“Mr. Denphry?” Ms. Slick got a stern look on her face as Joe sat there, arms crossed again.
“Just no,” Joe repeated. “To all of it.”
“That wasn’t the deal,” Ms. Slick crossed her own arms over her chest, a chest that was covered in a nice suit instead of the ratty old T-shirt Joe was wearing. It wasn’t Armani, but it was expensive. She crossed her lovely legs and leaned back, her shiny shoes not impressing Joe by even one tiny little bit. “We got you a burger and an agent so that we could iron out the deal, not so you could turn it down. Now what part is upsetting you so?”
There it was. That was the condescending crap Joe’d been expecting to rear its ugly little head. In all their bantering and negotiations, Joe’d learned the one thing that messed up the whole deal. Joe’d learned that even as an inmate, he owned the show. They owned the AIs but intellectual property of the show itself was a big deal in a world where AIs did almost everything else better than humans. Once Joe’d put his stamp on the show, he owned its copyright. They couldn’t even air it without his permission.
“I’m saying that I’d rather serve my term to completion than sign away any rights to the show,” Joe stated, enunciating clearly so she could tell that Joe was serious.
“Do you think that’s wise?” Ms. Slick challenged him. “You’ve barely served a few weeks of your term and you want to serve the full two years?”
“Oh, no,” Joe frowned, channeling the most condescending boss he’d ever had. “I don’t intend to serve that long at all. I only have to get to two million viewers and that looks like it might be happening sooner rather than later.”
“It could flop tomorrow,” Ms. Slick warned and there was more to what she was saying that gave Joe little doubts about the chance he was taking.
But that was the hitch in Joe’s part of the deal. They owned him. Each concession they gave up, each perk or percentage, was balanced by an extra month here or year there onto his parole. And once they got to the bottom line of fine print, once Joe was released from his parole (which was in no way based on viewers, but rather only on time served), they owned the program. Every contract ended with Joe giving up his rights to the show. They could terminate his deal at any time, but Joe was locked into it. This was why it was never a good idea to do these meetings without a lawyer, which they’d never offered Joe, not even a Tom and Jerry version of one.
“It could,” Joe nodded. “I am really good at screwing things up, so I’m sure that’s a very real possibility.” Joe actually knew better. They weren’t going to flop. They were trending in a world where people lived to binge-watch Reality TV fads. And Joe had quite a few points in Trend Adhesion.
“You’re not sure, though, so tell me what I can offer that would make you sign on the bottom line,” Ms. Slick gave Joe another predatory smile.
“First, you’d have to do better than a sloppy burger and cheap shake,” Joe ticked off his points on his fingers and he laughed at the first one. “Second, I’d need 40% of the revenue, not profits.” His smile slipped slightly. “Third, the parole term would have to be a maximum of six months, not the four years you’ve worked it up to.”
Ms. Slick tilted her chin down and pretended to be annoyed with Joe, but Joe could tell that her type just loved the deal. The grittier the deal, the more she loved it. It was in the predatory gaze that was edged just slightly with a tinge of respect.
“Anything else?” she clucked her tongue at Joe, and Joe was impressed and even more determined to keep his show. They’d sent a real shark after this deal and that meant Joe had something here. If she could see that Joe had one more shoe to drop, she was good. Really good.
“Finally, you’d have to strike the final addendum from the contract,” Joe let his smile reach his eyes and she leaned back to give him a nod.
“I’ll bet a lot of people underestimate you,” Ms. Slick said, eyes alight. “I take it that you’re adamant about that last point?” She knew. Joe was almost in love with how she’d played it all.
“Solid as steel on that one,” Joe admitted with a wink. Joe had never known the rush of the deal like this. He sucked at Monopoly in all its forms. If you had to talk to someone, Joe was flunking that topic completely, but maybe he’d missed the point of it all. Joe was thinking he was liking the new Joe.
“Escort him back to his program,” Ms. Slick told the guards with a smile. “Watch your back, Mr. Denphry. Dr. Phendal will not be amused to have lost this commission.”
“Oh, no,” Joe shrugged as the guards nudged him off the chair and toward the door. “More torture at the hands of Dr. Psycho. Whatever shall I do?”
Ms. Slick shook her head with a slow smile. Joe could tell she wanted to say more but wouldn’t.
“Who knows?” Joe let the guards pull him by his arms from the room as if he was dead weight. Joe figured on making them work for it a little. “Maybe I’ll see you again in a few weeks when the show tops two million viewers.”
“Don’t forget that you need a 4.0 rating in your reviews too, Mr. Denphry,” and with that Joe realized how Dr. Fuckhead was going to screw with him next.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“Damn,” Joe hung his head comically, though where Joe got the nerve to flirt with the woman as the guards dragged him through the door, Joe’ll never knew. It wasn’t that she was overly pretty or built, but she kind of was. She was smart and that was more appealing to him than some model’s face and form. Why couldn’t Joe meet women like that in his world?
“Wait for me!” Joe hollered out from down the hallway, and Joe could have sworn he heard her laugh. It was a deeper than average sound for a woman, but Joe liked it, even if he was never going to see her again.
Joe was drowned in the liquid aloe-oxygen gel stuff.
“Hey Grace,” Joe tried to shake off the unfiltered feeling of gel settling into and around his eyes and focus on the idea of looking at Grace in his vanity mirror.
“I was trying to warn you about the email you’d deleted, but I was too slow,” Grace gave Joe a concerned look. “I don’t know how you humans communicate at this speed and get anything done.”
“Me neither, Grace,” Joe smiled, letting the insult roll off his back. What was a little AI diss after that marathon con session with the woman of his dreams? “We have some work to do folks.”
We’re happy to jump back into the fray, but shouldn’t we be a bit more concerned about the censors against our cooperation? the World AI joined the conversation and others joined in too. Joe could almost feel the departmental AIs circling around and Joe thought it might be the new points he went back to dribbling into his stats. Joe could sense them better. Maybe it was the Story Synthesis. Maybe it wasn’t the blind obedience stat Joe’d originally thought it was.
“I’m pretty sure it’s already as bad as it could get, so some horse trading isn’t going to do much more to what they can do to me,” Joe admitted, and told them most of what happened out there. Joe didn’t say it all because he didn’t want his knowledge on record for Dr. Psychobabble. Joe didn’t talk about what he’d figured out about the contracts, but he told them that he’d done something to totally piss off the doc to the point that he wasn’t going to hold anything back anymore.
It is an old adage indeed that says that a hopeless person has nothing to lose, the World AI commented at the end of Joe's explanation.
“If I’m going to be punished anyway, I might as well earn it,” and Joe grunted over the word earn.
Tami let out a nervous laugh. Glenda gave Joe a lopsided smile.
“Fuck it, let’s do it,” Jean said, and they all cocked their heads at her. “What?”
“I thought you guys were programmed for PG?” Joe teased Jean, who raised an eyebrow at Joe like he was being silly.
“That’s onscreen, not back here,” she shrugged. “I have the responsibility to develop my character into something believable and as unique as I can make it.”
“Character development,” Tami nodded to her AI sister and gave Hex a pat. There was a meeting, but Joe ignored it to blink.
“So, who wants what?” Joe announced, spreading his hands over a mirror that expanded to include everyone’s wish lists.
Joe dribbled the last of his free stat points into stats as he fell back onto the white apartment’s bed, their off-air light still on. Joe had eight hours to sleep but his mind was whirling. Hex curled up against Joe’s neck, Kodo behind Joe’s legs, and Podo onto Joe’s hip. Joe's pets all had new spells and skills to play with and Joe was happy to see them happy. Joe's character sheet looked a bit like this when he was done.
Actor Character Sheet
Name: Joe Cockran Denphry Level: 50 Exp: 3371/25,000
CB – 50
DQ – 64
TA – 44
SS – 51
ER – 49
Skills: Acrobatic Stealth (7), Acting (61), Brand Insertion (11), Contract Negotiations (4), Hiding (11), Flavor Analysis (16), Lockpicking (2), Misbehaving (4), Misdirection (18), Safe Cracking (2), Stealing (6)
Backstage had gotten a huge upgrade due to the Producer AI adopting some of Jean’s attitude or maybe Joe's new one. Joe’d turned down another personal upgrade and figured out how to refund his trailer for an extra 400 running xp that Joe’d spent on Props via two upgrades to the Producer AI. Joe’d had to spring for Pre and Post-Production’s upgrades, as well as the Special Effects department, who’d gone from trailer to studio status, whatever that meant, since there wasn’t a real trailer. They promised Joe some spiffy stuff.
They had a marketing department that not only took advertising on their show out of Pre-production’s hands, but also marketing for their show off Post-Production’s plate. That had automatically freed up so much workability for Pre and Post Production that they’d forgone their upgrades this round in order for the sound studio to gain a full 101 instruments and 23 sound effects. Their next upgrade was queued up for 1001 sound effects, but they had to wait for it because Joe’d spent a whopping half of his budget on upgrading the World AI.
Joe’d gotten himself an assistant named Mandy and immediately upgraded it. Joe had needed the Mandy upgrade because then his assistant could not only filter and sort all his emails, but also give Joe constant up-to-date alarms for anything hinky going on with their viewer count or reviews. Dr. Psychobabble was coming after Joe, and he’d need Mandy to catch it as it was happening so that they could respond the right way. The fact that Mandy looked a little like Ms. Slick was no coincidence and it goaded Joe into working smarter and harder to beat them all. Grace had been granted her own assistant by the World AI. This offloaded Grace’s research skill into its own entity.
Mandy was also very skilled at a backrub, which is why it was baffling why Joe couldn’t just drop off into sleep. Instead, Joe stared up into the chandelier that the props department had changed to compliment Hex’s eyes instead of the spooky red and white stuff they’d done before. Joe refused to feel like a kid waiting for dad to come home. The only reason that asshole had control over Joe was a travesty of justice, not merit or any authority Joe recognized. He could torture Joe, but he couldn’t punish Joe.
Joe’d have tossed and turned, but he didn’t want to dislodge his little pile of pets, which was silly because they were there because they wanted to support him. Trying to remember that he was a rebel and that they wouldn’t mind, Joe forced himself to roll over and nearly laughed out loud when Hex cracked one eye open long enough to levitate them all while Joe adjusted. What was it about Joe that he waited there, with a chuckle stuck in his chest, just long enough to seem to naturally turn over again? Joe had just wanted to see it again.
Hex gave Joe a twitch of a whisker, which was the equivalent of rolling on the floor laughing for her, and then settled back comfortably behind Joe’s neck. Joe did it again. Of course, he did. The only change came with Joe’s fourth turn. Podo sidled up into Joe’s arms instead of on his hip. Joe thought he’d do it again, just once more, but he fell asleep first.