<!--
	Title: The Shrinkwrapped Falcon
	Author: A. Dashiell Meretzky
	Source: The New Zork Times, v4(1)
	Date: Winter 1985
	Transcription by Steve Derby
-->

It was a hot September day, the kind where horseflies seem to be making
their last desperate mischief before vanishing for the long, cold winter. I
sat in my office, feet perched carelessly on my cluttered desk, and
gazed out the window at Charlie the Hot Dog Man — ageless Charlie,
still beating leather down Wheeler Street after all these years.

I didn't have anything to do, or at least nothing worth taking my feet
down off my desk for. I'd just finished a job, a game-writing job,
and it'd paid a truckload of smackers, and I was in no hurry to get myself
another case.

A horsefly landed on the tip of my shoe. I took aim with a rubber band,
but a sudden motion startled it into flight before I could shoot. I wheeled
around, and saw Ernie Brogmus standing in my doorway.

<figure class="float-right-half">
<img src="/public/img/articles/nzt-the-shrinkwrapped-falcon/infocom-production-line.jpg" alt="Infocom products assembly line">
<figcaption><em>Burnin’ Ernie Brogmus, left oversees the Infoassembly line. It’s his job as
Production Manager to know everything — and he does.</em></figcaption>
</figure>

I quickly dredged up my mental file about Brogmus and found that it
was pretty thin. "Burnin' Ernie" he was called by his friends in the trade
(of which he had many) and also by his enemies (of which he had none).
He'd been Infocom's Production Manager since about mid '83. It was
said that not a single game got packaged without Burnin' Ernie knowing
about it. He had a rep for handling any problem himself without missing
a breath. I knew that if he was coming to me, it could only mean
trouble. Big trouble.

I waved Brogmus over to a swivel chair near the window. He was
smiling, but I could see worry beneath it. Worry, and perhaps a bit
of fear. He sat staring at the floor. "You look like a man with a problem,"
I said. "Spill it."

He did so, at first tentatively, as though the creatures in the Zork®
poster that dominated my office wall might be listening and jeering, but
after a spell the hesitation left. His story gushed out, and I saw at once
that this would be no ordinary job.

Production was in a worse mess than a horse stable after a big meal.
Three new products were coming over the next eight weeks, and all of
them looked like they'd be hot items. On top of that, orders for the new
Macintosh version were still backed up from the summer, and 3½-inch
disks were still scarcer than fish in a tree. The Four-In-One Sampler, a
promotion meant to introduce greenhorns to interactive fiction, was
ready for production, but InvisiClues™ hint booklets, being packaged
for the first time for sale in stores, were crowding the Samplers
off the assembly line.

Brogmus had broken into a cold sweat. "That's not all," he continued,
nervously lighting up a cigarette. Now I knew things were really
serious. I'd never seen Brogmus smoke before.

I had every right to be worried. Everything Burnin' Ernie had said so
far meant that Infocom was in hot water up to its disk drives, but now
he spilled the really bad news. Several computer manufacturers had
placed large orders, one of them for over 100,000 units. All of them
wanted the product, and they wanted it fast. At the same time, Infocom
was preparing to switch all twelve of its current games over to new, completely
redesigned packaging. A caravan of trucks was lined up at the
company that does our packaging, burying the building beneath an avalanche
of boxes, manuals, brochures, labels, postcards, catalogs, buttons,
matchbooks, Egyptian stamps — the list was endless. To top it all off,
Brogmus explained, this was all happening at the brink of the Christmas
season. Autumn has traditionally been a nightmare time for Brogmus,
and this one was shaping up to be the biggest sales season ever for
Infocom.

Brogmus looked straight at me for the first time, and I saw how hollow
his eyes were. It was obvious the man hadn't slept for weeks, which
clicked with rumors I'd heard about his working until three or four in the
morning. "Normally at this time of the year, our packaging company
would just drag in some extra workers for a graveyard shift, but
with local unemployment bottoming out at three percent, there just aren't
any bodies to hire. The bottom line is simply that we're selling the stuff
faster than we can put it together. Will you take the case?"

My first inclination was to say no. A situation like this was bad news, a
monster; it could devour a fellow's career without a trace. But then I
looked at Burnin' Ernie's tired face, and I saw the faces of thousands of
disappointed customers around the world — "Sorry, Ma'am, we're all
out of Zork II" .... "Sorry, son, I couldn't find Seastalker™ anywhere."
Suddenly I heard myself saying yes.

I knew this wouldn't be some easy one-day nut to crack, so I checked
into a tiny office on the seedy basement section of the building
where I knew the Production types hung out. The smell of hopelessness
and despair hung in the air — the odor of old, stale package glue and
decaying corrugated cardboard.

The week began to speed by like calendar pages in a B-movie. We
signed a quick lease on some warehouse space outside of town,
and that helped the boys dig out from under the avalanche of stored goods.
Finished goods began to creep off the assembly line.

It was clearer than a new plateglass window that these steps weren't
enough. Infocom chalked up record September sales of over 100,000
games, and by the third week in October monthly sales soared into
six figures again. The back-order list was longer than the beer lines at Fenway
Park and growing by the day.

Suddenly, something Brogmus had said as a joke came back to me as an
idea. I went to him with a plan, and he chewed on it for a while before
spitting out a terse reply. "Let's go see the boss."

Brogmus led me into the office of the InfoPrez, a tough cookie who I
knew wouldn't bend an inch for a hurricane. I quickly laid out my plan:
Sunday shifts using Infocom employees. We'd boost production
and morale in one dramatic sweep! The InfoPrez was reluctant at first;
would people accustomed to office work stand up to the rigors of seven
hours on an assembly line?

I was betting the rent that they would; I was going for broke. I told
the InfoPrez that I'd stake my reputation on it. In the few weeks I'd been
working on this case, I'd come to appreciate what a bunch of troopers
these guys and dames at Infocom were.

<figure class="float-left">
<img src="/public/img/articles/nzt-the-shrinkwrapped-falcon/mike-berlyn-assembly.jpg" alt="Mike Berlyn carrying a box of supplies">
<figcaption><em>Michael Berlyn, at the Infoassembly
line, doing his famous imitation of
Waldo.</em></figcaption>
</figure>

Brogmus and I worked late into the night and spread the word through
the grapevine; I posted a sign-up list for volunteers to work that first
Sunday. I left space on it for twenty names. By midnight I was sawing
wood.

When I got to my office the next morning at 9:30, the list had thirty-five
names and was growing like yeast in an oven. I felt the first break
in the case; I began to see the light at the end of a tunnel.

That first Sunday was a revelation. These Infocommies, forty strong,
worked like gangbusters; and when the quitting bell blared at five, I
practically had to wrestle each one off the line to lock up the place. If I
hadn't brought a buddy of mine along to snap some shots, I think I'd be
convinced now that I'd hallucinated the whole thing.

The next day, Brogmus was like a man who'd just discovered religion.
"This is great! Whaddya say we start dragging these guys in on Saturdays,
huh?" His excitement was contagious, and soon we had not only a
Saturday shift going, but weekday evening shifts as well. None of the
Infocom people were losing their spirit, and they were turning up with
husbands and wives and mothers and sisters and brothers and friends, all
hungry for some honest labor.

November went by like a whirlwind. Five weeks after that first
Sunday on the assembly line, with Thanksgiving dinner still a fresh
memory, Brogmus came to see me. He was smiling as always, but now
the haunted look was gone. He dumped a report on my desk. "Look
at what our folks have done on the assembly line: 62,000 games, plus
another 6,000 Samplers and 21,000 hint books!"

It was no surprise to me, and I told him so. "I knew all along these folks
were solid gold."

"We're out of the woods," he said, "all set to glide through to Christmas.
How can I thank you enough?"

"You're thanking the wrong guy," I told Brogmus, pointing at the report.
"It's those guys and dames from Infocom who cast all the right magic
spells when it counted." And if any of you good people reading this got
or gave an Infocom game for Christmas, try and keep that in mind.

As for me, I'm back with my feet up on the desk just killing time
waiting for the next case, or for the horseflies to return in June, whichever
comes first.
