Page 20 - Demo

Natch!6there are. You wouldn%u2019t think that would be a matter of dispute,but you%u2019d be wrong.But Deenah is a looker, which is what Gene was thinking whenJean said, %u201cWow, what a striking building!%u201d%u201cI know. I can%u2019t believe I%u2019m going to work here.%u201d The two stoodin the plaza, gaping as they cradled their coffee cups, bothsparking hopeful electricity tempered by a pit-of-the-stomachundercurrent of %u201cOMG! OMG! OMG!%u201d Deenah has that effect onnewbies. They stand, they gape, they worry about whether they%u2019llmeasure up, they get stiff necks, and then that%u2019s enough of that.Besides, they were blocking the entrance, it was windy, and itwas rush hour. A building the size of Deenah takes a herd ofworkers to operate, and they were all shuffling to work on thatvery first day. Gene and Jean almost spilt their coffees in thegreat jostling shuffle through the huge front doors. Behind them,Lucky was still negotiating with Cali over the remaining muffins.Deenah%u2019s enormous lobby, easily the volume of a largecathedral, broadened as they cleared the entry threshold. Anavalanche of figures filled the overhead space representingcountless species that had come out of Deenah over the years.They were all shapes and sizes%u2014from itsy bitsy to holy moly. Andthey all seemed to be sprinting or flying or swimming or slidingin the direction of the front door, as if they were in a race to bethe first ones in line for muffins. Gene instinctively searched forhis favorites, but in the shuffle of workers it was hard toconcentrate. He kept losing his place and then he%u2019d have tobacktrack, glancing over the same herd of herbivores beforemoving on to the carnivores. Jean was having the same problemwith the birds, one wing flapping into another. They each made amental note to come down some day on their lunch break, whenthere weren%u2019t so many workers shuffling about, and take a goodlong look.