sergeant started down the halls, Mead had to run to keep up. Mead reached his bedroom door and turned to see sergeant unlocking the second door on the right wall. He disappeared in side and Mead followed not wanting to lose him. Inside the room there was a single chair in the middle of the room and it was connected to something that looked very much like the hair dryers you would see in a beauty shop there was a large TV screen on the right wall that had wires running to the hair dryer on the chair. The mad man was standing next to the chair fiddling with the wires around it. "All right Mr. Mead sit down in the chair and I will hook you up to the scanner. The easiest way I think to get a story is to dream one up; you might want to try that." So Mead sat in the chair and let the mad man put the hair dryer contraption on him. He leaned his head back in his chair and dozed off.
Mead woke up. He was sitting in his own bed, in his own house; looking out his own window he found that it was the middle of the night. So because he had nothing better to do he pulled on his sneakers and went for a walk.