Occasionally, for a little variation, he walked up to the tape
recorder and asked a question--and then promptly answered it in
another voice. He stomped noisily away from the recorder again, across
the room, and then silently dove back to the keyboard for more
keyboard typing and mumblings of Macbeth.
It was exhausting. He figured the tape had to run for at least fifteen
minutes uninterrupted. It wouldn't look very realistic if the office
buzz suddenly went dead for three seconds at a time in the places
where he paused the tape to rest.
The tapes took a number of attempts. He would be halfway through,
racing through line after line of Shakespeare, rap-tap-tapping on his
keyboard and asking himself questions in authoritative voices when the
paper jammed in his printer. Damn. He had to start all over again.
Finally, after a tiring hour of auditory schizophrenia, he had the
perfect tape of office hubbub.
Mendax pulled out his partial list of Minerva users and began working
through the 30-odd pages. It was discouraging.
`The number you have dialled is not connected. Please check the number
before dialling again.'
Next number.
`Sorry, he is in a meeting at the moment.
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