When his folks came home, his dad had really had his hide.
WANDA-JEAN HAD THOUGHT IT WAS GOIBG to be glamorous. In fact, it had felt more like being inducted into the military. She had called the number specified in the letter and been issued with a reference number and an appointment for four days later at nine-thirty in the morning. It was another day off work, and she was very well aware that she was coasting mightily close to being fired. Her supervisor, that old cow Hendrikson, had long ago stopped buying her one-day illnesses. It couldn't be helped, though. A chance to be on "Wildest Dreams" and maybe win a feelie contract for the rest of her life was more than worth the risk. She had been a little surprised that the phone at NCC had been answered by a computer that was programmed to only recognize her name and relay the next set of instructions. Its final words had been strictly for idiots.
"Do not forget or lose your reference number. Without that number, your contestant consideration will be automatically canceled."
Wanda-Jean's pride had suffered a further deflation when she had arrived for the first appointment. She had been shown to a large room on the ground floor of the NCC tower by a harassed PA whose curt manner verged on rudeness. To her dismay, she discovered that there were fifty or more people in the room. The invitation hadn't been to automatic fortune and fame but to a total cattle call. How many were they going to pick out of all those people? Five? Ten? It couldn't be more. She was tempted to walk away from what looked to be a mainly hopeless situation, but a certain resolve she had never suspected she possessed kept her going. She had already lost a day's work, so what the hell. Someone had to win.
For the next hour she filled out a lengthy questionnaire, which grilled her on a great many personal details that she felt were hardly anybody's business, let alone NCC's and the producers of "Wildest Dreams." With an inborn natural caution, she lied a good deal about her lifestyle, making herself appear much more the apple-pie American girl that she never was in reality. The questionnaire was followed by an equally long general knowledge quiz. As she worked her way through it she suspected that the questions had been rigged to provide a further personality profile, but she was hard enough pressed just coming up with answers to practice any kind of deceit or duplicity.
For the final stage the applicants were taken, one by one, into a side room and given a brief video test. After that they were told that if they were selected for the physical challenge test, they would be contacted by phone.
Then they were directed to the street, and that was it. The anticlimax was crushing. It was lunchtime and Wanda-Jean had nothing to do with the afternoon except to go home and watch the soaps. After five days, she had given up all hope. Either her personal profile didn't fit, or she had screwed up the test, or maybe she just looked plain bad on the video. With her luck, she had probably failed all three. It was only an illogical belief in long-shots that kept her from throwing away the slip of paper on which she had written her reference number. It was thus that it came as something of a major surprise to pick up the phone a full week later and hear a real-live human being announce herself as Garvey Asher, Associate Producer of "Wildest Dreams."
"Wanda-Jean, do you still have your reference number?"
"Yes, I do."
"I'm happy to tell you, Wanda-Jean, that you have been selected from your intake group to go forward to the next level of selection. Are you still interested in becoming a contestant?''
Strangely, Wanda-Jean's first thought was that it would mean missing another goddamn day of work. Hendrikson was hard on her back, and one more day would most likely be her final one. The panic lasted only a moment.
"Yes, of course, I really want to be a contestant more than anything in the world."
Garvey Asher informed her that she should report to the NCC studio complex in three days' time and be prepared to remain for the whole day. She should dress as if for the gym. The call was six in the morning. The studios were all the way out in Nettlewood, and Wanda-Jean realized that to get there so early she would have to take a cab. It would cost her a small fortune, and getting back, particularly if it was late, didn't bear thinking about. The cab, on top of the pink and black Actionskin and the new pair of Converse HiFlyers that she decided she had to go out and purchase for the tryout, was turning this into an expensive hobby.
When she arrived at the studios, bleary-eyed from having dragged herself out of bed at four A.M., just three hours after she had crawled into it, she discovered that once again it was a cattle call-although this time there were only about thirty hopefuls. Every one of them seemed in peak condition. They all looked like tennis pros, aerobic instructors, or dancers, and all were dressed in the very latest and sexiest workout wear. Wanda-Jean's heart sank.
First each would-be contestant was required to sign a lengthy release form by which they absolved the producers of "Wildest Dreams," NCC, and all of its affiliates from any liability resulting from death or injury during the course of the show or while testing for the show. On that cheerful note, they were divided into groups of seven and told to get changed. Wanda-Jean was so outraged that she almost spoke up about it. After all the money she had spent, she wasn't going to get to wear the Actionskin after all! The only consolation was that the other contestants were also being stripped of their chic workout wear. As each one of them entered the changing room, he or she was handed one of the skintight bodysuits that was the uniform of contestants on the actual show itself.
The costume was one more small moment of truth. Like the costumes on the real show these were made from the specially constructed and highly unstable material that dissolved when wet. There was a lot of water involved in "Wildest Dreams," and seminudity was a big part of the show. How she felt about being naked or almost naked on national TV was something that Wanda-Jean had not expected to have to confront so early in the proceedings. She knew that it would be expected of her if she actually got on the show, but she had postponed thinking about it, rather hoping that it would take care of itself. The costume was minimal enough to start with, a skimpy, skintight, one-piece bathing suit cut high on the hips. But at this point, there was only one choice: She simply went with the flow and changed along with the rest. Then when everyone was ready, they were led out in their groups of seven to the physical challenge set.
There was something threatening and inhuman about the "Wildest Dreams" physical challenge course. It was something she had never noticed all the times she had watched the show. On the TV screen it looked like fun. In reality, it was just plain threatening. The long, straight avenue, flanked by the high tiers of spectator seats, seemed deliberately planned to reduce the players who would race down it to the level of experimental animals in a vast sterile lab.
The tests were being conducted on an old set, one from three seasons before. Only a minimal number of the lighting effects were up, but even without the assault of garish color, the set looked formidable. Overhead, silent figures watched from the electricians' catwalks in the roof of the sound stage. Wanda-Jean suppressed a shudder. She wondered if the other contestants felt the same. They were all avoiding each other's eyes. Loudspeakers called them in turn.
"Will all contestants in group four move up to the starting gate?"