Syrup

by Max Barry

  on location

  I’m surprised by how small it is. Obviously this isn’t Universal’s main lot, but even so: they’ve bought themselves an ancient, dust-blown airport halfway to Nevada and called it a studio. I can’t believe that something as impressive as Backlash actually came out of here.

  There’s a single guard, who seems to have the backbreaking responsibility of protecting a vast amount of sand, and he ushers us straight through as soon as we identify ourselves. “Studio One,” he tells us. I seriously doubt there’s a Studio Two.

  We find the entrance to the building, which is an old aircraft hangar, and step inside. And that’s when I realize that this really is a movie set, and it really is serious, because there are maybe sixty people and twenty tons of equipment in here, and Gwyneth Paltrow is heading in my direction.

  “Excuse me,” she says, and pushes at the door 6 and I have just come through. It sticks in the sand. “God damn,” Gwyneth says.

  “Where is Gwyneth going with her hair?” a small man demands loudly, and from the voice this must be Kline. He is sitting in a huge mechanical contraption that looks like an antiaircraft gun, but I guess is just a big camera.

  “I’m getting some air,” Gwyneth shouts.

  “Air?” Kline shouts back. “There’s plenty of air in here.”

  “Mr. Kline?” 6 says. He stops and peers at her, and Gwyneth takes the opportunity to slip outside.

  “Damn it,” Kline shouts. “Somebody go get Gwyneth.”

  “Mr. Kline, my name is 6,” she says, striding toward him. “This is Scat. We’re from Coke.”

  Kline stares at her for a moment, then sighs hugely, perhaps to show the crew exactly how tired he is of corporate interference from suits who wouldn’t recognize a good film if it was projected on their butts in 70mm. “I’m on a schedule here. Can’t it wait?”

  “Of course it can,” 6 says, which surprises me. “Don’t let me get in your way, Mr. Kline. Just let me know when you have a free minute.”

  This obviously surprises Kline, too, because he blinks and is momentarily silent. I think he’s almost disappointed that he doesn’t get to have a public argument with his corporate backers. “Fine,” Kline says. “I will let you know.” He turns back to his antiaircraft gun and a short brunette with a clipboard.

  “Now what?” I ask, looking around to see if I can spot Winona. “We twiddle our thumbs all day waiting for him?”

  “He won’t keep me waiting,” 6 says, and she is also scanning the hangar, although I presume not for Winona. “When he sees me talking to a few of his key staff, he’ll worry about what I’m doing and come see me.”

  “Oh.” By now I’m no longer surprised by 6’s business acumen. “So we’ve got a few minutes?” I am now thinking about wandering outside and accidentally bumping into Gwyneth.

  “You,” 6 says, “are making a call. Remember?”

  “Oh yeah,” I say, disappointed. “Cindy.” I pull out my cellphone, then pause as a particularly sneaky idea occurs to me. “I’ll go outside. For the reception.”

  6 looks at me.

  “Reception,” I say again, a little more desperately.

  “Whatever,” 6 says, and heads toward the first assistant director.

  a conversation with babe-a-licious

  I step out into a blast of desert sun, which makes it momentarily difficult to get a bead on Gwyneth. Then I spot her leaning against the hangar a bit further down and wander in her direction without trying to make it look too obvious. When I sneak a look, she’s staring out at the desert, oblivious to my presence.

  I dial Cindy and do a little desert-staring myself while it rings. Gwyneth notices me and squints in my direction, and I give her a smooth little eyebrow-raise just as Cindy picks up. I can’t speak for Gwyneth, but I’m fairly impressed with me.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Cindy. How you doing?”

  “Oh, great, Scat,” she says, laying on the cheerfulness in thick, barbed slabs. “What do you need?”

  “Now, you see,” I say obnoxiously, “you just assume I need something. As it happens, I’ve got an offer for you.”

  Cindy’s silence oozes suspicion.

  “Coke was very impressed with your work on Diet Life. We want to offer you a small part in Backlash.”

  “Really?” Cindy says excitedly. “A real part?”

  “Probably only a small one,” I say. I glance at Gwyneth, who has turned her attention back to the desert. “But still, it’s a great opportunity.”

  “It’s fantastic,” Cindy enthuses. “Wow, thanks a lot, Scat. You’re the—” She stops herself. “Thanks a lot.”

  “You’re welcome.” I take a breath. “There’s just a teensy little catch.”

  Pause. “Oh?”

  “There’s this committee. They’re kind of in charge, and they want to ... change your name.”

  “My name? What to?” Only surprised so far. Not yet outraged.

  “To ...” I have to swallow before I can say it. “Babe-A-Licious.” I rush on to beat her objections. “Now, I know it sounds terrible. I know you won’t want to perform under that name. But—” Then it abruptly occurs to me that if Cindy really does refuse, it’s no skin off my nose. In fact, it’s the obvious solution to this particular problem, and I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before. “So I want you to know that if you hate it, I’ll just go back and tell the committee you won’t stand for it. I mean, you have your credibility to protect, right?”

  “Are you kidding? Like I’d risk a shot like this because of a name.”

  “Uh,” I say, which is, apparently, my submission to Great Rebuttals.

  “I mean, I’ve heard better,” Cindy says. “Geez, Babe-A-Licious. But I was actually thinking of changing it, anyway. Maybe something short and snappy, you know. But that’s okay.”

  “Uh,” I say, my brain racing for a solution.

  “When do I start?”

  “Uh,” I say.

  “Wow,” Cindy says. “A movie role!”

  scat makes an impression

  When I kill the call, I realize that Gwyneth is staring at me. There is an expression of incredulity on her face.

  “Babe-A-Licious?” she says.

  deadline management

  6 is standing just inside the door, hands on hips, surveying the hangar. She turns as I approach. “I just talked to Kline. It’s going to be difficult, but he’ll shoot our changes.”

  “Hey,” I say, brightening, “that’s great. How long?”

  “He wanted five weeks. I talked him down to three. We’ll have to squeeze post-production, but I think we can have this finished within the two-month deadline.”

  “Should I talk Kline through my changes?”

  6’s mouth tightens. “No, Scat, you should not. You should not talk with Kline about anything. He doesn’t like you.”

  “Oh,” I say.

  She softens. “Look, your ideas are great. They’re going to transform this thing. But let me handle the politics.”

  “Okay,” I say, mollified.

  “Here’s a script,” 6 says, handing me a manila folder. I am becoming very, very sick of manila folders. “The writer is over there.” She points out an old lost-looking guy in a dirty T-shirt. “Now I want you to work with him to rewrite the scenes we talked about, and do it without offending him. Can you do that? ”

  I take a breath. “I promise not to offend him.”

  6 stares at me for a moment, weighing this up, then takes a step closer to me. “That’s right,” she says, her dark eyes glinting at me. “You won’t.”

  I’m very careful with the writer.

  silver screen

  On Friday we start shooting the changes, which is pretty exciting. In the morning, Tom Cruise appears beside me without warning, and I nearly leap backward with fright. He looks calm—even vaguely bored—and somehow manages to look nothing like he does in the movies while being unmistakably, incomparably, Tom Cruise.

 
The day’s shoot starts slowly, with Kline devoting a full hour to a shot of Tom turning his head, but then things start to pick up. It’s particularly gratifying to see the scene where Tom and Gwyneth meet reshot, where instead of wrestling a male partner at the academy to the ground, he goes up against Gwyneth and gets rubbed into the dirt. When it’s done, Gwyneth shoots me a happy grin and I get warm shivers.

  Cindy arrives on the lot about ten, is swept into makeup and emerges two hours later looking like a goddess. She is playing Gwyneth’s roommate at the academy and has only two lines (“What was that?” and “Wait here. I’ll go check”) before being blasted by aliens. But she’s palpably excited about the whole deal and it shines through in her performance. Inexperienced as I am, I can’t help but feel that things are going well.

  I’m supposed to be getting in touch with post-production, but instead I catch Cindy between scenes. “You were great,” I tell her. “Cindy, I’m really impressed.”

  “Thank you,” she murmurs, lowering huge eyelashes.

  “You look fantastic. What is that, silver mascara? And boy, that uniform—it really fits you well.”

  “Oh, Scat,” Cindy sighs happily. “I’m so grateful for all this. This really means a lot to me.”

  “Aw, it’s not as if you don’t deserve it. For putting up with me, if nothing else.”

  “Oh,” she says coyly, taking a step toward me. “You weren’t so bad.”

  “No, I think I was,” I admit.

  “You were worth it.” There’s a little smile tugging at her lips, and I don’t really know what that means. “You’re a special guy, Scat.”

  I shrug, a little embarrassed. When I look up, she is still smiling at me. “You want to get a coffee?”

  There’s a tiny coffee room at the back of the hangar, and it takes us ten minutes to coax a respectable cup of coffee from the ancient Beanmaster 2000. It takes us another twenty to drink it, and somehow another thirty minutes or so slips in there, too, so I guess we’ve been gone a pretty long time when 6 appears in the doorway.

  “It was nothing like that in high school,” Cindy is shrieking. “You were chasing me—”

  “Scat,” 6 says. Her voice is low and dangerous.

  “Oh,” Cindy says. “Hi, 6.”

  6’s eyes never leave me.

  “Can I help you?” I say awkwardly. It comes out all wrong.

  6’s eyes burn into me for long moments. Then her gaze flicks to Cindy. “You,” she says, “are needed on the set.”

  “Oh,” Cindy says, flustered. She puts down her polystyrene cup. “Okay. Sorry.” She shoots me an apologetic glance as she squeezes past 6. “Bye, Scat.”

  “Bye,” I say, and then it’s just me and 6. Her stare is unnerving. “We were just talking,” I tell her, defensive for no reason. “Just catching up.” That doesn’t make any impression, so, stupidly, I switch to aggressiveness. “Is that okay with you?”

  “I trusted you,” 6 says.

  This is not a good start. “Hey, now—”

  “I thought you were different.” She shakes her head, slowly, but her eyes never lose their intensity. “I can’t believe I fell for that.”

  “6, please. Don’t get—”

  “Don’t you tell me what to do.”

  “6,” I say carefully. Calm but forceful. Like handling a snake. Or so I would imagine. “There’s no reason to be jealous. We were just—”

  Her eyes bulge alarmingly. “You think I’m jealous?”

  I stop. “Well—uh, aren’t you?”

  “You obviously have no idea about me.”

  I’m starting to think she’s right. “6, let’s just talk about this.”

  “I need some space,” she says. Her eyes narrow. “You’re crowding me.” My jaw drops. “I don’t think you should stay with me tonight.”

  She turns on her heel, leaving me standing stupidly in the coffee room.

  “Oh boy,” I say to myself. “Oh, boy.”

  I can’t believe I’m homeless again.

  corporate nights

  I actually consider getting a room at the Beverly Wilshire, just to rack up expenses, and get so far as raising the phone to my ear, already imagining late-night room service and wide-screen TVs. But then a better idea occurs to me: I can go to Coke. Then, when this is all over and 6 asks me what I did, I can say, “Well, 6, I spent the weekend at work.”

  The security guard lets me in without comment, as if it’s not uncommon for Coke executives to head back to work on a Friday night. I catch the elevator to the 14th, wander around the deserted office reading the cartoons taped up on the cubicle walls, then settle down in my office.

  For a while I feel pretty cool, putting my feet up on the desk and staring out at the city. I feel like I’m a high-flying, hard-working marketing executive, rather than a penniless, homeless chump, and frankly, the former feels much better.

  When I can’t sustain the fantasy any longer, I boot up the computer and hunt around for Minesweeper. To my disgust, 6 has already deleted it in favor of some corporate messaging utility, so I have to roam the cubicles for a more entertaining PC. I discover a disturbing dearth of games on all machines until I come across one guy’s computer that seems to have nothing else. Then I get embroiled into a bizarre game called Death Clowns, which has me blasting away until four in the morning.

  When I can’t keep my eyes open any longer, I wander back into my office and settle into the big chair. I fall asleep immediately and dream, alas, not of 6, but of giant menacing clowns.

  a close encounter

  I have a feeling when I wake up that it’s pretty late, but it’s not until I crane my neck around to peer at the wall clock that I see that it’s almost seven P.M. I’ve slept through almost the whole of Saturday.

  My first thought is to call 6. She hasn’t heard from me for more than twenty-four hours, and she won’t like having me out of her control like that. I reach for the phone.

  Then I stop. I mean, I’m not the bad guy here. Cindy and I were just talking; 6 is the one who overreacted and threw me out. If she can’t deal with her own feelings, then maybe she’s learning something now. I lean back in the chair, bathing in the yellow evening sunshine, and look out over the city. I don’t think I will call 6.

  When I’m through feeling smug, I raid the office fridge for food. There’s only a block of chocolate and a bowl of fruit salad, but I make do with it: for some reason I don’t feel like leaving Coke today. I feel like staying in my corporate tower, playing computer games and feeling superior. So I do.

  Two hours later, I’m so wrapped up in Death Clowns I don’t even notice @.

  execution

  “Hi,” @ says.

  I yelp and literally jump an inch in the air. On the screen, maniacally grinning clowns fall on me and start bludgeoning me with sausage dogs. “@!”

  She is so white: I am surprised all over again. It’s hard to tell where her skin stops and the peroxide begins. She shifts from one foot to the other, her men’s business suit creasing attractively. “Scat,” she says softly.

  The “Scat” tells me that something is going on. It’s not a Shit-what-are-you-doing-here Scat, or a I’m-going-to-wipe-the-floor-with-your-ass Scat. It’s just Scat. “Uh,” I say, turning off the clowns, “how are you?”

  “I’m good,” @ says. She pauses. “How are you?”

  “Good. I mean, busy. With the film and all.”

  “Yes,” @ says. “I’m sure.”

  There’s a long pause. @ just stands there, searching me with her glowing blue eyes. “So,” I say eventually, “is there anything I can do for you?”

  @ thinks about this for a while, although I’m pretty sure she already knows the answer. “Yes,” she says finally. “Yes, there is.”

  the last seduction

  “You’re wasting yourself,” @ says sadly, leaning forward. I’m in the leather chair, gripping the sides so I don’t flip over backward. “6 is a lost cause.”

  “6 is okay,”
I say carefully.

  “No,” @ says, shaking her head. Her blond hair ripples like a sheet of sunshine. “No, she’s not. She’s not up to Backlash. It’ll swallow her.”

  A little laugh pops out of me. “Uh, @, have you even seen 6? If anyone on this planet is up to Backlash, it’s her.”

  “She has an act, and that’s all.” She shrugs lightly. “It’s not enough.”

  “Hey, look,” I say, nettled. “Let’s not bad-mouth 6, okay? She’s my partner.”

  @ regards me sadly. “No, she’s not. You just think she is.”

  “Oh,” I say. “Oh, right. You want to tell me what that’s supposed to mean?”

  “She’s not on your side,” @ says simply. “You must already know this. 6 is looking out for 6. You’re expendable.” Her eyes search me. “Do you really trust her?”

  I open my mouth, then stop. Finally I say, “Sure I do.” But even I hear the uncertainty.

  “She’s dragging you down, Scat,” @ tells me, leaning across the desk. And I have to say, in this moment, she is gorgeous. I’m not sure if any part of her is real, but I’m also struggling to remember why that’s important. “She’s not good enough to win, and she’s going to take you down with her. Is that what you want?”

  “Without 6, I wouldn’t even be on Backlash. She’s helped me more than you know.”

  “Has she?” @ says, and I see with amazement that @ even has a little eyebrow movement of her own. It’s not as good as 6’s—not as practiced, maybe—but in its own way it’s quite funky. “Who did Brennan invite into the project: you or 6?”

  “Well, me. But—”

  “Who comes up with the ideas? The summer campaign, Fukk cola, the changes to Backlash—whose ideas are those?”

  I stare at @ for a moment. “6 does the ... management. Ideas aren’t ... just aren’t her strength.”

  @ rises from her chair and walks around the desk, her eyes pinning me. “Scat,” she says quietly. She slips her behind onto the desk and rests a hand on my shoulder. “I know you like her. I know it’s hard to get past that. But you have to.”