The Fall of Archy House

Television is a swell way of projecting ideas to an audience. But Archy created chaos when he used it to project real live monsters!

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy December 1957 Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

For over two weeks, the projections were a national emergency, and the nation got pretty sore at Archy House.

Archy was on camera when it happened. He always closed the Home Hour in person, partly because nobody else did it quite as well, partly because it flattered the audience to see him.

His delivery was almost shaken, the night the thing happened, by the appearance of Otto Kahler, chief engineer, just out of camera-range, his hair in his eyes and a wildness about his mouth.

Arch closed his patter smoothly, set a smile through fadeout, and turned to Kahler.

"What's up, Otto? You look like a ghost that saw a ghost." He let annoyance enter his voice. He was surrounded by the best men money could buy, and sometimes they ran around like children.

"The scrambler blew," said Otto. "Somebody spilled a pail of water on it."

In an office a phone began ringing. "Mr. House," somebody shouted, "it's the White House calling."

Archy gave Otto a shove. "Dammit, man, switch on the auxiliary. Do I have to tell you?" Otto just stood there as Archy turned and yelled into the confusion off the set, "Tell Washington I'll be right with 'em."

His eye swept the studio. "Where's June Manning?"

Even in this tight moment, his breath gave the familiar balloon-lurch as Full-Projection Studio's top writer glided from the directors' studio in her blue sheathe gown. Her wheat-blonde hair was dressed in the latest style, a yard-long, loose-braided hank slung richly over her shoulder; and her face was part cherubic, part perverse.

Another phone began ringing.

"June, I want a 30-second yak to give the viewers. You have 90 seconds to get it on idiot cards; I'm going on with it right after the station break. The scramblers failed. Gimme something soothing to say. Got it?"

She nodded and marched off. Otto cleared his throat. Archy spun. "What are you waiting for? Get switched to auxiliary! We've got projections prancing around living rooms in every suburb in the country."

Another phone was ringing. "General Cox for Mr. House," somebody yelled. "Calling from Hawaii."

Archy wished these jackasses would all drop dead. He shook Otto.

"I tried the auxiliary," said Otto. "It's out."

"Holy volts," said Archy.

For the first time in his life he felt desperate. A cool head and a habit of never being wrong had got him where he was--founder and top banana of Full-Projection, sole owner of three TV networks using the revolutionary 3-D devices perfected by Otto Kahler and patented by Archy. In the present emergency, he tried to keep his head still cool and continue to never be wrong.

A stagehand was running a phone out onto the set. Waiting, Archy snapped instructions at Otto--put half the staff to trying to get the scramblers operating, set the other half to slapping together an emergency machine. Otto dashed off and the phone was slapped into Archy's hand.

"Yes, Ben," he said assuringly to the President of the United States. "What can I do for you?"

"You can get those projections out of my living room," snapped the president. "They're still doing their acts from the circus show--jugglers, acrobats, an animated cartoon. What happened?"

"Don't worry, Pops. An experimental commercial goofed. Stay tuned; we'll have the scramblers on in ten minutes."

"You'd better," crackled President Conklin. "I have guests--this could be an international incident. And don't call me Pops."

"Sit tight. And now excuse me, Ben, I'm going on the air. Just keep the projections near the set, within scrambler range."

He was on. They used the conventional flatscreen cameras, and June's script was as smooth as if she'd worked all day on it ... as smooth as her satiny shoulders and not-quite-uncovered bust. It explained that due to uncontrollable circumstances scrambler-power was temporarily off.

"Our advice is, stay calm," Archy read smoothly. "The projections are not real people. They are harmless. They are merely images of people, just as in old-fashioned flat TV, except that they are projected into your home in full dimensions. Even with no scrambler to dissipate the electro-magnetic configuration of which they are composed, they will not last long.

"They are held together, energized, by the energy beamed from our studios through your set. Without that power they will vanish, probably within a few minutes."

Reassured by what he had just read, Archy took more phone calls.

The general in Hawaii told him the barracks were full of Pixie Owens projections, Bikini-clad, and military discipline was shattered.

The mayor of New York reported that Central Park was teeming with Wild West Theater projections, and armadillos in the streets had jammed all traffic.