The sounds of Eliot, Parker, and Hardison's soft chatter filled the offices of Leverage Consulting and flowed around Nate as he and his raccoon dæmon Liandra waited for their next potential client to arrive. The clicking of heels made Nate look up, just in time to see Sophie arriving in the conference room, her parakeet dæmon Tavi perched as usual on her left shoulder. Nate took a sip of his alcohol-laced coffee as Sophie sat down, her hair elegantly coiffed and her clothes neat and tidy as they always were.

'Keaton isn't here yet, I see,' Sophie said as she set her mug of tea down on the table.

'He should be here soon,' Nate replied. 'I told him to meet us at half-past three, and it's only twenty-five after.'

'True,' Sophie conceded. She settled back into her chair, Tavi switching his perch to the back of the seat. He ruffled his vibrantly-colored feathers gently as he made himself comfortable, brushing his beak over one of his wings a few times out of habit. Liandra briefly looked up at him, but soon returned her attention to the bowl of pistachios she had been unshelling, her clever paws splitting the tough coverings and revealing the salty nuts within. Occasionally she would hand one up to Tavi, who would take it gently out of her paw and eat it daintily, trying to avoid getting crumbs all over Sophie.

Nate watched the wordless exchanges, a slight smile quirking one of the corners of his mouth, before he caught sight of a nervous-looking man. He was making his way towards Nate and Sophie. Hardison escorted the man, who seemed to be in his mid-thirties, through the front of the office. The newcomer had a greyhound dæmon, whose sleek form stayed close to her human as he limped towards the conference room, using a dark wood cane to aide his irregular gait.

'Mr. Keaton?' Sophie asked politely. The man nodded in confirmation as he sat down across from Nate and Sophie. Hardison left them to talk in private, his squirrel dæmon Qelseth clinging to his shoulder as he walked.

Keaton's dæmon leaned against his legs, watching Nate and Sophie warily. Keaton turned his head towards Sophie, his green eyes focusing on her brown ones.

'I prefer Ian, if you don't mind,' he said, giving her a hesitant smile.

'Of course.' Sophie paused, and then asked, 'Are you feeling all right?'

Ian's smile turned wry. 'I'm fine, health-wise. My left leg doesn't work so well, but it happened a long time ago, back when I was a kid.'

'How can we help you, Ian?' Nate asked.

'It all started about two months ago. There's a corrective surgery that's supposed to be able to fix my leg enough that I'd be able to walk without a cane. I checked with my doctors, and they said that my insurance would be able to take care of most of the cost. I was supposed to get the surgery done six weeks ago, but my employer at the time, Dyton Media, wouldn't let me have the time off. Two weeks later, I got let go. According to the paperwork, it was because of down-sizing, but since no one else was let go, I highly doubt that was the real reason.

'That job -I was one of the crew that helped to clean up after a game show that they do- it was one of the best jobs I've ever had, especially considering my disability. I don't want what happened to me to happen to anyone else, Mr. Ford.'

Sophie and Nate exchanged glances, and then Nate leaned forwards slightly.

'Don't worry, Ian. We'll make sure it won't.'

'Right, so- Dyton Media.' Hardison began a few hours later, cuing up his preliminary report on the wall of monitors in the conference room, 'headed by Jonas Dyton, who's also the main host of their newest and most popular action-y game show, Dare to Win.'

'"Action-y"?' Eliot asked, smirking.

'Hey, you wanna give the report? Anyways, the premise is that six couples have to do a series of tasks that get increasingly harder as each of four stages test different facets of their abilities. It's got the normal game show style - live audience, chirpy co-host, crazy tasks,- stuff like that. The grand prize is fifty thousand dollars. Thing is, no one's ever won it.'

'Why not?' Parker leaned forwards, looking highly interested.

'The final task always changes, and it's insanely hard. There's massive speculation on the online message boards about if the game's even possible to win. However, I know the real reason.'

'And that would be?'

'Dyton can't afford for anyone to win,' Hardison explained, bringing up images of Dyton's bank statements, among other financial records. 'The show's barely making enough to cover running and employment costs, let alone pay out fifty thousand dollars. The final task is designed to be damn near impossible to beat- or, at least, it is for the normal Joe Public. From what I can tell, the higher ups are starting to get antsy about the profitability of continuing the show. There've been some nasty memos and e-mails going back and forth between Dyton and his corporate financiers, not to mention phone calls and-'

'That's it,' Nate interrupted.

'Sorry?'

'That's our angle to get in.' He got to his feet, the familiar look of a new plan coming to fruition settling on his face. 'Hardison, how quickly can you get your hands on a high-end TV camera?'

'I'll have to call one of my friends who's into that sort of thing, but other than that, pretty easily. Why?' Hardison asked, looking intrigued.

'Because we're going to give the world an all-access pass to the inner workings of Dyton Media and Dare to Win. Let's go steal a game show.'