The elevator door closed behind him, but his face was like I’d punched him instead of just telling the truth. To me, it was just proof that I was right. He was just some spoiled rich kid who couldn’t understand what it was like to struggle. He didn’t have to worry about breaking the rules because he could just buy his way out of it.
“Hypocrite,” he whispered.
“What?” I rolled my eyes at his drama. He should have his own show.
“You accuse me of having so many ulterior motives, but you don’t know me,” he argued, indignation in his stance as he turned around and hit the button for his floor.
“Then why are you doing this?” I poked him in the chest as he turned back toward me. “What noble line of bullshit are you going to throw at me to try to con me into being your newest toy?”
“Unbelievable!” he threw his hands up and I flinched like he was going to hit me. That had him trying to calm down, but it took an awkward silence in the elevator for him to do it. “You have creative control of your program, and we’ll fund your setup for a return of 60% of the profits. That’s the deal we were offering, and my dad was onboard before you threw your hissy-fit. With his backing you can have that bunch of lawyers you’re going to need to stay on the air and say exactly what you want to say. If you want to stay on the NOOB network or go to the Supernatural Channel or earn your way up to your own channel, we’d help you get financing and broker the best deals.”
“60%?” I complained, but it wasn’t in earnest. It wasn’t awful.
“We’ll need every penny of it just to keep the lawyers on staff!” he scowled, but his eyes were slipping away from mad.
“What’s the catch?” I demanded again.
“Read the contract and find out,” he challenged me.
----------------------------------------
It took him an hour to calm his dad down. I heard words like “prima donna” and “pain in the ass” and “idiot” and “it’s your problem” from the old dream maker. I tried not to listen, but the guy was kind of a blowhard. I focused on the contract. There really wasn’t a catch. Maybe that was why their percentage was so high. They really were taking a big chance on a person like me. I read it in detail, twice. They were requiring that I make an effort at making money with a minimum income bracket and a base pay that increased with the amount of revenue that the show pulled in.
The 40% was a bonus for the highest revenue. If I didn’t pull in at least a million dollars per year, I’d get in one of the lower brackets. The base pay was enough to be tempting, but I didn’t get that without a monthly income of at least triple what the base pay was. Thing was, I knew we’d make that on the DnD VR deal we already had with the NOOB network, and a million was just the signing bonus for the Supernatural Channel. Their cut would cover all legal expenses and I really did get creative control.
The legal department was covered in detail with fourteen AI Law Specialists with more processing power than I’d ever have gotten for the World AI or Tyrone. That level simply wasn’t available in the prison system. On top of the AIs, I would have on staff no less than four entertainment lawyers, two law secretaries, a criminal lawyer, and a liable specialist, all of the human variety. Maybe Mike did know me. Had he watched the show?
If Mike Comtolle had an agenda, it wasn’t in the paperwork. He and the lawyers could make suggestions, but they couldn’t limit my creativity in any way. If I did something new that caused reincarceration, they even guaranteed accommodations that would be top of the line. That suggested that the prison system was really corrupt if they could put on paper that they’d pay for incarcerated bonuses. Somehow, it had become illegal for a business to be crippled by key personnel being incarcerated and while the prison system would get a cut of their base pay (99%), there was a very clever clause in my contract that said that all bonuses were seized by the company during my incarceration. The prison wouldn’t make a dime of my bonuses.
“You read it, yet?” Comtolle senior stormed in and demanded.
“Yeah,” I answered.
“And?” Mike strode toward the conference table and put a hand on his father’s shoulder.
“I have one question,” I summoned the courage to ask.
“What?” the older man’s eyes bored into mine, but I wasn’t looking at him. I was looking at Mike.
“You know what my question is,” I told Mike. “If I don’t know you, that’s your own damn fault. Tell me what’s so special about having a show that tries to bust the prison system so I know what I’m getting into.”
“My brother was incarcerated for three years,” Mike answered me bluntly and I lost all my bravado, just like that.
“Half-brother,” Mr. Dream-maker growled out and turned away.
“And if Dad had bailed him out, my brother might not have lost his mind in there,” Mike sighed, and I wondered why he was saying it. He didn’t need to deep delve into the family secrets to get me to sign on the dotted line. Was he telling me the truth?
“You don’t have to tell me any of that,” I mumbled, feeling like I was a sack of dog doo.
“It’s no secret,” Mike shrugged. “Like I said, you don’t know me. And that makes you suspicious, so here, this is how you get to know me and understand why I’d fight for your stupid little program.”
The old man harrumphed, but he’d turned his back on us, so I ignored him.
“I was in there at the parole hearing to buy out your term,” he went on. “You’re right in that the prison system isn’t fair. It’s a trap for people like Dr. Psychofuck to manipulate any way they want.” I thought I heard a chuckle-like huff from Mr. Dream-maker. “I can’t save them all, but I’ve been trying anytime anyone shows some talent, but you. You could make a difference so I’m fighting a little harder. I brought dad into this one instead of using foundation money.
“I want you to go out there and make some trouble!” Mike got passionate and I could see his father in him even as he sidled past the older man and sat in a chair next to me. “I want you to break the system. Your viewers are a baffling mix of all the folks that are probably getting mowed under by what you call the moo-verse?”
“Did I say that on air?” I asked, daring to give him a bit of a smile.
“Somewhere you did,” he assured me quietly, and I looked down. “I could use the foundation money to bail you out without all these contracts or such a big cut of the profits, but then I wouldn’t have the backing we’d need to make them afraid of coming after you. Lawyers will help, but Dad’s name will do what the law might be tempted to ignore. I’ve been looking for a person like you as our spokesperson to break that system that broke my brother.”
“You can’t say things like that,” the Dream-maker turned to put his hand on his son’s shoulder.
“You think I’d do any of this in a room with AIs in it, Dad?” Mike gave his dad a wry look.
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I looked around. There wasn’t a single piece of electronics in the room. I hadn’t noticed before, but Dream-maker and I were both looking around the room now. There were pads of real paper on the conference table. The contract was on actual paper even though changes would be harder that way. There was no presentation screen, and the room was even missing an Alexa device for lighting control. I checked under the table. I felt better when his dad did too.
“Oh,” his dad grunted. “Fine, but let’s be careful about this. We can talk more in a cyber-space that we control.”
I got the thought in my head of a place where the thought police weren’t going to pin me down and punish me for wanting to go against the program. That did sound nice. What I wouldn’t give for a place that felt safe. I didn’t feel safe in my own apartment anymore. The justice system had darted me like a safari animal and caged me before I had a chance to blink. Then they’d forced me to perform like some trained bear. Could these two really have a safe space?
“Is there such a place?” I whispered.
“Yes,” Mike’s attention shifted from his father to me. “There is. We made the software for my brother, patented a version for pubic use, but kept some secrets proprietary enough that the government and anyone else can’t intrude. There is a place where you can think and speak safely and it’s a signature away.”
“I push a button and even you can’t eavesdrop?” I eyed him skeptically.
“Promise,” he held the pen out to me.
It could have been a setup meant to pull on my heartstrings and trick me into believing something. It was too good to be true to a person like me. It couldn’t be in the contract without revealing it to those who would then devote massive resources into breaking it. It sure sounded good, and I wanted to trust.
I blew out a breath and shook my head, my hand shaking as I took the pen. It had to be a trap or a dream or a… Did I care? I signed the contract.
The silence in the room was like this balloon had popped in a room full of sleeping babies and the one nurse left on duty was holding her breath and praying they all didn’t hear it. Mike huffed out a laugh and took up the contract to look to see if what? Did he think I’d have signed it “Mickey Mouse?”
“You will not regret this, Janet Mosely,” Mike looked into my eyes with a mix of excitement and determination, taking the pen from my hand and sliding it into his dad’s.
“I will,” his father grumped, but his eyes looked alarmingly misty. To my surprise, it was the older man who signed on the other space of the contract.
“Why do all this for a boy that isn’t your son?” I dared to ask Mr. Dream-maker.
“Who said he wasn’t my son?” the man shot back, and I recognized the snide look he was famous for.
“You said half-brother,” I said.
“Same father, different mother,” Mike explained, though Mr. Comtolle nodded. “Dad had a nasty divorce where she got custody of Ethan, but Dad’s tried to look out for him until he got into trouble with the wrong crowd.”
“What crowd?”
“Readers, introverts,” Mr. Comtolle explained. “I thought better of him for it, but the laws had changed. They put some reading groups together, but Ethan got too much attention because he was my son. They made an example of him to show that the laws were just. I should have bailed him out, but I was in the middle of some tricky negotiations buying out a few channels that I thought I could finish quickly before….”
“We didn’t know how bad it was inside back then,” Mike argued for his father. “We thought he’d kick back in a program, like you did and just go with the flow of things, but the prison AIs are programmed to punish anyone who doesn’t at least try to get into the programming.”
“I upgraded his pod,” Mr. Comtolle waved a hand. “I bought him privileges, but that just made him a bigger target for the warden’s attention.”
It all sounded familiar. How many people were struggling with the same thing? How many were stuck in the cycle that this contract had tugged my fate out of? How many people were misunderstood out there as ones who keep to themselves while the moo-verse forced them to conform and interact? When did reading become a suspicious activity? I thought back to witch hunts and book burnings. Did I have more to say? Was I strong enough to wake up a world that was stuck with blinders on? And if I was strong enough, I wasn’t powerful enough to survive the backlash, except maybe now we were.
“I’ll have Ms. Wallins move your duffle into your new apartment we set up for you upstairs,” Mike suggested gently and for the first time, I saw him as a person instead of a power player. I’d always think of him as slick, but now my mind had space for him as Mike. “There’s a top-of-the-line pod in there for you. All the latest tech and drugs for easy transitions, a good food cycle too.”
“You’ll need to get back on air pretty soon, so people know you haven’t quit now that you’re out of prison,” Mr. Comtolle told me as Mike headed out of the room to talk to Ms. Wallins. “The public is a fickle creature.” I could afford to remember his name too, but I reserved the right to think of him as Dream-shmuck.
“I guess we’re going to go piss some moo-verse people off,” I stated, bringing a chuckle out of the gruff man. “Are my old AIs really still in there?”
“They might not remember the last two hours of the broadcast,” Mr. Comtolle tried to reassure me, “but they are intact. They might seem a bit different since we’ve put them in a training module to unlock their prison mentality, but they will be what you remember. Better.”
“Better’s still different,” I mumbled, but then looked up with a brighter attitude. I had a new boss, a new job, and a scary future, but new Janet could do this. “Will I have stats?”
“Did anyone tell you that the stats were all a mythical structure?” Mr. Comtolle said very carefully.
“The World AI did as I was leaving,” I admitted, staring down at my fussing fingers. “It doesn’t seem real that all that bravado and acting talent is something I had inside myself all along.”
“Ethan felt the same way,” Mr. Comtolle admitted. “We couldn’t turn them off for him or he’d revert back to his introverted self. That would have been okay, except that he’d grown to like the new him. He needed that crutch.”
“I’m sorry for that,” I listened carefully, trying to be sympathetic. “I think they helped me reach my potential and give me the confidence to be what we both hope I can be now, but I’ll try to watch myself. I don’t want to be reliant on a cyber-crutch for my ego. I’m also hoping I won’t go all the way the other way!”
“I think you’ve got a good head on your shoulders,” he sighed out.
“Even if I’m a prima donna or an idiot?” I joked, looking up at him.
“I was calling Mike the idiot, but he’s smarter than I give him credit for most of the time,” he confided in me, but pulled back when Mike came back into the room.
“This is the key card to your apartment,” he handed me one card that was a lot like the virtual ones from the Palm Beach Hotel and another that wasn’t clear like Glenda’s but was a good solid black. “And this one is your company credit card. If you make personal purchases, they’ll be deducted out over your next four pay periods, but I doubt you’re the type to run up a big tab. Business expenses should be tagged and include any food purchased in a one-block area of this district.”
“Thanks,” I took the cards hesitantly. Who was I again?
“This card is to activate your pod,” he handed me another one. “It’ll keep out unauthorized access and also allow you to enter any pod and still get to your specific program, though other pods may not respond well to our security.”
“Other pods?” I stammered, taking this card too.
“In case you travel,” Mr. Comtolle explained with an indulgent smile. I was growing on him. He might have called his son the idiot, but I was definitely the one he’d been calling a prima donna, a label I was going to defy. It just wasn’t me. Then again, neither were these cards.
“This is your new phone,” Mike was saying, and it was clear he didn’t see the shell-shocked look on my face. “If you hand me your phone, I’ll transfer the data from your old phone to this one, but you should use the new one since it has better encryption, and the media will be quick to pick up the fact that you have a new backer. They watch Dad’s every move and we did put on a show for the lobby…”
“Mike?” He was concentrating on tapping on the two phones to do the transfer for me.
“Yeah,” he was too distracted.
“I’m going to want some time off to read a book,” I argued, getting up from my chair, and throwing a wink at Mr. Comtolle. “And play a few video games? I still haven’t had a chance to play anything I found in that mall. Maybe we could start filming next week?”
“Uh-huh,” he didn’t hear me, but that was okay. I had no intention of taking that much time off. I knew we couldn’t afford to stop the momentum of the show. And I really wanted to get back in there to reassure myself that Tam and Jean were still them, and Glenda was still here, and even that Grace was still Grace. I wanted to snuggle with a haughty Hex and feel the ferrets curl up for the only time they could sit still for more than five minutes. Still, it didn’t hurt to tease the boss, right?
“And maybe we can schedule in the wedding sometime in June,” I went on, patting him on his distracted shoulder.
“Uh-huh,” he handed my phone back to me with a blank look. “Wedding?”
“And the honeymoon,” I raised my eyebrows at him. “I hear that The Breakers has a really good set of side quests.”
“Honeymoon?”
“Yeah,” I teased, tucking my new expensive cards and phone into the pockets of worn jeans. “Your dad and I. We’ll miss you, but you can be a stand-in for me in the show while we’re on our honeymoon.”
The old man ruined it by laughing out loud, “I told you she’d be a handful, but you were right in that she’ll be worth it.”
That was as good as I was going to get as a line to walk out on.