2.

Winter

In which Dr. Calico gets bored,

The animals get ghostly,

And Mindy From the Network gets stuck singing the same old Christmas Carol.


Winter was just beginning, and a light snow was starting to fall from the sky.

. . . Which was not entirely indicative of the truth of the situation. While it was indeed winter, it was also a balmy, cloudless day in Hollywood, and the snow in question was made of shredded Styrofoam, which was lousy for making snowballs and was impossible to get off of your clothes once it was stuck there.

Mindy From The Network had learned this fact the hard way, and it was not doing anything to improve her mood.

She wondered, angrily, to herself, just whose stupid idiot idea it had been to do a holiday episode in the first place. And then: Oh, right. Hers. But then again, it wasn't as though she had much choice in the matter. Ratings were plummeting; half of the target demographic wouldn't stop complaining about the new Penny and everybody hated the stupid aliens. That, at least, hadn't been Mindy's idea, though for some reason she couldn't quite manage to remember just whose it had been.

That wasn't really important, though. What was important was ratings, and when one was starting to get desperate right around Christmastime, well, it wasn't that hard to think up what a potential solution might be.

. . . Hopefully, anyway. Mindy hadn't exactly checked how Eighteen-To-Thirty-Five-Year-Olds were reacting to saccharine holiday specials these days, but she rather fervently hoped that it wasn't poorly.

Of course, at the moment it was less how the sponsors would react to even the slightest bump in the ratings that concerned Mindy, and more the silly, stupid, statically charged Styrofoam snow. She'd managed to get most of it off with a few quick sweeps of her hands, but of course there was still that last little bit that just wouldn't come off, no matter how hard she tried. She became so absorbed in her task as she stomped through the studio hallways, in fact, that after a while Mindy stopped paying attention to where she was going, taking random turns through the winding, linoleum-floored hallways.

This, most likely, was the reason that Mindy From The Network was somewhat taken off guard when she finally looked up and found herself, unexpectedly, deep within the lair of the world's most dangerous and influential supervillain.

After examining her surroundings for a moment, Mindy concluded that they were substantially less impressive with the blinky lights and sound effects turned off.

Nevertheless, it was still something to look at – Dr. Calico's headquarters was probably the most expensive set they had on the show, and it at least lived up to that standard. It was everything you could possibly want for taking over the world, really. A great big fancy computer-screen wall at one end, plenty of space for the minions to hang around in their off-time, and course a great big set of stairs leading up to a surprisingly ergonomic – yet definitively evil – spinning office chair. For the man himself, naturally.

Mindy flicked the last lingering bit of Styrofoam snow off of her shoulder, putting as much vehemence into the action as she could manage. She turned and prepared to head back to where she had been originally off to in the first place – she couldn't quite remember what that was, exactly, but it probably had something to do with yelling at the director – but something made her hesitate.

It probably had something to do with the fact that she'd never actually seen this set when she wasn't on the far end of a monitor screen. Even an executive could be mildly curious about that sort of thing.

Not very, of course, but mildly wasn't unreasonable.

Mindy glanced around the dark set, quickly, to make sure that nobody was watching, and then began walking up the stairs. They were made of plywood, but the paint job that was supposed to make them look like chrome was admirably convincing.

And then she reached the top of the stairs, and, of course, the chair. Somehow, unlike the rest of the set, it looked just as impressive close up. They had probably spent far too much money on it, Mindy thought to herself aimlessly. She prodded the chair, and it spun, squeaking slightly in a not-very evil way.

"It usually stays comfortable up until the ninth take or so."

Mindy yelled, whirled around, and only just managed to avoid falling all the way back down the stairs. She glared at the tall, elderly man who had appeared behind her. He was dressed in a suit, aimlessly adjusting his tie and blinking, rapidly, in an earnest attempt to get rid of the irritation from the green contact lens in his right eye.

Mindy regained her balance. "What are you doing here, Malcolm?" she demanded, still somewhat shaken.

Malcolm – Dr. Calico's actor, and an admittedly friendly sort when out of character – strolled past her and sat down in the chair, flashing a wide smile. "Well, it would be a bit unusual if I was somewhere else, now wouldn't it? Unless we're shooting the exciting new episode where Dr. Calico files his change of address and then moves to Nantucket."

"In your dreams, Malcolm," Mindy said, flatly. "Dr. Calico is still busy stealing Christmas, I'm afraid." Her eyes drifted to the old man's hand; he was holding a letter. "Who's that from?"

"Penny," he replied, opening the envelope and scanning through its contents. "The old one, I mean. She sends letters, sometimes."

"Why?"

Malcolm looked up, and raised an eyebrow. "We're friends. We keep in touch. You don't need much more reason than that, though I suppose you wouldn't know much about that."

"I have friends," Mindy said, a bit too quickly.

Malcolm yawned. "I'm sure you do, Mindy. You're drifting from my original point, though, which is that I still don't understand the point of a Christmas episode. Isn't the show ridiculous enough as it is?"

"Ratings, Malcolm, are more important than artistic integrity at a time like this. And holiday specials get ratings. Now stop blabbering and brush up your evil laugh; if you're here they're probably getting ready to do the scene where Dr. Calico plots to rob all the presents from the city orphanage."

Malcolm sighed, and sank back in his chair. "Oh, boundless joy."

"Oh, come on," Mindy said. "It won't be that bad. And the director's been talking about how he always wanted to do an episode like this."

Malcolm snorted. "The director is an idiot, Mindy. It was bad enough before when we had to do everything in one take, but now that we've got the new dog and we have the freedom to reshoot, he makes us do every scene a thousand times over!"

Mindy shrugged. "Well, if he's so awful, why did you agree to work for him?"

The elderly actor looked sheepish for a moment. "Ah," he said. "Well. That's a funny story actually. I met him at a charity dinner, you see – I was stupendously drunk, you understand, and I mistook him for David Tennant. So I went over, and I – "

"Uh, I think I get the gist of it Malcolm." Mindy turned back to her clipboard. "Look, I'm sorry to leave so soon but I'm sure there, uh, has to be somewhere else I need to be at the moment."

"Granted," Malcolm continued, undeterred, "It was an important lesson, even if I did have to learn it the hard way. I learn most of my lessons the hard way, actually, now that I think about it." He started counting off on his fingers. "Don't play with matches, never forget anything in a taxi, never hum 'Singin' in the Rain' near balding men in wheelchairs . . . "

He kept talking, but Mindy tuned it out. She was trying to remember just what it was she had been doing before getting sidetracked in the first place. What had it been? Getting water? Updating the script? No, no, wait, she remembered now – she needed to go yell at the post-production guys; they were taking too long getting the big chase scene finished up, and they needed that for the teaser ads. She flipped through the pages on her clipboard, trying to figure out where any of them would be in the studio this time of day. After a moment, she glanced back up at Malcolm. He was still talking.

"Oh," he said, looking distracted. "And never, ever eat rarebit before bed, that was the last one. Last time I did that I had this utterly barmy nightmare about Lori Petty and a bunch of mutant kangaroos."

"That's nice, Malcolm," Mindy said, turning away. "But I have actually important things to worry about, if you don't mind. So if it's all right with you, I'm just going to head out and try to find the people I need to talk to. You just stay here and work on making this a holiday special all your friends will want to watch."

"Actually, all of my friends are probably going to be watching The End of Ti – "

"You know what I meant." Mindy began to walk down the stairs, not looking back.

"I think you'll find that ratings aren't everything, Mindy," Malcolm called after her as she left. "If you keep thinking like that it'll just consume you."

"Right now, Malcolm, ratings are everything, at least for the sponsors who're the only reason any of us have jobs."

Malcolm shrugged. "Have it your own way, then," he said. Mindy harrumphed, and walked out the door, shoving her way past a bemused-looking camera crew and the director as she went. As she went, the director tried to speak to her.

"Er," he said. "Mindy, you wouldn't happen to have seen – "

"No," Mindy replied, without waiting for him to finish, and turned a corner out of sight.


An hour and a half later, Mindy From The Network was having absolutely no luck whatsoever finding the people she needed to yell at. She pondered, briefly, whether or not they were hiding from her. After thinking about it for a moment, she decided that if they were, then she approved of them fearing her but not of being this unhelpful. She paused and made a mental note to chew them out for that, too.

She was on the city set now, and while Mindy knew that most of the offices and tech rooms could be accessed through the sets, she could never remember precisely which rooms connected to which sets. She groaned in frustration and admitted to herself, begrudgingly, that she was lost again. She tried to think of the last time she had been on this set – it hadn't been that long ago – and just where the doors might take her. After this experiment yielded nothing, she shrugged, decided she had nothing to lose from simple trial and error, and pushed through the nearest door she could find.

Once she was on the other side, Mindy took two steps into the hallway and promptly tripped over something small and white, which yelped in startled surprise as she fell.

Mindy sat up and grabbed what she had tripped over. It barked, happily, and licked her face.

"Bolt?" She said, looking at the dog in surprise. Except, no wait, this wasn't the real Bolt – it was the new one, of course. She kept forgetting about that. Mindy couldn't remember this dog's name for the life of her, though knowing how uncreative the trainers could be she wouldn't put it past them to have just named this one 'Bolt' as well. Mindy stood up and looked at the dog.

"What are you doing here, you little mutt? I bet everyone's looking all over for you."

New-Bolt barked cheerily.

Mindy tried to straighten out her coat. "Yeah, well, I certainly haven't got any time to deal with you. Crazy animal, you remind me of the dog I used to have when I was a kid." She whirled around and took a step away, but stopped when she realized that New-Bolt was whining curiously at her. Mindy looked back around. The dog had an incredulous look on his face.

"What?" Mindy asked, defensively. "You don't believe I ever had a dog? I did! Stupid little Chihuahua; name was Columbus. The idiot was always running off, which is why you remind me of him."

New-Bolt whined.

Mindy glared back at him. "Yes, I was perfectly pleasant to him. Mostly. For your information, I had a perfectly happy, pet-adoring childhood." She hesitated, and looked away for a moment. Then she turned and glanced back at New-Bolt, who was still watching her and wagging his tail idly.

"You know, now that I think about it, actually, that was the last time I ever even thought about having a pet," Mindy said. "I mean, Columbus died while I was in college, and of course I couldn't have any pets there. And I went to graduate school pretty much right after that, and after that I got my first job working in business . . . "

She trailed off. "Look, it doesn't matter, okay? Just because I had a dog and liked him when I was a kid doesn't mean I have to have the patience for you." She turned away, and resumed stalking down the corridor purposefully. When she reached the end, Mindy looked back, reluctantly, only to see that the dog had vanished.

"Stupid dog," she muttered, and pushed through the door at the end of the hallway.

The room on the other side of the door was dark, and empty. Dozens of monitors lit up the far end, and Mindy realized that they were displaying footage from the set of Dr. Calico's headquarters that she'd just left. She was in one of the screening rooms, closer to her goal than she had been before but still unable to find the people she needed to. Annoyed, she sat down in one of the swivel chairs left in front of the monitors, spinning in it aimlessly. On the third revolution, she noticed something out of the corner of her eye, and looked over in surprise.

It was a cat – one of the two from the show. Specifically, the fluffier, fatter one. It wandered up to the chair, and without really thinking about it Mindy reached down and scratched it behind the ears.

"What is with you animals today? Is it a jailbreak or something?" She looked at the monitors, and watched the crew running about frantically – probably trying to find the missing animals, Mindy realized after watching them for a few moments. She cast an annoyed look at the cat beside her.

"So that's what's going on now, huh? You guys are just causing all sorts of trouble. Not that it really matters, I mean. The show is probably doomed, if I'm honest. I mean, look at it now, it's ridiculous. If I had the sway to do it I'd ax the show myself out of pity. I don't get why everyone involved stays so sincere about all of it."

The cat meowed.

"Well, yes," Mindy agreed, not really paying attention. "I suppose it doesn't have to be silly. But right now that's not what we should be worrying about! We need to get people watching the stupid show before we can worry about the quality of it, don't you think?"

She looked down at where the cat was, but if she had been expecting an answer then she found herself disappointed. The cat was gone, vanished without a trace like the dog before it.

"Ah, good riddance," Mindy muttered. "It's not like you were my problem in the first place anyway."

She turned away, and yelled in startled surprise as she came face to face with another cat, sitting on the counter and glaring directly at her.

"Jeez!" Mindy cried. She shot an annoyed look at the monitors, watching Malcolm in character as Dr. Calico. "Well," Mindy said, turning back to the cat, "I don't think I have to guess where you get your knack for sneaking up on people like that."

This was the other cat – the skinnier one that spent most of its time perched atop Dr. Calico's shoulder like some sort of malevolent, meowing pirate's parrot. It stared at Mindy silently.

"You're all crazy, you know that?" Mindy said, apprehensively. She looked at the chaos on the monitor screens again. "Although, I guess that should be the least of my worries, really." She sighed. "What do you think will happen if this doesn't work, huh? If the show actually gets cancelled?"

The cat watched her, still not making a sound.

"Yeah, that's what I thought." Mindy watched the people on set; the actors, the camera crew, even the silly excuse for a director.

"They're all going to lose their jobs," she said to the cat, which remained quiet. It stared at her relentlessly, and Mindy sighed.

" . . . And I'm going to lose my job too, aren't I? And nobody will even miss me."

The words weighed heavily in the air.

Mindy sank farther into her seat, and looked over to where the silent cat had been. Not entirely to her surprise, he, too, had vanished just like the other two animals. "Maybe you're all going back to the set," Mindy muttered. "Then at least some of this mess would be cleared up." She turned her eyes back to the screens, watching the crew again. It was, she reluctantly admitted to herself, going to take far more than gimmicks and an extra episode in December to save the mess this show had become.

An idea popped into Mindy's head.

She grit her teeth, and tried to ignore it, but the more she thought about it the more it made sense. And it wasn't as though she really had anything to lose. And with the show in the state it was in, it was now or never.

Reluctantly, Mindy From The Network came to a decision.


" . . . Oh, and the aliens. We have got to lose the stupid aliens."

Everyone in the room had been watching Mindy with shock for the past quarter hour. The director, especially, seemed about ready to let his jaw drop any moment now.

"But Mindy!" He protested. "We have two seasons worth of storylines that depend on the aliens. We can't just drop them like that!"

"You can, and you will, or else you're all fired." Mindy eyed the rest of the people in the room purposefully. It wasn't easy to be intimidating when you were nearly a full foot shorter than everybody else in the immediate vicinity, but Mindy managed it with little difficulty.

"If you want this show to last, you've got to put in some effort towards making it something more than ridiculous drivel! Put some effort into it and maybe your ratings will stop sinking like a rock!"

"It takes more than just saying it," another one of the crew said. "You can't just decide that Bolt is going to be a smarter show and have it be so."

"You're right. It takes my say-so and network leverage. Try harder or I'll make certain you never write for television again." Mindy pushed through the crowd, glared at the assembled mass one last time, and then walked out the door and slammed it behind her.

An elderly British man was standing in the hallway outside.

"That," Malcolm said, "Was probably the most vitriolic positive change of heart I've ever seen."

"Whatever you say." Mindy wandered off down the hallway. "It's just an experiment. But I can guarantee you I'll be there to make sure they follow through on it. We are not losing our jobs to some idiotic excuse for an action show."

"Well, it's certainly pleasant to hear you say that." Malcolm straightened his tie, absent-mindedly. It really was fascinating to see the most evil man alive transform into an affable gentleman in his off-hours, and Mindy was surprised she'd never really noticed that before. That, or just how persuasive animals could be even when they weren't really saying anything, or even the elusive, but still noticeable appeal of Styrofoam snow.

Mindy was starting to notice a lot of things like that. It annoyed her.

"Well, it'll certainly be a relief to work on something that isn't complete rubbish, for once, at least," Malcolm said, cheerily.

"Save it," Mindy said, walking away. "You've still got the holiday episode to get through, after all."

Malcolm's face fell. "Bah," he muttered, at the thought of it. "Humbug."

"Exactly," Mindy replied, and turned the corner out of sight.

Somewhere in the back of the studio, three animals sat together.

"That," said one of them – the bulkier, fluffier cat – "That was the best game of hide-and-go-seek tag ever!"

"Or close to it," the skinnier cat agreed. "Even though what's-her-face saw us. But I don't think she told anyone. Probably just forgot about it right after, more or less."

He looked at the diminutive white Sheppard dog sitting across from them. "You did good, kid," he said. "You're way more fun than the old guy. Keep this up and we might even stop making fun of you for setting fire to the stage. Or at least make fun of you for it less."

"Oh, spectacular," the dog grumbled, sarcastically. "God bless us everyone."

"Or something to that effect," the cat said. It was as close as you could get, really, with set-backdrop landscapes and Styrofoam snow.

In Hollywood, though, it was enough, and that was what counted.