The Agency by JakeWebb4

Emma looked left, then right, then left again, before getting out her phone to check her calendar. Yep, 5900 Black Beauty Boulevard. It should be here. So where was it?

There was a huge black building between 5898 and 5902, but there was no sign denoting it was The Agency and, more importantly, no door. Maybe she just couldn't see it? She put down her heavy suitcase and the thick-stuffed Manila envelope she was carrying and approached the wall, pressing her face against it. Nope, that didn't help.

She stepped back, frowning. The last thing she wanted was to be late for her Big Break (all her family and friends had made it clear this was her only chance, her one shot, to the extent that it was now referred to in hushed tones as 'The BB': "Get a flight two days before. You don't want to be jet lagged for The BB." "You're going to get a new suit for The BB, right?").

So here she was, credit card maxed out on an LHR-LAX flight and two nights of broken sleep in a noisy motel. The heat was overwhelming. Dark circles were already staining the armpits of her starchy new suit, which had seemed the perfect choice back in grey London. But grey London wasn't L.A.

It doesn't matter though, she told herself firmly. Because this is The BB. She picked up her Manila envelope and hugged it to her sweaty breasts. If I can ever get in, that is.

"Is there an intercom?"

Emma jumped at the voice behind her and span around rapidly. It was Rainer, an old acquaintance of hers.

Emma was definitely the last person that Rainer would have expected to see here. He knew her from the two-person book club they ran together, and they had occasional meetings to discuss critiques. She hadn't told him she would go to L.A., though. But, come to think of it, he hadn't told her either.

She looked so out of context in her dark business suit. She must be cooking inside of that, with the sun hitting her like a hammer from above and the heat wafting up from the pavement. Fortunately, he had decided for lighter attire, trousers that looked chino but were actually of synthetic fiber and a white, short-sleeved shirt. He wore his jacket folded over his arm, not only because of the heat but also in an attempt to hide the frayed state of its cuffs.

"Emma!" he said, "What are you doing here?"

She hesitated. "Holidays? ...And you?"

Rainer eyed the envelope she clasped as if her sheer life depended on it, and then he looked at a similar item in his left hand. Holidays, fat chance! She must be here for the same reason he was. Sucking up to the entertainment industry. He hated himself for it. Turning literature into screenplay! That was so much like sending one's own daughter off to that house with the red lantern hanging over its door.

"Ehm...," he said, in answer to her question. "Holidays, too..."

She glanced down at the envelope he carried, and a knowing grin appeared on her face.

For a moment, they both just stood, saying nothing and surveying the impassive wall. Then, at exactly 2.15, the wall opened.

"Hello, hopefuls." A glamourous receptionist in a mumu stood in the newly-revealed entrance. "Mr. Salt and Miss Press I assume? If you'd like to come inside and wait in reception, Mr. Hassam will be with you presently."

They stepped into the cool—thankfully cool!—black and gold marble reception, and the receptionist pointed Rainer and Emma to a black leather banquette, then seated himself behind a long glossy desk and proceeded to file his nails, eyes fixed on some trashy US talk show.

Emma leaned in to Rainer, pointing at the thick white envelope in his hands. "So you're here to try and get representation too?" She whispered. "Is that a screenplay?"

Rainer nodded, feeling relieved to be able to tell someone. He had kept it secret, telling his family that he had to go to L.A. for patent attorney business, afraid to let it show how much he wanted to turn his story into the next blockbuster.

"Walking the Ruins," he said. "I mean, that's the title. Actually, it's a novel. About a girl and some friends cast into a remote future, where they find nothing but the ruins of our civilization. They fight for survival, and they search for answers. The one thing the girl does find, in the end, is her true self. It's a coming of age story. But... no one reads that kind of stuff anymore, or if they do, they won't pay for it. Wattpad really has destroyed the economic base of writing. Like what Uber did to the taxi business. So I thought that I might turn my story into..." His mouth clamped shut and he had to consciously loosen his face muscles before being able to utter the dreaded words. "...into a script." There, he had said it. He had admitted that literature had failed, and the entertainment industry had won.

"And yours?" he asked.

"Mine's called Wildlings," Emma said. "It's about the ecological practice of rewilding, and the human need to try to control the uncontrollable: from society to the natural environment; from our emotions to the thoughts of the people around us." She tailed off as she noticed Rainer's eyes glaze over. "I really need to work on my elevator pitch," she mumbled.

"So what inspired you to try the Agency?" Rainer asked. "Was it Carissa Carter?"

Emma shook her head. "No. it was this film I saw. The Agency? You know the one with Emma Watson? That. Apparently, the guy who wrote it is represented by these guys. I even went out and bought the novel. As research." She slipped a hand into her suitcase and pulled out a slim paperback with a white and turquoise cover. "Did you know the main character is Latino in the book? Yet they cast Emma Watson. Hollywood whitewashing, eh?"

"Actually, I did know." Rainer reached into his bag and pulled out a copy of the same book. "I've read it too. What did you think?" He grinned. He loved doing these reviews with her.

She smiled back at him. "You start."

1) Story: Did we like it? Did it draw us in? Was it believable? Did it bore us? What did we think of its plot?

"The story starts smoothly," Rainer says, "in a first person narrator's voice addressing the reader personally. That voice is unusual, elegant, humorous and engaging, and it accompanied me through all chapters that were published when I read. The voice did draw me in.

"At some point, The Agency comes into the story. And The Agency is very mysterious, dark, sinister, fascinating..." His voice trailed off, and his eyes roamed the hall they were in. With a brief shake of his head, he dragged himself back into reality. "About at the same time, a government institution is getting involved. And that institution is bizarre. Well, I have heard that some U.S. government institutions do tend to be bizarre—and I have first-hand experience with the USPTO to confirm that—but the one here is beyond bizarre.

"So, was it believable?" He continued, then hesitated. "It's fantasy, so the reader must be willing to believe, of course. But fantasy can feel believable, in its fantastic way. As to this one," he waved the book he still held in his hand, "Emma and her life feel believable. The Agency and something that makes a fantastic appearance there do feel believable, too. But that government institution, it feels bizarre. But I'll come back to that when I'm talking about how the story made me feel."

He stopped waving the book. "What are your thoughts? Did you find it believable, did it draw you in?"

"Yes." Emma nods, jogging her copy of the book up and down on her knee. I actually really enjoyed it, and am quite looking forward to seeing what happens. The story unfurls beautifully. It starts off like a standard light teen-girl story, then just gets darker and stranger and more fantastical, but in a very engaging way. There was a bit with a breastfeeding woman, in a toilet, and I was like, "okay, I thought I was watching Pitch Perfect, but now I realise David Lynch directed this particular journey."

She reaches into her bag again, pulling out a Mulholland Drive DVD that Rainer is sure he's seen before. It has a New York Library sticker on it.

He raises an eyebrow. "Didn't you take that back?"

Emma blushes and pushes the DVD back into her bag.

2) Characters.

"I liked the character of Emma," Emma says, "though it took me a few chapters to really connect with her - until she started working at the Agency, in fact. She was well painted, and complex, and not at all cliched. There were some inconsistencies, especially in the earlier chapters.

"The first, for me, was when she went to the first day at her dream internship at Entertainment Now wearing jeans and a flannel shirt. This just didn't square for me at all with what we knew about Emma and how much she wanted this job. Another was that I felt like a girl with her traumatic past - who is completely alone in the world - would have more darkness or insecurities to contend with."

"Yes, Emma," Rainer interrupts, smiling at Emma and enjoying the cheap ambiguity of the situation. "Emma is witty, clever, observant, and has a relatable life-in-wrecks. I did feel her. There's one aspect of her behaviour that I had difficulties to come to grips with, namely her emotions towards that government institution. They are so bizarre, but she seems to take their quirks at face value. While she is understandably suspicious of The Agency, she does not really seem taken aback by that government institution's strange behaviour.

"The other characters in the book remain vaguer than Emma. That's understandable, of course, because Emma takes a lot of room." Emma shifts in her chair beside him. "Emma Martinez, I mean.

"Jez works fine for me, at least until she meets Brian... who seems to turn into a Ben in chapter 12, by the way. I mean, I understand that Jez and Brian are compatible, but the chapter where they meet seems a bit rushed to me, failing to really make this clear.

"I do like mysterious, sleek, dapper Sam. But up to chapter 13, he's mostly that. It'll be interesting to learn more about him."

"Suck up," Emma mutters.

3) Feelings: How does your story feel?

"At its start, the book feels very firmly rooted in the world of business." Rainer's eyes screen the austere scenery around them. "Later, some aspects of the story turn fantastic. I love urban fantasy, that mix of mundane, everyday normalcy and the supernatural. But then, two generals enter the plot, and they remind me a bit of Laurel and Hardy. At that point, the book acquires tendencies to slapstick.

"And with the hints at a possible inherited mental disease on Emma's part ... for some moments, I had the impression that Emma was going bonkers." Seeing the confused stare of the woman sitting beside him, Rainer raised his hands in defense. "Not you, I'm talking about Emma Martinez."

"I liked that too." Emma nods. "There's so much ambiguity. Who is good? Who is bad? Is Emma imagining it all? It just adds to the uneasy feeling of the story that is perfectly balanced with humour."

4) Pacing: are there any parts of your book that feel slow, or rushed, or superfluous to the movement of the story?

"Overall," Emma continues, "the story was well-paced. The only part I found slow (and a little boring, if I'm honest) was when the author used the television show to give us important information. It felt like telling rather than showing, and took me out of the story a little. How else he could get this info across, I'm not sure, but it didn't really work for me as-is."

"Hmm," Rainer frowns. "I see what you mean. However, the TV show did work for me. Yes, it did strike me as a slightly crude—but efficient—means to get information across to the reader, but it was infotainment, which does fit the context of the plot, and their TV watching was anchored through Eric. So I had no issues with this.

"All in all, I thought that the pacing is excellent. The story is fast, but most of it was not too fast. Apart from the chapter where Brian and Jez get to know each other, as mentioned above, the only scenes that feel a bit hurried, or maybe unreal, are some of those involving that government institution."

"I actually agree with you on Brian-Ben/Jez," Emma adds. "And I struggle to see what Jez sees in him."

5) Spelling & grammar: What's our impression of your spelling and your grammar? Here we will not address individual issues but give a general assessment.

"At first," Rainer says, "spelling and grammar are dazzling. Around chapter 11, some typos and minor errors become more frequent, but that's nothing that would taint the fun."

"Can't add much to that," Emma adds.

6) Suggestions: Do we have any suggestions for improving the book?

"I'd definitely reconsider using the TV show to communicate such large chunks of information," Emma states. "I'd also be tempted to get rid of the 'Hi Friend' at the beginning of the chapters. This is largely stylistic, but didn't work for me personally. I'd definitely get rid of the occasional bolded letters though."

"As to the first two points," Rainer says, "I'm not so sure. As I said, the TV show was fine for me. And I did like the narrator's voice that seems to talk to the reader. I fully agree with what you say about the bold letters, though. In fact, they seemed so out of place that I first thought they carry some secret message, so I was going through them trying to decypher a deeper secret. But it was just gibberish.

"One thing I'd recommend, though, is to re-think that government agency. Is it really supposed to be that bizarre, its two head figures such dilettantes? If yes, shouldn't Emma have more doubts about them? (She does check, once, if they are genuine, trying to find them on the internet, but does not get clear results. Later they become even more bizarre—if I were her, I would not have taken them seriously.)

"On a similar note, there's talk about a court action based on sexual assault of someone's wallet. Again, this is bizarre, even for U.S. law, but I wonder if it's too much so."

"I found that too," Emma chimes in. "And maybe a bit close to the bone considering the seriousness of sexual assault."

Rainer nods. "In other words," he continues, "when I started reading the story, it seemed witty but realistic. Later, with The Agency, it turned mysterious and fantastic. But, as I said before, the government institution moved the whole thing towards ridiculous, which may be a bit too much of style changes in a row, leaving the reader confused.

"And a minor point: The book is deeply anchored in Los Angeles and the Entertainment scene, both of which may be fairly unfamiliar to some readers, such as me. For example, wtf is the 'SBE complex'? Might be good to describe this a bit more clearly (be it imaginary or real) so the reader is not left in doubt if he should know it."

"At points, the author uses the direct addressing of the reader to really subvert some of the rules of writing fiction," Emma chimes in. "Such as the way she talks about the car following her, and brings in the karate training. I loved this, especially the karate one. But then there was one pertaining to Carissa Carter that I didn't like so much, where Emma tells us she'll come up again. The technique had lost its ability to surprise a little by that point, and it was a weaker example than those used previously."

"As for me," Rainer adds, "I did like the warning that Clarissa Carter would come up again. Helped me to remember her. And," a mischievous grin tugs at his lips, "I am all for subverting rules—it's what they are made for. If the subverting is done properly, it's a powerful tool."

7) Highlights: What did we enjoy most?

"There's much I enjoyed when reading this," Rainer says, leafing through the book in his hands. "For example, I enjoyed Emma's first day at The Agency. The weirdness of it. But the best part for me was Chapter 13, which tied some threads together and left me truly curious, on several levels.

"And I do like the narrator's voice, as I said above."

"Yes. I loved the way the threads were tied together," Emma agrees. "The voice is fresh and enjoyable. It's got the makings of a really good book."

8) Audience: Who do we think would most enjoy this book, and why?

"That's hard to say," Emma mused. "I think the book should have a fairly broad appeal. There's nothing too mature in it, so it would suit younger teens, but it has enough edge and darkness--and even satire--to appeal to adults."

"This is a book for anyone who likes the combination of mystery and urban fantasy," Rainer said, looking at the elevators as one of them opens to reveal a sleek looking man in dark attire. "It reminds me, in various aspects, of 'Bereft', by rentachi, another fine book that I have yet to finish reading, even though that one feels darker and deeper. This one," and he waved the book in his hand one last time then stashes it away "is lighter, at least up to chapter 13".

"One thing's for certain," Emma states vehemently, "it deserves far more reads than it currently has. I have a suspicion the author doesn't engage much in the social side of Wattpad, leaving this book languishing somewhat unread, when it deserves to be more widely appreciated."

Rainer nods. "Funny, I had exactly the same thought when I saw the number of reads the book has."

"Mr. Salt? Miss Press?" The receptionist had detached himself from the TV screen and approached the banquette, "Sam Hassam is ready for you now." He extended a well-manicured hand towards the dark figure approaching them.

"If you'd like to come with me." the impeccably dressed Mr. Hassam leads them to the lift, and takes them up two floors. They embark on a long dark corridor.

"You wait here." He motioned Emma to a lone chair outside the nearest door. "This shouldn't take long. Mr. Salt? You can come with me." Sam opened the door.

Rainer followed, and gave Emma a wink. "I'll wait for you outside when I'm done."

"Good luck!" she said, but his back was already turned towards her. With his heart pounding in his chest, he approached Sam Hassam, and the door closed behind them.

***

Rainer was getting a bit uneasy, hovering in the empty corridor, so breathed a sigh of relief when Emma finally emerged. She looked pale.

"How did it go?" he asked.

"You first," she replied, making a poker face as they walked towards the lift.

Rainer pressed the button and it lit up to signal the lift was on its way. It took a strangely long time considering it ostensibly served only 2 floors.

"Hmm." Rainer thought about Emma's question. How did it go? "Hard to say. He ... he said that Young Adult has lost its appeal with the public. There's been too much of that over the last years, he said. He took the script, though, promising me to have someone look through it." In proof of the fact, he held up his hands, now empty. "Do you think they do coverage on a lot of scripts? And ... do you think I should have worn a tie when coming here? The people here seem to be quite formal in these things... And that guy was so smooth." He stopped, studying the floor as if there might be answers hidden in its swirling marble. Then he looked back up, at Emma. "And what about you? How was your interview with Sam?"

A ding, and the doors finally opened. The couple stepped inside.

"Not too great." Emma looked at the floor, too, downcast. "He said they tend to prefer new takes on classic stories. Fairy tales." She scowled, adding, "Fairy tales are stupid," under her breath.

Suddenly the lift jerked to a halt, all the lights flicking out. Emma grabbed Rainer's arm in fear.

"What... what happened?" Rainer whispered.

A foul stench came from nowhere, filling the metal box.

***

The writers were missing for two weeks, reappearing just before the L.A. Police were set to legally respond to their concerned families' reports.

Neither of them could remember what had happened. But no one has ever heard them badmouthing fairies again.