Tieran had the distinct impression that it was not a computer technician standing behind him. He also suspected that she was not speaking of the print on the wall. If it was the person he thought, it sounded as though Amy may have been right after all. He turned around. No, unless their usual uniforms consisted of tailored dresses with tight, short skirts, this was not a computer technician.
"You are not the computer technician, are you? James mentioned one would be coming by this morning and I am afraid I assumed that was who you were."
"No, I'm not. I'm Caereh Williams." The dark-haired woman held out her manicured and heavily ringed hand. "I make it a point to stop by and meet all the new employees."
"Particularly the ones with foreign accents," Tieran thought. "Ah, you are the woman who owns the company. They told me you would be coming to see me personally. I did not expect a visit so soon. I thought you would be much too busy running the company to be visiting every employee. Do sit down." He gestured to the chair on the other side of his desk as he moved to sit behind it.
"Oh, no," she said positioning herself carefully as she sat down on the corner of the front section of his desk, empty except for the hammer he had left near the wall and a pencil, "I like to meet everyone coming into the company. I like for us all to be one big happy family." She smiled charmingly.
"With some members closer than others," he sighed mentally. Aloud he said, "I was told you were a great fan of the movie 'Labyrinth.'"
"Yes. What brings you here?"
"A job." He picked up the pencil and began to play with it.
"You don't sound American. You mean you came to the U.S. just to work here?"
"Yes. Most people do come to the United States to work, I understand."
She laughed, too loudly. "That's not quite what I meant." She tried another approach. "Your accent sounds familiar. I wonder where I have heard it before?"
"If it sounds familiar, I imagine you have heard it somewhere," he answered nonchalantly, but reminded himself to tread carefully. He did not want the owner of the company for an enemy – yet. He leaned back in his chair and crossed his feet on the edge of the desk nest to her. "Perhaps it will come to you."
"Where are you from?"
Pointblank. Could he manage a convincing lie? There was no way to evade that question without lying. Or was there? "Ah-ah-ah, I answered that question in your paperwork yesterday." He gestured at her with the pencil and smiled charmingly himself. "I make it a point never to answer the same question twice in a week. You must look it up for yourself." He hoped that he had not gone too far.
Fortunately, she laughed. "Now I must come up with a new set of questions."
"Or a new topic. I have one for you. Why do you like this movie enough to form a company for it?"
"The characters, of course."
"Of course. Why the company?"
"Now who's asking questions twice?"
"Ah, but you never answered it the first time. You told me why you enjoy the movie, not why you started the company."
She slipped off his desk and sauntered to the window behind him to look out of it. "It's the same reason, the characters. I wanted to create my own characters and plots."
"Why not write a story?"
She came and stood behind his chair. "Ah, but a character on paper is not the same thing as a three-dimensional one, one that moves and breathes." She leaned over him and placed her hands on his shoulders as she spoke.
He leaned forward, away from her, and swiveled the chair around to face her. "One's imagination can do even more than a good animation program. A program, no matter how good, cannot give you the feel, the smell, the taste stored in your memory for your imagination to use."
"Really?" She said with mock innocence.
"Did someone approach you with this new program or did you have them create it to your specifications?"
"I had them create it for me, but it exceeded even my expectations." She leaned over him again, face to face, placing a hand on either arm of the chair. "Throw enough money at it and you can get anything," she said in a low voice.
"Almost anything," Tieran answered in a voice gone suddenly cold as he placed the eraser of the pencil against her collarbone.
"Anything," she answered and backed away. She walked over to the door of his office and turned to speak to him from the doorway. "Here's a question I'll bet you haven't answered yet this week. What are you doing for lunch today?"
"Do you concern yourself with the lunch plans of all of your employees?"
"Only the ones that interest me. Have you been asked?"
"No, I have not. I happen to have brought my lunch with me today."
"The frugal sort, eh? Anything good?"
"I have no idea, my housekeeper made it for me." Perhaps that would stave off her ideas of buying him.
"Your housekeeper?" She frowned and tsked in disapproval. "A girlfriend or wife would have told you what it was."
"Housekeepers do not cost one as much."
"But they do not give you as much either. And they are not nearly so attractive to look at."
"Mine is pleasant enough." "If Irielen hears that I will never live it down," he groaned inwardly.
"Really? I must meet her sometime."
"No, I do not see that becoming necessary." "And that is that," he thought. "If she does not take offense at that refusal, she is not as spoiled as I thought she was."
But, true to form, Caereh turned a cold shoulder and walked down the hallway.
"Now I only hope I am wrong about how stubborn she will be otherwise I may have just lost my job," he muttered as he threw the pencil on his desk. It bounced and rolled off the edge between the wall and the desk. He checked the drawers of his desk. As he thought, that was his only writing utensil of any kind. He crawled under the desk to retrieve it.
While he was there, a knock came on his door and Amy called out, "Tieran, you here?"
He bumped his head on the desk and came out rubbing the back of his head.
"Did I startle you? I'm sorry. I should have known you would be on edge. I saw her leave your office. How'd it go? I see you lived. Was I right about her?" Amy sat on the desk in the exact same place Caereh had.
Tieran gave her a pained look. "Please do not sit there."
She got up and looked at the desk. "What? Did I sit on something?"
"No," Tieran said wearily. "It is just that she sat in that exact place."
"Oh, I see. Unpleasant associations. Gotcha. I wouldn't want to sit there anyway, I might catch something." She dragged the extra chair around to the end of his desk. "So did she turn on all the charm? Come on. Dish."
"I imagine she did, though having no previous encounters with her, I could not say for certain. I would not call it charm, though." He leaned back in his chair again with his eyes closed.
"But it didn't work? She didn't look pleased when she walked by my office."
"No. She even resorted to making vague references in the general direction of money and payment."
"Ah, now if we'd known that we could have taken care of her long ago."
"We?" Tieran asked, opening an eye and raising an eyebrow.
"Thomas and I."
Tieran frowned at Amy. "Where is Thomas? I thought you two were inseparable."
"Back in his office. He doesn't like to look gossipy, but believe you me, he'll be hanging on my every word when I get back," Amy said with a big grin. "This puts a whole new life in our scheme."
"Your scheme?"
"We thought about finding a willing man and sending him in her general direction, but we thought no one would want to risk it without a large incentive. We didn't know she'd consider paying and we certainly didn't have enough cash."
"Such a pity." He shook his head and leaned back again.
"Hey, that's a good impression. Did you know you could sound just like GK?"
"I have been told that, yes. Perhaps that was whom I reminded her of."
"Reminded who of whom?"
"Caereh said my accent sounded familiar. At the time I thought it was just another comment to draw me out, but if she is a fan of the movie, perhaps I was reminding her of the Goblin King." He would have to tell Jareth that he had found just the woman for him.
.….
Jareth, meanwhile, had found a new form of entertainment.
When Mike Barr, who had been assigned to continue with the animation of the Goblin King beyond the imprinting, loaded Jareth into his computer to work with him, Jareth found that with the aid of his remaining magic he could animate himself and see and hear beyond the computer screen.
"This has possibilities. Life in a computer may not be so bad after all."
He waited until Mike left his office to get coffee before implementing his plan. First, he moved everything on the screen, then froze as Mike came back.
"Very funny guys. Who's playing with my computer?" Mike yelled to no one in particular. "As if I'm not far enough behind."
Mike rearranged the background and foreground items back the way he had left them, then he refined a few details on Jareth and started working on his movement in the scene. He looked away for a few moments to check his notes for the scene.
Jareth took this opportunity to change his clothing. When Mike looked back at the screen all was the same except Jareth wore a more refined black ensemble of leather and velvet textures instead of the electric purple and blue snake skin textures he had been attired in.
"Hey! Who's jacking my terminal?" Mike exclaimed as he quickly changed the textures back to snakeskin.
"No, no, I think it looks much better this way," Jareth persuaded in a silky voice as he changed it back to his preferences.
"Okay, guys, you can quit playing around now," Mike shouted as he turned to his door.
"What?" asked an animator passing by in the hall.
"This," Mike said as he gestured to the computer screen.
"Man, that is pretty bad," the passer-by commented on the screen. "Who did that? GK is goth, not punk. He'd never wear that purple and blue stuff."
Mike looked at the screen. It was again the way he had left it. "No, that's not what I meant. It –"
"You'd better change it before James sees it. You know how he's a stickler for staying within a character." The observer kept walking.
"But –" Mike called out halfheartedly after him. He turned back to the computer and changed the outfit while muttering under his breath about practical jokers and sticks-in-the-mud.
As he was moving on to more of the animation, Jareth said, "See, your colleague agreed with me. This is much more appropriate."
"That does it. Out you go." Mike rebooted his computer. He reloaded the scene and started over.
"Tsk, tsk. That was very impolite," Jareth said. "I was only trying to help. You said you were behind."
"I don't need any help."
"Are you sure? You are talking to a computer screen after all."
"Damn new software."
"No, no, that doesn't belong there. The banner goes here by the window and the torch holder goes there." Jareth moved them to demonstrate his point.
Mike clenched his teeth and grimly continued working on the scene. The torch flame cast that shade of orange on Jareth's face there, the shadow would be shaped like this, the reflection of the flame in his eyes leapt like that.
"You have it all wrong," Jareth scolded when Mike walked him in front of a decorative hanging in a corner of the room. "There's no hanging in this room."
Mike carried on with what he was doing, ignoring Jareth's comments as he stood perfectly still on the dais in the throne room.
"You shouldn't ignore me. Who would know the placement of furnishings in my castle better than I do?" Jareth asked in a bored voice as he suddenly moved on his own to recline on the throne. If Mike had watched the movie a few more times he might have realized that Jareth was at his most dangerous when he was bored. Instead, because he did not want to believe that what was happening was real, he continued to try to ignore the Goblin King. Jareth nonchalantly produced a crystal to play with and refused to move as the programming directed him.
Mike closed his eyes, covered his ears and took a deep breath. He opened them again.
"Yes, I am still here," Jareth answered from his throne.
"I'm imagining this. I'm gonna go on with my work and ignore this and it'll all disappear."
"Really?"
Jareth lounged on his throne with his crystal, providing the occasional correction of the scene, until the animator moved the cursor to click on his face. Jareth batted it away scowling and stood up. "Beware. I have been generous until now, but I can be cruel." "What a waste of a good line. This fool would not recognize a quote if I slapped him with it," Jareth thought.
Mike tried to continue working, editing the throne for a change. "My computer must have a bug. 'It'll be easier,' they said. 'Just imprint the item an' it'll be a piece of cake.' Meanwhile, good ol' Mike gets the character from Hell."
"So you thought dealing with the Goblin King would be a piece of cake?" Jareth threatened. "How do you like this little slice?" he asked him directly in his mind.
Jareth threw the crystal he was playing with at the animator. It hit the inside of the monitor and shattered, sending a cloud of crystal dust through the glass of the screen.
.….
A bloodcurdling howl pierced the air. Startled heads popped out of doorways all along the hall.
"Someone left their computer unattended too long again. You do that and you're just begging for mischief," Amy called over her shoulder as she ran to be the first in on the action and the gossip. Tieran followed her from his office at a more sedate pace, curious, but in no hurry.
His pace sped up when he realized whose office was the center of attention: Mike Barr's. That could be just a coincidence or it could be that Jareth had been experimenting. Lately, Tieran put less and less faith in coincidences.
By the application of some judicious leaning, poking, and prodding, Tieran worked his way through the throng close enough to the door to be able to see through it. Various sobbing, whimpering and other incoherent noises came from under a corner of the desk he couldn't see. He could, however see the computer monitor and what he saw there confirmed his suspicions.
"Jareth what have you been doing?"
"Simply giving some advice," came the too innocent reply.
"Solicited or unsolicited?"
"When does anyone ever really want to listen to advice when it is given?"
Tieran noticed Amy's red head at the front of the crowd and worked his way forward, knowing that she would have all the details by now.
"What happened?" he asked her.
"No one's sure. Mike seems to have lost it. I think he's having hysterics under his desk or something."
"Jareth, what did you say to him?"
"I was merely trying to impress upon him the importance of paying attention to details."
"Jareth, the man is having hysterics. You did not simply remind him to dot his I's and cross his T's. What did you do? Throw him in the Bog of Eternal Stench?"
"Do you really think that if I could send him there, I would still be trapped in this computer?"
"Then what did you do to him?"
Jareth sighed. "If you must know, he thinks he is in an oubliette. It was pure coincidence that the man happens to be claustrophobic and afraid of the dark. I had no idea. Honestly."
"Jareth!" Tieran exclaimed exasperatedly. Tieran pushed his way through the rest of the crowd and approached the few people clustered behind the desk discussing what should be done about the man hiding under it. Tieran ignored them and crouched down so he could see under the desk. He would have to be careful about how he talked the animator out of his delusion, otherwise he would sound nearly as unbalanced as Mike currently was.
"Mr. Barr? Mike? It's Tieran Sartali. Do you hear me?"
"No, go 'way. Leave me alone. I'll listen to you, just let me out." Mike whimpered. He huddled in the far corner of his desk, eyes staring blindly in front of him.
"Let you out of where?" Tieran prompted. If Mike would explain what he was experiencing for all to hear it would make talking him out of it easier for Tieran. He would have fewer assumptions to explain away later.
"I don't know. Where you put me. Lemme out," he sobbed. "I'll be good. I'll do what you say. I'll put things where you tell me, GK. Let me out. Please. Lemme out! I can't stand the dark. You gotta let me out."
"What did you call me?"
"I'm sorry Your Highness. I won't do it again. I promise.
Please, Your Majesty, let me out."
The damnable accent again. Perhaps this time it would work to his advantage. When he spoke to Mike
again he imitated Jareth more deliberately, accentuating the likeness. "You will not be bothered again by the Goblin King, I promise, but you will have to get yourself out." "Did you hear me, Jareth?" Tieran asked. "No more toying with the employees."
"I do not sound like that." Jareth was indignant.
"Nooo, don't leave me here! Lemme out!" Mike was terrified that he would be left alone immediately.
"There is no time to argue about that now. I have one of your messes to clean up," Tieran said sharply to Jareth, then spoke to Mike. "I cannot let you out. I am not the one keeping you there. You are. You have to realize that you are only trapped within your mind. You alone can let yourself out of there."
"You make it sound as though this were a regular occurrence."
"It's dark. It's small. There's no door. Let me out."
"I sincerely hope it does not become one." "It is your imagination. Imagine space, a door, a light, and you will have it. It can be what you want it." Tieran reassured Mike after answering Jareth's comment.
"What are you talking about?" a voice demanded from behind Tieran. "What's the matter with him?"
Tieran had forgotten about the other people in the office. He turned to see who had spoken and found it was John Swanson. "He has been working on the same thing for too long. Would you please be quiet or, even better, leave us? I do not need any distractions." Tieran turned back to the man still huddled under the desk, dismissing everyone else in the room.
"Start with space," he told the animator, "Imagine that you are in a small niche that opens in front of you. You can crawl forward, toward me, and as you crawl you crawl into daylight. You are crawling out of the hole you are trapped in."
Slowly, flinchingly, Mike crawled forward with his hand out in front of his face to feel for the wall he still was not completely convinced did not exist.
Tieran lapsed back into his natural voice, "See, there is no wall; you are coming out. Can you see the light? What do you see?"
"The darkness is fading. It's going away. Why're you sitting on the floor?"
"Because you are sitting under your desk. I think perhaps we should find James and tell him you need a vacation."
"I'm here," James said from the other side of the desk. "I think you should go home now, Mike, maybe even consider seeing a doctor to make sure you're okay."
"Where did the crowd go?" Tieran asked.
"Most of them left when you told them to," answered Thomas. "Some of them took some persuading, but Amy and I managed to get them cleared out. Come on, Mike, I'll run interference for you down to your car."
"When did he turn up?" Tieran asked James about Thomas.
"Just before Mike called you GK. He's right you do sound like him. Especially when you try. You should go down and talk to sound. I think they're still looking for someone to do his voice. I doubt they'd find anyone who sounds more like him than you do."
"I can think of one."
"Are you still here? Looking for opportunities to cause more trouble? I thought Alia and I were the ones handling this. If you believe you can manage it on your own, I am sure that she and I would be happy to surrender the whole operation to you."
"My, my, now who has the short temper?"
"But, they won't need you to do the voice if we can't get him done," James commented. Tieran found himself glaring at the computer monitor displaying Jareth sitting on his throne. "He sure is causing us a lot of trouble. I don't know what we'll do with him now. He's getting a bad reputation. I doubt anyone will want to take over working on him now. We may have to piece him out."
Tieran sighed. Doing the main character was taking a risk, but he thought that between Jareth and himself they could manage a decent end product. "I could do him for you. I do not have as many preconceived ideas about his difficulties as the others. And I can assure you I will not be found huddled under my desk."
"Thank you. That would be great. How did you talk him out of there anyway? How did you know what was wrong?"
"Anyone could have persuaded him to come out. I was able to do it faster because, by chance, I sounded like his demon."
"But why did you even try? I would have called for paramedics and waited."
"I have seen something like it before," Tieran answered and projected as much reluctance to speak of it as he could.
James obligingly dropped the topic.
Disclaimers, trivia, credits:
Labyrinth, etc. belong to the Jim Henson Company.