He looked down at the orgy of eye-poking, nose-twisting and noggin-bopping going on on his desk.
“Now I recognize them,” Jerry said.
“Uh huh,” Karl said. “I’ve got the sound turned off. Otherwise it gets kinda noisy in here.”
They watched the byplay between the monkey demons for a while longer.
“I know I’m going to regret asking this,” Jerry said at last, “but what’s the name of that module?”
“That’s the Scheduling Transport Operating-system Object Generator and Editing System.”
Jerry’s lips moved as he worked out the acronym. Then closed his eyes. “I knew I was going to be sorry I asked.”
The group backed out of the stall and moved down to the end of the aisle. Several benches had been arranged about the section used as a whiteboard. Jerry gestured for them to sit.
The dragon had decided Jerry and Bal-Simba were all right. He crowded close to Jerry’s legs and bumped his head insistently on his calf. Absently, Jerry reached down and scratched him on the scales behind his pointed ears.
“Have some tea?”
Bal-Simba’s nose wrinkled. I thank you, no.” The others also shook their heads and the wizards started to sit down.
The dragon sighed luxuriously and pressed harder against Jerry’s legs, forcing him to shift his stance or be knocked off balance. Jerry sat down on the bench harder than he intended, causing the other end to jump up and smack Petronus on the bottom as he sat down. The wizard glared, Jerry reddened and the dragon wuffed insistently, demanding more scratching.
“I want to apologize. Things aren’t usually this lively.”
“I should hope not,” Petronus said.
“Quite a display,” Malus said. “Attacked by a swarm of miniature demons as soon as we entered.”
“Oh, they weren’t attacking us,” Jerry assured him. “They were playing a game. The idea is to shoot down your opponent’s fighter.”
“Your opponent’s fighter?” asked Bal-Simba. “You mean those demons were not self-motivated?”
“Oh no. What would be the fun of that? The idea is to outfly the other guy.”
“So each of those—fighters?—was directly controlled by a magician.”
“Sure. At least most of them are. A few were probably drones thrown in to improve the dogfight simulation, but . . .”
“Dogs?” asked Malus. “You call those dogs?”
“Well, no, but it’s called a dogfight you see, and . . .”
“If the creatures who are fighting are not dogs, why call it a dogfight?” The pudgy wizard waggled his finger at Jerry. “Confusion. That’s what this new magic of yours does, it sows confusion everywhere.”
“No, you see . . .” But he was interrupted before he could get any further.
“Fox,” a female voice proclaimed from the other end of the Bull Pen, “that’s disgusting!”
Cindy Naismith came striding down the aisle, eyes blazing, with Larry Fox trailing behind her.
“Jerry, I want you to do something about this right now!”
“Cindy, can’t you see we’re having a meeting?”
“Now!” Cindy demanded.
Jerry turned to the wizards. “Ah, excuse me, Lords.” Then he faced Cindy and Larry. “Let’s go talk, shall we?” and he herded them down to the opposite end of the Bull Pen.
“What the hell is this all about?” Jerry hissed as soon as they were safely away from the inspection party.
“It’s about the so-called user interface this cretin wrote for the front end.”
“The code’s in spec,” Larry said sullenly.
“Spec my ass!” Cindy blazed. “That routine is pornographic and demeaning to women!”
“Pornographic code?” Jerry asked, totally bewildered.
“Here,” Cindy said. “See for yourself!” She turned and gestured to call up the demon. There was a small billow of pinkish smoke above the central table. It writhed and coalesced into solid flesh. Very solid and very pink.
Jerry gaped. “Holy shit!”
The demon was gorgeous, voluptuous and totally nude. A mass of blue-black hair spilled down over her shoulders, her blue eyes were alight with amusement and promise. She smiled at her watchers and ran a pink tongue tip over her blood-red lips in a way that was blatant invitation. Then she stretched and reclined on the table in a way that made her enormous breasts ride even higher on her ribcage and her dark nipples stick out like strawberries.