Supply and Demand, Chapter Two

Through Technicolor nebula-clouds which scudded over the city-lights of colonies and outposts below, 4-H-N led her all-girl legion. Getting the galaxy’s pants in a twist had been an understatement on the copywriter’s part, for clustered about the foreground to meet this advance head-on were representatives not only of Neetra’s own Nottingham faction, but also the other side of The Four Heroes’ schism. Whatever 4-H-N’s secret was supposed to be, it was apparently of such magnitude as to have driven her from Dylan and her family on Grindotron. No wonder the crisis had since escalated to crazy day-glo accessories and vehicles on all three fronts, with which to either wrest that elusive truth from the quadrant’s favourite bosom or preserve it tucked-up Mini-Flash style where it was. Splashed across a stretch of unobstructed firmament Harbin’s featureless visage surveyed the chaos hugely, crimson eyes aglow.

“Your regular artist?” Wodding inquired with interest.

“Yes, it’s Hand,” confirmed Hand.

“Thought so,” said Wodding. “Bit different to his earlier work though, isn’t it? Not quite his usual style?”

“It wouldn’t be,” Neetra put in.

If the regional manager had been able to convince himself he was coping, that self-deception was therewith stripped away. He looked to Neetra in the absolute terror of one who suddenly had no idea what he was up against.

Our heroine meanwhile, though none too thrilled either by him or the liberties his company took, wasn’t doing any of it to be cruel.

“Don’t panic, Hand,” she went on. “I promised you your trade secrets are safe with us, and they are. Now let’s speak plainly. The painting’s out of character because this other Hand’s had to invent a whole lot more than he’s used to, hasn’t he? Your psychics couldn’t give him as much to work from as before. And that’s because you made them try to read our future. Even though everybody knows it’s impossible to get an accurate impression that way.”

The regional manager, as unto his namesake at last, was open.

“What would you have had us do?” he asked Neetra helplessly. “You’re the hottest property in toys right now. You must have seen how the Limb Four range is shifting. Were we expected to sit around and wait for you to have your next adventure? With those sales about to peak? And festival season just around the corner?”

“Well, quite,” our heroine agreed. “Now though, when my friends and I are risking our lives to sort out whatever this is, you’ll be comfortably raking it in. Talk about all’s right with the universe. At a time when the fate of everyone and everything’s hanging in the balance, I must say Prolepsis Toys are right on top of their priorities.”

Hand seemed to have spent his supply of justifications in one go. Neetra turned back to the box art.

In a way, she was looking at what was to come.

In another way of course it was nearly all farcical, an attempt at filling the many blanks clairvoyant uncertainty had drawn. Our heroine’s crucial task was to identify the scintillas of truth that might have sparked this fantasy. Of its many elements, plausible and otherwise, the one which most called her practiced eye was 4-H-N’s galactic girl-gang. True, that one was already notorious for running with the very worst, in a quadrant where reactionary paranoia on female delinquency fairly abounded. That, not astral presentiment, might have informed the artist. Neetra tried to picture him, a version of the Hand who was in the room with her – but younger, for only the hotshot generation was able to capture the second gender as well as he’d done. Older artists who’d not grown up gawping at boobs and frilly knickers spluttered over those subjects like you wouldn’t believe, whereas the likes of Neetra’s friend Sludge-Man threw themselves into the same with glee.

And there was the problem.

All too easy to envisage a bookish neurotic fellow-scholar at the art college where Sludge-Man had been party-king. Only Neetra wasn’t on Earth. Whoever heard of a young male round here who wasn’t girl-mad? And even if that hadn’t been so, the loving brushwork on her little sister’s curves didn’t exactly suggest a subscriber to the cosmic Daily Mail.

Moreover, Neetra knew why she wanted her telepathic instincts to be wrong, and protectiveness towards 4-H-N was but the merest part of it.

For that girl from the gang wearing her chocolate-dark hair in bunches was one of the Special Program. So was Miss Pink-Cheeked and Robust beside her. And that little curly-haired one. They were all among the runways who with the exception of Mini-Flash Juniper remained officially unaccounted-for.

And even before they’d broken loose, hadn’t Neetra’s own psychic little girls in Nottingham warned her 4-H-N’s destiny and that of the Special Program were entwined?

Our heroine hoped and prayed Hand’s artist named Hand had watched the televised Arch of Titus awards ceremony as she had. That was the only place he could hitherto have seen the girls he’d depicted, and it was a long shot indeed he should have taken his cue from there rather than the in-house psi-talents. Since however the alternative was a rogue Special Program with all their phenomenal powers under the stewardship of 4-H-N, long shots were well worth hoping and praying for.

Quite the window into the future, all told.

It would sell a good many Four Heroes toys, even if the cost to the galaxy might end up signifcantly higher than the recommended retail price.

Neetra thought of another window. One which looked out upon equally ambiguous and troubling views. Not that its occasional occupant hadn’t come up with the goods fair and square.

Now Neetra wondered whether she too was about to get more than she’d bargained for.

Mini-Flash Robin jumped to his feet as the delegates made their way back to the reception-area. “You were totes a long time, chap was starting to worry!” he cried.

“Well, that’s all done,” Hand crooned to Neetra and Wodding. “I do hope you found your impromptu little visit to our premises an instructive one.”

“Really superb,” was Wodding’s heartfelt reply.

Neetra for her part reminded herself once again the law was different here, and Hand hadn’t broken it. Indeed, she was lucky he’d proceeded as he had, for all that it didn’t feel she was.

“Then next time just give us some notice you’re coming!” gurgled the regional manager, with another smile as fake as those on the faces of his action figures.

Our heroine hesitated a minute, then turned back.

“I’m sure we can accommodate you there,” she replied. “You’re a businessman, Hand, you know it’s all about give and take. For example, Limb Four, your previous range – ”

“Shush!” pleaded Hand.

“And those enormous proceeds it’s made for you,” Neetra continued, ignoring him, “are all thanks to a battle where a good friend of mine was hurt. Someone my aide and I care for deeply. A sweet, uncertain young girl, who was already having enough trouble finding her place in the universe. Hurt in ways someone like you can’t imagine.”

Hand by now was strategically avoiding Neetra’s stare.

“Accommodate me,” she finished, “and show a little sensitivity to those issues from now on. It’ll tell in your favour the next time I have a chat with my source.”

And from the blurting earnestness with which Hand at once complied, Neetra began to think she was more cut out for business than she’d thought.

END OF CHAPTER TWO