Hi. Me, again. =)

19

Globe Studios, Neo-Hollywood, in a darkened video centre-

Melissa Maxton leaned past the shoulder of a seated technician, one hand at his seat back. She was the queen bee and host of Triumph, the studio's biggest money-maker. As such, nothing that happened on camera escaped her scrutiny, down to the tiniest detail.

Displayed on the live screen before her, Alan Tracy plotted, scrabbled and leapt, scoring a full 8.5 out of 10 from the show's early test audience. He was also very much cheating.

"How about that," drawled Maxton, dark eyes narrowing as well as they could, after years of Botox-prime. "The little bastard's managed to corrupt his d*mn video drone!"

Stan the technician glanced up at her, one hand hovering by his vid-bot control panel.

"You want me to purge its memory, Ma'am?"

Maxton's nearly immobile face twitched in something like humour. She shook her head no, automatically reaching for the coffee brought in by a breathless and pretty young aide. You see, Maxton could not tear herself away from those screens long enough to fetch her own meals. Nor did she sleep during filming; washing up at a sink, eating nothing but junk food, and popping alertness pills by the fistful. Now, leaning back a bit, she said,

"Not yet. He isn't important to the main action, right now, and I'd rather have that bot dump his ass at a more critical moment. Let him keep thinking he's fooled us for a while. More fun, that way."

Higher ratings, as well.

On dozens of nearby screens, the other contestants were featured, along with their immediate environments. Maxton took a slow tour of the roughly circular video centre, gauging each situation for drama and impact, assessing test audience interest scores. So far, so good… ish.

Flipping the abandoned cloud city to defense mode had piqued viewer interest, but that was already beginning to wane. People were reaching for snacks, heading to the loo, and checking their phones, because all three teams had now clambered to relative safety.

The Deth Chix and roadies were battered but whole, threading their way through an urban landscape of gaunt, rusted cranes. Nervous as cats on a spinning raft, the rockers tased or clubbed anything that so much as twitched (which was a bonus for comic relief).

Over on screen 32, the one-down GDF Navy had reached the back of that desolate park. Its west end, more precisely, as triggering defense-mode had split the structure almost in half. The remaining sailors were grimy, abraded and cold, negotiating mud and playground equipment, dead trees and burst pipes as they pushed further 'inland'.

Behind door number three, International Rescue had succeeded in penetrating the city's antigrav system. Having been joined by the missing sailor, their team was too large, but that could change at the press of another button… and would. Their setting was noisy, dark and claustrophobic, as IR worked their way through a corroded forest of access ladders and maintenance corridors.

One of the girls had split from the group. Kayo, their sister. Her video drone was malfunctioning badly, meaning that Kayo was temporarily off the monitors. Maxton had a replacement drone on the way, though; eta thirty minutes.

Alan, her wildcard, was also off by himself and almost equally difficult to monitor. The drone he'd named "Zippy" was helping the boy, rather than doing its job, making for very few usable shots. Plenty of time to deal with that later, though. Now felt like the perfect moment to stir up the pot.

Maxton gulped down her coffee, syrup-sweet and dense with caramel. More pudding than beverage. Stood thinking a while, considering strategies. Drama and danger, she'd already thrown at her struggling contestants. From long experience with test audiences, she knew not to push that button again, too soon. Skin, on the other hand, always played well, as did clandestine sex.

Turning to her environmental-control engineer, Maxton crumpled the empty coffee cup, tossed it at her aide and snapped,

"Raise the temperature. Give me tropical conditions in the next thirty minutes, along with an exterior shot of overheating machinery. Doesn't matter what kind. If you can't find any, have special effects fake something up. Smoke, sparks and vibration, the works."

"Mosquitos?" enquired that horseshoe-bald engineer, lighting up at the thought of heatwaves and chaos.

Maxton swallowed a mouthful of stale vending machine pastry. Shook her head, saying,

"No mosquitos. We want attractive and semi-nude, not lumpy and scratching. Let's just turn up the heat for a while and see who peels down."

With any luck, romance would spark… or maybe a fistfight. Either one would boost ratings and revenue, both up-front and under the table. Earth Gov had a major stake in the performance of their IR and Navy teams, and they'd promised to be very generous.

Then, Bzzzzzzt! A courier signaled for entry, was buzzed in at Maxton's tight nod. She hated interruptions; despised anything at all that pulled her off of the show's vital bubble.

"What the h*ll is it?!" she raged at the courier, an unpaid intern in nametag, white shirt and black pants.

"Ms. Maxton," he began, sounding reedy and shaken. "That old woman… Mrs. Tracy… she wants to know what's happened to her grandson, Ma'am."

The young man shrank away as he said this, maybe expecting flung pastry and curses. Instead, Maxton chuckled, rubbing her hands together like a housefly on ripening roadkill.

"Relax… Denny, is it?" she probed, doing her best to sound pleasant. Transfixing the intern with her reptilian stare, she added, "I don't bite so hard I leave scars, Sweet-Cheeks. Plus, this is great stuff. Real emotional sandbag. Tell you what. Activate her video drone and send it over, then tell her that her baby boy's fallen into a crevasse and he's pinned by the leg. Wounded and raving, or something. Use your imagination, Denny. Just make sure that the drone is recording and focused on granny's face when you tell her. Can you handle that, Den?"

The intern nodded vigorously, blurting,

"Yes, Ma'am. Yes, Ms. Maxton. I can handle it!"

After all, this was his first real break and he didn't want to screw up a chance to look good. Not with all of Globe Studios watching, along with "The Maxton".

As if reading his mind, she gave him a tight-lipped and chilly smirk, jerking her head at the door. Excited and breathless, Denny Caruthers squared his thin shoulders, then darted away to perform Maxton's bidding.

In the meantime, inside of a certain weather-control bubble, temperatures suddenly vaulted from twenty-eight to ninety-seven degrees Fahrenheit. And the results? From the studio's perspective, solid gold. Very successful, indeed.