Keith Roberts

There have been a number of interesting s-f stories concerning subliminal advertising during the past few years but none quite so intriguing as the almost-possible conception envisaged here by Keith Roberts. Are you quite sure those TV commercials are all they seem to be?

* * * *

Look, Doc, don’t bother with intros there isn’t time. I’m Johnny Harper, I’m a guy who makes films, that’ll do. Doc, I’m in bad trouble. I got something stuck down inside my head and I got to get it out. Can you fix that for me, Doc? Have you got a machine can reach into a guy’s brain and find a thing that shouldn’t be there and snap it out by the roots, have you got a machine can do that...

I’m not crazy, Doc, honest to God I know what I’m saying, you’ve got to help. Look, I’ll give you the whole story from when it started then you’ll know I’m not crazy, you’ll know what to do....

Have you got a girl can take shorthand? Well, get this down yourself then. Don’t argue, man, get a pad or something and get this down, it’s the most important thing you ever heard. Get a name first. Freddy Keeler. Take that down right now, he’s the guy that matters. It all started with Freddy, blast his Goddam soul...

He’s studio projectionist, shows all the rushes. Well, that’s part of his job, the rest’s secret. I’m telling you about it so you’ll know what to do with Freddy—

What? What studio? Oh God—No, Doc, I’m sorry, I guess I didn’t say. Hill Studio, the people who make the Little Andy films. You know Little Andy, everybody knows Little Andy ... you don’t see television? Then I’ll tell you, you’re the luckiest guy alive.

Doc, Hill Studio’s the biggest thing in the business. Six months ago we were broke. Bust, flat, finished. We’d fired off all our staff, and all we had left were the two partners, J. B. March and Jeff Holroyd, and little Freddy and Connie the secretary, Connie the lion I called her. And me, stooging round with a director’s ticket and nothing to direct. Just five of us and the red light was burning for everybody and I was plenty worried, the state the trade was in ex-directors were going to be a drug on the market.

We’d started up along with ten hundred other little units about the time commercial television got going and we’d outlasted most of the rest. J.B. was smart, he saw to it right from the start we’d got more than one string to our bow, we did animated cartoon, we did stop-frame and special effects and we’d got a good name for live action. When the big slump happened we carried on making films for the Far East and Germany, then we began to feel the pinch and we had to start laying people off. A year ago we’d got fifty staff, then it came down to twenty, then ten, then like I said it was just a handful of us hanging on the best way we could. I knew the axe was going to swing again soon and Connie wasn’t taking enough out the firm to make it worth firing her, and, anyway, you got to keep a smart-looking popsy in the front office because the rest of the boys expect it, so I knew it was Freddy or me that had to go.

I went along to see J.B. I didn’t get on too good with Jeff, he was a sort of emotional type, always getting worked up, but I got on fine with J.B., you knew where you were with him. Arguing with him was like playing Russian Roulette with half the chambers loaded, but if you knew how to sort of smooth him along you were O.K. I went into his office, I said, “J.B. I’m worried about old Freddy. You know he’s a great guy, but I’m sort of worried about him.”

He looked at me like he’d heard it before, he said, “So you want him out, Johnny.”

I lit a cigarette. I said, “Projectionist’s not much good with no films to show.”

J.B. got nasty. “Director’s no better off with none to direct.” I could see this was one of his bad mornings, he’d been married a few years and there weren’t any kids, and some days his wife gave him Hell, you know how it goes, Doc. I said “I’ll put it to him nice, J.B. He won’t hardly feel a thing.”

He shrugged. “O.K., Johnny, but do it nice, you know? He’s a nice little guy, I like Freddy a lot.”

I said, “I promise you my face will be wet with tears.” I made for the door and J.B. called me back. He said, “Funny thing, Johnny, he draws pictures. You ever see one of his pictures ?”

I didn’t get it. “So what, what’s that, J.B.?”

He said, “Get him to draw you one. Did one for me, they’re pretty good. I was thinking we could use them but ... that’s the way it goes.”

The idea struck me funny. “What does he draw, Snow White and the Dwarfs, or is it grown-up stuff for the lavatory wall?”

He glared at me. “Just get him to draw. And don’t push too hard, Johnny, could be he’s more use than you.”

I got out.

After that I had to play it safe, so I ran Freddy down in the pub where he got his lunch. He was standing up at the bar when I went in, he was scoffing a sandwich and a pint of beer. He’s a little guy, Doc, sort of thin on top, fiftyish, wears hornrim glasses. He’s nothing to look at. I went up and clapped him on the back, I said, “Hello, Freddy, what’s new?”

He looked at me like he was going to choke. I reckon he knew why I was there. He said, “You want to see me, Mr. Harper?”

I whistled up a beer for myself and paid for another for him. I said, “I do, Freddy, I do. I want to sort of have a quick talk. Things aren’t too good, Freddy, but believe me they could be worse, they could be a lot worse.” I got hold of his arm and steered him to a table. God, I get tired of soft-talking punks like Freddy, when a guy’s through he’s through, that’s all he needs to know. But I did it slow, the J.B. way. I said, “The boss tells me you’re a bit of an artist, Freddy boy, I didn’t know.” I figured from that I could get round to the fact that he was soon going to need a spare profession.

He shook his head. He said no he wasn’t an artist, he couldn’t draw worth a damn. He just made images.

Doc, cinema operators are a funny lot. They stand all their lives watching films through a little square of glass, after a time it gets them so they’re no good for nothing else. They’re queer, Doc, they get things on the brain. All sorts of things. Freddy had spent years watching Images flicker about and jump up and down, he’d got to think Images all day and all night long...

No don’t get me wrong, Doc, not pictures, Images. That was how he explained it to me, he said a film director, say Hitchcock, anybody you want to name, is always worrying consciously or subconsciously about Images, trying to get some shape on the screen that’ll help the actors along, make you feel what’s going on. He said that was what a good film was, not a lot of shots of actors and such, but a set of Images that made you feel what you were supposed to. He said it was done with the picture composition and the lighting and everything. And he said, for instance, if you saw every thriller ever made and studied them all over and over you could work out a shape from all the Images all the directors had ever used, and the shape would sort of represent fear, all on its own. He said if you drew it and showed it to a guy he’d get scared to death and he wouldn’t know why. He said if the Image was right it would sort of lock onto his mind and make him feel whatever it meant. He said it was possible to make an Image for every emotion, every one in the book, once you’d got the hang of drawing them.

You know I thought that was pretty smart. Coming from a guy like Freddy it was a pretty smart idea. It was crazy, but it got me interested. It even took my mind off why I was there. I said, “Freddy, I can see you’ve been doing some solid thinking.” I grinned. I said, “Just for kicks, can you draw these Images yourself, or is it still in the theory stage?”

He sort of stared at me. He said, “Oh no, Mr. Harper, I can draw them all right. It took me years to find them all out, but I can draw them now. Any sort of Image you want.”

That wasn’t what I’d expected. I stopped laughing and wondered just how nutty he was, anyway. I said, “Er ... yeah. Look these Images, Freddy, they take long to do?”

He shook his head. “It’s dead quick. Easy when you know how.”

I said, “O.K., Freddy, I’ll try you out. You make me one of them. Let’s have that fear thing to start with, you scare me to death.”

He got a pen out of his pocket and smoothed a paper napkin. He started to draw. The ink ran in blots, when he’d finished it just looked a mess. I said, “Sorry, Freddy, I must be thick-skinned. Doesn’t do a thing for me.”

He was very eager. “Give it a chance, Mr. Harper, sometimes they have to sort of grow on you. You keep looking at it, you’ll feel what it means. Honest, Mr. Harper.”

Well, what the Hell, I was humouring the guy, wasn’t I ? I picked the thing up and leaned back in my chair and held it up in front of my face. I stared at it for maybe five seconds and then-

I was on my feet and the napkin was screwed up and thrown in an ashtray, and I couldn’t remember doing it. I was trembling. I said, “Christ in Heaven ...” Then things came back into focus a bit and I saw a couple of guys staring at me and I sat down again, but I was still feeling pretty bad. I said, “O.K., Freddy, what’s the gag?”

He looked worried. He said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Harper, I really am... it gets you, don’t it? I can’t see ‘em myself, they won’t work for me, but I know what they do, I should have told you.”

I lit a cigarette. I felt I needed it. I said, “I asked you, what’s the gag?”

“No gag, sir, honest. It’s the drawing. It’s a sort of trick.”

I shook my head. “You’re a liar. That’s crazy.”

He reached for the napkin. “Honest, Mr. Harper, it’s in the d—”

I knocked his hand away. I didn’t want that napkin unrolled again. I said, “All right, Freddy, so I buy it. Can you do it every time?”

He sort of smirked. Like a guy who’s spent twenty years on some damn fool model boat, showing it off and getting praised. He said, “Every time, Mr. Harper. You say what you want, I’ll make you an Image.”

I said, “Happiness, Freddy. Can you make an Image can make me laugh?”

He picked the pen up again and started to draw, and the result of that was on the way back to the studio I had to stop every twenty yards or so and wipe my eyes. People must have thought I was crazy.

In the end, of course, I didn’t fire him, I wish to God I had....

* * * *

I sat in my office all the rest of that day smoking and thinking about what I’d seen. I knew I was on to the biggest thing in showbiz, but I couldn’t see a way to use it. You couldn’t make a film just of Images, nobody would watch it. And even if they did, if they got what I’d got they wouldn’t be back for any more. Freddy’s gimmick was the smartest thing I’d seen, but it didn’t help Hill Studios out of the mire one little bit.

You know how it is when you’ve got something in the back of your mind but it just won’t form out? I kept thinking there was some way we could use this crazy talent. I got high that night because I knew unless I came up with a dilly of an idea we wouldn’t last the month, and it didn’t seem I’d got an idea in my head. I got back to my flat about midnight, I lay on the divan and kicked my shoes off and put the light out, and in time the room stopped revolving and I dozed. Next thing I knew it was dawn and I was sitting up shouting Hallelujah. I’d solved it and there wasn’t much standing between me and my first million.

I got up and hunted out a drawing-board and some instruments. I was trained as a draughtsman once, Doc, I can set an idea down on paper so it’ll work. I made myself some coffee to clear my head, then I started to draw and by mid-morning I’d got all I wanted, I fetched the car and drove down to the studio like Hell.

I walked in on J.B., he was dictating to Connie. Jeff wasn’t around. I banged my stuff on the desk. I said, “J.B., this will not wait.”

He started to get wound up. “I’ve been waiting since nine this bloody morning, where the Hell you been—and get that crap off my desk and get out, I’m busy—”

I held the door open. I said, “Connie, suddenly you remembered you just had to powder your nose.” She looked at me like she’d get a kick out of putting arsenic in my soup, but she scrammed. J.B. got up. He was real mad. He said “By Christ, Johnny, but this has to be so very good.”

“It is good. Now look at these, J.B., and knock it off, I’ve just made us a million apiece...”

“What in Hell are they?”

I said, “Drawings for God’s sake, mods to a projector. Sub-lim—”

I guess he’d got a right to blow his top because up to that time sub-lim was a dirty joke. He yelled at me, “What we going to say then, you got it scripted? How about ‘buy our films’ or ‘best British studio’, that’s a good slogan, Johnny, that’s great. Now this is just about the craziest way you ever lost a job—”

I just yelled louder. Beat him down. “We don’t say anything for Chrissake, we use Freddy’s Images....”

He stopped dead with his mouth open and his finger still waving round at me. He said, “What? Johnny, what did you say?”

I said, “I looked at his stuff like you told me. It took an hour to get it out of my system. If I’m not careful I can still remember it.”

He said, “Yeah. Yeah, I know.” He sat down and pulled one of the drawings across the desk. He said, “What’s this, Johnny?”

Do you know about sub-lim, Doc? There was a big row about it four, five years back. Somebody said it was unethical. That was a joke because it never worked, anyway, they didn’t use it right.

Look, I’d better tell you about this, you’ve got to get the picture. The ad boys worked it out that if you took a word, say a product name, and flashed it on a screen too fast for the eye to pick it up, the guy on the receiving end wouldn’t know he was being pressurized, but he’d get the message, anyway, sub-liminally. The idea was great, trouble was getting a thing on the screen and off again quick enough. They tried it, tried it on television. I know because I damn well saw it. Doc, film speed through a projector gate is twenty-four frames a second, twenty-five for television to help the scanning. And that isn’t fast enough. They’d overprinted single frames and you could read them as they went through, it wasn’t sub-lim at all.

My idea got round all that. What I’d designed was a second optical system with a film gate and all that we could strap alongside the projector mute head. I hadn’t sorted all the details, but I knew what I wanted and I knew it would work. There was a second intermittent movement geared to a stop-frame assembly, cans to hold a spare film roll... and behind the gate, try to see this, Doc, behind the gate a lamp housing with an electronic flash. You know you can get those things to fire down to thousandths of a second ? Using the rig we could pump in rogue pictures whenever we wanted and nobody would be any the wiser. And we didn’t have any junky product-names to play with, we had Freddy’s Images. I wish I could draw one for you. Doc, but Freddy’s the only guy can do that. I can’t even remember what they look like, all I know is if they say laugh you laugh, and if they say cry, by God you cry...

When I’d done, J.B. just sat and looked at the drawings. Then he said, “It’s great, Johnny. The greatest thing ever. For cinema. But television?”

I was prancing round the office, I couldn’t keep still. I said, “Why not the little screens, J.B., don’t electrons move fast enough no more ? Strap a unit on the telecine gear, rig a prism behind the lens, slam the Images straight through the camera...”

He licked his lips. “They wouldn’t touch it. They wouldn’t dare.”

I walked back to him and put the palms of my hands on the desk and stared him in the eyes. I said, “We make up a pilot. We get some of the boys down to see it. We run it with sub-lim. The Images tell ‘em they love it. They tell them how much to pay. How much do we want to make apiece, J.B., got any ideas?”

And that’s how Little Andy was born...

You don’t know who Little Andy is do you, Doc? Oh yeah, I forgot, you don’t see the Lantern. But, Doc, if you did, it wouldn’t make no difference. Nobody knows who Little Andy is, Doc. They just know they love him, that’s all. Is he a puppet? They don’t know. Is he a real live actor? They don’t know. Is he a cartoon? They don’t know, Doc, but they laugh when Little Andy laughs, they cry when Little Andy cries. He’s all that matters, they know he’s real. The Images tell them, that’s sub-lim...

I started on my prototype that same day. I got in a couple of guys I needed, I had to promise them plenty. I didn’t know where the money was coming from and I didn’t care. That was J.B.’s worry, I had troubles of my own.

We only had one projector in the place then, the Kalee Twelve in the viewing theatre. I planned to use that for the experimental hookup. I scrounged a lens and we fitted a bracket to carry it just above the mute gate. The stop-frame unit wasn’t so easy, we had to rob a linetest camera and adapt the parts to fit. I’d intended to run it from the mech, but when we got down to it breaking into the geartrain was a major job, so we settled for a spare motor strapped up behind the top spoolbox and rigged a flexible link to the camera drive. The flash was no problem, one of the boys built up a unit and we made a housing out of tinplate and hitched it on behind our auxiliary head. Then we made up the cans to hold the filmstrip and it all looked a crazy mess, but mechanically it was O.K.

Freddy hung round all the time, fussing like an old hen. I told him we wanted to try out his Images just for kicks, he was pleased as Hell. I set him onto producing a range of stuff to cover every emotion I could think of, all the subtle things like worry and hope. And I got him to grade them down a bit. The thing he’d shown me, that had upset me plenty. I didn’t want to frighten people to death, just glue ‘em to the screens. He brought the work in the morning after I asked him, I looked through it and it was great. I took time out to set up one of the rostrum cameras and get the whole lot on film. I did my own processing. I didn’t want any little prying eyes seeing what we were doing till we were ready to hit the market.

When we’d got the sub-lim head built we started on the control system for it. I’d had a Hell of an idea for that. Problem was to inject the Images just where they were needed to back up the action. For a time I thought we were going to have to do it manually, then I realized I was crazy, all we needed was a split roller somewhere on the film track and metallic flashes on the master print to trigger our relays. We fixed the roller, then we rigged a solenoid on the stop-frame trigger, keyed it to a microswitch and we were home and dry. Bridge the roller with a wet finger and the spare cross turned, the flash went off behind it; each cue on the master roll would bring a new frame into the sub-lim gate, each frame would register on the screen as a split-second rogue image. All we needed now was a pilot film to cook.

J.B. had been working on that while I was playing with the mech. Don’t ask me how he talked Jeff into trebling the overdraft, but he did it somehow; when J.B. starts operating stones have haemorrhages. Hill Studios was back on its feet and we’d got a staff of nearly twenty again. He’d dreamed up Little Andy himself and written the pilot script. We got a combined print a week after the projector was fixed and I got busy on it, making a sort of trackreading of the action and marking the frames where I wanted a sub-lim pulse to help the audience get the message. The emotion sequence was pretty simple; J.B. had scripted to keep it that way. The opening of the reel was happy, there was a middle section that needed a sad treatment, then there were a series of gags, then things went happy again for the fadeout. I cued for fifty or sixty frames of each Image, trying to grade the timing so the effect would come on the audience gradually, then build up. While I was working on the print J.B. started eating carpet, the bank balance was getting redder and redder and he was scared the labs were going to clamp down on processing: if that happened, we were through. I told him there wasn’t a thing to worry about: if we wanted a bigger loan all we had to do was get the bank boys round, show them a film and load the cans to make ‘em love us, but there wasn’t time for playing games like that. J.B. wanted results on the pilot and he wanted them fast.

The cutting took a while because the system was still crude. Like I said, it was only rigged to give one flash per frame, so if I wanted fifty images to register that meant fifty frames on the sub-lim roll and fifty cues on the master. I finished in the end, and took the crazy-looking reel through to Freddy and watched him lace the cans and run a final check to see the roller was bridging O.K., then I went and told J.B. we were set to blast. We ran the first test just two months after I walked into his office with those drawings.

We jammed a couple of dozen people into the viewing theatre, cameramen, secretaries, everybody we could lay hold of. Jeff was there, he hated the whole idea, but J.B. had soft-talked him into coming along. And Connie, she was still giving me the freeze treatment every chance she got. That was a pity, because she was a great girl. Connie the cat, Connie the little lion ... that was what she reminded me of, Doc, a lion. Tawny hair and tawny eyes, and she walked like she knew what she was worth.

J.B. had decided we’d show the pilot twice. The first time it would go through straight, with no sub-lim, so we could get the normal reaction. Then we’d run it again with hot cans. That meant the test rig would be circuited, pumping Freddy’s Images at the audience. We’d developed a new slang, that was what we meant when we talked about hot cans...J.B. gave a talkdown, saying we were going to see the same thing twice, then he buzzed Freddy and the mech started and the lights went out. The main title came on the screen.

I tell you, Doc, that picture stank. It didn’t raise a grin. When the lights came on at the end even the secretaries were yawning, and J.B. was looking like thunder. Nobody ever got round to telling him when a story stank, he always had to find out for himself. Freddy rewound and laced, I gave him the thumbs-up through the port and we started over.

For a minute nothing happened. The film was just like it was before. I felt the bottom was dropping out of my stomach, I stood at the back, wondering if the flash was triggering or if I’d got a break in the roller circuit. Then slowly I realized something. I was feeling good.

Doc, I tell you, it was crazy. I just felt great. Little Andy was great, the world was great, J.B. was a great boss, Connie was a great guy, everything was fine. I wondered was I going scatty, then I got it.

This was the happy section...

I couldn’t help myself. I was in that rotten little film, following it like it was the best thing that ever hit the screen. When Little Andy was scared, I couldn’t breathe. When he came out on top of a gag, I wanted to cheer. We got to the sad sequence and one of the girls started in crying like she’d never leave off. It curled ‘em up, Doc, it laid ‘em in the aisles. There never was a film like that, not ever before.

Came the funnies, I started to giggle. Wasn’t a thing I could do. It was just ... well, the world was so crazy, you know, there was nothing to do but laugh ... I’d got my arm round Connie, and she was rolling her head on my shoulder and howling, and we couldn’t have hated each other if we’d tried. She kept pointing at the screen and trying to say something, then she’d sort of choke and start laughing all over again. Up in front, J.B. was banging the chair arms and throwing his head back and having hysterics at his own junk. There was no fighting it, you had to go. I’d never seen anything like it. Then there was the happy section at the end and the lights came up and we felt great, just great....

That was the only time I watched a Little Andy show with hot cans. Doc, it is great. It’s great for the jaybirds, but if you can sort of think, you know what I mean. Doc ... afterwards, it’s like you went down on your knees and bayed the moon...

I guess Connie was the first to come round. I was still hanging on to her, she looked up at me, she said, “Johnny, did you...” She giggled and crammed a hand over her mouth. Controlled herself. She said, “Did you ... do whatever that was?”

“I did.”

She said, “It’s ... great. Just great.” She wiped her eyes. Poor old Connie, she was in a Hell of a mess with the tears and all...She said, “You’re worth a million pounds.” I fixed a date with her that night, told her we’d paint the town. The way she was feeling she couldn’t have said no to a thing, and I don’t miss a chance like that, Doc.

I told Freddy the show had gone over fine. It was queer, the look he gave me. Like the whole world was a party and he hadn’t got an invite. You see he was the only one couldn’t get a lift from the Images, they wouldn’t work for him. I said he was a great guy, to keep right on at the job, I’d see J.B. about getting him a raise. He said, “Thanks, Mr. Harper, sir, thanks very much indeed....” You know, Doc, he sounded like he meant it...

I took Connie round the swank bars. I threw the money about. Money didn’t matter, the more I thought about sub-lim the more loot I could see rolling in. I got stinking drunk, Doc, I’ll tell you...

She got the whole story out of me. Oh, it was a question here, a touch there, I gabbled it all out because I thought it didn’t matter, she couldn’t understand what the cans were or how we hotted them. She understood enough though. She understood Hill Studios had got something nobody on God’s sweet earth could refuse to buy, that we could write our own cheques from here on in and that I was the key man in the whole shebang. The way she played up to me I felt a mile high.

I tried to be sort of modest, you know ? I told her about Freddy, I said, “Honest to God, the little guy’s the one that matters. He’s the only one can make the Images. I can use ‘em, but Freddy has to draw them...”

We were alone in a quiet bar, the lights were low. She said, “What are you doing about him, Johnny?”

I hooted. “Do? Raise him. Raise him fifty a week, a hundred. Yeah, give him a hundred a week. Worth every penny.”

She banged her cigarette in the tray and glared at me, she said, “What are you doing, Johnny, you gone crazy?”

“What? Now, honey...”

She said, “Did you tell him? Did you talk crazy money like that?”

I kind of touched her hair. I said, “What in Hell’s that scent?”

She got mad. She said, “Listen, Johnny, tell me what you said. You say a thing like that to him ?”

“Course not, but what the Hell, we got to keep him...”

She said, “So you play to lose. A hundred a week, Johnny, what’ll he do ? What would you do, go down the road and get two? You put a price on him, he knows what he’s worth...”

“Well, what the Hell—”

She crossed her long legs and there was a sort of frothing of lace. She said, “Raise him a quid. And pat his head every Friday. That way he knows he’s nothing but an op.”

It took a time to sink in because I was plenty stewed, then I started to giggle. I said, “Connie, my pet, who has the brains. . . .” She said primly, “Me, Johnny. Tell you what. Pay me the hundred a week, I’ll use them all the time.”

I looked her up and down a long, long while, and those tawny eyes, it was like they were saying things. You know, all sorts of things. I said, “Connie, I might just do that...”

We got out to the car and she sort of slid down in the seat and she didn’t care about her skirt. She said, “Johnny...”

“What?”

She found my hand in the half-dark. She said sleepily, “Going to be a big man. Going to the top.”

I said, “Could be.”

She was sort of close. She said, “Johnny, take me along. You can do it if you want....”

We stayed in the car a good while, and as far as it went it was great.

* * * *

It’s a long way to the top, Doc, a damn long way. I got Connie moved out of the main office, made her my personal secretary. I got a girl to work under her, so she’d have nothing to do but polish her nails. Then I had to fix up to manufacture the sub-lim adaptations. We wouldn’t just need units for our own gear, we’d need them to supply to anybody that bought our films. Before production could start there had to be a prototype, so we tore the test rig apart and rebuilt it in a single housing so it looked like something that might work. We had trouble ironing out all the bugs, because the end-product would have to fit half a dozen different types of mech and telecine gear. Right in the middle of things, as though we didn’t have trouble enough, we had trouble with Jeff. Like I said, he wouldn’t stand for sub-lim. J.B. tried to get me to fix a reel just for Jeff to see but he was too smart, one time with hot cans had been enough, he wouldn’t watch any more. There was a big row. I was in on it. Jeff shot his mouth off for maybe an hour, not even J.B. could get a word in. He sort of raved about morality and warping people’s minds and a lot of crap like that. J.B. tried to tell him we were in too deep, we couldn’t pull back, but that didn’t make no difference to Jeff. He was like that when he got an idea in his head. I told Connie afterwards. I was telling Connie nearly everything.

I was too mad to keep still, I sort of paced up and down the office while I was talking. I said, “It’s like he’s got a complex, you know, like the captain going down with the boat. Wants us all to pack up and go home, says he’s not putting his name on anything that’s got sub-lim mixed up in it. And you know Jeff, once he gets a thing in his head he won’t shift.”

Connie laughed at that, she thought it was pretty funny. She said, “Jeff’s a nice guy, it’s just he’s got a bit old. Sort of set in his ways. I’ll be sorry to see him out to grass, but maybe it’s time.” I asked her who was going to put Jeff out and when, she just purred and used those cat-eyes on me, and the eyes said you wait and see...

I had a call from J.B. that night. You could tell he was mad on the phone. He’d had Jeff round to his place, tried to gin him into saying yes. Sub-lim hadn’t worked neither did the gin, I could have told him he was wasting his time. He asked me what I thought, I said I didn’t know. He said he wanted to see me, said to get round there fast. I asked could I bring Connie and make it a party, he said the Hell with that, to come on my own and make it fast. I put the phone down. I’d never heard him so set, and when J.B. gets set on something, better get out of his way, brother. I got the Jag out and went over to his house, a week later I was a partner in Hill Studios.

Jeff took it bad. He resigned on the spot, and we found him his coat and told him we hoped he’d keep in touch, then I shook hands with J.B. and we were all set to go. I moved into Jeff’s office. It was about ten times bigger than mine and it had a carpet. I’d never had an office with a carpet, it was a pity I didn’t have time to admire it.

Connie spent about ten minutes showing me how pleased she was, and that bucked me up a lot, because what with the work and the trouble with Jeff I hadn’t seen much of her for weeks. Well, she’d asked for the top, and that was where we were headed. I told her to get lost for a few hours, I’d got work to do. I sent for Freddy. Next problem was to get the television boys to see things our way. I needed some more Images.

We got the circus down from Town and showed them the pilot with hot cans. There wasn’t any argument, they signed us up for a series of fifty, and that was the end of our money worries. The studio was in an old house that stood in its own grounds and we bought what extra land we needed, shoved bulldozers through everything on it and started putting up a couple of sound stages. J.B. bought a dozen writers, he knows when he’s licked, and we started vetting the first scripts and fixing production schedules. And I raised Freddy another pound; that made him the best-paid op in the business.

I passed out most of the routine work. I’d got a team building a new control system; instead of the pulses, we planned to use low frequency signals on the track itself, that way we could programme the gear to insert patterns of any number of flashes off one frame. It made life easier, and it also meant our control was better, we could play an emotion up or down, hold it at a pitch, peak it just at the right time. It all depends on the Image strength. Doc, the number of flashes a second, the duration of the pulses. We can trim it just how we like. I tell you, Little Andy is nothing. We don’t need the film, Doc, we could make you writhe just looking at an empty screen. The Video’s only the excuse for what happens to you....

Biggest headache was getting the sub-lim units installed at the transmitter end. We licked the problem eventually. We made up a film about sub-lim, what it was, how it worked, and the Images that went with it told you it was great, you had to buy it. You know how we used that film. Doc, you can work it out for yourself . . . anybody didn’t like the idea, we just got them down to the studios, showed them our movie. Every independent telecine is wearing cans now, Doc, every machine. And they can do anything you want. They’re still showing Little Andy, all they’ve done is make us a nation of saps; that’s nothing, they haven’t even started. What say we wanted a change of government, Doc, or to kick all the foreigners out of the country or set up pelota as the national game. Do you see what this thing is, Doc? We could do it, all it needs is the film and the Images that make you know it’s true.... That’s why I came to you, Doc, that’s why I want out, but now I don’t think there’s time....

After the first show was telecast J.B. went wild. The papers were full of Little Andy; the cheap dailies got it straight away, but inside the month the great nationals were giving the junk spread after spread. I guess people all over the world started wondering what the Hell had bitten us. By the time the second film was ready I’d named Connie as dialogue director and she’d had her physique splashed across every paper in the country. I guess I should have worried more, but there wasn’t time; the place was like a madhouse most of the day, with workmen tearing down walls, installing gear, units shooting scenes in every damn corner they could find. I got to my office one morning, couldn’t get in the door for cables. And somebody had got a pneumatic drill going just outside, you couldn’t think. I grabbed Connie and got out, went and found a quiet bar where we could talk. She said J.B. had got an idea for a new series, he wanted to start work on it right away.

That got me. I was the guy who should be told a thing like that, not Connie. I said, “The Hell with it, he can’t start anything else. We haven’t got the space or the time, we haven’t got the staff. We shall need the new stages for Little Andy, we can’t start something fresh.”

She sort of looked at her nails. She said, “Fact is, Johnny, we’ve got more space. We bought Orbit Films a week ago. The whole lot, stages, everything.”

I couldn’t wait to get back to Hill. We managed to stop the building boys long enough to talk. J.B. tried to calm me down. Sure we’d expanded, sure I hadn’t been told, hadn’t I got enough worries on the technical side, anyhow? Each man to his job, that was what J.B. said. He said not to worry, there was enough profit for everybody. He said within twelve months we’d have sub-lim cans on every telecine in the country, in two years we’d have the whole world. The Hell with that. I said, “Look, J.B., let’s take this slow. They find us out, they find out what we’re doing, they’ll hang us off the trees right there in the road.... Let’s make films,” I said to him. “Let’s stick at that. I’m a film man, I don’t want to own a planet. . . .” But I couldn’t get through to him. He just slapped me on the back and said not to worry, he’d look after everything. I tried Connie afterwards, she blew cold. “O.K. Johnny,” she said, “play it your way. I don’t care.”

That hurt because you know. Doc, she was a great girl, she’d got way under my skin. Wasn’t supposed to happen but it had. Somehow I’d done the lot for Connie, she didn’t care it made the whole thing sort of empty. I said to her we’d get out, go someplace and enjoy ourselves, we didn’t have to work no more. She wouldn’t answer me direct, just shrugged and said she’d see. I hadn’t had a drink for months, but I went on the beer that night. I couldn’t see my way round anything, somehow it had all got too big.

I had a call next morning from a guy I know, a newsman. It was late, about ten-thirty, but I was still shaving. I got to the phone. I said, “Hello, Eddie, what’s the trouble?”

He didn’t waste time being civil. “You bastards got something over there that’s sending the country crazy, Johnny, what the Hell you doing?”

I said, “What’s the matter, Eddie, don’t you like Little Andy?”

The phone made a noise. It said, “I don’t see Little Andy. I been wearing dark glasses for a month... what’re you doing, Johnny, what in Hell goes on?”

“Well, you know, pal, just making fi—”

He said, “J.B. was in here yesterday. Got a newsflash for us. If you don’t know, you better had ... he said he’d sold a new series, reckons it’ll make Little Andy look like feed for the chickens. And I know he hasn’t sold a thing, Johnny, he wants us to run the story, but Hell we can’t do a thing like that...”

I finished shaving fast as I could and bolted for the studio. All that soft talk, he’d been working over my head all the time. I parked the Jag and half ran to his office. I kept thinking, supposing for kicks he wanted to start World War Three. Supposing he gave out in the Press, the Russians didn’t like Little Andy. Just you think about that, Doc, just you try that for size....

I went in. I said, “What the Hell, J.B., you gone off your rocker? This crap you gave out about the new series, you can’t do that...”

He was sitting at his desk. He looked me up and down. He said, “Johnny, it’s done.”

I started to swear. I was the guy that mattered in that firm, I was the one had done all the donkeywork. I said, “You can’t do this, J.B. It’s just you and me, and I’m not having you do this...”

I hadn’t seen Connie. She was sort of behind me. She came forward purring. She said, “We can, Johnny. Sorry.”

I got it. Oh, but I got it all. And I knew I couldn’t fight the both of them. I couldn’t fight Connie. I thought of all the time she’d been playing about with me, she’d been hating my guts. I said, “Great. Just great. The new Mrs. March, I presume? Or won’t you bother...”

She said, “You’ve got to understand, Johnny, it’s just one of those things.”

I said, “Yeah, one of those things.” I put my face about six inches from hers. I said, “It’s true love at last, it always finds it’s little old way. What’s the matter, Connie, can’t you resist the smell of his breath—”

I saw the swipe on the way and ducked. I didn’t miss with my backhand. I’m like that, Doc, somebody takes a swing at me I swing right back...I felt good for about half a second, then it was like the ceiling fell on me. I didn’t know J.B. was that tough. ... He hit me again right where it hurts, and I was on my knees on the carpet and it was like I’d swallowed a ball of something red-hot, it was stuck right in my throat.... When I could see again, he was standing in front of me dialling the police.

She took the handset off him and threw it on the cradle. She said, “Forget it, J.B., he’s through.”

He hauled me up. He was still plenty mad, He said, “Throw the bastard through the door.”

She said, “No, leave him. Let him go. He don’t matter, let him stick around. You want to stick around, Johnny, see the fun?”

I got hold of the edge of the desk, that meant I could stay on my feet. I didn’t answer. She said, “Come on, Johnny, I want you to stay, you’re a useful guy. Just one thing, you may have to move your office, but stay around, we’d miss you if you went.”

I tried to talk. I was so mad the words wouldn’t come, it was like talking through felt. I said, “Anything more. Miss Connie ?”

She grinned at me. She only used one side of her mouth. Her hair had half come out the clips and the bruise was already showing on her cheek. She picked her bag off the desk, opened it, threw down a couple of coins. She said, “Get me some cigarettes, Johnny. It seems I run right out....”

So I got out of my office. I had to because J.B. was building a new place for her, and there was going to be a projection room so she could watch rushes without getting up from her desk. The box-suite cut my room in half. I moved downstairs. For what it mattered I was still a partner, I wasn’t leaving. I knew that was what they wanted, that was the way we ditched Jeff. I wasn’t going out like that.

Nobody came near me, because the whole place knew how things stood. I brought in a couple of crates of Scotch and had a sort of lost ten days. I could look out the windows, see the stages going up, all the activity, I could hear Movieolas running all over the building, the whole damn place was jumping, but I didn’t belong any more. Everybody was riding the same wagon except me, I’d been kicked over the tailboard. I heard them installing the mechs for Connie. J.B. put in a pair of new Kalees because she’d said she liked the colour of the finish...They were right over my head, when they were running they shook the walls. Freddy would come in about ten and warm them over, and they’d show rushes three, four, maybe half a dozen times a day. And I sat and soaked whisky and listened to the projectors and thought about Connie and what she’d done...

I felt pretty bad for a time, then I got over that and started getting wild. I didn’t care no more about Little Andy sending the world crazy, I could only think about Connie. Nobody tears me down like that and gets away with it, Doc, but nobody...

It took me days to think of it. If I hadn’t pickled my brains I’d have worked it out straight away.

I laid in enough money to cover the deal I was going to make. Then I waited. Five-thirty that night I heard the studio packing up and going home. I left it a few minutes, then I went and got the Jag, gunned it down the drive to the road. There was a bus stop a couple of hundred yards away from the gates, Freddy was waiting. It was raining and he looked like a little rat standing there with his collar turned up and the water running out of his hair. I did a skid stop and opened the car door. “Come on, Freddy,” I said, “you’ve got a lift.”

For a minute I thought he was going to turn me down, he sort of looked round like he might make a run for it, but there was no place to run. He got in the car. He said, “Very nice of you, Mr. Harper. Very much obliged.”

I got to his place ten minutes later. He lived in a scrappy little terrace over on the other side of town. I got out of the car. There was one streetlamp alight, the housefronts were shining with wet. Freddy tried to nip past and I got hold of his coat. I said, “Just a minute, Freddy, want a talk with you.”

He stood there looking at me. He said, “Yes, Mr. Harper, I thought you did.” I waited. The rain beat on the pavement. He said, “You better come in.”

He opened the door with a latchkey. The hall was dark, there was a sort of sour smell. Somebody called from upstairs, “Freddy, is that you? Who you got with you, Freddy?”

He put a light on. He said, “She’s bedridden, Mr. Harper. Can’t get about no more.” He shouted back. “All right, mother, only Mr. Harper from the studio. Shan’t be long.” He opened a door. “In here, Mr. Harper. Isn’t very warm, I’ll get the old fire oil in a jiff.”

I said, “The Hell with it, doesn’t matter.” I followed him into the room. There was an old table, high-backed chairs set round it. Faded floral paper. A big print on the chimney breast that showed all Wren’s buildings in one engraved heap. Freddy turned back to face me. He said, “Mustn’t be too long, Mr. Harper, she gets worried.”

I lit a cigarette. “This won’t take long, Freddy. This won’t take no time at all. You remember I helped you out once ?”

He sort of stood and pulled his lip.

I said, “You were for the chop, Freddy, I kept you on. Remember?”

“Yes, Mr. Harper, yes, I do...”

I said, “Right then, you know what they say. One good turn ... you’re going to make me an Image.”

He said, “Eh?”

I said, “Special sort of Image, Freddy. A love charm. A simple. An Image for love, can you do that, Freddy?”

He swallowed. “I don’t know, I haven’t ever tried.”

I said, “You’re going to try now. And you’re going to succeed. There’s an Image for everything, Freddy, you said so yourself.”

He said, “Mr. Harper, Mr. Harper, sir ... who’s it for?”

I started to laugh. I said, “The mechs in the new suite, Freddy, the new Kalees. They got cans on ?”

He jumped like I’d stung him. He said, “I couldn’t do it, Mr. Harper. Not for a thousand quid I couldn’t...”

I got hold of him. Like I told you, Doc, he’s a little guy...I backed him against the wall, I said, “Don’t play games, little man, I don’t have the time...”I got my free hand in my pocket, took out a wad of notes. I rammed them under his nose. I said, “A straight thousand, Freddy, no questions, no tax. You can get out, go any place you want. You’ll do it, little man.” I banged him against the wall, made his teeth rattle. I said, “A love charm. For the one and only Connie, for the little lion. Come on, Freddy, I’ll break your back...”

Some expression went across his face, like a fool I thought it was fear. He said, “All right, Mr. Harper, let go, I can’t get my breath...”

I stepped back. I said, “Attaboy, Fred.” You can buy anybody any time, Doc, you just gotta be sure you’re paying the highest ... I slung the wad down on the table. I said, “Get the stuff to me tomorrow, Freddy, I’ll love you like a son. Don’t let me down.” I went out and left him staring at the notes.

He brought me the drawing next day and I looked at it just long enough to make sure it was the real thing. I couldn’t do anything about it till the evening. When the studio had emptied I set up one of the rostrums and filmed the Image. I developed the neg and printed enough frames for both mechs. Then I went up to the new suite and laced the Kalees. I set the heads for independent running, maximum saturation. From then on, Doc, everything she saw she’d see with hot cans...

I sat in my office next day and laughed every time the mechs started up. I knew each time the crosses turned Images were stabbing into Connie’s brain like hypo shots.

It didn’t take hardly any time. I met her in the corridor and her eyes were wild and she glared at me, and I stared right back and I knew...

I took her home that night. We walked into my flat just the time the Little Andy show was starting up, all the suckers in the country crowding round their sets. She took her coat off and she was shaking. Her eyes were crazy like an animal and the tears were running down her throat, but her hands couldn’t stop unfastening her skirt. “You bastard,” she said. Over and over. “You bastard.” Doc, it was great. The little lion had an itch, and Johnny Harper was the only guy in the whole sweet world could do anything about it. I sat on the bed, then I lay on it, and laughed myself sick.

And then I made her crawl...

God, that little bastard, Freddy, he’d got it worked out right from the start. He was twenty moves in front of me all the way...

Doc, what’s the matter, I thought you were smart. Freddy, he’d got nothing. He’d go home nights, look at the picture of all Wren’s buildings, sit and watch the fire. See to his old mum, wipe her mouth, feed her meat broth...He was through, Doc, he was a little old guy nobody could use. No front-office girls for Freddy. No Connie, not ever. Until I made my move. The Images wouldn’t work for him, there was no way he could get her, I put her right in his lap. She had to get free of me, he was the only guy could fix it. He knew she’d go to him, he knew she’d pay plenty. But she wouldn’t pay in cash...

What ? How could she get free ? Wake up, Doc, do I have to spell it out for you...She couldn’t get the Image out of her head once the cans had driven it in, she was tied to me till I passed my check. That’s what she got Freddy to fix, he made me an Image as well. My Image was death...

I ... I only got it once. Up in the main theatre, I saw a print this morning, the cans were hot. Somehow I knew as soon as the mech started, I tried to look away from the screen but I wasn’t quick enough. It only needed the once, it must have been a masterpiece. I expect it was. Doc, it was a labour of love...

Doc, I’ve got an itch now, I know what it’s like...I didn’t know how I was going to do it till I bought the razor. I’m trying to keep my hands off it, Doc, I’m scared, I don’t want to go this way. Yeah, you’d better get on that phone, get the boys in with the jacket...But, Doc, don’t put me out, if you do I won’t wake up, my body’s programmed ... get moving, man, for the sake of God...

The razor. Can’t... put it down. Don’t try to take it off me, Doc, I could kill you, don’t try and come too near...Doc, don’t watch Little Andy. Find Freddy Keeler, break his back for me....

It’s ... like there was a magnet in my wrist, pulling. That’s where the itch is, Doc, it’s in my wrist right down near the bone. I can scratch it with this, I’ve got to do it, got to scratch, and scratch...

Doc, don’t, don’t be crazy, I told you—

Don’t—

God....

God, Doc, I’m ... sorry, didn’t mean to ... clout you like that, couldn’t help...Doc, look I ... done it, I had to. It was easy, going through the tendons was like cutting straw...it’s better now, Doc, the itching’s gone away...

Messing the carpet a bit. Doc, sorry...God, Doc, listen, you can hear the blood sort of whistling...I ... thought about it, what it’d be like, didn’t... think of that...

Doc, I’m scared, I want Connie...Try and listen, you gotta find her, look after her...She didn’t know what she was starting, he’ll ... do it again, sell her to somebody else, and she’ll buy off and then he’ll sell her, again and again, he’ll break her, Doc, she won’t walk proud no more...He’s the most dangerous guy in the world, we made him that way...Doc, this is sub-lim, you see what it can do....

Funny. Like I can feel all the blood I got go rushing down my arm. Is that for real, Doc, is that what happens—

Don’t feel too good. Can’t see ... shoulder’s hurting, guess I better ... sit down ...

Sort of want to cry, but maybe better make a ... gag instead...Roll credits and fade to black...Doc, this is it I don’t want to go—

Connie, darling, please, I never... never... meant...

SUB-LIM