The Fictional Man by Al Ewing Read Free Book Online Page B

manuscript that could have ended sexism forever. “Let them live with it as best they can.”
    “No,” Niles mumbled, “not Madeleine Sorrow.” He cast a quick glance over at the red-haired woman, as if the mere mention of Madeleine Sorrow would send her running from the bar in disgust – then hurriedly cast his eyes down to the wood of the bar top when he saw she was looking back at him curiously. “Not one of mine at all.”
    Bob nodded. “Don’t keep me in suspense.”
    “It’s, ah... have you ever heard of The Delicious Mr Doll? It’s a kind of secret agent film...”
    “Sure. I think you told me about it once – kind of swinging ’sixties stuff. Austin Powers, right?”
    Niles smiled tightly. “Probably one of the main influences on it. I never saw Austin Powers, myself.” He’d looked at the poster for the film and had the uneasy feeling that the film would have been laughing at him as much as the secret agent genre, and he’d never watched it to find out if he was right. “Anyway, they want to make a new Mr Doll film, and they’ve asked me to pitch. If they like what they see... well, they’ll get out the translation tube and I’ll be shaking hands with Dalton Doll himself.”
    Bob took another long swig of his beer, eyeing Niles carefully. “I need to visit the bathroom,” he said, after a pause.
    Niles blinked quizzically. “What? Why?”
    Bob laughed. “Because I need to piss. Jesus, come on.”
    Niles pouted, irritated at Bob’s reaction. He’d expected a different one – not awe, exactly, but congratulation, at least. For goodness’ sake, he was about to have a hand in the creation of a living being – one of Bob’s own! A little bit of awe wouldn’t go amiss. “You’re not changing the subject,” he said officiously. “I want to know what you think.”
    “All right, fine.” Bob thought for a moment. “Okay, let me try and put it into words. What I said earlier about confronting our gods...” He paused, frowning. “I actually did know the guy who created me – on the writing side, anyway. A guy called Malcolm Stuyvesant – he was the head writer, they call it showrunner now, on the New Adventures . On Sea-Thru too, plus I think he wrote a few episodes of Buffy or Angel or one of those, but... the mid-’nineties were his time to shine. He’s not done too much since. Anyway, he’s the guy who wrote the series bible, the personality description, everything the technicians worked from. I mean, obviously when you’re translating a new Fictional, you put a little more thought into it than you do if you’re just making up a protagonist... right?” He looked at Niles pointedly.
    Niles nodded briskly. “Oh, of course.” He didn’t like the implication that he hadn’t put a great deal of thought into Kurt Power. He knew everything there was to know about Kurt Power’s life, from his eye colour (a steely blue) to his favourite song (it varied) to where his daughter went to school (it varied).
    “So this guy Malcolm, the lead writer... I got to know him pretty well. I mean, we worked together for as long as the show was on. He’d bounce ideas off me, let me ad-lib a line – towards the end, he was practically letting me co-plot the thing. He’d throw situations at me and ask me what my next move was, we’d write episodes that way. I wonder why more shows don’t do that.”
    Niles smiled. The New Adventures Of The Black Terror wasn’t really his thing – it was a little too camp for his liking, and the whole premise of a costumed adventurer felt like a trope designed for pre-literate children – but he had to admit that every episode he’d watched had rushed along splendidly, and there’d never been any point where he thought Bob wouldn’t have said or done what was on the screen. Contrast the fifth season of Cutner’s Chair, in which the viewer was asked to believe Ralph Cutner was mesmerised by the romantic charms of a female patient who clearly bored him