3
A hover platform floated down from overhead and landed between us and the smoldering Kabuki droids. Three men stepped off as it touched down. Two of them were thin, angular, and wore dark tailored suits. The other was a paunchy guy wearing a pair of khaki Bermuda shorts and a shirt that looked like a lava lamp had exploded onto it. HARV gave me a silent cue that all three were unarmed but I kept my gun in hand nonetheless because I knew from the fine cut of the two suits, the dark tone of their evening-wear sunglasses, and the amount of styling mousse in their hair that the two suits in front represented an entirely different form of trouble.
“They’re entertainment attorneys, aren’t they?” I asked.
HARV nodded.
“They’re from Anus and Quagmire,” Sexy said from behind me. “I recognize their hair gel. They represent the Faux network.”
“I’m suddenly nostalgic for the Kabuki droids,” I whispered. “The guy behind them, is that who I think it is?”
HARV and Sexy rolled their eyes in unison and harrumphed in my ears in stereo.
“Yes, if you think it’s Rupert Roundtree.”
“Zachy, baby,” the man said, approaching me with arms wide. “That was stellar. Fabsolutely, A-positively interstellar majeure.”
Rupert Roundtree is the head of the entertainment conglom currently known as Faux. It’s one of the big three entertainment congloms in the current market, along with EnterCorp and MicroFun. It varies from nano to nano as to which conglom is actually the largest (it all depends on what companies they’re currently buying).
EnterCorp is officially owned by Ona Thompson, with whom I have had some near-Armageddon type dealings but she’s relatively hands-off and leaves the day to day business to the faceless board of directors. MicroFun is owned by HTech, who utilize a probability theory management style where a group of one hundred monkeys use yes/no pads, an abacus, and the spinner from an old game of Twister to make all programming, production, and scheduling decisions. MicroFun’s growth in market share over the past few years, by the way, has led Entertainment This Nano to include the room full of monkeys on their annual “most powerful” list.
And then there’s Rupert Roundtree, whose hands-on approach to running his conglom is well known in the industry and with the general public, and whose lowest-common-denominator philosophy of salacious and gratuitous programming has been known to make even the monkeys cringe.
Roundtree threw his arms around me in a weak armed, fleshy bear hug. His paunch pressed up against my midsection like a vat full of jelly and his aura of sweat and cologne was so strong that I suspected he was scent-marking me as part of his territory.
“High-con effex, classic pitter-patter repartee, short and sweet exposition, bada-bing, bada-boom. It’s like it writes itself. Spectacle-acular showcaselosity!”
“What language is he speaking?”
“Hollywood,” HARV replied. “It has no real rules of syntax.”
Roundtree released me from the hug and turned toward Sexy who was standing beside me. She stopped his approach with a quick raise of her hand.
“And Sexy, you were dripping with fabuliciousness as always.” He turned back to the suits, who were still at the platform. “Didn’t I tell you this would be stratospherical? Didn’t I say that?”
“Yes, Rupert,” they said in unison.
“Okay, I’m going to need a few things explained to me,” I said. “Preferably in English. And let’s remember that I’m the only one here who has a gun.”
Roundtree turned back to me; his smile still wide, arms still spread, and moved to hug me (again!). Luckily he saw the gun in my hand and stayed where he was.
“You’re a jewel, Zachster,” he said. “Gates, I wish we were still recording. This would make great behind-the-scenes stuff for the 4D-DVD. Can we restart the recorder-droids?”
“You do,” I said, “and I’ll restart my gun.”
“You’re right,” Roundtree shrugged, “we don’t want to break the fourth wall too soon. It will ruin the stupendation of unbelief.”
“Wow,” HARV said. “This is starting to hurt.”
“Here’s the coverage, Zachinator. The droids were ours. State of the art tech, too, from AMP Labs. As you can tell we’re going big budget all the way on this project.”
“Project?” I asked.
“Righteous Omnibus, baby. Take a look in the mirror, my man and you will see the face of the next great star of reality entertainment!”
“What?”
“A new series, Zachmeister. One man fighting against all odds every day of his life, just to survive.”
“It does sound like you,” HARV whispered.
“One man, in a world bent on destruction, a man whose life is no longer his own, forced to become a hero. One man running for his life!”
“Why does that not appeal to me?”
“We call it Let’s Kill Zach,” Roundtree said, smile widening, eyes growing beadier. “Pithiousity is key this year. Every week we send a group of killers after you, machines mostly, droids and bots. But we’ll need to use human assassins on occasion to keep the show’s connection to humanastasy. We’ll just have to get around the snuff-film laws. Long story short, we record your heroics and net them to the masses.”
“It’s a surefire hit!” one of the suits said. “As long as you continue to live,” the other added.
“You want to try to kill me on a weekly basis for entertainment?”
“It’s not about entertainment, Zacharoo,” Roundtree said. “It’s about the business of entertainment. Danger is entertaining. You on the other hand, welcome danger.”
“No, I don’t.”
“You thrive on danger.”
“I hate danger.”
“Danger is your middle name!”
“My middle name is Nixon!”
“Nixon? That won’t work. Our legal people will get it changed for you.”
“What?”
The lawyers at his side began scribbling furiously on their computer pads.
“Listen, Zachapalooza, people are always trying to kill you anyway. Everyone knows that. Why not turn that mortally dangerous lemon into some revenue-generating lemonade?”
“It does make sense on a certain level,” HARV whispered.
“This is weird, even by HV standards.”
“That’s what makes it so brilliant,” Roundtree exclaimed. “And with Sexy as the guest star for the pilot, this becomes mega-max-event-like.”
“No way, Rupert,” Sexy spat.
“Sexy, you looked fabulous.”
“You show one pixel of my image on your pond-scum network and I’ll put dark-shark litigation so far up your assets you’ll have my initials imprinted on your private resources.”
“Your turn of phrase is as tight as your sensuosity, Sexy,” Roundtree said with a smile. “We’ll hyperveil your face.”
“Not one pixel, Rupert!”
Rupert laughed and held up his hands in supplication.
“Fine. We’ll replace you with a CGI replica for netcast.”
“Voice, too.”
“Of course.”
“The CGI replica can’t have red hair.”
“You got it.”
“And its ass better not be as nice as mine.”
“Like that’s possible.”
“Have your shark call my shark.”
“Done.”
“Excuse me,” I said.
“Don’t worry; you’re still the star, Zach-baby. Can I call you Zach-baby?”
“You can if you can say it with my fist in your mouth.”
“Gates, I wish we were still recording,” Roundtree said through snickers. “Remember to use that quip next episode.”
“There isn’t going to be another episode!” I said.
“Zach-a-tack, we’ve already booked the series for the fall season.”
“You what?”
“That’s why the shooting schedule’s so tight. Hah, that’s a good one. This shooting schedule’s a real killer. Get it?”
“Roundtree,” I said, “if you … if you show one pixel of my image on your network, I will sue your pants off so quickly I’ll be running them up a flagpole before your cellulite hits the floor!”
Roundtree and his attorneys stared at me impassively for a long, long nano.
Then they let loose with a round of head-back, mouth-open hearty guffaws. And Roundtree hugged me again.
“You’re gonna be a star, Zach-a-lacka. A fully fledgered, pop-cult, maxotastical reality entertainment star!”
He kissed me on the cheek and, still chuckling, stepped back onto the hover platform with his attorneys and floated off into the night air like a cabbage fart on the breeze.
“But the legal threat worked when you used it,” I said to Sexy, a little dumbfounded.
“That’s because I’m rich, Zach. Everyone knows that you’re not wealthy enough to buy justice.”
“Perfect,” I said, gently rubbing my temples.
“So what’s the plan?” HARV asked.
“Same as always, HARV,” I replied. “We keep our head down and watch out for Network Executives.”