WORLDBUILDERS, INC.
When the phone rang, I didn't race to pick it up. I was in the middle of gluing an impassable mountain range across the middle of the Type One world I was working on (quasi-medieval, prophecy-driven, resident Dark Lord), and those damn cloud-wreathed peaks are always fiddly to get right.
"Can someone take that?" I called over my shoulder, then swore. One little jolt of the wrist, and my carefully regular mountains had crumbled into the kind of jumbled rocky wilderness you only get after serious tectonic action.
Oh well. It would just have to double up as the monument to a long-ago magical battle that had wreaked havoc across the continent. Yeah, blame the Dark Lord – that's always a good fallback in a Type One. In fact, a bit more devastation wouldn't go amiss …
"Len? Sandra?" The phone was still ringing. "Can one of you please … oh, never mind."
Abandoning my now severely ominous mountains, I lunged for the handset, in the process leaving an elbow-shaped dent in the middle of the plains. Or perhaps a sinister mist-wreathed swamp.
"Worldbuilders, Inc.," I said into the phone, rather crossly. "How can I help you?"
"Er, hi." The voice on the other end was cautious, as if not quite sure what it was doing there. "I'm ringing to enquire about a commission."
I took a quick glance at the caller display, but it simply read EARTH. That made sense. It's where many of our clients come from: authors of what they call fantasy, taking our work and turning it into little hand-drawn maps and pretending they invented it. I don't have a problem with that. They buy it, and it's up to them what they do with it. We're only the architects.
"That's fine," I said. "Have you used our service before?"
"No. I heard about it from a – a friend."
I appreciated the discretion. The Earth people who know about us tend to keep it very quiet, to avoid giving away their advantage; if someone had told my mystery caller about us then it stood to reason they wouldn't want their name to be revealed.
"Right. I'll just create you a file." I stepped across to the tall grey cabinet by the wall and began flicking through the existing files, each marked with the client's initials: TP, RJ, JRRT, GGK. "What is your name, please?"
I could almost hear the sound of shuffling feet coming down the phone line. "You can, er … you can call me Smith."
I'll file you with the other hundred-plus Smiths, shall I? I restrained the sarcasm, making my tone as colourless as possible. "We do need unique initials for our files –" Sir? Madam? I realised I couldn't actually tell, and so finished swiftly, "if you don't mind."
"A.F.E." the anonymous voice said. "A.F.E. Smith."
"Great." Phone wedged between shoulder and ear, I grabbed a blank file and labelled it AFES. I like it when they have four initials – it makes duplicates less likely. I'm told that's how JRRT got his extra R. "So what sort of world were you looking to commission from us?"
"It's not actually a new commission I'm interested in," the voice said. "You see, I'm stuck on this short story, and … anyway, I want to use an existing world. One you made for someone else."
"Fine." Again, in itself that wasn't unusual: it's a lot cheaper to reuse a world than to create one from scratch, so some clients take an old one and change the names and leave it at that. I crossed to the second filing cabinet, where we keep the details of all the worlds we've ever built. "Do you have the catalogue number?"
"Yes, I do." A moment's hesitation. "It's 0-0-0-0-0-0-1."
Our new worlds are up in the seven digits by now; even with reuses, we don't get people asking for much lower than ten thousand or so.
"Are you sure?" I asked. "You want to use the first world we ever made? You wouldn't prefer something a bit more … modern?"
"No, I don't think so."
Wow. This guy – girl – whatever – must really want to cut costs. "Hold on one moment, please."
I put the phone down, then pulled the lower drawer of the cabinet right out and rummaged around at the back of it until I found a dusty file labelled '1'. Presumably we hadn't foreseen the need for a seven-digit system in those days. I flipped it open, stifled a sneeze, and scanned the contents.
World #1: Worldbuilders, Inc. Type Zero world (only one of its kind). Specialist source world or meta-world. Exists solely for the purpose of creating other worlds …
File hanging loosely from the fingers of one hand, I picked up the phone once more.
"This world you want," I said into it. My voice sounded unnatural in my own ears. "This 0-0-0-0-0-0-1 … it's ours. It's this one."
"Yes. Yours is the one I want to use in my story." The unknown author was vaguely apologetic. "Is that OK?"
"But – but it's in our files. Surely we didn't create our own world?"
An audible shrug. "Why not? Someone must have."
"But you don't understand!" I wailed. "All the worlds we build are fictional! They don't really exist! So where does that leave me?"
"Well, I suppose there are two possibilities," A.F.E. Smith said diffidently. "One is that every world that ever gets invented becomes real, somewhere, somehow. And the other … well, the other is that you're just a character in a work of fiction." Long pause. "If I were you, I'd pick whichever you feel most comfortable with. Anyway, thanks very much for your help."
"You're going?" I tried to make sense of what had happened. "But what about your story?"
"Oh, it's fine," the voice at the other end of the line said. "I've just finished it."
"Can someone take that?" I called over my shoulder, then swore. One little jolt of the wrist, and my carefully regular mountains had crumbled into the kind of jumbled rocky wilderness you only get after serious tectonic action.
Oh well. It would just have to double up as the monument to a long-ago magical battle that had wreaked havoc across the continent. Yeah, blame the Dark Lord – that's always a good fallback in a Type One. In fact, a bit more devastation wouldn't go amiss …
"Len? Sandra?" The phone was still ringing. "Can one of you please … oh, never mind."
Abandoning my now severely ominous mountains, I lunged for the handset, in the process leaving an elbow-shaped dent in the middle of the plains. Or perhaps a sinister mist-wreathed swamp.
"Worldbuilders, Inc.," I said into the phone, rather crossly. "How can I help you?"
"Er, hi." The voice on the other end was cautious, as if not quite sure what it was doing there. "I'm ringing to enquire about a commission."
I took a quick glance at the caller display, but it simply read EARTH. That made sense. It's where many of our clients come from: authors of what they call fantasy, taking our work and turning it into little hand-drawn maps and pretending they invented it. I don't have a problem with that. They buy it, and it's up to them what they do with it. We're only the architects.
"That's fine," I said. "Have you used our service before?"
"No. I heard about it from a – a friend."
I appreciated the discretion. The Earth people who know about us tend to keep it very quiet, to avoid giving away their advantage; if someone had told my mystery caller about us then it stood to reason they wouldn't want their name to be revealed.
"Right. I'll just create you a file." I stepped across to the tall grey cabinet by the wall and began flicking through the existing files, each marked with the client's initials: TP, RJ, JRRT, GGK. "What is your name, please?"
I could almost hear the sound of shuffling feet coming down the phone line. "You can, er … you can call me Smith."
I'll file you with the other hundred-plus Smiths, shall I? I restrained the sarcasm, making my tone as colourless as possible. "We do need unique initials for our files –" Sir? Madam? I realised I couldn't actually tell, and so finished swiftly, "if you don't mind."
"A.F.E." the anonymous voice said. "A.F.E. Smith."
"Great." Phone wedged between shoulder and ear, I grabbed a blank file and labelled it AFES. I like it when they have four initials – it makes duplicates less likely. I'm told that's how JRRT got his extra R. "So what sort of world were you looking to commission from us?"
"It's not actually a new commission I'm interested in," the voice said. "You see, I'm stuck on this short story, and … anyway, I want to use an existing world. One you made for someone else."
"Fine." Again, in itself that wasn't unusual: it's a lot cheaper to reuse a world than to create one from scratch, so some clients take an old one and change the names and leave it at that. I crossed to the second filing cabinet, where we keep the details of all the worlds we've ever built. "Do you have the catalogue number?"
"Yes, I do." A moment's hesitation. "It's 0-0-0-0-0-0-1."
Our new worlds are up in the seven digits by now; even with reuses, we don't get people asking for much lower than ten thousand or so.
"Are you sure?" I asked. "You want to use the first world we ever made? You wouldn't prefer something a bit more … modern?"
"No, I don't think so."
Wow. This guy – girl – whatever – must really want to cut costs. "Hold on one moment, please."
I put the phone down, then pulled the lower drawer of the cabinet right out and rummaged around at the back of it until I found a dusty file labelled '1'. Presumably we hadn't foreseen the need for a seven-digit system in those days. I flipped it open, stifled a sneeze, and scanned the contents.
World #1: Worldbuilders, Inc. Type Zero world (only one of its kind). Specialist source world or meta-world. Exists solely for the purpose of creating other worlds …
File hanging loosely from the fingers of one hand, I picked up the phone once more.
"This world you want," I said into it. My voice sounded unnatural in my own ears. "This 0-0-0-0-0-0-1 … it's ours. It's this one."
"Yes. Yours is the one I want to use in my story." The unknown author was vaguely apologetic. "Is that OK?"
"But – but it's in our files. Surely we didn't create our own world?"
An audible shrug. "Why not? Someone must have."
"But you don't understand!" I wailed. "All the worlds we build are fictional! They don't really exist! So where does that leave me?"
"Well, I suppose there are two possibilities," A.F.E. Smith said diffidently. "One is that every world that ever gets invented becomes real, somewhere, somehow. And the other … well, the other is that you're just a character in a work of fiction." Long pause. "If I were you, I'd pick whichever you feel most comfortable with. Anyway, thanks very much for your help."
"You're going?" I tried to make sense of what had happened. "But what about your story?"
"Oh, it's fine," the voice at the other end of the line said. "I've just finished it."
