A meeting was called late in the afternoon on the tenth floor of Que Media: the team behind the most popular children’s show “YOYO! Kids”. Meetings are never call in this late or at this late of notice. Julia feels that this is an opportunity to shine. But will she get it? About 5, 800 words.
Julia stood in front of the only conference room door on the tenth floor that she knew her badge wouldn’t open. She adjusted her starched jacket, which added to the office orchestra of ringing phones, receiving faxes, and the bubbling of water cooler talk.
She lifted her Que Media lanyard over her head and rubbed it in her hand. Her photo was turning a shade of purple. The badge stuck to her like a mole she had kept hidden.
She pressed her badge against the black box that locked the door, but the light stayed red. Her heart dropped.
Of course it wouldn’t work, she thought. Why the hell did I just do that?
“Not today, little lady.” Brad’s voice cut through the cacophony of typing keys and the filing of paperwork. He walked up and lifted his badge to the security lock. That tiny little light bulb turned green and Julia could feel the sounds of the lock clicking wash over her. Brad pushed past her and into the conference room. She popped her neck and stiff-armed the heavy door open.
Julia walked into the shotgun style boardroom where a long black table stood in the middle surrounded by chairs on all sides. A single captain’s chair at the far end demanded attention to anyone who entered. Littered on the table were a mountain of black, three ringed binders. They stacked some three or four tall. Tiny Post-Its of different colors hung out of most of them. The room smelled recently sanitised with a pinch of lemon zest. Julia had asked what the cleaning crew used during one of their late nights, but met their strange looks and questions in Spanish she couldn’t quite articulate.
Julia made her way along one side of the table. Her hand grazed the top of each of the high-backed chairs, jumping from one to the other. She made confident strides to the captain’s chair. She slid her fingers across the slick leather and down the curvature of its ergonomics. She gripped the sides of it with both hands. The weight showed its full potential as she slightly rolled it back and forth.
She suddenly remembered that she wasn’t alone. Brad scoffed and slid one binder to him, absentmindedly thumbed through it. Julia readjusted the chair back underneath the table. She cleared her throat before speaking.
“What?” Brad shook his head, not looking up at her. “If I wanted it, there’d be nothing you could do to stop me,” she explained. Brad stifled a laugh.
“The game is growing tiresome, J. You don’t have anything to stand on instead of those two pretty little legs you got.” He moved up on his toes and tried to take a peek. Julia shoved the chair and moved off opposite of him.
“No portfolio to write your name on,” he continued. He put down the binder and picked up another. Julia held her hand to her mouth, holding back a laugh.
“Please don’t tell me you’re bringing up Geezel the Weasel again,” she said, slapping the top of the chair. She turned and melted at the sight of the last cappuccino machine on the tenth floor. The scent of Ospina coffee beans filled her nose. It felt like home. Brad dropped a binder heavily onto the table.
“Geezel the Weasel opened up a new door of advertising for Que Media,” Brad boasted. She scoffed again and turned to face him.
“Geezel was a commercial flop. The 16th floor said so themselves. It was the first time that YOYO! fell behind in the ratings. Sanderson only pushed it up because he thought we could build a spin off by using Geezel as a vehicle. But he barely made it out of the gate in that first season. Nobody is making money on Geezel the Weasel. And you, of all people, aren’t getting recognized for it.” Julia turned back to the cappuccino machine and wondered if she might need something a little stronger.
“Geezel still has momentum. The merchandise is flying off the shelves. If the 16th Floor would just–” The door swung open then and the other broad shoulder meathead walked in.
“What’s up, pussies?” Mark asked. He walked over to Brad and gave him one of their customary handshakes. With each greeting, the handshake got longer and longer as each of them tried to add something new to it. This latest variation ended with Mark and Brad acting like they were smelling each other’s farts. Julia rolled her eyes and tried not to stare. It warranted a stiffer drink.
Mark stood up and readjusted his suit jacket when he saw Julia staring at them. He combed the front of his hair over with his hand and nodded in her direction. She didn’t nod back.
She hated Mark had seen her naked. Well, almost naked. YOYO! Kids just hit number one during summer break and they all went out to celebrate. Julia knew she had a bit too much to drink, but that didn’t stop her from pulling Mark into the women’s bathroom, and ferociously tried to remove his belt while Mark worked on getting her shirt off. Then Maggie from Accounting walked in. Her pink, round face struck the horror that sober Julia would have felt. Nothing kills a drunk sexscpade like seeing your actions through someone else’s sober eyes. She wanted to puke.
“What’s with all this shit?” Mark asked, as he grabbed a binder from the table.
“Don’t know. Sanderson just called the meeting a half hour ago,” Julia said. Mark and Brad huddled together and whispered to themselves. A sharp pain shot up the base of her neck. She turned away and rubbed it. She hated seeing the two of them together. They always seem to come out on top. She wanted to be in that boys’ club.
The door opened again, and the three turned to watch Sanderson glide into the boardroom.
“Lady and gentlemen,” he announced, arms stretched out with a manilla folder in one, a black briefcase in the other. Julia’s eyes lit up, and she adjusted her skirt and fixed her jacket before facing him. It was late in the afternoon to see him walking around on this floor. He still looked primed, ready for anything. He was Julia’s spirit animal.
“Well, isn’t it the man of the hour,” Brad said, standing up from his chair.
“Yeah, Sanderson, what’s the deal? Who calls a meeting thirty minutes before it’s supposed to start?” Mark said, also standing, mimicking Brad. They might act tough, but these two fall in line whenever Sanderson is around. Julia, however, knew better than to be “buddy-buddy” with him. She respected him, but also knew that he could destroy her with a simple phone call.
He looked over at Julia, and they shared a slight nod. Julia sat down in her chair as Sanderson rounded the table to drop his things at the top. He pointed a finger at Brad and Mark.
“Assholes, gentlemen. Assholes are the ones that call late meetings. Assholes like you and me. But there’s work to do.” He grinned and watched Brad and Mark follow his smile and chuckled to themselves.
Children, Julia thought.
“The heads on the 16th floor have brought down a challenge that we need to conquer tonight. No exceptions.” Sanderson slid the folder in front of him. Julia felt her heart race when she saw it: whatever it was came from the Board of Directors. They sit in their ivory tower six floors up and filled their fat bank accounts from all the hard work that was sitting around this table.
Julia flexed her right hand. Oh, if only she could touch it, but she knew they forbid it.
One day, she thought. One day.
“YOYO! Kids has been number one across our entire universe for six consecutive quarters. What is so damned important that can’t wait until Monday?” Brad asked and Mark agreed.
Sanderson took a step back from the table, placed his fists on his hips, and struck a power pose. The fluorescent lights beamed down on him.
Jesus, Julia thought. Even the light in here is softer.
She wanted to live in this boardroom. Eat off the wood grain table. Pushed up against the triple pane, floor to ceiling windows and stare down at the ants that she could crush under her heel. She adjusted a bit in her chair and studied Sanderson’s face as he looked out to his team. Sanderson’s voice traveled along the long walls as if he were speaking through a megaphone.
“Future Friends,” Sanderson said. A shot of pain went up Julia’s spine. She felt uncomfortable; a heat rising on the back of her neck. Brad pounded his fist onto the table. Mark’s arms flung up above his head.
“I fucking knew it!” Brad shouted, slamming his fist on the table with each word that spat out of his mouth. “I fucking knew it. I was just telling you a few days ago, wasn’t I? They’ve been too quiet. God damn it!” Brad pounded his fist again and slumped back into his chair. Julia searched her brain for connecting information, but found nothing.
“Wait, what does the board know? It’s usually us coming to them with potential problems, not the other way around. What could they possibly be worried about that we don’t already know?” Julia asked. Sanderson looked down and stabbed the folder with his forefinger.
“Archer Sage.”
The group took a collective sharp breath in. Julia felt sick to her stomach. Archer Sage: the messiah of children’s programming, the mastermind behind the properties of the Magic Team, Apple Aliens, and W.O.W. Champions.
She had seen Archer Sage at a banquet once. She hovered around him for about an hour before she built up enough courage to introduce herself. But by then, she had too much to drink and chicken out. That was almost three years ago. It still kept her up some nights.
“Fucking Sage. 60% of the market is Archer’s ideas. Asshole. So, what? He’s joined FF?” Mark asked and readjusted himself from his outburst.
“We believe not only has Archer Sage signed on with FF, we have a lead on what his next project is,” Sanderson placed his hand back on the folder. Julia’s heart skipped a beat. She could just peek at the sharp white corners of the paper concealed inside. Maybe a small bit of silver. Was that the header? Julia relaxed in her chair. Have to focus.
“Well, what is it?” she asked, unbuttoning the single button on her suit jacket. The room waited in anticipation.
“Sing-a-longs.” They all exchanged glances.
Brad pounded his fist into the table again, breaking the silence. Julia jumped a bit in her seat.
“Damn it!” he shouted. Julia took a deep breath in and felt the Machine turn in her mind. The gears started slowly, forcing the connecting metal of the other gears to move against their will. The smaller ones were always the first to move; they took less force. Those were usually the worst ideas, but the machine knew the motions. It had to start somewhere.
“OK, then. We get out in front of it. Drop a huge episode list on streaming. Do top tens, most popular, hit all the socials. Dump money into ads on competing markets. Beat him to it,” Mark reasoned. Julia shook her head.
“It’s not that easy. We don’t know the market. Which songs will hit and which will flop? Do we have copyrights? Do we need copyright? Can we borrow rights from our partners? Where’s the music coming from? Fuck, I mean can these shit voice actors even sing?” She addressed the last question to Sanderson, who nodded silently in agreement. But there was one more thing that really loomed in the back of Julia’s mind. The question that would determine if the Machine and its gears were going to get a workout or not. “How much time do we have?” she asked.
“We need a plan by 7 a.m. tomorrow,” Sanderson said. Silence filled every square inch of the unoccupied space.
“If we screw this up, there’s no coming back, you know? We need to knock this out of the park on the first go,” Mark thought out loud. Sanderson nodded again.
“I already came to that conclusion which is why I’m bringing in Market Research.” Sanderson pointed a finger on the desk. A hidden panel of buttons lit up and he pressed a few in sequence. Julia decided then that she would like to die on this table. A faint woman’s voice whispered through the hidden speakers surrounding the boardroom.
“Yes, Mr. Sanderson?”
“Beth, can you please send in Mr. Tuckney?”
Julia’s heart leaped into her throat. Mr. Tuckney was another name that danced infamously through the hollow halls of Que Media. He saw trends in children’s programming before anyone could get a whiff. He could tell you the colors that can increase your minute by minute revenue. Or how to hook kids in to keep playing the next video by combining end cards and melody reprises. He was a genius. Any door he walked through came with a high price tag.
Who wrote the check, she wondered.
Beth opened the door to let in a skinny, dark complected man with thick-rimmed glasses. He smiled at each of them but refused the seat that Sanderson offered.
“Can I get anyone a coffee?” Beth asked. Brad and Mark shook their heads.
“I’ll take a whiskey,” Julia said. Beth gave her an odd look but Sanderson gave a reassuring nod and she let herself out, closing the door behind her. Mr. Tuckney cleared his throat.
“I cannot stay long. The purchase was the use of my research and not my extrapolation of the research.” He gestured to the table in front of them. “Here is the latest in market research for children’s sing-a-longs ages newborn to four. Inside you will find my surveys, equations, and formulas to maximize revenue both in a streaming sphere and morning, afternoon, and late night time windows.”
Beth returned a few moments later carrying a small metal tray in her upper hand. She presented two short rocks glasses and a tall chilled decanter of Lagavulin. They were only in this room twice during the year, so Julia used it for all it was worth. Mr. Tuckney continued.
“I have written a few stray thoughts over the literature and what it contains. What you are about to read is some of my greatest work. I hope that you can find whatever edge you’re looking for. Good day.” Mr. Tuckney tipped his head slightly and left. They shared each other’s stunned glances.
“What? That’s it?” Brad asked. No one answered.
Julia sat up and bent over the width of the boardroom table, pulling in the closest binder. She turned over the heavy cover and began leafing through its dense pages. She was overwhelmed. The amount of information that spilled out of every page flashed her back to her college days of cramming before a test. Before she discovered the Machine. Now it was all about protecting the Machine, greasing its wheels, and tending to its every need. She pinched a sip of her whiskey.
Brad and Mark followed Julia’s suit and started grabbing the binders in front of them. She peered over the mound and grinned at the sight of wide eyes and gaped mouths. The sight made the Machine lurch forward, bringing a small smile to Julia’s face.
Sanderson moved back from the table, reached up, and pulled down a long whiteboard, clicking it into position. From a ledge, he produced a black marker, and turned back to his team.
“Alright, everyone, what are the basics? How do we build our foundation?”
“Well, the first thing that comes to mind is limit. How many episodes will determine how many songs will give us a rough early budget for production. We can calculate with terms of the lowest averages of original music compared to the current market, going rates of the actors and animation. We save a few bucks on something that’s in the public domain. Or a cheap rewrite,” Julia thought out loud. Sanderson pointed his marker in her direction, turned, and wrote ‘# of episodes = budget’ on the whiteboard. He turned back.
“Excellent. What else?” The turning heavy paper filled the room. Julia closed the binder in her lap and pushed it on the table, then grabbed another. This new one was about audience retainment through repetition to allow for maximum ad generated revenue.
“This is bullshit. I don’t know dick about nursery rhymes,” Brad admitted. He flipped over another page, then closed the binder in frustration, and grabbed another. Julia watched as Brad acted the part of the hard worker, knowing that he’ll steal in the background to whatever good idea comes to light. Sometimes you need those types of people. Keeps the wheels going. Another jolt to the Machine as it planned something.
“Aw, what’s wrong, Bradley? Mommy didn’t sing you to sleep at night?” Mark chided. Brad shot daggers and flexed away from him.
Julia knew about Brad’s bedtime stories. His mother was a stripper, a good one, apparently. Most of the time, she never came home till late afternoon. Usually missing half her clothes and a wad of cash falling out of her purse. It was just Brad and his step-dad in a single bedroom apartment on the lower west side.
“OK, let’s think this through. Sing-a-longs come in many varieties, right? Like it says here:” Brad pulled the binder away from him a bit and refocused his eyes. “The breath of the oral story came before the written word itself. Most indigenous people would sing stories to their children to ward off evil spirits or for survival, such as when the harvest would begin.
“In a more modern time, nursery rhymes are typically used to teach the alphabet or the counting of numbers. Lyrics are often repeated in a manner to ingrain a new piece of information into a child’s mind using the rule of three.”
The team took a moment to ingest this additional information, and Julia felt the Machine hitch for a moment. She put her hand to her temple and waited for the pain to subside.
That was new, she thought.
She left her current binder open on a graphic of percentage of attention in front of her and reached for another. She searched it for a moment before finding what she needed.
“Here we go,” she announced, slamming the binder on the table. She towered over top of it and poked her finger at a line on the page.
“Meaningful rhymes are based on a fact to be built upon later. Memory expanding rhymes are songs that’s sole purpose is to remind and recite the fact back to the listener. Story driven rhymes serve no purpose other than telling a story about a significant event. Most of the event’s lessons no longer serve a purpose to the general populous. These rhymes usually describe disturbing events from history set to a child’s singsong.”
Julia looked up from her reading to see Brad’s and Mark’s eyes stared blankly into hers.
“What the hell types of rhymes are those?” Brad asked.
“London Bridge is Falling Down is about the failing to upkeep the London Bridge in the 1600s. Ring Around the Rosie tells the story of the black plague. A pocket full of posies was to warn off the foul smelling scent of death,” Sanderson explained, then wrote “purpose” beside a bullet point.
“How on Earth are we supposed to make sense of it all without the Brain here?” Julia asked. Sanderson looked down at her and she felt the Machine hitch again.
“Figure it out. Just like we always do,” he said and moved his attention back to the side of the boys.
Julia stretched up and out of her chair again. She was getting hot. The room suddenly felt stuffy. She looked out the window and saw that the sun was setting.
Christ, how long have they been at it?
The Machine pulled at her. Something was wrong. She was losing track. She looked over the table to see Brad and Mark hard at work.
Shit. She couldn’t lose out again.
Sanderson caught her gaze and flashed her a reassuring grin, and she felt the Machine lurch forward.
Julia grabbed another binder. This one was on detailing attributes that encourage parents to watch with their children and how that might correlate to “off the shelf” sales. This made sense to her.
“OK, let’s talk about the important stuff: money. How the hell are we going to make any money on these videos? I mean, Mary Had a Little Lamb is short as shit, like four lines maybe. How the hell are we going to make something last long enough to be worth it to advertisers outside of our sphere? What’s a viable length of time for something like this? Ten minutes? Fifteen? A normal YOYO! is usually 22 minutes which is prime for ads, but this… Who’s going to sit and watch this for 22 minutes?” Brad asked and shook his head. He flipped to the next page in his binder. Sanderson poured a glass of whiskey for himself, lifted it in the air to cheer with Julia, and they shared the drink.
Sanderson slammed the glass on to the table and pointed a finger at Brad.
“Good. Yes. Excellent question. Thoughts?” Sanderson looked around the room to more silence. Mark rubbed his eyebrows with his thumb and forefinger, turned to the next page, and Julia watched as his eyes grew wide at the amount of pie charts that littered the page. She moved to take another sip of her whiskey, but her glass was empty.
Julia reached for the steel decanter and poured the last of the whiskey. She shook the empty bottle and dropped it heavily onto the table. She noticed that Sanderson’s glass was full again. Could she drink his? Would he care? They’ve shared things before, but never in front of anyone. Or, at least, that she was aware of.
Julia felt something click in the back of her mind. The Machine was creating something new. She looked out the window: it was dark. The Machine always strikes best at midnight.
“OK, so we can either write new lyrics to some shorter ones or maybe use the musical tracks for the public domain ones and write lyrics on top of them. That would give us legal standing to copyright claim a new property to be used later,” Mark suggested.
“That would mean more money in fees,” Sanderson said. Deflated, Mark threw his current binder down and picked up another.
“I am burning up. Is anyone else hot in here?” Brad pulled his tie loose and unbuttoned his suit jacket. He twisted back and forth in his chair, untucking his dress shirt.
“You can stop right there,” Julia announced, peering over the top of her binder. Brad threw her a smirk.
“Oh, I know you like what you see,” Brad boasted, flashing Julia a wicked smile and threw her a small kiss.
“Sure she does, Speedy,” Mark joked. Brad whacked him in the arm, but joined in his chuckling. Julia rolled her eyes. She remembered how desperate he was to get his pants off that night, but it was already over before it started. They had called him nicknames behind his back and now, it would seem, to his face as well. It made her wonder what they called her behind her back.
Sanderson stood with his back to the table, staring at the whiteboard. Covered in scribblings of rhyme schemes, a list of things to avoid like Indians, the nursery rhyme “Eenie, Meenie, Money, Mo; the cracking of corn and underlined in bold was the word “Diversity”.
Julia poured over more delicate information. This time the text outlined which animals were considered most cuddly according to a census polling children ages three to seven. Her stomach turned. The Machine fell into a stalled state. Her mouth was dry, and the whiskey was empty. Beth had come in earlier to say goodnight to them, but she hadn’t really noticed.
She twisted her chair to face one window that looked down at the city streets. She laid the binder open into her lap and stared out down into the city.
This far up, the city moved at a snail’s pace. Cars moved from one lighted intersection to another. Pedestrians waited for their chance to cross. Lights flickered back and forth as the bodies moved to the heartbeat of the city. Everything moved so slow. So slow.
Julia felt the Machine lurch forward again. The gears creaked as it came in contact with the others. She pulled on her right ear, forcing herself to concentrate. What was the Machine trying to tell her?
“Slow it down,” she whispered at last. The others looked up at her direction.
“What was that?” Sanderson asked. Brad and Mark met with confused gazes when she pivoted her chair back towards the table. She smiled.
“Slow it down. The time signature. Play the songs at halftime. If it’s a common 4/4, which from one of these fucking binders I read however long ago now, stated that most nursery rhymes are, then we play it andante. Or a quarter note equals 60 beats per minute. That will automatically double the length of the song. Then we repeat verses, or play a verse of just music, or something, then just make sure that there’s flash to watch. After that, we find smaller ways to round out the length.”
The gears were finally turning in that fluid motion that was better than any high she could buy. Sanderson was going to put her on the map and the Machine was going to take her there. Finally, get that security clearance that Brad constantly holds over her head. She was destined to be the next Archer Sage.
Julia had felt her soul leave her body. Her head reminded her to breathe. The Machine rewarded her by pumping more blood through her veins, and a jolt of dopamine made her feel alive. The gears turned easily now, well greased, clicking in time. She had become the Machine. No line of coke or orgasm could compete with what the Machine gave her.
She looked at Brad and Mark as their jaws hung agape. Mrs. Cooper, her middle school music teacher, would be proud.
Sanderson spun on his heel, uncapped the marker, and wrote a new line on the board: SLOW IT DOWN.
It all seemed so simple to her now. The entire project was finally coming together. The Machine had done its work.
She looked over the whiteboard, the mess of binders at the center of the table, then down at her watch. Brad and Mark whispered to each other that caught Sanderson’s attention.
“Something you’d like to share with the class, boys?” he asked. The two shut up after that. And that was it: Julia had cracked the code. Her name would be all over the proposal when Sanderson sent it up to the 16th floor.
They continued working through the night discussing subjects that would attract a general audience, why having a sing-a-long about eating vegetables is a good play to the parents, or why the spider in Itsy, Bitsy, Spider shouldn’t be black so not to scare the youngest of their demographic.
When every inch of the whiteboard filled with ideas, Sanderson took out his phone and snapped a few pictures of cement their long night’s work. He turned back, a smile stretching from ear to ear.
“Congratulations, team. You did it again.” He pointed back to the whiteboard. “This is our future. This series will catapult us to the highest tier. Future Friends won’t be able to catch us.” Everyone began clapping, filling the room with hoots and shouts. Their last bit of energy was spent; pushed into the air and expelled into the ceiling. Sanderson raised his hands and to quiet them down. “People, more importantly… we are going to make a shitload of money.” Cries erupted again. Brad pounded the table with his fists as Mark punched Brad in the arm over and over.
Julia stretched out her legs and arms and slowly made her way up on her feet. Her toes sparked heat, and she twisted her head to snap the stiffness out of her neck. Sanderson pulled his coat over his arms and adjusted it right, flicking out the back. Brad lifted his sleeve back and looked at his watch.
“Shit, it’s 1:30. That was a long run,” he said.
“1:30? Bro, bar’s still open,” Mark announced. He clapped Brad on the shoulder and took off towards the door. Brad’s eyes lit up, and he rushed behind him and out the door.
Julia slid her chair in and pulled her suit jacket off the back. She took her time, slowly filling in each arm of the jacket, feeling the cool silk flow over her skin. She was tired, but satisfied. Her shoulders slumped as the jacket engulfed her. She saw tiny stars dancing in the lights. Sanderson tidied up his area, whipped the whiteboard clean, and pulled it down, allowing it to roll back up into its place. He pushed the Captain’s chair back under the table, briefcase in hand, and started towards the door. Julia noticed the folder Sanderson had forgotten still laying on the table.
“Hey,” she said. Sanderson stopped and turned back to her. He followed her gaze to the top of the table where the folder laid untouched throughout the whole meeting. He smiled and nodded to her, inviting Julia to look. Her face turned up confused, but her heart pounded in anticipation.
This was it, she thought. This is what it was like to have higher clearance. She had made it. She made a mental note to rub it in Brad’s face the next time she saw him.
Julia moved to the front and picked up the folder. In her right hand, she slowly moved her left, turning over the cover. She held her breath. As many times as she’d seen folders come from the 16th floor, never had she held one, let alone read its contents.
She quickly scanned the page. Lined in gold and silver with black text created the elegant header of Que Media. She ran her thumb over the embossed lettering, but quickly pulled away. She looked over to the next sheet, flipped it and read the next. Confusion struck her like a bucket of water. She looked up at Sanderson who nodded again, silently asking her to continue.
Julia dropped the folder open on the boardroom table. She flipped the page, then the next, then the next. Every single page: blank. No text, no memo, no instructions from the 16th floor; nothing. Just letterhead.
“What the fuck is this,” she asked. Sanderson shrugged.
“You know, I’ve been in this business for fifteen years, now. Can you believe that?” Sanderson asked. Julia searched his eyes for meaning. “Fifteen years. And I’m tired. I am. I’m tired of the grind. I’m tired of the 16th floor. I’m just tired, Julia. So a few years ago I made a deal with the devil.”
Julia pushed the chair aside in frustration.
The devil? What devil? And then it came to her: Archer.
“What sort of deal?” she asked. Sanderson smiled and stepped forward.
“I needed a home run, Julia. It was the only way to get me off this floor. But to get that home run, I had to strike out first.” Julia begged the Machine to process anything, but all it gave was a dim spark.
“Geezel,” she whispered.
“That fucking weasel,” Sanderson chuckled. “Do you have any idea how stupid I looked pitching the board Geezel the fucking Weasel? I couldn’t believe Brad thought that was a good idea.” Sanderson laughed, but his voice was rising in anger. “But Sage and I hatched a pretty good plan, I think. He wins now, and I win later. At the end of the day, we both come out on top.”
The Machine cranked and whined. Then she remembered the whiteboard. Julia turned around quickly, reached up, and unrolled it. Her heart sank. She turned and faced Sanderson.
“You son of a bitch. Those were some of my best ideas!” Julia cried. Sanderson patted the air in front of him to calm her.
“I agree, and you’ll get credit for them too. Well, some of them, anyway. The rest will be on my resume for my next step. The step out of here.” He took a moment to look about the boardroom, taking in all of its edges and curves. Looking content, Sanderson turned to leave.
“Oh, one more thing,” he said, turning back to Julia. She looked up, tears in her eyes, her fist clenched around a piece of the blank letterhead. He pointed to the captain’s chair beside her.
“That chair will be vacant. Maybe you could take it for a spin.” And with that, he left, the door closing quietly behind him.
Julia stood up straight and pitched the crumpled up paper from her hands. She pulled the chair back from the table and kicked it with the front of her foot. The chair spun around and around by the force until stopping right in front of it. For a moment, she felt like the chair was inviting her to sit down. She took a deep breath in and slowly eased herself down onto it.
The lush leather and memory foam formed around her slight frame and hugged her from all sides. She had never felt so comfortable and lost at the same time.
The long night’s events replayed over in her head like a small projector in the back of her mind. The look on the faces of Brad and Mark when she cracked the code. The feel of the Machine pumping her through to the end. The sensation of satisfaction of a job well done.
She noticed something else that stuck out from her playback: Sanderson never sat down. Not once did he sit in that chair.
He already knew, she thought. He already knew that this was it. The chair wasn’t his anymore. The Machine bucked.
No, it was hers.
Julia gripped the armrests with both hands and felt the chair give way to her pressure. It was under her control. She was the captain of the ship; of the boardroom. She was the leader of YOYO! Kids.
Her eyes caught the glass in front of her. The cool bourbon sat quietly, waiting patiently for someone to drink. She reached over, threw the shot back, and slammed the glass down. She decided she needed to start on her next big idea if she was going to keep this chair. She felt the Machine lurch forward.
