So Yesterday - By Scott Westerfeld Page 0,3

all had first and last names, their initials wrought in tiny gold buckles, and, like her, came from Fifth Avenue. She saved me the trouble of a comeback. "Oh, that's right. There wasn't an old one."

"Not as old as you, I'm sure," Jen said, not missing a beat.

Antoine whistled and spun on one heel with a squeak, clearing the deck. I pulled Jen over toward the chairs at the far side of the conference room, inside Mandy's clueless force field, out of range of Hillary's hundred-dollar claws (per hand).

"Hi, Hunter. Thanks for coming." Mandy was in serious client-wear, red and white and swooshed all over. She was peering down at the conference room's control panel, perhaps intimidated by its spaceship complexity. She pressed a button, and blackout curtains jumped into motion, closing across the sixtieth-floor view of Central Park. A tentative stab later, wooden panels slid apart on one wall, revealing a TV that probably cost more than a Van Gogh but was much flatter.

"This is Jen."

"Nice laces," Mandy said, not bothering to look down, giving me the Nod. I saw a printout of my Jen-shoe photograph tucked into her clipboard, headed for mass production.

I sat Jen down and whispered, "She approves of you."

"This is all very weird," she answered.

"Duh."

Hillary Hyphen, who had recently reached the big two-oh, managed to close her mouth just as the lights began to fade.

The ad was set in the standard client fantasy world. It was nighttime and raining, and everything was wet and slick and beautiful, blue highlights gleaming from every metal surface. Three client-wearing models were in motion, each leaving their glamorous job to the beat of some German DJ's last-week remix of a song older than Hillary. One of the models was riding a beautiful motorcycle, another was on a bicycle with about fifty gears, and the last one (the woman, I noticed, these things being important) was on foot, her swooshes splashing through puddles reflecting Don't Walk signs.

"Oh, I get it. Run," Jen whispered.

I chuckled. There are only about twelve words in the client's language, but at least everyone is fluent.

Guess what? The three models were all headed to the same cool bar, which looked like a cross between a velvet couch factory and an operating room. They all ordered gleaming non-brand beers, looking thrilled to see each other, energized by their glamorous journeys across the fantasy world.

"Moving is fun," I whispered.

"Fun is good, ' Jen agreed.

The ad came to a tear-jerking end, our heroes leaving their beers untouched, having decided to keep moving. I guess they were going for a ride/run together? Wouldn't that be a little awkward? Whatever.

The lights came up.

"So" - Mandy spread her hands - "what do we think about 'Don't Walk'?"

It's funny that ads have titles, like little movies. But only the people who shoot them - and people like me - ever find out what those titles are.

"I liked the motorcycle," Tina Catalina said. "Japanese street bikes are way back."

Mandy's eyes went to Hiro Wakata, Lord of All Things with Wheels, who gave her the Nod, and she checked off a box on her clipboard. I'd thought American was in, but apparently the motorcycle gurus had decided otherwise.

"Skate remix," Lexa Legault offered, and the rest of the cyber-geeks nodded. The German DJ had their vote.

"A'ight shoes," Trez said, just to fill a brief silence. He and Antoine would have approved them months ago. Shoes that didn't make it in the Bronx were shipped off to Siberia, or New Jersey, or somewhere like that.

And besides, this tasting wasn't really about the shoes. It was about how all the little elements of the fantasy world added up or didn't.

"Was that Plastique, where they wound up?" Hillary Hyphen said. "That club is so last April."

Mandy checked her clipboard. "No, it's someplace in London." That shut Hillary up. The client was very clever, shooting the street scenes in New York and the interiors on another continent. You never wanted too much reality leaking into fantasy world. Reality gets old so fast.

"So we liked it?" Mandy asked the group. "Nothing felt wrong to you guys?"

She looked around expectantly. Spotting cool was only half our job. The more important half was spotting uncool before it made trouble. Like a race-car driver, the client worried more about crashing and burning than winning every lap.

The room stayed silent, and Mandy started to lower her clipboard happily to the table.

Then Jen spoke up.

"I was kind of bugged by the missing-black-woman formation."

Mandy blinked.