For all that things had changed in the past decades, necessitating upgrades on nearly everything Hades' network had to offer, some things never did. The Grey Zone remained a close-knit community of stragglers hanging on by the skins of their teeth, and, Hades thought with a smile as he surveyed the latest programming schedules, the masses required distractions from their busy lives. And the Euthanasia Broadcast Network was more than happy to provide.
In the years since Orpheus's demise, the EBN had not only tapped into the heartbeat of America, they had it by the jugular. The old small screen televisions—before that, they'd used newsreels and radios—had largely given way to larger, wall-mounted televisions and even smaller devices that could be carried around with ease, sublimating the populace at record pace. Through them, the EBN's eyes could be anywhere, see anywhere, and Hades flashed a dark grin as he thought about how easy the mortals' advancements in technology had made it for him. Persephone's eyes lit up with excitement when she'd come back from summer break chock-full of ideas and reports, and upon hearing them, he'd smiled with her.
Not everything had to keep up with the times, of course; there were still some holdouts that preferred the old broadcasting ways, as well as retro-minded young people. Vinyl had made a comeback among the mortals, among other things, and Hades had soon put stock in releasing old classics in obsolete formats. He still kept that old paper shredder, acquiescing to functionality over form in this case even as the printouts and computers had modernized. Hades ensured it still performed as needed, shredding the memories of incoming souls into so much confetti, and the new arrivals handed over their papers without question.
But just keeping up with the latest trends, new and old, wasn't enough to keep his network running. For that Hades needed top-tier performers, advertisements that were just the right shade of intrusive, and, of course, the best in mind-numbing comfort programming—and he had the connections to find them all.
Hades was God of Wealth as well as God of the Dead, so it wasn't too hard to attract the kind of talent worth watching; wasn't there some mortal saying that dead artists were better, anyway? Once they'd given up their lives, through natural means or otherwise, they were invariably proud to join his network, and those that weren't would get reborn to run it through again until they changed their minds. The shades' minds were a blank slate once shredded, but the precious talent remained, and that was what he used.
The advertisements were another matter; word-of-mouth would only get you so far, these days, but Hades knew the EBN had a niche to worm its way into hearts and minds. The key, he'd learned, was to offer it all, paring down many choices to just one: Having trouble deciding what to watch? Are too many choices getting you down? Do you have too much free time and not enough to do with it? Tune in to the EBN, where we offer everything from the classics to shows for the new generation, 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, plus on-demand. Because why think when you don't have to?
But it was the programming itself that cemented Hades and Persephone's control. The key to the EBN's continued success was simple: Mind-numbing, literally soul-sucking blocks of any form of entertainment, from art to music to dancing. They were carefully tailored to cleanse the brain in microwaves, soak the masses in cathode rays, and rid viewers of the urge to do anything else but watch with mellow, calm smiles. Praise The Ray continued to be the most popular show, now in its 32nd great year, and Hades knew that with the Grey Zone's inhabitants begging for release from everyday struggles, anything he offered was better than nothing. The hypno-pulses ensured that even for those who rarely watched the EBN, some rays still got through via osmosis, and that was all he needed.
To the network performers, to his staff, and even to his wife Persephone, it seemed the God of the Dead had it made. But inside, Hades seethed at the rebellion that, after all this time, refused to be stamped out.
It started and ended, he knew, with Orpheus and Eurydice.
It had been true that they'd needed fresh talent, and Eurydice's dancing proved she had that. But Orpheus going in after her without regard to himself, fire in his eyes, made him dangerous to the network. Somehow the boy had escaped having his mind shredded upon arrival, and charmed Persephone and Hades' producer to make his way onstage. With his Lyre-Axe Guitar, he'd upstaged the delightfully dull Fiberglass Ensemble and even Hades himself. Orpheus had catapulted Hades' soothing cover of "Lazy River" out of viewers' minds in an instant with the unrestrained, unpredictable sound of hard rock and shredding guitars, and it was clear he'd come here on a mission.
Hades was nothing if not opportunistic, of course. At Persephone's insistence he'd given the young man a chance to win back his love; at his own insistence he'd made it a spectacle, a ratings stunt. All Orpheus had to do was not look back until they were both out and he'd win big; it wasn't Hades' fault the musician had turned around too soon and lost his wife. The program, improvised as it was, was a resounding success. The artistic tragedy of Orpheus and Eurydice brought in top ratings, Eurydice became a dancer for the network as planned, and, for a while, that was all anyone heard of the couple.
And then, for the sake of chasing performance, Persephone had called Orpheus back to the network. It was equally true that Eurydice had been distant when she'd danced in Hades' arms on-air, her eyes sad and her gaze wandering, her posture stiffer than the usual crop of undead. It had only been a year since Orpheus's failure, and from what Persephone had reported on one of her vacations, the young man wasn't doing well—drowning his sorrows, having to be reminded to eat, and even tuning in to EBN now and then just to watch Eurydice dance. His newfound celebrity status as the only living person to perform on Praise The Ray had done him no favors, it seemed.
With Orpheus in such dire straits Hades had considered it an act of mercy to lure the boy back with the promise of another chance, giving him the skateboard necessary to navigate their Underworld entrance that kept all other intruders out. Orpheus, predictably, had jumped at the opportunity to save Eurydice once more, even when told his life would be forfeit if he lost. If Hades' live broadcast and the gleam in Persephone's eyes made him suspect something, well, perhaps the boy was a better actor than he looked. The Eurydice Door Show was deceptively simple and rigged to ensure his demise, with the Furies waiting behind either door to enact divine retribution.
When Orpheus inevitably picked the wrong door, getting his head lopped off for his troubles, it was there his Eurydice waited. The lovers embraced, together in death, each angle of the camera carefully planned to wring every bit of drama out. The boy had lost the show and his life, but no one could say Hades hadn't given him what he wanted in the end.
And then, the spectacle over, they'd tossed Orpheus's head in the river, set that forsaken instrument on fire, and sent Eurydice back to her normal duties. Game, set, match; the show was over, and the EBN would go on as it had. Hades had gotten rid of a threat, Persephone had gotten her desired performance, and the top ratings—unparalleled to this day, especially with reruns and streaming views—only cemented their victory.
Except that it wasn't over. Not long after Orpheus's demise, the skateboarding youth of the Grey Zone had struck out against the network, blowing up one of the EBN satellite dishes with dynamite. While Hades could afford to fix it and did, it was still a bad omen, and the news of Orpheus's skull becoming a symbol of rebellion, of hope, was even worse.
"Remember Orpheus," they'd shouted in the streets, and it became a rallying cry heard all throughout the Grey Zone. His story spread like the legend he was in life, and for all the EBN captured hearts and minds, the tale of risking it all for love could not be abated. Eurydice's death became a symbol of a life cut short for the sake of profit, while Orpheus, though he failed, was praised for trying at all.
The local bands had taken up the call, picking up where Orpheus and Eurydice had left off, and Hades growled in frustration that the mortals had found something to live for even in such dire circumstances. Even if he was far from being in the red, the rebellions cost him viewers and crucial advertising, and Persephone's summer vacations brought whispers of revolt when she ventured out.
And the effects weren't only felt in the mortal realm. Hades couldn't risk sending Orpheus and Eurydice to be reborn after the trouble they'd caused him, so he reluctantly kept them in the network to keep a close eye on them. He'd tried to shred them properly and be done with it, but the shredder had jammed of its own accord, taking hours to repair and backing up the incoming soul traffic. By the time they'd gotten it running again, some souls had slipped through the cracks, retaining their memories and senses of self, and that was almost as dangerous as Orpheus's music.
Remember Orpheus, Hades thought bitterly. In the midst of his life-sucking cathode rays, Orpheus and Eurydice had brought the masses a ray of hope. As the EBN continued to grow and expand, so did the resistance, and the God of the Dead knew that even when an eternity passed, the mortals would never forget the musician and the dancer that had dared to challenge destiny in the name of love.
And neither, Hades noted, would he.